How do Private servers detect fishing bots?

[PreciousProtection]

I am wondering about it.. I played some private servers like Warmane and fished there, even in spots where there are usually quite a few people going by and was never banned for it, but recently I used a fishbot on Twinstar's Artemis (cata server) and got banned after about 5 days. Tried it again a few weeks later on a low level char and got banned again but this time on the first day. I was fishing in a completely secluded area, where no one ever goes so I doubt there have been any reports. A post on Twinstar's site says:

Dear players,

During the last few weeks, the number of players banned for using a fishbot on our servers has increased significantly. Even though this rule is not a new one and it was announced everywhere (web, forum, Facebook) that EVERYBODY is supposed to read the new version of the rules, there are still people thinking they can get away with it. Therefore, I would hereby like to remind all of you that using a fishbot is punished with a permanent ban on the entire game account. Now it is up to you to consider whether it is worth it to take your chances and start or keep using a fishbot (or any other forbidden bots).
In addition, thanks to our great developer team a new system for logging fishbots has been implemented on Phobos and Deimos. Using this tool makes it far easier to reveal a fishbotter and punish him appropriately. In the past few days, some of you have already had the “luck” to experience how this utility works in practice and have been “rewarded” with a legitimate ban. Please, take this warning as seriously as you can and, for your own good, if you are among the ones who have been using a fishbot, turn it off and delete it. We do not lift bans for using fishbots and we are not planning to do so in the future.

This had me wondering, what system can they use to recognize a fishbot??? It's maybe kind of a bold question to ask because I guess it's different for each server but maybe there's some "general rule" when it comes to detecting these kinds of bots? I am curious because if you know how the detection works - you know how to bypass it as well (or at least you know whether it's impossible to bypass it)

[donkroka]

I would also like to know this.

[Icesythe7]

I would also like to know this.

Very simple, Timmy makes some fishbot and doesn't release it, fish bot goes undetected forever basically, Timmy says "You know what I want everyone to use my fishbot it will make many happy" so Timmy releases his fishbot on ownedcore where all the pServer wow devs also reside. The Devs go hey look a new fishbot, lets open it in dnspy and see how this one works, a few moments later they realize it writes to 0x12DEA to click the bobber, the Devs then modify the warden anticheat to scan at address 0x12DEA and now anyone using that cheat is detected. Is this the only way to be caught? no, however it is what happens 90% of the time...moral of the story if you want to cheat in a game bypass the anticheat and never make it public if you want to remain undetected.

[danwins]

The truth is it could be anything that got you detected.

using public tools which have known hashes/module names, scanning memory or detecting hooks present or even simply someone seeing and reporting you...

I've even seen some pretty creative ways like intentionally randomly spawning the fishing bobber underground knowing that a legitimate player could not click it but a bot will usually just ignore los/collision and interact anyway.

[abromide]

If any GM is actively trying to ban bots, it isn't difficult to go around popular fishing spots and check to see who is botting. Here is a GM doing exactly that: My time as a WoW Gamemaster - YouTube