Page 1 of 1

Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 05:37
by LC Creations
I have a controversial question. Do you think it is bad (on an online server) for another player to see what is in your inventory? Do you think it crosses privacy? How important is this? If so what would draw the line for you? I just thought this would be an interesting topic to being up that's all. I want to know what other have to say. Do you take this personally or it it just a game to you?

Let me set you an example...
Let's say we have a node that detects a player in a certian radius. Then the node checks if the player has a certian specified item in their main inventory to be able to activate some mesecon. Setting aside whether this feature would be of any use to you, would you find this unsettling?

I'll tell you my opinion. Personally, I think it's just a game and it doesn't really matter. I have nothing to hide even if it did matter. However depending on the server your on and what it is about, it may matter. But for just a building server, or a survival building server like VanessaE's dreambuilder servers I do not think this is an issue. However if someone was just going around to check what is in other players inventories I think they need something better to do. It does not bother me if it is for a constructive purpose.

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 10:35
by Bastrabun
Depends on whether you can only "detect" an item or really go through them and see their content.

Imagine books: Someone wrote a more or less personal letter to you and you have it in your inventory. Even if you, the receiver, doesn't mind the content going public, the sender might.

On the other hand, such a detector might help in making quests.

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 17:54
by Zughy
I think it's a very interesting question. The best thing would probably be to give users the possibility to add a password to books, as a Minetest built-in. No password, no access (so I guess some sort of encryption where the pass is the key? I'm not such an expert).

Another nice built-in feature would be to always communicate to an user when someone is accessing their inventory

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 17:58
by firefox
doesn't the server owner have access to all player data anyway?

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sat Mar 28, 2020 18:08
by Zughy
firefox wrote:doesn't the server owner have access to all player data anyway?
Theoretically you can take a string and apply some hashing/salting/peppering and that's it, server owner can't tell what's the password

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2020 19:21
by MCL
It's just a game, so I would never come up with such a question, the owner has access the inventory database so it doesn't matter anyway. (It's just my opinion though)

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2020 06:18
by Linuxdirk
LC Creations wrote:Do you think it crosses privacy?
Nah, not really. There is no private data in your inventory (except you write private data in a book and store that in your inventory). However: it is the private inventory and I just expect that it stays private and other players cannot see the items in it. Same with locked chests: I just expect players not being able to look into them.
LC Creations wrote:Let's say we have a node that detects a player in a certian radius. Then the node checks if the player has a certian specified item in their main inventory to be able to activate some mesecon.
This is completely different from your initial question and absolutely fine as a game mechanic. It is expected that this node checks the inventory for a specific item.

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 02:42
by sorcerykid
Zughy wrote:I think it's a very interesting question. The best thing would probably be to give users the possibility to add a password to books, as a Minetest built-in. No password, no access (so I guess some sort of encryption where the pass is the key? I'm not such an expert).
My Books Redux mod does this. All itemstack metadata of books is encrypted using a public/private key pair behind the scenes, so the book content cannot be examined by anyone using CSM, local mapsaves, hacked clients, etc. The only way to read the book is using the Books Redux viewer interface on the server.

As for encrypting inventories in general, that is easy done with my Simple Cipher mod.

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 10:41
by Zughy
sorcerykid wrote:
Zughy wrote:I think it's a very interesting question. The best thing would probably be to give users the possibility to add a password to books, as a Minetest built-in. No password, no access (so I guess some sort of encryption where the pass is the key? I'm not such an expert).
My Books Redux mod does this. All itemstack metadata of books is encrypted using a public/private key pair behind the scenes, so the book content cannot be examined by anyone using CSM, local mapsaves, hacked clients, etc. The only way to read the book is using the Books Redux viewer interface on the server.

As for encrypting inventories in general, that is easy done with my Simple Cipher mod.
And here, sir, you definitely got my attention: chapeau. I'll look into it :)

Re: Controversial Minetest Question

Posted: Wed Apr 01, 2020 11:13
by twoelk
although Minetest is just a game there might be some game themes or mechanics where it might be important to not let everybody know what is in your pockets.

Imagine a simple "whodunit" game. It would probably make such a scenario rather pointless if you could just scan all players inventories to find out who stole the cookie from the cookie jar.

Or some game where weapons are important such as CTF. If gameplay depends on shooting weapons it might not be good if all enemies know just how much ammunition you have left.

I might also keep a list of coordinates of all my secret bases in a book that I do not want all other players to know.

Last but not least probably nobody wants to be pestered with "I can see you have stacks of item x so give me some"

If the ability to scan players invontories is there it should be restricted and controlled with priviliges at the least and would need a switch to be disabled completely for certain types of gameplay.