The Greed Shepherd
by prokofy on 09/04/07 at 8:12 pm
By Prokofy Neva, Corporate Watch
The Electric Sheep Company released for public beta testing a few hours ago a new search engine. The engine doesn’t contain things you’ve tagged, so it’s not like SLOOG or SL 411 or Babbage Linden’s engine or any one of a score of search engines depending on the community to fill it with items they want found which they opted into.
No, instead, an avatar owned and operated by the Sheep called “Grid Shepherd” (groan) has *already* scoured as many of SL’s 7800 sims as it could, collecting data about every single item set to sale in Second Life. Currently, it has 422,020 items to search from — including an expensive item that a Dreamland tenant discovered from my notice which was set to sale for cheap unwittingly; including televisions and pose balls still containing a sale price set out on numerous parcels of my rental lands which my tenants thought were fairly private; and revealing the names and creators of many yardsale objects that will expose their sellers to harassment from the vigilant and vindictive Sellers’ Guild.
The Sheep Search spells the end to privacy and the concept of private property that has profound consequences, even more profound than the hard-to-program and clunky CopyBot, something the Sheep never unambiguously condemned, because they, like other developers, hold the idea that “information wants to be free”. Why *my* information has to be free *for them to exploit* has always been a mystery to me; however, they evidently need to place knowledge and development over social and political concerns. In the mad race for the Soul of the New Machine Called the Metaverse, they need to develop the platform uber alles, regardless of the needs or wants of the people on it — with whom they have not consulted — and they need to be *the first* to get the coolest software out there for their clients — regardless of the impact that it has on the fragile inworld community of SL, which has already been deeply affected by the opening up of the platform to big-business and competitive commercial forces. In the name of serving abstraction of “The People” in providing a better search, they have done a disservice to real human beings who want their privacy intact.
CHECK EVERY ITEM ON YOUR PROPERTY FOR SALE TAGS
If you had a TV out that automatically sets to $10 — anyone may come and steal it now by looking up the names of TV creators or creators of anything and p2ping right to them. That’s great for a store that has properly priced things and wants sales, but the greedy Grid Shepherd scours and scans and scrapes ALL data, not just data from stores and doesn’t discriminate.
If you have ANYTHING set to sale, accidently, or on purpose, anyone can find it, teleport to your land and buy it. That’s why when I type in my business name, I find dozens of properties with private homes showing all kinds of stuff the people don’t *realize* is set for sale — because often, when you take something out of the box it was sold in, or purchase it, the “for sale” function remains. Sometimes, people just have the virtual equivalent of a “Tupperware Party” — it’s quite common actually — and only invite close sets of friends over, and only sell to them, for all kinds of reasons. All of that social activity is now disrupted by this Eye in the Sky.
IT’S ALL ABOUT CAPITALISM — BUT RUN AMOK
That’s why I call this avatar the Greed Shepherd. He’s scouring the land to pick up YOUR private data from YOUR private property. And while the service is to be “free,” what it does is enhance the reputation of the Electric Sheep, drive people to their website, and position them as being “the most innovative” with “the most cutting-edge technology” so they can get even more clients and make even more millions.
That’s what capitalism is all about. I applaud capitalism, the free market, and free development of platforms. In real life, however, we have many democratically-instituted checks and balances on capitalism even in our democratic capitalist societies that keep them from doing harm not only to privacy, but small business and communities. These checks and balances in the wierd virtuality of SL aren’t in place, and the laissez-faire Lindens have usually never even thought of them: they never met a script they didn’t like.
YOU DON’T HAVE SEX ON OR WITH A GOOGLE PAGE
Just as with Mark Barrett’s slstats.com which scraped information about proximate avatars at first against their will, and with Rathe Underthorn, concerns about privacy and data scraping have been met by some tekkies with a big sneer and scornful derision about our privacy concerns. We’re told we’re “on the Internet” and to stuff it. We’re told this ESC invention is like Google or Yahoo and we need to “get over it” if we think we have any shred of privacy left.
But wait just a minute here. Google and Yahoo scrape information out of 2-D webpages, and scrape pictures and text only. They don’t take the contents of your refrigerator, nightstand, and desk, and dump them out on the Internet for everyone to paw and even buy merely because they have price tags left on them. Second Life is a streaming world with people in it, in their totality, immersed. Google has the artifacts of people — their text and pictures. BIG difference in the way in which scraping will be apprehended, and developers simply need to understand that.
