If I were to write a private script or bot, how would I protect it?

[HarleyC]

Hey all. How do these bigger botting companys set up their authentication servers? Or can anyone point me in the right direction?
I'd be interested in writing some sort of scripts but Im thinking it'll only be possible if I learn to set one up for myself. I do have some server experience.

[Jadd]

There's no good answer to this, great protection comes from using a large combination of small, targeted defense techniques. I'll leave some demonstrations: 1 2 3

[Lightsgrace]

Some good posts I came across, while researching just this thing tonight for my work projects
An Anti-Reverse Engineering Guide - CodeProject
Anti-Reflector .NET Code Protection - CodeProject
Protecting .NET 4.+ Application By C++ [Unmanaged] - CodeProject

Tools to consider protecting from: GitHub - fireeye/flare-vm

[BrandonPowers]

If it's a script, you can't.
Unless of course, you reverse-engineer and re-write a chunk of the LUA engine in the game client.

If it's an external program, you have billions of options. Almost all of them suck. The best strategy is to add a few deterrents to make it more difficult, and sell your product so people want updates. Simply put, if someone cracks your software, they don't get updates unless they pay or find an exploit in your delivery mechanism.

[abromide]

By not using memory addresses. Image recognition, pixel reading, and using the Win32 library to get cursor information is the future of botting on any blizzard games that use their main client.