Bots don't require computer vision or any kind of sensory input; they can extract the native data they need straight out of the application's memory space.
I'm pretty sure WoW keeps track of all applications running on your computer. I think the way people do it is by using a hub and packet sniffers on a separate computer, although I imagine WoW traffic could easily be encrypted... so shrug.
All this hypothetical talk is very nice, but there actually is a wowbot that Blizzard has been unable to effectively use countermeasures against, called MMOGlider. They've decided to simply sue after repeated failure to solve it technically.
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Bots don't require computer vision or any kind of sensory input; they can extract the native data they need straight out of the application's memory space.
I'm pretty sure WoW keeps track of all applications running on your computer. I think the way people do it is by using a hub and packet sniffers on a separate computer, although I imagine WoW traffic could easily be encrypted... so shrug.
All this hypothetical talk is very nice, but there actually is a wowbot that Blizzard has been unable to effectively use countermeasures against, called MMOGlider. They've decided to simply sue after repeated failure to solve it technically.
Or you just use a virtual machine - of which WoW is unaware.
A bit like the matrix.