Want to try the SteamRep Web API Beta?

1. We will use the API to scan all users of our future website. Being a raffling group/website, we're prone to scammers trying to do what they do. The website will include raffling functions and it'd be great to be able to scan each member for marks and stop them from doing anything that could be potentially harmful to any of our raffles.
   
   I'm not developing this website, instead just appying on behalf of dev. This is the developer: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198019973842/
   So contact him if you need to send him anything.​
   This is our current website (A new one is being made, this one is temporary): http://forums.tftrg.com/
   And here's a link to our Steam group where we're mainly based: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/TFTRGCommunity

Hey Mattie,
I figure you just weren't interested in my first response, but I thought I'd double check in case you had simply missed it. To elaborate a bit further on my original post, I was thinking you might be interested in using my private Steam ID age data on your site. I had at first mentioned I was interested in using your API as well, but after further thought, I think I'm better off keeping my site focused on finding Cheaters, not scammers. Not to mention this would probably make me a competitor to your site. Anyway, I would like to know what you think either way. Thanks!

Thanks for the response Mattie. Although the API is important to the website, we'll try to work around it if we can.

Thanks for the response. I am guessing that I'm not high volume enough, with only a couple tens of trades a month. I will await the public API. Thanks for letting me know about the restrictions on size for the beta.

You can see the API with instructions here: vacbans.com/api

I have a database of public steamids that gets updated daily. I've tried to collect 1 steam ID for each day that Steam has been online but from 2003-2010 it's more like 1 for every couple days. Since the IDs are distributed in numerical order, I can estimate the age of a private account by finding two public accounts its sandwiched between. The API returns the estimate along with an error margin. The error margin is the difference in days between the two public accounts.

1. consecutive numberings aren't really given in order. Odd ID64 and Even ID64 are given out seperately with a difference of maybe a couple days.

so:
2000 can be given on Juli 7
2001 can be given on Juli 9
2002 (with 2000 in mind) will be Juli 7
2003 (with 2001 in mind) will be Juli 9.


2. and the error margin will be 50% on either side, always with a correct way of prediction.

say you find on ID 2000 a date of juli 7, and ID 7000 a date of juli 10. If requested for ID 4000, that would place the account on 2/5th between 2000 and 7000. 2/5th * 72 hours = 28.8 hours, which will prolly then be on Juli 8. as that is a balanced "estimate" of it, the error margin would be a 1-2 hours both ways at max.

Hmm.. Do you have a source for that? I'm not saying you're wrong but here's from the Developer docs (https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SteamID):

steam_0:0:xxxx
and
steam_0:1:xxxx

Where given out by different servers. (I dont know if that is still the case tho)

example:
| steamname: W]M[D TritonBassman
| steamID32: STEAM_0:0:16506191
| steamID64: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993278110
| customURL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/tritonbassman
| steamrep: http://steamrep.com/profiles/76561197993278110

http://steamcommunity.com/id/tritonbassman/badges/1
Unlocked 11 Oct 2012 @ 4:14 PM

| steamname: DataStorm
| steamID32: STEAM_0:0:16506194
| steamID64: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993278116
| customURL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/DataStorm
| steamrep: http://steamrep.com/profiles/76561197993278116

http://steamcommunity.com/id/DataStorm/badges/1
Unlocked: 11 Okt 2012 @ 4:15 PM
which is in the minute after previous account with 6 difference.

somebody with 1 lower in ID:
| steamname: charlief00
| steamID32: STEAM_0:1:16506193
| steamID64: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197993278115
| customURL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/sp219
| steamrep: http://steamrep.com/profiles/76561197993278115

http://steamcommunity.com/id/sp219/badges/1
Unlocked 13 Oct 2012 @ 6:35 AM
which is 2 days after the NEXT account.

Times are GMT+1:00 + DST, and substract the 5 years "service" from it, and you have the steam account creation date.

differences can run up to a week, and maybe even 2.

And sometimes I suspect that valve skipped ranges to let them be more "in pace" with eachother.

so:
110 (even, universe "0") made 11 Oct 2007 @ 4:14 PM
115 (odd, universe "1") made 13 Oct 2007 @ 6:35 AM
116 (even, universe "0") made 11 Oct 2007 @ 4:15 PM

This is good to know. Now that I think back, I had come across an example of this when I was browsing the database but I must have forgotten. Just so we're on the same page, I believe 1 or 0 is actually the auth server ID not the universe. And looking at the profile data, 115 was created on Oct 12. But even so, it's still a day older than my system would currently guess. If it's really just caused by the two auth servers being slightly out of sync, then I should collect an ID from each server for each day. Then I could be accurate within a day for any private ID. Does that sound right to you? Time to boot up the web bot.

I was planning to increase the granularity of the DB anyway but this will help for sure. Another thing to note is that according to the Valve docs, the "0" auth server was used for old games, like orange box, so it's probably not affecting the accuracy for more recent accounts.

I forgot to use reply. Please reference my post just before this one. Just for the heck of it, I actually tried the estimator on ID 115 and it still fell within the error margin of my estimator: http://www.vacbans.com/api/?call=ageEstimate&comm_id=76561197993278115 . Even so, I plan on improving the database.

time difference is due timezone, steam gives all relative to one's timezone. My ID would therefore be a lot earlier in the day for you. I did mention I did check this from GMT+1:00 + DST....

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Right. Brain fart. Anyway, I think your theory on why they skipped so many IDs is a good one. I'll let you know when I get the database updated to account for the difference in auth servers.

Hey DataStorm,

I've been moving this month but I finally got around to updating the age estimate database as we discussed. Now it will try to sandwich an unknown ID between two IDs from the same auth server. I also have a lot more IDs this time so the difference between the two known IDs is often just hours. Well, unless the 'timecreated' the Steam Web API returns is not always for the same timezone. Do you know anything about that? I couldn't find anything.

I'm not familiar on that, but logic tells me its either just GMT, or the time difference to that for the timezone the request is made. a simple glean should do.

If the steamrep api logs numbers of calls / call frequency from an api key / ip in order to ban api spammers.
Does it log contents of api calls?
Does it log contents of api calls in a context where contents of calls are associated with the server/api key that called them?

If I checked the status of 76561198013370444, would it be possible for steamrep to permanently store the fact that it was my api key that checked it?

1a, currently there are no "API keys" in use by any, the API is open to use by anyone. Just not the web API, for its still in beta.
1b, we do monitor load on the API
1c, afaik, we didn't ban any yet from (ab)use on the API.
2. Its possible, but not currently done afaik.
3. See 2.
4. see 2.

API keys are more intended for making access to the API more measured. Larger users (like tf2op, future d2t market, tf2wh, etc) would get such a API key, for giving them access to such load. While non-api key usage would be less accessible (low frequent usage, max number of calls a day etc). But all that is currently not done.

Hello
I am head of admin at www.csgotrade.com and love to try web api beta for my website for safe trading to my community and promise not hurt your steamrep.com server...

hmm, that forum is there for ~3 days now, on the other hand, CS:GO is very young in trading...

Yeah I just launched 3 days ago and still need more members but I believe my forum have potential become a biggest trading forum for later. I hope you should don't doubt with me.