Subject: Player security, and hiding (or the inability to)

From: [email-masked] (Jackie Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:58:37 -0800

I'm wondering if there isn't any way to set a players .location 
property unreadable.  I suppose it looks like a server change is
the only way to do it.

We're also wanting to add the ability to hide on our MOO... i.e.
not show up on who listings, and to anyone but a wizard it'd seem
like you're not connected.  Problems:  connected_players(), 
connected_seconds(), and idle_seconds() are all builtin, requiring
yet another server hack to make it work.

It'd be nice to see a future version support this, or else have a
wiz-settable option as to whether players can really hide or not,
rather than forcing us to go in and change the server itself.  One
of the reasons I like MOO so much is cuz it doesnt usually *need*
server mods.

-j.

---

From: Pavel Curtis <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 18:48:08 -0800

> Date:	Tue, 2 Feb 1993 05:58:37 -0800
> From:	[email-masked] (Jackie Hamilton)
> 

That's right.

> yet another server hack to make it work.

Right again.

> of the reasons I like MOO so much is cuz it doesnt usually *need*

Some future version of the server (not the next one, 1.8.0, but maybe the one
after that) will have most of the built-in functions be wizard-only, so that
you can set up whatever kinds of permissions checking you want on your MOO
without having to hack the server.  In that same version of the server, the
.location and .contents properties and the move() function will cease to exist,
being moved into the database as well.  Again, this allows you to set up
whatever permissions for them you like (and, of course, also whatever
location-tracking data representation you want).

Until then, server hacking is the only way to get what you want.

	Pavel