Please, in this topic, let's not rehash the arguments about whether you can or can't prevent hackers in this game, or about the ethics of using hacked clients, or about architectural changes you think minetest should implement, etc.
Questions are welcome - if you want to know if a particular cheating issue is soluble, or whether anyone has coded up a mod to do it, please bring it up.
As a reminder, Forum Rule #7
Hacking/Cheating: It is not permissible to promote, link, or otherwise direct Forum users to any kind of "hacking" or "cheating" tools, regardless of their claimed purpose. This includes but is not limited to scripts, bots, modified Minetest clients, CSM mods, third-party programs, etc. Doing so is grounds for an immediate, permanent ban, and may result deletion of all of the user's posts.Builtin Anticheat
In current versions of minetest engine, the builtin anticheat mechanism are enabled by default. They work fairly effectively for the few things they claim to prevent, such as enabling "fast" mode without the "fast" privilege. More information can be found in the Lua API.Mods with anti-cheat features
real suffocation is mildly successful in preventing egregious noclip-ing. It can be even more effective if you modify it to use `damage_per_second` instead of `drowning`. However, admins often find this mod obnoxious because these mechanisms don't differentiate between permitted noclip-ing (with the correct privilege) and unpermitted noclip-ing. There also can be issues w.r.t. non-full nodes, e.g. nodebox or mesh drawtype - players can drown in mostly-open nodes.The abyssch branch of the underch mod spawns (almost) all terrain as placeholder "matrix" nodes, which do not resolve into real nodes until they are exposed to the surface during mapgen or due to player action. This effectively prevents the use of the "x-ray" feature of certain hacked clients, that players use to find ore that isn't exposed to the surface. However, this mod creates a huge amount of processor load, totally restructures the underground parts of the server, and won't affect previously generated regions of a world.
The fairplay mod appears to have a number of useful features.
The beowulf mod has been suggested lately, but I have not experimented with it. It feels like it might be overly strict.
admin mods (for cheat detection/mitigation)
cloaking allows an admin/moderator to hide their presence from the game, so they can observe the behavior of a player while remaining undetected. Hacked clients still may be able to realize the position of a cloaked player.LogCheat (log analyzer script to detect cheating) NOTE: I haven't tested this and don't know if or how it works.
Detecting self-identifying hacked clients
This was honestly what inspired me to make this post, but I'm not sure how to talk about it without violating forum rules. Give me a moment.Note to self: start with this
Preventing cheaters from evading bans
xban2 and sban are ok, but my verbana mod provides a more sophisticated means of keeping unwanted users out of the server, while trying to reduce the impact that banning can have on well-behaved users. It has proven incredibly useful for keeping out persistent, VPN-using trolls on Blocky Survival and Tunnelers' Abyss. It is, unfortunately, somewhat more complicated to use than other ban/jail mods.Communicating with cheaters and trolls
If anyone has any resources (or relevant experience) about communicating with cheaters and trolls in ways that leads to more positive outcomes, that also belongs here.Relevant, existing forum posts
So we don't have to have these discussions again.Technical discussion about cheating and hacked clients
We need better anticheat against softwares like cheat engine.
hacked PunTrue client
Hack-/Cheat-Clients
Relevant, existing bug reports
Again, no need to repeat these things.#6114: Detection of dirty clients