People don’t have sex inside Google. They don’t have lives and work and relationships on Google. Google scrapes data from public 2-d webpages — text and pictures — and makes them searchable against your will, too — but you understand in a set of social circumstances and unwritten and written convention that you make anything put on a website anywhere searchable unless locked or password-protected. But in Second Life, you have the emulation of privacy when you buy PRIVATE PROPERTY which you can set on ban, or prevent people from entering — and you have a set of expectations about it. Grid Shepherd’s all-seeing, greedy eye, however, can scrap your land even if you banned him, in fact, because no doubt he can function on a radius of 96m2. Just as anyone can buy something off land from which they are banned from using camera zoom, there’s no real protection from Grid Shepherd.
WHY GREED? MERCHANDISING GONE MAD
It’s like merchandising gone mad, the ultimate “interaction with the brand” that is bringing us toxic immersion in corporate greed. Everything is for sale. Every aspect of ourselves. Virtual worlds appear to have been *made for* scraping our sales data, making everything we have and are, about buying and selling. How prescient humdog was with her “Pandora’s Vox” in 1994 reprinted in the Herald.
Why do I call this “greed,” if it’s a free service, you ask? Because it’s greed to be the first with the SEARCH. Whoever wins the SEARCH wins not only SL, but virtual worlds — period. Because the dirty little secret about them, as I explained, isn’t just what There’s Michael Wilson said about them — that there’s nothing going on inside them. It’s that you can’t FIND the stuff you need or the people you need to having something go on WITH. You can find it well enough, actually in Second Life with the existing search functions, combined with traffic ratings, but it takes some learning. It’s a social context. And things like Grid Shepherd, while ostensibly making the social media MORE social, in fact invades privacy and crosses the line. The line that people set everywhere, in RL and SL is: opt-in.
GET OFFA MA LAWN!
This isn’t opt-in. The page offering opt-in is put up AFTER your data was scraped. And it’s ineffective, as Grid can be banned but can still scrape in a radius. You can opt out your stuff, as a creator or owner, but you can’t get him OFF YOUR LAWN.
Get offa ma lawn, Grid Shepherd!
From scraping items for sale, ESC and its ambitious developers will easily skip on to *any* item and any parcel of land. That means all your private data that you believe is private because it’s in your home, your workshop, you land is now public. Anything rezzed is now freely vulnerable pray to giant scouring machines that grab it all and make use of it, first and foremost not for the public good, but to enhance their reputation merely as the makers of such an engine, and to drive shoppers, visitors, business to their site and their brand.
THE DREADED GOOGLE EFFECT AMPLIFIED IN A VW
Google is also notorious for rewarding bad behaviour. There’s no telling what might end up in Google because it’s whatever is clicked on the most — engendering more mindless and stupid clicking. There’s no judgement, even by the crowd. That’s why Babbage’s tool, that enabled you to CHOSE what you wanted to be found AND rate it, is so much better as a search concept. It means human judgement, not mindless artificial intelligence and arrogant coders’ coding rules. It means a world that grows with folksonomy, not the taxsonomy of unfeeling coders. It has its drawbacks too, because the mob can game it and flash it and artificially pump and dump. But it is the more preferable option.
Many arrogant types are already arguing on various lists that the Sheep search is a good thing for stores — so those of us with concerns about privacy should shut up. But…some stores are still in the process of selling to smaller audiences, not the whole Internet. A person trying to price an object, new to the market, can’t test it with his targeted ads — now the Machine can just come and buy it. Many, many objects will be stolen now in the coming weeks as people who put things out on $0 accidently, or intentionally only for a close-by friend or neighbour, find it disappear to unscrupulous teleporters.
NO PUBLIC NOTICE; NO OPT-OUT FROM THE SCRAPE
Only after the fact, by word of mouth, do we learn that this search was created by Grid Shepherd physically coming and scanning our parcels. We didn’t get advance notice to ban him if we didn’t wish to be scraped; only now do we find out, when the damage is done.
An opt-out gives us only the option to have objects we’ve created taken out; it doesn’t give us the option to have *our land* taken out of the scraper’s view. That’s what we need. The ability to make ourselves immune from scraping, given the overreach or the scrapers.
