How to prevent the protected wall glitch?

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tuxmain
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How to prevent the protected wall glitch?

by tuxmain » Post

There is an exploit even newbies discover by themselves on my server, which works using the standard client. It exploits latency to pass through protected nodes. (TenPlus1/protector and minetest-mods/areas are affected)

Note: I don't describe precisely the cheat here because I don't want to be banned. But I'm still talking about it because it may help with fixing it.

Supposing honest clients, the countermeasure is double walls with different nodes (one layer requiring a pick, another layer requiring a shovel), but this is not practical and not sure. And this should not be enough to stop cheating clients to "teleport" through protected walls.

Is there a way to fix this client-side? Are there callbacks/hooks (like after_dig_node or on_punch) that can be used in the client? I don't know exactly which parts of the server-side mods are also executed on the client.

Is there a way to fix this server-side? It seems quite complicated.

W3RQ01
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Re: How to prevent the protected wall glitch?

by W3RQ01 » Post

i think that this way of "exploiting" the protection is harmless because even if you manage to enter someone's house you won't be able to steal unless the owner of the house does not have protected chests.
My opinion is that there is no motivation in hiding something to others in MT, it's stupid.
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Re: How to prevent the protected wall glitch?

by Blockhead » Post

There are a few approaches:
  1. Foremost, make players aware their stuff is never safe unless it's locked. They should assume people know where their "secret" base is, and always use protected/locked chests, locked mesecons switches (switches, buttons) and so on. Players should always protect their areas as well.
  2. Use a mod that teleports players out of protected areas - not sure if this exists yet but is definitely possible. It would only use a flag on the area, and not be on by default.
  3. Use anti-cheat mods like Beowulf to make people who do cheat more annoyed.
  4. Do what the steel doors (protected doors) do in Minetest Game - use node_dig_prediction. The side effect is more noticeable latency as every node dug will not disappear until the server sends it. You can apply this to every node with minetest.override_item.

I would usually only recommend the first approach (awareness) I think. Anti-cheat mods add lag, and the override code would probably make people think the server is always lagging harder than it is.
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Nathan.S
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Re: How to prevent the protected wall glitch?

by Nathan.S » Post

I believe tenplus1's protector mod has an option to flip a player around when they try to break a protected node. This makes it more difficult to glitch through a wall as you need to break the node and then go backwards to get through.
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