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Ensuring safe construct/design trades


SonEasterZombie

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If i'm looking to purchase a gun design, player-made element, static/dynamic construct, etc, what is stopping the person selling it to me from installing a backdoor or override switch in the construct that will allow them to screw with me? If there is nothing, then that could make collaboration between organizations and individuals a lot more risky. I'd love for the economy to develop to the point where you can go to a market and purchase a construct that you can attach to your ship, or even an entire ship, but if each time you purchase a ship you risk having the thing tracked, self destructed, or hacked then no one would ever buy ships from other people.

 

One way I could see this being prevented is if blueprints have a unique name. Lets say someone makes a very good ship, and you want to buy one. When you went to a market you could compare the ships actual layout to the layout of the Uniquely named blueprint. This could even be an automatic feature. There could be a database where you upload blueprints with a unique name, and if a construct that is for sale matches a blueprint in that database, then in an info tab or something it could mention that it matches that blueprint. This would mean that any knockoff that is made with a tracker in it or whatever wouldn't have the certification of being the same as the uniquely named blueprint. Obviously you would not be able to download peoples blueprints off that database, the server would handle the comparisons between constructs and the blueprints.

 

That's pretty much the only way I could think of to ensure that a construct you buy is actually what you paid for. Are there any other ways this could be done?

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4 minutes ago, SonEasterZombie said:

If i'm looking to purchase a gun design, player-made element, static/dynamic construct, etc, what is stopping the person selling it to me from installing a backdoor or override switch in the construct that will allow them to screw with me?

 

 

 

Well, that would be bad for their business, which, if they want to stay in business would be worse for them - so thats what would stop them doing it ;)

 

 

4 minutes ago, SonEasterZombie said:

 

If there is nothing, then that could make collaboration between organizations and individuals a lot more risky. I'd love for the economy to develop to the point where you can go to a market and purchase a construct that you can attach to your ship, or even an entire ship, but if each time you purchase a ship you risk having the thing tracked, self destructed, or hacked then no one would ever buy ships from other people.

 

You may get hacked by an outside source, it may not intrinsically be the products fault. (Well except for the fact that it has a hacking vulnerability).


 

 

4 minutes ago, SonEasterZombie said:

One way I could see this being prevented is if blueprints have a unique name. Lets say someone makes a very good ship, and you want to buy one. When you went to a market you could compare the ships actual layout to the layout of the Uniquely named blueprint. This could even be an automatic feature. There could be a database where you upload blueprints with a unique name, and if a construct that is for sale matches a blueprint in that database, then in an info tab or something it could mention that it matches that blueprint. This would mean that any knockoff that is made with a tracker in it or whatever wouldn't have the certification of being the same as the uniquely named blueprint. Obviously you would not be able to download peoples blueprints off that database, the server would handle the comparisons between constructs and the blueprints.

 

That's pretty much the only way I could think of to ensure that a construct you buy is actually what you paid for. Are there any other ways this could be done?

 

Pretty sure that the maker of the blueprint is shown on the blueprint. So, for example, if you know that CoreVamore makes the "Flabbergaster" battleship then all you have to do is make sure that the "Flabbergaster" blueprint on the market, that you are looking to purchase, is made by CoreVamore, then you know its genuine. Simple, effective, done deal ;)

 

However I do like the idea of having a 3D spinable/walk-through representation of any blueprint just for the sake of giving a client an idea of what that blueprint actually produces. That saves having to actually make a construct to show off the ship (Though thats always fun as a practical demonstration as well) ;)

 

 

 

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What i love the most of this post is the fact you totally forget that the real world works that way and that every electronic part you buy Has That Exact backdoor, Every Apple or Windows or Android Item is fully hackable/useable by the companies previously named. So why would in-game be an issue if someone adds a gps tracker while you don't mind your phone, pc, television, car, watch, fill in the rest, also has it.

 

If you can give the answer to this, That is what is needed to be installed into DU to make it thought to be safe enough for you to buy it.

 

For me, i block everything i can from those companies but still i am experiencing a lot of trackers so i just build my own stuff in DU or make sure friends are building it or i add something to the construct [classified] to make sure its  not tampered. 

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39 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

What i love the most of this post is the fact you totally forget that the real world works that way and that every electronic part you buy Has That Exact backdoor, Every Apple or Windows or Android Item is fully hackable/useable by the companies previously named. So why would in-game be an issue if someone adds a gps tracker while you don't mind your phone, pc, television, car, watch, fill in the rest, also has it.

 

If you can give the answer to this, That is what is needed to be installed into DU to make it thought to be safe enough for you to buy it.

Pretty sure the only thing stopping companies from tracking your every move and/or installing viruses into your stuff is their reputation and potential legal trouble. For me i'm more concerned with making sure something I buy is from a reputable source, ie. a way to trace it back to a real person or manufacturer, and this would be true in game as well. 
 

 

43 minutes ago, Aaron Cain said:

If you can give the answer to this, That is what is needed to be installed into DU to make it thought to be safe enough for you to buy it.

This makes it sound like you think I am worried about NQ hacking my stuff. That's not what i'm talking about, I'm talking about buying a ship blueprint from someone and they claim it's the blueprint for this awesome warship that all the cool kids are using, but in reality it's a modified version of that with a prebuilt backdoor and tracker. This sort of stuff should be possible to do, but it should also be possible to tell if something is really what it seems before you buy it.

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Nah that was not what i was thinking, just exact the first thing you wrote: "Pretty sure the only thing stopping companies from tracking your every move and/or installing viruses into your stuff is their reputation and potential legal trouble"

 

So if you want safe blueprints, this is what will stop the seller for adding back doors etc. You will need a system that will filter them out, by negative reputation, reporting, ear to ear messaging, no matter how. If Sellers know they can only sell one item before they are loosing their respect they will hopefully think twice, but its upto you or other sellers to think of this and how to make it. 

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I had two ideas about this, both of which I think could making purchasing/stealing ships relatively safe while keeping Lua codes secure to their creator:

 

1. Definable "permissions".  Basically an option on a control unit where you tick which permissions you with to allow the unit to have and blocking others.  Think of the Google Play store where when you d/l an app, it tells you which permissions it wants to use.  With the control unit permissions, you'd get a checklist of things you want the core to be able to do, and if that function is blocked, then the Lua code can't perform the action.  Sure, this might render a construct unusable, so you have option 2...

 

2. Ability to clear all Lua from a control unit.  Basically resets everything to default, and allows for editing.  You'd have to 'own' the construct to do this, not simply have permissions to it.  If you buy or steal a construct to gain ownership to it, but don't trust it to have malicious Lua code, then you can just wipe it, making it safe to use, but also protecting the original code.

 

If you want to buy a tricked-out ship with lots of Lua code, you'd better trust the seller...

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  • 2 weeks later...

The solution to this seems to be quite simple. Let's say I build a ship that is totally legit, no trackers or any nasty stuff. I sell it on the market to some other person. Now go back one step and realize that I'm the original designer and creator of this ship. I own the rights to mass produce and distribute this ship and its blueprints. I could enable reselling of this ship by the buyer in it's original state. If the ship has been tampered with the rights of the buyer to resell the ship will be revoked. If I sell a blueprint of the ship to a buyer that can lets say make 5 copies of the ship. The same rules of reselling still apply to the ships produced with this blueprint. Any blueprints made of the ship or the tampered version of the ship will not be sellable on the market unless I allow that. But any profits gained from this will go to my pocket for the percentage of voxels that were originally created by me. But that's another story :) It's basically a patent system.

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