Combatting Fullbright mods

I guess there's no way of retrieving the actual size of the minecraft.jar without someone being able to modify it. When there's a packet you can either modify the creation of the packet inside minecraft or modify it when it's about to go out into the internet. When you have a separate program checking it, both programs could be modified.

The only thing you can do is trying to make it as save as possible, but nothing is completely safe.

 

Exactly what I was thinking

 

Not if with each release they add a random seed by which the bit size is multiplied by, like hash code. If the client was close source and they generated a random seed each time they published a release it would take the hackers a month just to figure out the proper seed.

There is a lot more to my proposal then I have stated here, but it does work if implemented properly.

 

Texture packs, too, could change the size, if installed the wrong way (like a lot of people do). So can McPatcher HD, and even just simple things like that.

Edit: Oops double quote

 

Yes, but the makers of the API can take that information into account and not make the size comparator take those directories into account. The API bit getter should only grab code directories(basically the src directory), which should not vary at all unless the actual source was modified, which is a hack...

Also you can't be selective with modification, you need to either disallow all client side modifications or allow them all, you can't pick and chose. I personally am completely content with disallowing ALL client side mods as nearly all of them give the user some type of advantage, and unless all parties on my server have that same advantage I simply won't allow it.

 

Im still holding hope that they let us detect what the clientside environment is like, such as block light levels, inventory, etc :3

 

And what if you would just check if Meta-Inf is in there?

 

Once again, invasion of privacy. You can not check for specified files in a jar file!

And even if you could, hacked clients use Meta-Inf sometimes, sometimes they don't.

 

Depends on how the Fullbright is coded, I code fullbright mods that change the players gamma setting which I don't think you can counter.. it seems as if a lot of other modified client developer are doing the same

 

So whatever you try the player will always find a way to "fullbright", just find people that won't do that or just make a server that fullbright is useless in .. or do like in 'the old days', check on them with screenshots, and with java it should be easier to control.

Also, the "bright" setting in default Minecraft is pretty bright, you can see clearly in dark caves and stuff, I can't see why people screw their visual detail for constant brightness.

 

Most people combine it with Xray for super easy mining

 

Why even bother play the game... Honestly, I just can't wrap my head around how a person can lie to themselves and convince themselves that winning in any manner other than honorably is an accomplishment...

I do agree though, attempting to stop cheaters is an act of futility... It's easier to just reward good game-play; eventually the community will be weighted towards the ethical player base, and when that occurs they tend to naturally purge themselves of cheaters (my good players hate the bad ones).

Diligent administration, it's the only true cure to idiots.

 

To reward a good player one must know who the bad ones are, which brings up a whole new discussion about how to find the bad players.

Honestly, what is best; stopping players from doing anything bad, or constantly look for bad players?

 

Yes but that's like asking "which would you prefer, walking the earth or being able to fly like a bird"... Anyone in their right mind would answer "I want to be able to fly!", but just because that is the preferred doesn't mean it's even remotely possible.

Minecraft/Bukkit source code is out there for the world to see, and because of that the community will continue to develop hacks at the same rate that developers patch them. Would I like a cheat free world... of coarse; but that doesn't mean the community will ever be able to achieve that goal.

I don't need to identify bad players to reward the good ones, in fact I pay little to no attention to the bad players at all, as I stated before my loyal players identify the bad players themselves and provide me the necessary evidence to take action via photos on the forums.

I don't waste effort on those who don't deserve it, instead I focus on identifying activities, actions and behaviors that I feel serve as a "model" for desired game play, and find creative ways to reward those who demonstrate those characteristics.

Look into reinforcement methods, there are many:
Negative reinforcement
Positive reinforcement
Negative punishment
Positive punishment.

I chose to use positive reinforcement, which is when someone demonstrates good behavior you reward it to encourage that behavior, and in psychology this has been proven as the most effective teaching method.

Sadly, most people tend to use the positive punishment method, meaning that when ever someone does something bad you give them something they don't like; for instance, if they spam the chat you give them an hour mute. This is a very ineffective way of conditioning behavior because it often causes resentment towards the punisher and perpetuates the behavior.

All I am getting at is that you can't remove the human element of the game programatically... you will always have hackers, cheater and griefers roaming the internet, and the only true way to handle them is with diligent administration.

 

While i can see where you are coming from, i do believe in punishments. Imagine a griefer/xrayer coming on your server just to fuck shit up, obviously he wouldn't care if he got some sort of reward for playing nice.

*By punishment i mean a straight out ban.

This is getting quite off-topic, this discussion should be continued somewhere else.

 

IMO it's better to find and warn then ban on 2nd offence the bad players because bad behaviour doesn't go away when blocked, it merely delays it as you can't 100% block bad behaviour, they'll eventuall find a way and it's going to be a surprize and it's going to be bad.

 

I like your idea, but the problem is that the minecraft client wont send you that data
Superkabii Yes if the creator of that mod is good, it is possible.
greetz blackwolf12333

 

There will never be a way to combat hackers/griefers, every mod-able game will have people who don't follow the main purpose of the game. That's just the sad truth.

 

Not just modable, absolutely all games can be hacked in one way or the other and altered so they can cheat, regardless of platform or modding ability, be it streight forward hack that changes game mechanics or just in-game unbalance abuse, there will be cheating... the problem is not the game, because the real world is the same, it's the people that do that and the people that make it possible nethertheless .

 

I think that checking if a player has certain mods installed is a total invasion of privacy. A more effective way to combat cheaters, in my opinion, is to get to know your players. I can usually tell if a player is cheating based on their attitude. Many people have a wealth of mods installed that would get them banned from nearly every minecraft server in existence, but they don't use most of them. In my case, I use nodus to spy on my players. Checking if a mod is installed is no where near a solution to cheating.

 

whats nodus?

 

[quote uid=90653040 name="CorrieKay" post=1145654]whats nodus?[/quote]

<Edit by Moderator: Redacted bit url>

 

One of the most popular griefing clients, has tons of NoCheat/NoCheat+ bypasses and the reason its so popular is because it's free

How do you use Nodus to spy on your players?

EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.

 

you can chance al blocks at brightness 0 to stone clientside using some proxy kind of thingy

 

I use xRay, player esp, chest finder...

You mean Packet53BlockChange?