Bots are virtual interlocutors that are present in many instant messengers today. Skype is no exception. IN latest versions The program also introduced these useful and unique applications, each of which has its own “character”. Bots are useful for more than just communication. With their help you can search necessary information, play mini-games, make new friends, etc. To talk to a bot on Skype, you just need to click on the selected character and start writing to him.
What are bots on Skype
Skype bots are nothing new. Similar programs appeared in earlier instant messengers and computer games to keep company in virtual battles. These applications imitate the behavior of a living person in virtual space. The first bots didn't look much like human communication, however, over time they began to bring obvious benefits, and today everyone can create a personal bot to order. Most often, such programs answer calls, serve as virtual directories, and invite people to groups and communities.
Why are bots needed in Skype?
Skype bots, like other similar programs, are created for the help and entertainment of users. You can meet them, start a conversation, play an online game, ask the weather forecast or last news. Popular Skype bots currently only work in some countries - USA, Australia, UK, Canada, Ireland, India, New Zealand and Singapore. Most bot programs are English-language, although analogues in Russian may appear in the near future. We should note that bots can only work in the latest versions of Skype for Windows, Android and MacOS.
How can I add bots to Skype? This is not difficult to do - just find the “Bots” tab in the “Contacts” section and select the character you like. In the browser version, you need to open the “Bots Review” tab. After this, just select “Start” or “Add a bot”, and you can start communicating. If you don’t like the bot or get tired of it, you can delete or block it at any time.
Popular bots on Skype
Here is a list of the most popular Skype bots:
- ORPO Rammas is an interesting and intelligent conversationalist, able to communicate in English and Arabic.
- vertical.consulta is an English-language bot for medical and other consultations.
- Davó is an English-language directory bot.
- In OKPAY BOT is a bot for questions regarding the Skype payment system.
- Allai is the official UK Skype bot.
- Edimych Internet hypermarket is an English-language bot of the Edimych hypermarket.
As you can see, Skype bots are extremely convenient and useful assistants. Soon it will be possible to add bots and communicate with them in many other countries, including Russia.
A user can be added to your Skype account under various nicknames. Typically, one of his first messages is something like this:
hey i found your name on the directory. I"m 24/female wanna chat and share pics?
Then she says that her name is Amanda and she is from Miami. Correspondence is carried out only to English language, even if you answer her in Russian. This skype bot. You won't get clear answers from her. The links it provides can, in principle, be opened; they do not pose any potential threats. But you still shouldn’t enter your bank card number on websites (unless you really want to watch paid video chats).
I am attaching the entire correspondence:
Whoopie.kind25:hi
Evgeniy Yu.: Hello! Who is this? What they wanted?
Whoopie.kind25: hey i found your name on the directory. I"m 24/female wanna chat and share pics?
Evgeniy Yu.: ok, you can
Evgeniy Yu.: from Belarus, and you?
Evgeniy Yu.: ok
Whoopie.kind25: cool, im just bored as fuk at home! I"m single and looking... have you ever had cyber sex?
Evgeniy Yu.: no
Whoopie.kind25: lol, send me a recent pic of you and lets have some fun
Evgeniy Yu.: you should first
Whoopie.kind25: sweet like want to see pics of me?
Evgeniy Yu.: yes
Evgeniy Yu.: good
Whoopie.kind25: talk to me like a slut baby... do you like girls with big tits? want to see some naughty big tit pics?
Evgeniy Yu.: yes
Evgeniy Yu.: give me more than one plz
Whoopie.kind25: i"m getting wet baby wanna watch me rub my pussy on my cam!?
Evgeniy Yu.: no, give me plz more photos
Evgeniy Yu.: give me plz more photos
Whoopie.kind25: Don"t worry baby the site i"m on is FREE to join this site all you have to do is register they support mobile phones too:)
Evgeniy Yu.: How old are you?
Whoopie.kind25: fill out your cc info baby for Age verification ONLY, your card will not be charged. ok i"m ready for u now
Evgeniy Yu.: > whoopie.kind25: ok i"ll show you just 1 naughty pic... http://i.imgur.com/zRAM2Uu.jpg
Give me plz more naughty pics
Evgeniy Yu.: what about more photos?
Evgeniy Yu.: i wait for your photos
Whoopie.kind25:k
Another correspondence:
Applesauce.bunny562: hey
Evgeniy Yu.: hello, who are you?
Applesauce.bunny562: hey i found your name on the directory. I"m 24/female wanna chat and share pics?
Evgeniy Yu.: ok
Evgeniy Yu.: yes
Evgeniy Yu.: i`m from Belarus
Applesauce.bunny562: cool, im just bored as fuk at home! I"m single and looking... have you ever had cyber sex?