I feel the only right thing to do with this monster is to close it, dump its data, and start over by announcing that all those who wish to opt in can permit Grid Shepherd to come on their land – by not banning him. Proper public notice should be given to the community of Second Life that all objects on all parcels set to sale by accident or design are now going into a giant data base. That gives people time to adjust their behaviour and figure out what among their private items they want publicized now.
I think questions need to be raised with the ESC and with the Lindens about how one avatar is able to scrape the whole of SL –as this will grow to be more of a problem not less, with the ability of the Sheep and other developers to use LSL and their own technology to make bots that scrape information on anything under the artificial Linden sun.
WHAT’S THE LSL COMMAND? HOW CAN THE AVATAR SCRAPE?
What is the LSL command that is being used? I’m told by Forseti Svarog that no special LSL command was used. But surely there is some special command, designed by Sheep and enabled or at least tacitly tolerated by LL that enables the bot-run avatar Grid Shepherd to race all over SL automatically scraping data from parcels about what is for sale and feeding it to a web-page data-base.
The function is likely now proprietary and copyrighted or secret — but is that appropriate, to give one company the right to scrape all the information off the grid?!
WHY IS SEARCH PRIVATIZED BY MR. LEE’S HONG KONG?
There are also profound political questions that everyone on the grid should be encouraged to discuss and participate in. Why does one company feted for years by Linden Lab get to change the nature of the world so profoundly without our consent? Is this the Snowcrash concept of the franchulate, Mr. Lee’s Hong Kong?
That has *always* been my concern about LL and its sherpa friends, who began as the Feted Inner Core. I’ve always proclaimed: “Nothing about us/without us”. We don’t have any avenues to be involved in the decisions made by a private company. Many would claim we shouldn’t have any such avenues. Yet…those private companies have PROFOUND and sometimes DRAMATIC effects on our lives in virtual worlds — and now in the real world increasingly merging with the reality of virtuality. It’s no different than the issue of transnational corporations across frontiers in real life.
SEARCH: A PUBLIC GOOD, BUT IN PRIVATE HANDS
I believe that SEARCH is a public good. It’s like a public utility in RL — like water, or electricity. It should not be come the provenance of any one company, any one developer or commercial interest. It must continue to remain in the hands of the “federal government,” LL, at least until they open source all their features. Any one company grabbing search grabs eyeballs, traffic to their website — and does it without our consent. I’m known for saying we will all become roadkill on the way to these developers’ developing the platform and software for their use, which involves its sale and sale of their services. I fail to see why all the information I have available on a sim I purchased suddenly can be grabbed away from me and used by another business.
Currently, the Lindens’ search through their client costs $30 to opt-in or $50 to go in classifieds. Nothing the Lindens have made can scrape *for public consumption* although their own servers scrape data and publish it in aggregate on their statistics page. Third-party developers cannot be relied upon to observe such proprieties.
When any one company can do the same thing — scrape avatars’ data not only for public consumption but for private benefit — they have an unfair advantage.
The community responded to Mark Barrett’s sldata.com and Rathe Underthorn’s land business unequivocally: they signalled loud and clear that any scrapers MUST have opt-in — not as an afterthought, not as an add-on AFTER you’ve scraped, but from the beginning.
Yes, it means for greedy developers that they don’t get to populate their data base as fully as they like. Let them think of their long-term relationship with the human beings they’ve exploited in this fashion — they are their future customers, and already the current customers in RL of their clients in Second Life.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
Forgive the tongue in cheek of the previous comment. I’m ready to make a serious one now, and it’s totally Prokofy worthy: it’s quite winded.
I have spent time catching up on this entire report and I feel well prepared to make a fairly decent reply.
While this is GOOD FOR STORES – it is not yet good for the residents. The best way I could see for the search to be integrated properly is for there to be a zoning – commercial property vs. private property, and the sheep search would only crawl the commercial property. I did notice that when I searched my name it was all too easy to find my own private home in-world just because a few objects still had the “buy” option enabled.
Those that do not want Grid Shepherd on their land have the possibility of banning him. That is one solution at the user’s discretion. Another possibility would be for people to sort through the objects they own on their land and take the “buy” option off.
I don’t think you should call the Sheep greedy on this one. There is no such thing as being greedy in business, and you should know that, Prokofy. It’s first come first serve, whoever has the best gets the best. The Sheep have the best, and their search only needs a bit of tweaking to disallow private property.
