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I help maintain a pretty popular open source game mod. One of the features the mod provides server owners is anticheat, and one of the consequences of that is n

by Shank 7y ago

I help maintain a pretty popular open source game mod. One of the features the mod provides server owners is anticheat, and one of the consequences of that is needing cheats in order to make sure the anticheat system works, to test exploits, and to make the game safer. Discord permanently banned the server and my account because we were breaking terms of service violations, even though we had blessing from the game developer themselves. They later reversed the ban on my account, but kept the server deleted because they maintained that we advocated cheating. Again, we develop anti-cheat moderation software. In my last contact with them, I was told that that it was up to us to moderate the server better too. If any user posted cheating related material, they would of course ban the server for terms of service violations anyway (this essentially inverts the typical idea of "safe harbor" protection that traditional websites have). The problem with not using Discord is that they successfully captured the gamer and game market. As a game related tool, all of our users are on Discord. It's a shame that one company was able to do this.

dariusj18 7y ago
This is a greater problem to solve than Discord. How do a group of people publicly and responsibly disseminate blackhat information to whitehats?
- mcpeepants 7y ago
  It's a good question, though I think the "publicly" and "responsibly" aspects may be inherently at odds.
NoodleIncident 7y ago
Even only hearing your side of this, I think Discord is being reasonable. It sounds like anyone could grab a cheat from your server and go wreak havoc on an unmodded server for this game... surely your mod isn't universally used?
- krilly 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm sure that kind of thing could be shared privately by email between the relevant parties
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    when was the last time Gmail banned someone for sending controversial e-mails from their platform?
    - xenophonf 7y ago
      How would anyone know? I keep seeing HN posts of people losing their Google accounts for some unspecified ToS violation (that is, if they can get any information about their ban from Google at all).
      - heavenlyblue 7y ago
        No one ever reported that by the way. With their massive user base it would have already happened at least once especially in the light of all of these scandals of lack of platform neutrality. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube but never Gmail.
        eindiran 7y ago
        What are you talking about? People constantly report their Google accounts being banned, very often for things they did in their emails. It seems impossible to me that you've never heard of someone being banned by Google because of something they sent with their Gmail account. Usually Google reports it as an unspecified ToS violation, but that doesn't mean it wasn't related to things they did in "private" correspondence via email.
        ViViDboarder 7y ago
        > very often for things they did in their emails. Do you have an example? I don’t recall ever seeing that. I’ve seen mostly for other services.
nonbirithm 7y ago
This is what E2E encryption is for. Disseminating code that violates a platform's TOS would surely lead to banning. And cheating in games puts people at an unfair advantage so they'd want to mention it in their TOS. The question then becomes how to motivate the average gamer to jump onto a different messaging platform.
- dfox 7y ago
  Secure E2E encryption of multicast/broadcast traffic is hard and borderline intractable problem.
Blackthorn 7y ago
The company was only really able to do this because it was a significantly better platform than what was there before. It was amazing to be able to open Discord for the first time and everything just worked! After struggling with voice chat in Skype, ventrilo, teamspeak, and mumble for years prior, that was a huge breath of fresh air. And the easy way it handled invites and text chat was the cherry on top. It's easy to hate on Discord's practices but it's worth remembering that they're on top because their project is legitimately good.
- Mirioron 7y ago
  You struggle with audio settings in discord just like you do in Skype, ventrilo, and teamspeak. Most of the struggles with audio are not with individual programs, but rather your audio hardware, the OS, and its settings. (Windows updates love to screw those up.) When discord released it didn't even have a Ctrl+f function for a long time. It still doesn't have chat logs on the user end, the permissions system is bad and audio quality is mediocre. On top of all of that, because they don't allow self-hosting it means that discord ultimately controls your conversations. It caught on because it went viral. The service they offer is good, but the lack of privacy and no self-hosting make it disappointing.
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    And their stability is questionable. While it's not that bad, I experienced their server crash more than once. Never had server crash on my own hosted ventrillo server, not once in a 5 years.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      I use Discord every day. I would say that there are issues about once a week or few weeks where text messages are delayed by 10-30 seconds. Some of them don't arrive either. Using it for text communication at those times is challenging. I'm unsure what happens to voice chat at those times, but the text part is infuriating.
  - rapind 7y ago
moron4hire 7y ago
People have moved through different messaging apps so many times over the years that this in not a secure position for Discord.
b0rsuk 7y ago
We need (a) Linus Torvalds to scratch this itch. We need someone to write a serious open-source alternative, like happened with Linux and git. Only, it's going to be very difficult for software that needs critical mass to succeed, like chat or social networks. I haven't heard of interoperable social networks, instant messengers, or chat systems. Pidgin works as a wrapper around several IM accounts.
- csnover 7y ago
  It sounds like you would be interested in Matrix. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  This has been done with Mumble, it just needs some refinement. Mumble (the client) and Murmur (the server) [1] [2] can handle many people on a small server. I have run a murmur server for a long time and it is very stable. The voice quality is superior to anything else I have used. The client does need a little bit of refinement to be as happy-clicky easy as Discord. If anyone has not tried version 1.3 [3], give it a go. There are public servers if you want to try the client without hosting your own server. Their code is all on Github and I am sure they could offer suggestions if you were using their libraries in your application. [1] - https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/ [2] - https://github.com/mumble-voip/ https://github.com/mumble-voip/ [3] - https://www.mumble.info/blog/mumble-1.3.0-release-announcement/ https://www.mumble.info/blog/mumble-1.3.0-release-announceme...
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    One thing I'd really like is for Mumble to stop pushing certificate-based authentication so hard. You can make whatever security arguments you want, but it's going to drive away users. And then they'll still be using passwords anyway, on whatever chat service they use instead of Mumble.
- freepor 7y ago
  Like git, even an open protocol will come to be dominated by one supplier.

by Shank 7y ago

dariusj18 7y ago

This is a greater problem to solve than Discord. How do a group of people publicly and responsibly disseminate blackhat information to whitehats?

mcpeepants 7y ago
It's a good question, though I think the "publicly" and "responsibly" aspects may be inherently at odds.

