All I know for a fact is how Stars addresses Sharkscope, and I'm not totally updated on the topic.
Stars used to use some tracking inside of their program that allowed them to see if you were using these programs. They would then email you to tell you to stop using it if they found you using it. After many complaints, they stopped this practice. After some failures on both sides, I believe there is at a minimum open dialogue between SS and Stars about how to fix the situation.
Stars won't do anything if you use sharkscope. They likely won't even know. But if you mention stats, or harass a player for stats in the chat, they will take action (perhaps warn first, but I am not sure). And you deserve to have a chat ban, or a stiff warning if you harass losing players for their stats (not you specifically, but anybody). That's the whole reason why Stars has a problem with sharkscope in the first place.
Not positive on PTR, nor on SS for FTP. I don't believe anybody has ever been banned for using SS on FTP nor Stars though.
One trick I'm using to make it really hard to get caught is logging in as normal user and running Chrome as Administrator.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, a non-priviledged process can't spy on a priviledged one - if this wasn't the case, then Vista's entire security model would be just absurd.
In theory, Vista shouldn't allow you to spy on another user on the computer unless you have Administrator privileges - and especially, you shouldn't be able to see which website another user of the computer is currently visiting.
However, I'm not a Windows expert, so I'm not entire sure about this - I'm coming from a Linux background, and on Linux you just can't do that, even monitoring network traffic requires Administrator (root) privileges.
All I know for a fact is how Stars addresses Sharkscope, and I'm not totally updated on the topic.
Stars used to use some tracking inside of their program that allowed them to see if you were using these programs. They would then email you to tell you to stop using it if they found you using it. After many complaints, they stopped this practice. After some failures on both sides, I believe there is at a minimum open dialogue between SS and Stars about how to fix the situation.
Stars won't do anything if you use sharkscope. They likely won't even know. But if you mention stats, or harass a player for stats in the chat, they will take action (perhaps warn first, but I am not sure). And you deserve to have a chat ban, or a stiff warning if you harass losing players for their stats (not you specifically, but anybody). That's the whole reason why Stars has a problem with sharkscope in the first place.
Not positive on PTR, nor on SS for FTP. I don't believe anybody has ever been banned for using SS on FTP nor Stars though.
thanks a lot man, really useful and detailed.
d^o^b
I use PTR and SS while playing on both sites and have never heard a complaint. Just don't bring them up in the chat.
One trick I'm using to make it really hard to get caught is logging in as normal user and running Chrome as Administrator.
Unless I'm completely mistaken, a non-priviledged process can't spy on a priviledged one - if this wasn't the case, then Vista's entire security model would be just absurd.
In theory, Vista shouldn't allow you to spy on another user on the computer unless you have Administrator privileges - and especially, you shouldn't be able to see which website another user of the computer is currently visiting.
However, I'm not a Windows expert, so I'm not entire sure about this - I'm coming from a Linux background, and on Linux you just can't do that, even monitoring network traffic requires Administrator (root) privileges.