“He has absolutely no interest in the concerns of people who are immersed in SL and make it a world. It’s not a world or place or society to him, but merely a project to work on for his company.”? I’m sorry, did you ask him to validate that?
By the way, beginning comments with “Um, Nacon…” or “Um, Artemis…” is not only a horrible attempt at being patronizing, it’s also SO 11th grade.
Prokofy, I think it’s time to lay off. You obviously lack some pertinant information and all I see here is your poor attempts at being a catalyst to induce fear in the public of yet another “corporate giant”. You’re the kind of media I don’t like. Someone tries to do something good and you attempt to rip it to shreds in the face of “privacy”.
Tell me, Prok, are you planning on gathering social security in your age? Or are you too afraid of the government “griefing” you and finding out where you live simply to send you a check?
Scott McMillin
Apr 10th, 2007
“Web Page: Data.
Second Life (All of it): Data.”
@Reality:
Your Avatar Name: Data
Your Real Life Name: Data
Your ATM PIN Number: Data
Your Social Security Number: Data
A list of everything you’ve purchased this year: Data
I notice, you’re not using your real name for your post. And is that your email address? Why is that? If it’s all just data why are you hiding behind a nickname?
If anyone wants to have a real discussion about identity and privacy on the Web and in Second Life, let’s do it. We can do a podcast, in real life, with real names.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
Hey, I volunteer, Scott. We can get down to the nitty gritty.
Reality
Apr 10th, 2007
Nice try Scott.
You want any of my real life information? You’ll have to use barely legal methods – perhaps some illegal ones – to track it all down.
I notice you do not have a ounce of common sense – Why are you using your real name, if that is your real name?
Gando Thurston
Apr 10th, 2007
Many people like Second Life because it allows a certain level of privacy and anonymity. This search scraper just takes away one more bit of SL privacy.
What is next? A list of all the shit I own? Gee! That would be handy so people could find their lost sex-beds!
I can’t wait to hear from the first person who is griefed by this tool when someone places an object for L$0, with the name of a very popular object, under their bed.
Scott McMillin
Apr 10th, 2007
@Tenshi:
Sounds good; I think Identity & Privacy in SL is would be a great topic to discuss. We could probably rope some other people with differing viewpoints in as well.
@Reality:
I take it then that you agree that some data is fit for public consumption and other data should remain private?
In your brief comment you said that there is no difference between Web data and SL Data, but didn’t actually explain why. Please read my original comment in which I explained why I thought there was a difference (the perception of public vs private data, etc).
And instead of doing the typical anonymous blog comment where one disparages another commenter instead of building the discussion or refuting an argument, why don’t you explain yourself. I’m certainly open to being refuted. And please elucidate as to why I “do not have a ounce of common sense.”
Reality
Apr 10th, 2007
Simple Scott – common sense dictates that when posting comments to a web log, one does not needlessly give away information that a person with no grasp on reality could use to track them down.
Common sense should also have told you that my comment had nothing to do with private, real life data and that as far as second Life is concerned, the only private data that exists is data that only Linden Lab can access.
This topic has nothing at all to do with that sort of data – none.
As to my earlier comment: Just like Web Data – in which only your provider, the government, and web hosting service, if any, have access to your account information – Second Life is the exact same. The only data that is private is the Data that only Linden Lab is allowed to access.
The notion that data of the sort discussed and brought up by this laughable excuse for a blog entry is tied to a real, living person by any means other than a bank account is absurd ….
Oh, and on the topic of common sense, yet again, it should be apparent that some people do not wish to sort through e-mails, IMs and the like that contain far less than polite words regarding a topic. when commenting on things such as second Life – such spam is in the majority of responses.
That is all for now – I may respond later with more …. if need be.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 10th, 2007
No, Dusk isn’t trolling – this is a genuine question. SL is not immersive VR. Land isn’t a page, but it isn’t real-world land either. It has more in common with a MySpace page – both are bits, intellectual property not physical property. And ownership of property has nothing to do with the depth of relationships in the virtual – any verteran of MOOs and MUDs could tell you that.
