Bukkit

DarkTrace (DTService) will monitor mined blocks and maybe later mining patters and similar. The intention is to track cheating better, for instance transparency cheats such as xray.

Currently DarkTrace records what blocks players mine and how dark it is there, with the following features:

• Logs number of blocks mined for certain block types, as well as the max. surrounding light level.
• Checking ratios such as stone versus diamond, gold, iron.
• Simple udgement if a player is "suspicious" and display of those that might be (colourful for better orientation if displayed in chat), based on thresholds for ratios and light levels, also taking into account a minimum number of blocks mined.
• Page-wise browsing through report of suspicious entries, command shortcuts.
• Showing the stats (digest) for a player (also colourful if displayed in chat), also showing average values.
• Showing info about configuration
• Saving and loading from a data file, both on demand and periodically (if changed).
• Removing players from data, erasing all data, keep a log of removed entries.
• Configuration file with almost everything configurable, reloadable at runtime.
• No real time notification, just on demand checking (uppdates following).

...DOCUMENTATION UNDER REVISION...
Some hints on configuration and use: see Documentation
Upcoming additions: see Implementation/Process

Future (partly brainstorming):

• Notifications for players becoming suspicious, block breaks for certain types and similar.
• Automatic data removal for useless entries.
• Tracking mining style and mining phases to get a more precise impression of possible cheating (gets rit of all time stats).

Alternatives/Complementary:

• "Heavy" approaches such as modifying chunks and hiding ores until they really are discovered (Orebfuscator). These approaches can very well be combined with DarkTrace if you want a lighter way of checking for a certan range of users.
• Database/logging based approaches, such as logging ores, plus processing of ratios or similar.
• Notification based approaches, just telling when players find something (FoundDiamonds, WorldGuard+blacklist-use).

Motivation:

• I want a real time approach that also works on servers that do not use databases as infrastructure and do not have extensive resources for that.
• Providing a comparably lightweight solution for bigger servers as well that allows for quick browing through suspicious or whatever entries.
  [For bigger servers maybe plan on the next version with separate player files or even db- support, or clear the data before it becomes too big. ]

About:

• I am not sure how far i will bring this, but the minimum features and further support for those (and small feature-requests) are guaranteed. Actually i will use this on my server, as long as i have one.
• Feel free to suggest changes or features or pose questions or discuss just anything.