Further Exploration

Botnets are one of the more fascinating aspects of webbot development and offer many opportunities for you to be as creative (or destructive) as you like. Here are some additional things for you to consider while deploying your own designs:

  • How does the list of tasks get to the botnet server? Is it based on input from an API?

  • What is your botnet server’s maximum capacity? (That is, at what point do your webbots inadvertently overwhelm your botnet server?)

  • To what degree can you use proxies and other techniques for developing stealthy webbots within a botnet?

  • How could you modify the example to automatically facilitate webbot software updates, downloaded directly from the botnet server?

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