Ian, you seem oblivious to the fact that there are simply two schools of thought on this, immersionists and augmentationists. We’ve all been over this. You will not convince people who treat SL as a world to dumb it down and degrade it to become a mere MySpace page. My God, my kids understand the difference between MySpace and Second Life, even if you wish to word-salad it to death. Those who are trying to deconstruct somebody’s world experience out of SL are just arrogant and cruel, trying to diminish and ridicule them so that they can maintain their power center. There are people who think of what they buy in SL stores as their goods which they have the rights to. There are those who say they are mere software products completely controlled by their maker. This is a real debate, and you don’t win it by merely insisting over and over that you are right, with a sneer. You aren’t.
Virtual worlds aren’t MUDS. And you don’t get to strip away all the “software products” of land ownership, homes, objects and say “they don’t count, the tekkies pwn them, and the mere mortals get only the relationships”. Because the only way you get people to participate in the game-gods’ world is if they have the emulation of private property. They’re not there merely for a Hallmark moment. They’re there to have private property and privacy. If you can’t respect that, you will not have a world.
I’m not going to assign more meaning to There, Second Life, or World of Warcraft, and that wasn’t the point. The point is to say that a virtual world, like There, WoW or SL, is more important and more immersive and interactive for people than a webpage. Treating worlds cynically and reductively like webpages will not keep customers. That attitude shines through in spades. In fact, it’s one of the key reasons that Second Life membership in terms of real numbers isn’t higher.
Tenshi, the government doesn’t scan the contents of my refrigerator, nightstand, and desk in order to send me a social security check or a tax refund. It’s opt-in. Of course, it’s an opt-in that you have to make when you get a job — giving your social security number. But the government doesn’t go up your ass to get it — at least not yet, because these tekkies haven’t had their way yet.
I’m quite confident that Christian is not an immersive worlder. None of the Sheep are. In fact, it’s one of the reasons they can be so casual and cavalier about the world of Second Life and the communities in it. And of course it’s greed, to want to be first. People should have had a public notification of this bot’s cruising all over SL, such as to ban it, and had time to turn off their objects for sale. They as a community should participate in something that so severely affects their privacy. It’s not up to one company to deconstruct and demolish it and grab it for their own commercial benefit.
These issues are important, and not made trivial merely becaue they occur in a virtual world. Companies are always going to be ruthlessly and cynically deconstructing and demolishing. They need to be curbed and pushed back, and taught self-interest — deconstructing and demolishing their very customers means they won’t have any in the future.
>My opinion? I think this is a great tool and I want to congrat The Electric Sheep with this search tool that was way overdue as there isn’t any good search tool for Second Life at the moment. Search should be up to LL? Wrong! LL job is to provide us with API’s so other can do all the work. A tool for scamming people? If people are “dumb” enough to leave objects up for sale while they didn’t want to loose them, then this is really their problem. Sorry but you can’t blame The Electric Sheep for things that others do wrong.
I take utter exception with every bit of this. LL is all we have as a “federal government,” as weak and ridiculous as it is, to protect us from the depradations of voracious corporations. It’s the last bastion of our privacy. We don’t sign up for the SL service and buy the SL private island being told “you are the plaything of corporations who will be scraping your data for their own competitive and commercial marketing purposes”. LL has to develop a policy on this — and fast!
The scornful idea that SL exists merely to be harvested by cynical tekkies for their own benefit and the rest of us are mere load-testing cannon fire has to be repudiated completely. People have to start now to bring the technical class to heel as it is creating technology that is controlling humans (i.e. making one tiny set of humans have control over others), not technologies that all humans can reliably control and have oversight over. I don’t wish to cede my life to these people, as their cynicism and scorn and malice lets me know they are unreliable and not acting in the benefit of the real public interest.
People who put something on their land for sale, accidently or on purpose, aren’t “dumb”. They aren’t *informed* of a data scraper in their midst. It’s the data scraper that is dumb, invading private property and scraping.
BTW, read Christian’s blog. For those of you who think this wasn’t tied to Easter. He entitles the blog “Happy Easter” and the meme is like searching for Easter eggs.
Cocoanut Koala
Apr 10th, 2007
1. “I’m not trying to bust your chops here, but what makes 512m, 1028m, half a sim, an island, any different than say a myspace page, a world of warcraft account, a flickr account, an IRC server, or a private domain?”
