#1 Niantic has probably already depleted all of the hard evidence they could collect on bot accounts, mainly catching accounts botting/sniping/scanning using old APIs and they have expanded their tracking mechanics #2 Niantic is probably going over all of the complaint logged and those accounts heavily reported have probably received the hammer. #3 Niantic is probably querying all accounts for hard to believe inventories and level accounts. e.g. Accounts with multiple hard to get pokemons like Dragonites, Accounts with pokemons all over the world. I really find it hard to believe Niantic has a log of every transaction you have made, but they will probably look to see if you have a Dragonite caught in India, another Lapras caught in Japan and a Snorlax caught in Paris per say. And the more places you have visited through sniping and kept those pokemons, the more evidence you are presenting to their case to ban you. #4 Niantic is checking very carefully for all those accounts at a very high level and if they don't find a compelling case to believe that the account was not botted, the ban hammer applies. Some people were accusing pokefarmer was detectable, but if pokefarmer was detectable why did they release some accounts of suspicious behavior yesterday? I doubt very much Niantic is checking each account on a one to one basis. I conclude that Pokefarmer is truly simulating the app. It is the way we use pokefarmer what makes accounts be banned. Mixing it with other bots, using snipe apps, using the account to spoof on gyms and letting people nearby that place put a complaint.
Hmm... not wrong but also not entirely correct. First of all, Although Pokefarmer "mostly" sends and responds to API requests correctly, its behaviors are not entirely true-to-the-real-app. For example, there were multiple reports posted on this forum that it could evolve multiple pokemons with little to no interval inbetween, such as this post (https://www.thebuddyforum.com/pokefarmer-forum/294428-mass-evolving-pokemon-issue.html). Even though the API requests are handled correctly, this scenario certainly could still raise flags. And if so, the fault would 100% fall onto Pokefarmer. Secondly, the way sniping works would not register frequent changes of locations to PoGo servers. Sniping exists in the first place is to exploit how locations are registered - only spinning pokestops and throwing pokeballs result in definite location registration (*There could also be a fixed number of location registrations per time interval, otherwise people would not have been able to hatch eggs by drifting --- unless walking eggs does not care about location changes, which could also be the case. This is one of the reasons why sniping has risks of its own). Thus, when someone snipes, he/she would teleport the avatar to the target -> detect the target -> enters catching mode -> teleport back to the original location -> start catching. While it certainly would look very suspicious if an account records 2000+ Lapras catches, sniping alone would not catch much Niantic's attention -- except regional exclusive types. It would surely looks terribly bad if someone "caught a Tauros in Europe," etc. Lastly, by this time, there are already hundred-thousands, if not millions, legit high level players. It is very hard to believe Niantic would investigate high-level accounts just for the sake of being high levels. Just my $0.02.
