Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

bae.st

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 474 posts

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#181

Post by ShowalkKama »

vermilingua wrote: post #115
orsond wrote: post #88

Hi, orsond from the fifth column here. The Fifth Column is a Minecraft hacking and griefing group. We created Project Copenhiemer which is a Minecraft server scanning tool. Copenhiemer scans the internet every 20 minutes for minecraft servers, logs players, server versions, mods and more. Originally we had created it to find players and grief their server worlds, highlighting how much information about players is lea…

How do you propose MS/Mojang determine who is and is not an actual child? Require parents to provide legal documents of their children? Photographic confirmation? Time and time again it has been proven that attempts to segregate the internet into adult/child zones will fail.

opt-in "self flagging". Logic is a parent can report the date of birth of the child at time of purchase (maybe set up an email to receive a confirmation in case you want to disable the kid mode).

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#182

Post by mjevans »

orsond wrote: post #88

Hi, orsond from the fifth column here. The Fifth Column is a Minecraft hacking and griefing group. We created Project Copenhiemer which is a Minecraft server scanning tool. Copenhiemer scans the internet every 20 minutes for minecraft servers, logs players, server versions, mods and more. Originally we had created it to find players and grief their server worlds, highlighting how much information about players is lea…

Kids can be mean to each other too; so I do support some sort of parental control (OS level) which Minecraft, software generally, should interact with. Also servers which provide parents with tools to better monitor the interactions.

I disagree about splitting up families, but do agree that a safety mode where children are in more heavily allow-listed environments should be standard.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#183

Post by ShowalkKama »

omegacharlie wrote: post #82

Modern-day MC is a bit out of my depth but are these bans enforced in a similar mechanism to online-mode checks? (which validates that the username attempting to connect to the server has authenticated against the Mojang login servers?) More importantly could it be possible for a modified client or server to 'spoof' reports against an arbitrary user to 'frame' them? Disturbing possibilities here.

> Modern-day MC is a bit out of my depth but are these bans enforced in a similar mechanism to online-mode checks? (which validates that the username attempting to connect to the server has authenticated against the Mojang login servers?)

yes

> More importantly could it be possible for a modified client or server to 'spoof' reports against an arbitrary user to 'frame' them? Disturbing possibilities here.

no

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#184

Post by Cr4shMyCar »

ckemere wrote: post #123
zbird wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? They'll report for no reason, that's the point of trolling. > And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? I have not played Minecraft, but I'd be surprised if the server admins of any game of such scale acted on logs. Also, I wouldn't want my kids to be logged on a corporate server. > And why are you inviting…

We've done limited server play with friends. As far as I understand, anyone can download and run the server software (literally - it's a free download). To log into a server, you need the IP address (and need to understand how to port forward if going outside the home etc etc). P I think my broader point is that I appreciate Microsoft saying they want Minecraft to be a profanity -free zone. There are plenty in the "o…

From what Microsoft's said, it's less about profanity and more about taking down things like serious threats, doxxing/stalking, etc. I have no issue with moderating that, and I'm glad it's (at least in theory) not being used as a filter to keep everything that happens in Minecraft G-rated since a lot of more mature people play it. I think implementing a game-wide ban on a community that's spread across thousands of individual servers has the potential to cause so much harm if someone makes a mistake or there's a glitch, not to mention trolls gaming the system to get people they don't like banned. Content moderation at scale is impossible, and considering Minecraft's still one of the biggest games in the world, mistakes will be made.

As an aside, have you looked into putting a whitelist on your server? It could provide a lot of peace of mind, especially when you're trying to keep it to just your kids and friends.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#185

Post by hedora »

ckemere wrote: post #94

It's apparently a minority voice opinion here on HN, but I for one appreciate what Microsoft is trying to do. As a parent of a 6 and 9 year old who have really gotten into Minecraft during COVID, I appreciate them basically deciding "We want Minecraft to be a game for kids and an online community that is nice." I get why people are frustrated, but I also like the idea of a global decision that forces servers open to…

I really just want a f---ing password protected "play offline" button.

I've been trying to keep the kids off the internet, but Minecraft somehow created some bulls--t backdoor social media account for my kindergartner without prompting (let alone asking for consent before making it public!). On top of that, microsoft can trivially tie it to my github and linkedin.

Seriously, WTF were they thinking?!?

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#186

Post by Cr4shMyCar »

lightsandaounds wrote: post #147
sidewndr46 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is the most entitled attitude I've seen in a long time. You let your kids play online, where they can communicate with basically anyone. So the solution is to grant a central authority total power to ban anyone who doesn't comply with the standards you want for your children. This is the online equivalent of a homophobe complaining that two men holding hands in the park will turn their children gay.

I understand your point, but I would be upset if I took my family to Chuck E Cheese's and there was a table full of adults loudly talking about their raunchy escapades from the night before. I think it is a fair assumption that a child's game will have clean chat.

I think with Minecraft it's closer to the difference between a Chuck E Cheese and a barcade. Both are arcades, but one is specifically for kids and families while the other is an explicitly adult space.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#187

Post by orsond »

omegacharlie wrote: post #82

Modern-day MC is a bit out of my depth but are these bans enforced in a similar mechanism to online-mode checks? (which validates that the username attempting to connect to the server has authenticated against the Mojang login servers?) More importantly could it be possible for a modified client or server to 'spoof' reports against an arbitrary user to 'frame' them? Disturbing possibilities here.

> More importantly could it be possible for a modified client or server to 'spoof' reports against an arbitrary user to 'frame' them? Disturbing possibilities here.

Yes, the developers of Nodus have demonstrated this over and over again that they can spoof messages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz5iGzuNnNU

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#189

Post by synicalx »

ckemere wrote: post #103
dmix wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The road to hell is always paved with good intentions and naive ideals. I’m trying to imagine having to explain to a 6yr old why they can’t play Minecraft until Dad creates another account and hope they can afford another license. And hope it doesn’t happen again the next time a troll joins their server. It also seems to be incentivizing people to not have any chat reports at all.

I guess I don't understand - the troll will report your 6 year old for dropping f-bombs? And the chat logs (which MS will now have) will back then up? And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old? (We're somewhat new to Minecraft, so I may be missing something here.)

> And why are you inviting trolls to play with your 6 year old?

Public servers with hundreds of players and little to no barrier to entry - they'll be full of "trolls". All the 6 y/o has to do is join one, which takes about 5 seconds.

Re: It seems that the good times for online Minecraft play are over

#190

Post by Dylan16807 »

lolinder wrote: post #37
Georgelemental wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it "their" platform if the server is hosted by people who are not them on hardware that is not theirs? They are just selling a license to use their executables, no? Or should be (I don't play Minecraft)

In the event of abuse, parents won't draw that distinction and neither would a Twitter mob. Microsoft needs to be able to point to something concrete they're doing to keep kids safe or they're risking a scandal.

For servers that kids are supposed to be on, sure. Not all servers.
Post reply on HN