No they don't prevent @dustsweeper from working, in fact on comments that wouldn't have otherwise paid anything out, you can end up earning a few cents. They'll flag, the bots will upvote and dustsweeper will come in before payout and upvote too. I don't know if @dustsweeper is triggered just by flags, but in the days before these bots I'd just upvote the comments myself.

I'm working on having the SP removed from all of the accounts I've identified, 64 so far and growing. Steemit won't IP ban anyone, as they still want users to see the errors or their ways and still interact with the blockchain. I sincerely doubt they are smart enough to think about switching up devices or covering their tracks in any way.

It is very annoying, even if they aren't hitting you financially. Unfortunately I guess this comes with the free and open nature of Steemit, people are free to act like immature c*nts.