Pondering The Penalties

I just had a thought after sleeping on what I read on the botting forums and reading the comments left by the developer of the Red Guard software that attempts to protect unscrupulous holders of Eve accounts from hardware detection.  What is the penalty for using that type of software?  Yesterday I quoted a user of the Eve Pilot bot who stated that he was going to use Red Guard and hoped it did not result in a permanent ban.

I went to the Eve Online community site and looked up the posted "Suspension and Ban Policy" page and found this:

2. HACKING

An immediate permanent ban of an account may result from attempting to or successfully:

a. Interfering with the performance of the EVE Online servers or web site.
• b.Defrauding another player of his account through use of misinformation or impersonating an EVE Online official. NOTE: No employee of CCP or one of its authorized representatives will ever ask for your password. Should someone claiming to be a CCP associate request your password, don’t give it. Instead, notify the support team immediately by sending an in-game petition or by using the “Ask a question” form on our support website.  Please retain all related documentation in the event it is needed during a possible investigation.
• c. Deciphering, hacking into or interfering with any transmissions to or from the EVE Online servers or web site.
• d. Engaging in any activity that increases the difficulty and/or expense of CCP in maintaining the EVE Online client, server, web site or other services.
• e. Obtaining unauthorized access to another’s EVE Online account or account information

Okay, spoofing the hardware signature falls under the permanent ban category.   I also read some concern on the Questor forums about the EULA.  Especially Section 7D:

"You agree that CCP may remotely monitor your Game hardware solely for the purpose of establishing whether in playing the Game and accessing the System you are using software created or approved by CCP, or whether you are using unauthorized software created by you or a third party in contravention of Section 6."

So when Eve players log into the game, they give CCP Sreegs and Team Security free reign to search if certain programs used by botters are running.  Interesting.

I know that a lot of Eve players don't like the fact that CCP Sreegs believes in only handing out 14 day bans to first time botters.  But if those first time botters are using the wrong type of software, those bans may turn out to be permanent.