Evgeniy Yu.: never have
Evgeniy Yu.: lol, send me a recent pic of you and lets have some fun
Applesauce.bunny562: lol, send me a recent pic of you and lets have some fun
Evgeniy Yu.: sweet like want to see pics of me?
Applesauce.bunny562: sweet like want to see pics of me?
Evgeniy Yu.: angie varona
Talk to me like a slut baby... do you like girls with big tits? want to see some naughty big tit pics?
Applesauce.bunny562: talk to me like a slut baby... do you like girls with big tits? want to see some naughty big tit pics?
Applesauce.bunny562: ok i"ll show you just 1 naughty pic... http://i.imgur.com/SDvojZZ.jpg
Evgeniy Yu.: good
Applesauce.bunny562: i"m getting wet baby wanna watch me rub my pussy on my cam!?
Evgeniy Yu.: yes
Evgeniy Yu.: ok
Applesauce.bunny562: Don"t worry baby the site i"m on is FREE to join this site all you have to do is register they support mobile phones too:)
You can already find a lot of such correspondence on the Internet.
Skype bot Amanda “knocked” on me under the nickname whoopie.kind25, but also under other nicknames:
- mega_punfs
- akon4loveguy
- sparky.lovr69
- passion.dall62
- lavonia.berk
- elegantoffer842
- applesauce.bunny562
- and etc.
As you can see, the bot lures you to some sites. To entice her, she says that she has curvaceous figures and big tits**. Then he offers to look at her body through a webcam, but this is already on the site :)
The first link the bot gives leads to a completely harmless imgur site - http://imgur.com/a/PC6Hy. In fact, these are photos of Angie Varona - a girl who became a celebrity thanks to this bot. Photos by Angie Varona:
About my bot for Telegram, which can show data from Google Analytics. And then Microsoft announced the launch of bots in Skype - it's time to learn how it works. Under the cut - short description possible problems. For those who can't wait to see the result, here it is - MetricsBot.
Bot Framework vs. Skype Bot API
First, you should understand that there is a Bot Framework, which allows you to create bots for many instant messengers, incl. and for Skype, and there is Skype Bot API, which allows you to create bots specifically for Skype. Each has its own documentation, its own bot directory (?) and its own bot registration. It seems obvious that these are different things, but I spent quite a lot of time trying to understand the Bot Framework documentation and registering a bot in it, when I expected that I was creating a bot without a framework. Next we will talk specifically about the Skype Bot API, Bot Framework we don’t need it, we don’t need to register anything there either. There is a Skype SDK for Node.js and I didn’t use them either, because I wrote the bot in Python.
useful links
To start small set useful links(all links are in English):
- Your applications (here you need to create a new application and get the app id and client secret)
- Managing your bots (here you need to create a new bot, indicating the app id received earlier)
In principle, from the documentation it is clear how the bot works and how it interacts with Skype, so I will not describe this part - I will tell you about the difficulties.
Authorization
This turned out to be the most time consuming part for me. The documentation says that to authorize you need to obtain a token and then use it in the HTTP header on each request:
Authorization: Bearer oauth2-token
However, for some reason, the documentation forgot to indicate which scope should be used to obtain a token. The correct answer (can be found in the Node.js SDK code) is https://graph.microsoft.com/.default.
But here the most interesting thing begins - if you create a URL for confirmation by the user (= the owner of the bot), then receive auth_code, and then try to exchange this code for access token, then the problem will arise at the very first step - when opening the created URL, Microsoft complains about the wrong scope. The correct scope, by the way, is not in the list possible options in the Microsoft documentation. I tried to specify a different scope - openid offline_access https://graph.microsoft.com/user.read , in this case I was able to get a token, but I couldn’t interact with Skype with it.
The solution turned out to be unexpected - to receive an access_token, it was necessary to send a regular POST request:
curl -X POST -H "Cache-Control: no-cache" -H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" -d "client_id=
Returns in response access_token And expires_in(without any refresh_token). I've never seen OAuth like this before.
Sending messages
Sending messages is quite simple -
POST /v2/conversations/8:alice/activities HTTP/1.1
Host: apis.skype.com
Authorization: Bearer oauth2-token
{
"message": ("content" : "Hi! (wave)")
}
Requests are sent to apis.skype.com. They forgot to indicate in the documentation that requests should be sent via http s.
You can use html tags in the text. Exactly which ones are still unknown (there is no list in the documentation).
There are interesting and undescribed restrictions on the text you send. For example, you cannot use the symbols in the text &
, <
And >
. Inability to transmit symbol &
creates a problem when passing links. Another problem when transferring links is automatically generated previews for each link. In my bot MetricsBot there are three links in the invitation text, Skype creates three previews. There is no way to disable this yet.
