But would it not be easy for a server to tell another server that a given participant is a human when it is actually a robot. I still agree with Joseph and think this should be up to the robot. A well- coded 'bot should be programmed to avoid infinite loops.
Also, regarding your example of a translation 'bot, we found out with Aunt Rosie that a robot that replies with translations gets annoying quickly, so I doubt that someone would repeat it. Better to do it Rosy-style where the client can be set to show translations in-blip if the user requests it. And if there were a standard "translation" annotation, then robots could be set to look for it so they know whether or not to translate a given blip. On Nov 2, 5:49 pm, Nathanael Abbotts <[email protected]> wrote: > Is there no way that it could be possible for a server to identify someone > as a robot? > Surely if we had profile operations, then it could be done. Not sure though > - this solution would only work if we have a rusty-esque robot proxy, in > which case the rusty agent could decide to withhold an event based on the > capabilities, if only for robots that connect to that particular server (via > rusty), and not for robots connected to other servers. > -- > Nathanael Abbotts > > > > > > > > On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 21:44, Joseph Gentle <[email protected]> wrote: > > Right; but we still have no way to tell who's a robot and who's not > > via federation. > > > I think we should keep things simple; and make it up to the robot > > which blips it responds to. > > > -J > > > On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 5:16 AM, Nathanael Abbotts <[email protected]> > > wrote: > > > If in the capabilities.xml of the robot (or equivalent), a robot could > > > specify if it wants to receive events triggered by robots for each event, > > > then this problem could be fixed. > > > For instance, a translation robot wouldn't want to receive blipsubmitted > > > events from other robots, but a table of contents robot definitely would. > > > If even more detail is needed or wanted, a robot could specify only to > > get > > > events from specific robots. Here is an extract from an example xml file: > > > > <w:capabilities> > > > <w:capability name="ANNOTATED_TEXT_CHANGED" context="ROOT,SELF" > > > filter="myrobot/annotationname" > > > robots="[email protected],[email protected]" /> > > > <w:capability name="BLIP_SUBMITTED" context="ROOT,SELF" robots="" /> > > > <w:capability name="WAVELET_SELF_ADDED" context="ROOT" robots="*" /> > > > </w:capabilities> > > > > Here, we have 3 events. The first one is annotated_text_changed, which is > > > used by the robot to track specific selections within a blip. The robot > > only > > > cares if a human, or one of 2 specific robots, changes this. > > > Next, blip_submitted. For this event, the robot is not interested in > > events > > > from other robots, so an empty string is provided. > > > Finally, wavelet_self_added. Because this robot happens to do an > > important > > > action which, if not done, will cause errors in future, the robot wants > > this > > > to happen regardless of who added it. > > > -- > > > Nathanael Abbotts > > > Email: [email protected] > > > Wave: [email protected] > > > Twitter: @natabbotts (http://twitter.com/natabbotts) > > > > On Tue, Nov 2, 2010 at 07:32, Vega <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> If it is possible to handle bursts of traffic from arbitrary endpoints > > >> without falling over - it is great. But what about robot providers? > > >> Let's take for example a robot running on App Engine. It only takes a > > >> child to create a new wave, add there some text, then add 2 > > >> translating robots and let them translate each other until the wave > > >> explodes (or wave server somehow discovers abuses and... close the > > >> wave?) These robots will burn a lot of their quota. And it only takes > > >> a child to cause such abuse. I think translating robot will be > > >> interested to react only on human events, or on nonhuman events that > > >> it trusts. Failing to provide such mechanism will totally expose > > >> robots to abuse, imho. And wave server providers will also pay the > > >> price in form of handling spam traffic. > > > >> On Nov 2, 6:50 am, Wim <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > Why not? If the robots aim is best served by responding to all > > >> > messages then why shouldn't it respond to all messages? Imagine a > > >> > translation bot that embeds replies in a blip translating that blip > > >> > into selected languages, why should other robots blips be ignored by > > >> > this bot? > > > >> > It should be up to the robot to determine what messages it is > > >> > interested in, first case for almost all robots would be ignoring > > >> > messages from itself. After that it would have to filter based on > > >> > what it is setup to do; whether that is checking the content to > > >> > determine if its control commands are there, or if the author matches > > >> > the author that added it to the conversation, or .... This is all > > >> > part of the logic of the robot based off how it is to behave. > > > >> > Allowing robots to respond to other robots definitely does have the > > >> > problem of infinite recursion. Something as simple as two echoey > > >> > robots in the same wave from different servers could cause this > > >> > problem, or two spell checking robots battling over whether it is > > >> > spelt "color" or "colour". As Alex said this issue should be dealt > > >> > with at the server level, maybe servers