[MUD-Dev] Wild west (was Guilds & Politics)

[Felix A. Croes]

JC Lawrence <claw at under.Eng.Sun.COM> wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Dec 1997 04:45:41 PST8PDT 
> Felix A Croes<felix at xs1.simplex.nl> wrote:
>[...]
> > How powerful will you be making your database query language?  
>
> I haven't addressed that part yet.  I hope to be able to make detailed
> and incisive queries with it.  However, it will not be avilable to
> mere users.  Quite likely it will be available externally to the game
> only (actually this may be technically required).

I meant, the queries that users can make.  You can disguise making
queries as time-travel, but the fact remains that a user is actually
performing a log query (and may be using a client program that hides
the particular interface of your mud).

Is a user query restricted to "what happened to <thing>/at <location>
between times <X> and <Y>"?  Is it possible to replay sequences at
higher speed than the original, or at lower speed?


> >Is
> > performing a log query a logged event?  
>
> You are confusing two seperate items here.
>
>   1) The ability of users to use the DB rollbacks to time travel.
>
>   2) The ability of a query language to do structured data extractions
> from a DB and its rollbacks.
>
> User players have access only to the first.  Such access will of course
> be logged as part of the normal DB logging.  Structured querying of
> the DB will not be logged as it is a DB external event.

If there is a difference between the log available to users and to
the mud administrator, that may become important as users discover
ways to evade time machine probes, in the sense that they will ask
the administrator for the information that is missing in their log.
This may not be a problem, but I was under the impression that you
wanted to avoid it :)


> > Specifically, if a player
> > goes through the entire log, does this duplicate the number of log
> > entries?
>
> No.  If a player time travels everything he can possibly time-travel,
> the only extra data logged for him are notations as to the points and
> periods time-watched.

So, if Bubba time-travels 6 days back and watches Boffo deposit a
large sum of money in the President's re-election fund, the fact
that he has watched this transaction occur cannot be ascertained
from the log alone, 2 days later?  And in general, you can avoid
being caught at time-snooping of a particular event if you only
watch those events that are about to be removed from the log?


> > What if Bubba logged on once a week to record everything done by or
> > to Boffo, and kept the logs for longer than a week?
>
> Not a problem.
>
> > What if Bubba publishes his logs after a week?
>
> Not a problem.
>
> > What if Bubba edits his logs before publishing them?
>
> Not a problem as they are now unverifiable and as such worth less than
> the electrons taken to display them.
>
> > What if Boffo spams the log with trivia to foil Bubba?
>
> He can't.  He can certainly live a very active MUD life with a very
> high event rate, in which case he'll have a large history, but that's
> another matter.

Be careful not to make any statements about Boffo's intentions.  His
active mud life might be solely to draw attention away from the few
particular events that he wants to hide from Bubba.  Moreover, the
activity might solely be due to a long "east, west, east, west, east,
west, ..." command sequence.

Of course, if Bubba can put queries such as "how many coins did Boffo
deposit in the President's re-election fund between times <X> and <Y>",
no amount of activity will help.


> > What if Boffo makes his log spamming code generally available?
>
> Ditto.
>
> > What if Boffo implements a cryptographic protocol for communication
> > in the mud -- the encryption and decryption is done by his client,
> > with some server-side support code?
>
> Excellent!  More power to him.
>
> > What if Boffo makes his crypto code generally available?
>
> I bow in his presence.
>
> > What if people start using Boffo's client for secure communications,
> > who are unaware of the server it connects to, or even of the
> > existance of your mud in general?
>
> I don't see this as my problem as far as those users are concerned.  I
> do see this as my problem as far as the misrepresentation of my
> services are concerned.

I think the real problem is that once your users have switched to
encrypted communications, you no longer have any indication of what
is going on on your mud.  Users might be exchanging insults, or
laundry lists, or pirated software, or anything whatsoever.  Even
their actions may have an encrypted meaning.

Your mud is not the only one on which this might happen, but it
does encourage encryption -- especially with your stated policy
of letting the users develop their own society.

Another "what if" -- suppose that the users treat the log as
semi-permanent storage for their files?

Boffo says: begin 644 README
Boffo says: M268@>6]U(&=O="!T:&ES(&9A<BP@>6]U(&%L<F5A9'D@:VYO=R!W:&%T('1H
Boffo says: M92!O=&AE<B!F:6QE<R!C;VYT86EN+ at I4:&ES(&%R8VAI=F4@:7, at 875T;VUA
Boffo says: M=&EC86QL>2!R969R97-H960 at 979E<GD@<VEX(&1A>7,N("!(87!P>2!H86-K
Boffo says: %:6YG+ at IL
Boffo says: `
Boffo says: end


> That all said, areas I haven't examined are the general security
> concerns of the time travel feature in-game, or how to represent it
> in-game.  First thoughts:
>[...]

Will only users be able to travel in time, or will they be able to
send out semi-automatic probes?  That is to say, can automation be
server-side, or does it have to be client-side?

Felix Croes