Publishing a bot
After creating the bot, you can try to publish it (before this, the number of users of the bot is limited - only 100 people can use it). How long the publication process takes is not clear; this is not in the documentation. My bot has not yet been published. On the official forum, my question on this topic is ignored (although Microsoft employees answer my other questions).
Please note that to publish a bot, you must disable the use of the bot in group chats.
Otherwise, creating a bot for Skype is quite simple.
Please forgive me, but I'm talking about bots again. I understand that the information field is packed to capacity, but here is really useful information 100%! Yesterday we tested it with everyone in the chat, it was an extravaganza
In general, I’m telling you. There are bots with which you need to open a separate dialog box and ask it a question or select a command that it should execute. Such bots are called chatbots. And there are bots that don’t need to be added to your contact list, and you don’t need to talk to them; just mention it in a message and it will perform its function. So, we tested three such bots - for searching images, for searching GIFs and for searching videos. More details about each of them:
@bing is a bot that searches for images on request. If you enter @bing in the message input field, you will see “search images” next to it, that is, “search for images.” All you have to do is write the word or phrase to search right there in the input field. Then, depending on the speed of the Internet, wait until the bot loads the pictures upon request and select the one that will be sent as a message to the chat or dialogue. Try it!
@gif works exactly on the same principle as bing, only it searches for gifs
@imdb searches for films, sends upon request a description of the film with a picture, a link to the trailer and a link to watch the “legal” version (that is, not a root tracker at all). Very useful when someone asks “what to see?” and you have not just a name for it, but also a description and a trailer with a poster in one message)
Testing such assistant bots made me think about what other bots we are missing? The guys made bold assumptions that it would be great to create a bot that sends push notifications via keywords. You configured the bot to mention your name or company in the chat, and muted all chats, receiving notifications only when they discussed something that was important to you.
On my own behalf, I’ll add that I really want a bot like @bing, only one that would provide a link from Yandex upon request. Otherwise you have to go to the browser, copy the link and paste it into the message. We often make mistakes when we write the names of sites by hand, otherwise if there was a Google bot or a Yandex bot, it would find the necessary sites for us, just as it finds pictures and gifs. I know that there is, but now I’m talking specifically about assistant bots.
There were also requests for bots that hide certain messages and a bot-wiki that would work the same way as image search, only using Wikipedia articles.
If you are quite capable of developing assistant bots, then write to me how you can make one of those we are waiting for, and I will write a review on it, and you will have glory, honor and eternal goodies
Following some other instant messengers and social services, Skype also decided to “legalize” bots. And at the end of March 2016, the developers announced this function in your application. What is it intended for? Skype bot, why, in fact, can it be useful to the most ordinary user and how can you add some kind of bot to yourself?
Bots in virtual space
In fact, bots are not an invention of modern virtual space. The bot is computer program, which is designed to “pretend” in every possible way an ordinary person online. And the first bots, oddly enough, originated... in computer games. It was with the development of online shooters - such as DOOM, Quake and the like - that users began to write so-called bots - software robots that could keep company in online battles. After all, not all players then had access to computer network, but I still wanted to play...
Today, bots are both pleasant and unpleasant additions to almost any social network or messenger.
At first they only irritated me with their stupidity. Over time, however, programmers realized that bots could also be used to provide useful service to humanity. And now a large number of bots are written to order and to on a paid basis. For example, to answer customer questions, issue help using keywords in the messenger...
Assigning bots in Skype
The Skype software robot can somehow imitate the online behavior of a living person. Since its announcement, a variety of Skype bots have appeared. Some simply entertain the user by playing with him various games, others may search useful information on the Internet, others can chat...
In short, the choice is really great. However, most of bots still operate in English, some are available only in the United States. However, there are fewer and fewer restrictions.
To make sure your bot is safe, you need to look at its profile before adding it. This should contain the phrase “Skype Certified”. In addition, the bot's avatar always has a hexagonal shape, while for all other users it is round. In addition, next to the avatar of the approved bot there is a “tick” on a gray background.
How can you add this or that bot? It's quite simple. For this:
- You need to download Skype on your device;
- Further actions depend on what operating system Skype works. For example, on Android there is a special menu item "Contacts". That's what it's called - "Bots". In iOS there is a Bots icon in the tab "Recent". The desktop version of Skype Windows has a special icon in the side toolbar. In the browser version of Skype you need to select "Bot Review";
- Next, all you have to do is click on "Add bot" or "Begin".
A list of certified and approved bots can be found on the project page: https://support.skype.com/ru/faq/FA34655/dostupnye-boty-skype.
If the bot is boring or suspicious, you can block or delete it. This is done in exactly the same way as with the most common contacts on Skype.
It remains to add that bots are available only in the latest release versions of Skype. So it makes sense to update the program from official sources.
Knowing Skype bots- what is it, you can significantly expand your ability to use this multilateral program for communication and calls.