should have some method to > > >> > provide both clients and robots with a 'warning' that they are close > > >> > to being cutoff and then remove them from the wave if they continue > > >> > spamming it. > > > >> > This problem should also be dealt with at the robot level as well, > > >> > something like a spell checking robot should be storing a list of > > >> > words it has changed in a private wavelet and not trying to change a > > >> > word a second time, e.g. if you are commenting on the "Color" class of > > >> > some code and the spell checker changes it to "Colour" you should be > > >> > able to change it back and the spell checker should ignore the word. > > > >> > On Nov 2, 3:27 pm, "Gamer_Z." <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> > > IMHO this should not be a necessary part of the protocol. Robots > > >> > > should not be programmed to respond to every message. Doing that > > >> > > would not have any benefit to the developer because users would very > > >> > > quickly get annoyed with them. > > > >> > > On Nov 1, 10:19 pm, Alex North <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> > > > In fact, it was an architectural flaw in Google Wave that robots > > >> > > > could not > > >> > > > talk to each other. It was never desired behaviour. Our vision was > > >> > > > that > > >> > > > robots could do "anything a human can do". Of course didn't quite > > >> > > > get there, > > >> > > > but were working towards it. > > > >> > > > In the current federation protocol there is no means to identify a > > >> > > > participant as being automated or not. Even if there were, that > > >> > > > would > > >> > > > require trusting arbitrary federated wave servers to correctly > > >> > > > identify > > >> > > > their participants. Apart from there being many valid reasons that > > >> > > > the > > >> > > > distinction is unnecessary, this would be somewhat like trusting > > >> > > > mail > > >> > > > servers not to send spam. Protection against abuse needs to be > > done > > >> > > > elsewhere, possibly imperfectly. > > > >> > > > There is some concern that two talking robots could enter an > > >> > > > infinite loop. > > >> > > > I'm not convinced that this is something we need to design the > > >> > > > protocol to > > >> > > > protect against. We should instead implement wave servers such > > that > > >> > > > they can > > >> > > > handle bursts of traffic from arbitrary endpoints without falling > > >> > > > over, > > >> > > > perhaps with some kind of throttle. If they detect that some > > >> > > > (possibly > > >> > > > federated) participant or server is abusive, it's the receiving > > >> > > > server's > > >> > > > call whether to cut them off. No loop is infinite because waves > > have > > >> > > > size > > >> > > > limits: right now there is a size limit built right into the > > >> > > > protocol, but > > >> > > > even if there wasn't there would be an effective (if > > unpredictable) > > >> > > > size > > >> > > > limit when some server was no longer able to hold the wave in > > >> > > > memory. Again, > > >> > > > a robust server should be able to evict such a wave without going > > >> > > > down in > > >> > > > flames. > > > >> > > > There are some legitimate user experience reasons that it would be > > >> > > > useful to > > >> > > > identify robots on some kind of best effort basis. Wave providers > > >> > > > may wish > > >> > > > to provide a bunch of standard robots or something, and display > > some > > >> > > > indication to their users of the automated nature of these > > >> > > > participants to > > >> > > > set the right expectations. But that could only ever be a best > > >> > > > effort > > >> > > > service - they couldn't reliably classify arbitrary participants > > as > > >> > > > automated or not. I'm ignoring these use cases for now - such a > > >> > > > mechanism > > >> > > > doesn't need to go into the core protocol but would appear in a > > >> > > > server's > > >> > > > profile implementation. > > > >> > > > My 2 cents (ok, maybe a bit more than than) > > >> > > > Alex > > > >> > > > On 2 November 2010 05:05, Vega <[email protected]> wrote: > > > >> > > > > I personally think that the solution should be like this: > > > >> > > > > 1) Wave servers should be able to mark users as humans and non > > >> > > > > humans > > >> > > > > 2) The deltas exchanged by Wave servers should include for each > > >> > > > > participant also its type human/nonhuman > > >> > > > > 3)Robots should be allowed to receive only events caused by > > >> > > > > humans, > > >> > > > > unless > > >> > > > > 4)Robot(A) specified in its capabilities that it is interested > > to > > >> > > > > receive events from other robot (B), and robot (B) specified in > > >> > > > > its > > >> > > > > capabilities that it is interested to send events to (A) > > > >> > > > > Of course such solution will not prevent DOS attacks, but at > > least > > >> > > > > it > > >> > > > > will totally prevent scenarios where 2 robots enter infinite > > loop > > >> > > > > due > > >> > > > > to bad design or bug. > > > >> > > > > On Nov 1, 7:58 pm, Vega <[email protected]> wrote: > > >> > > > > > Wave allows robots to be first order participants in the > > waves. > > >> > > > > > This a > > >> > > > > > really great feature with huge potential, however, it also > > might > > >> > > > > > lead > > >> > > > > > to unintentional infinite loops causes by robots responding to > > ... > > read more » -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Wave Protocol" group. 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