NoodleIncident 7y ago

Even only hearing your side of this, I think Discord is being reasonable. It sounds like anyone could grab a cheat from your server and go wreak havoc on an unmodded server for this game... surely your mod isn't universally used?

krilly 7y ago
Yeah, I'm sure that kind of thing could be shared privately by email between the relevant parties
- heavenlyblue 7y ago
  when was the last time Gmail banned someone for sending controversial e-mails from their platform?
  - xenophonf 7y ago
    How would anyone know? I keep seeing HN posts of people losing their Google accounts for some unspecified ToS violation (that is, if they can get any information about their ban from Google at all).
    - heavenlyblue 7y ago
      No one ever reported that by the way. With their massive user base it would have already happened at least once especially in the light of all of these scandals of lack of platform neutrality. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube but never Gmail.
      - eindiran 7y ago
        What are you talking about? People constantly report their Google accounts being banned, very often for things they did in their emails. It seems impossible to me that you've never heard of someone being banned by Google because of something they sent with their Gmail account. Usually Google reports it as an unspecified ToS violation, but that doesn't mean it wasn't related to things they did in "private" correspondence via email.
        ViViDboarder 7y ago
        > very often for things they did in their emails. Do you have an example? I don’t recall ever seeing that. I’ve seen mostly for other services.

nonbirithm 7y ago

This is what E2E encryption is for. Disseminating code that violates a platform's TOS would surely lead to banning. And cheating in games puts people at an unfair advantage so they'd want to mention it in their TOS. The question then becomes how to motivate the average gamer to jump onto a different messaging platform.

dfox 7y ago
Secure E2E encryption of multicast/broadcast traffic is hard and borderline intractable problem.

Blackthorn 7y ago

The company was only really able to do this because it was a significantly better platform than what was there before. It was amazing to be able to open Discord for the first time and everything just worked! After struggling with voice chat in Skype, ventrilo, teamspeak, and mumble for years prior, that was a huge breath of fresh air. And the easy way it handled invites and text chat was the cherry on top. It's easy to hate on Discord's practices but it's worth remembering that they're on top because their project is legitimately good.

Mirioron 7y ago
You struggle with audio settings in discord just like you do in Skype, ventrilo, and teamspeak. Most of the struggles with audio are not with individual programs, but rather your audio hardware, the OS, and its settings. (Windows updates love to screw those up.) When discord released it didn't even have a Ctrl+f function for a long time. It still doesn't have chat logs on the user end, the permissions system is bad and audio quality is mediocre. On top of all of that, because they don't allow self-hosting it means that discord ultimately controls your conversations. It caught on because it went viral. The service they offer is good, but the lack of privacy and no self-hosting make it disappointing.
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  And their stability is questionable. While it's not that bad, I experienced their server crash more than once. Never had server crash on my own hosted ventrillo server, not once in a 5 years.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    I use Discord every day. I would say that there are issues about once a week or few weeks where text messages are delayed by 10-30 seconds. Some of them don't arrive either. Using it for text communication at those times is challenging. I'm unsure what happens to voice chat at those times, but the text part is infuriating.
- rapind 7y ago

moron4hire 7y ago

People have moved through different messaging apps so many times over the years that this in not a secure position for Discord.

b0rsuk 7y ago

We need (a) Linus Torvalds to scratch this itch. We need someone to write a serious open-source alternative, like happened with Linux and git. Only, it's going to be very difficult for software that needs critical mass to succeed, like chat or social networks. I haven't heard of interoperable social networks, instant messengers, or chat systems. Pidgin works as a wrapper around several IM accounts.

csnover 7y ago
It sounds like you would be interested in Matrix. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_(protocol)
LinuxBender 7y ago
This has been done with Mumble, it just needs some refinement. Mumble (the client) and Murmur (the server) [1] [2] can handle many people on a small server. I have run a murmur server for a long time and it is very stable. The voice quality is superior to anything else I have used. The client does need a little bit of refinement to be as happy-clicky easy as Discord. If anyone has not tried version 1.3 [3], give it a go. There are public servers if you want to try the client without hosting your own server. Their code is all on Github and I am sure they could offer suggestions if you were using their libraries in your application. [1] - https://www.mumble.info/ https://www.mumble.info/ [2] - https://github.com/mumble-voip/ https://github.com/mumble-voip/ [3] - https://www.mumble.info/blog/mumble-1.3.0-release-announcement/ https://www.mumble.info/blog/mumble-1.3.0-release-announceme...
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  One thing I'd really like is for Mumble to stop pushing certificate-based authentication so hard. You can make whatever security arguments you want, but it's going to drive away users. And then they'll still be using passwords anyway, on whatever chat service they use instead of Mumble.
freepor 7y ago
Like git, even an open protocol will come to be dominated by one supplier.