There is a great deal of difference. If I have a web page, I can’t meet my friend there, in physical form, and chat or dance or build together, with the ability to see whoever else is there, or approaching, in physical form, at the same time. MySpace si a web page.
I would argue you are taking something that is already one way (requiring physical presence in order to view the items and people present, or take part in the conversation) and trying to make it another way – such that all things on the space are immediately available to everyone else, thousands at a time, as would be the case with a web page.
Once that is done, there will be no point to having a physical space that is interacted within in a way analogous to real world physics.
You will then have a space which is at all times visible in all ways to anyone, and who needs that? We already have that. We already have MySpace and all the other web sites, which are nothing but pages anyone can access completely at any time.
It is going backwards to try to make SL into that.
2. “I mentioned the situation surrounding SOE Character Profiles as an extremely similar example in a game where people have avatar-to-avatar interaction. No ripple went through that community because of a data-scrape.”
I ask you: Was all of a sudden all this published without anyone knowing about it? And people had to find out piecemeal, by reading some personal blog somewhere, then going to another blog and arguing it, or hearing it from a friend, etc. etc.?
Or was it instituted openly, with everyone knowing at the same time exactly what to do to opt out? Or was it made such that people got a chance to NOT mark the box, rather than having it secretly marked for them?
And who did it? Did the game gods do it, in an open manner, equally to everyone? Or did a few residents do it, secretly, behind the scenes? Essentially TAKE it, and publish it, without a by your leave from anyone?
And who gets the information? The game gods, or a few other residents? And what other information do these few other residents have that they are compiling? Who are they going to give/sell the information to?
We signed on with the people who own the game, not the other residents. If SOE decides to change the rules, that’s one thing. If a group of other residents decides to, that’s different.
3. “There is no difference between “3D” land and a webpage besides you assign to it.”
That’s like insisting that there is no difference between a book and a television program, or a television program and a concert.
4. “it is creating technology that is controlling humans (i.e. making one tiny set of humans have control over others), not technologies that all humans can reliably control and have oversight over.”
That – in a nutshell – is why people objecting to things like this in no way implies they are anti-technology. Of course people can legitimately argue over the uses of technology and its control without being accused of being technophobes. Or should be able to, anyway.
5. Where is Christian’s blog?
coco
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
“Tenshi, the government doesn’t scan the contents of my refrigerator, nightstand, and desk in order to send me a social security check or a tax refund. It’s opt-in. Of course, it’s an opt-in that you have to make when you get a job — giving your social security number. But the government doesn’t go up your ass to get it — at least not yet, because these tekkies haven’t had their way yet.”
Oh. So it’s okay IF IT BENEFITS YOU, right? Block the fucking avatar and take a chill pill.
Yo Brewster
Apr 10th, 2007
“LL is all we have as a ‘federal government,’ as weak and ridiculous as it is, to protect us from the depradations of voracious corporations. It’s the last bastion of our privacy.”
Privacy? Why would this search tool invade privacy? All this search tool does is display information that is already available to the public in world. True, you can rapidibly do a search BUT the point is that this data is and always has been available to the public. All The Electric Sheep did was made it more accessible to people.
Ian Betteridge
Apr 10th, 2007
Prokofy says:
“Ian, you seem oblivious to the fact that there are simply two schools of thought on this, immersionists and augmentationists.”
I’m not at all oblivious to it, it’s simply not relevant to the matter at hand. People were (and in some cases, still are) just as immersionist over MUDs and MOOs.
“Those who are trying to deconstruct somebody’s world experience out of SL are just arrogant and cruel, trying to diminish and ridicule them so that they can maintain their power center.”
No one is “deconstructing somebody’s world experience”: they’re saying that your claims about the world are wrong. If someone’s view of the world – virtual or otherwise – doesn’t match reality and they persistently deny the facts, they’re simply delusional.
“Virtual worlds aren’t MUDS.”
Which shows you know nothing about MUDs.
“Because the only way you get people to participate in the game-gods’ world is if they have the emulation of private property.”
And emulation is not reality. Your point is?
“The point is to say that a virtual world, like There, WoW or SL, is more important and more immersive and interactive for people than a webpage.”
But the fact that it is *more* immersive and *more* interactive does not make it intrinsically qualitatively different, anymore than putting video on a web page makes it a television. And you saying “it just is” repeatedly – which is the sum contribution of your posts so far – isn’t going to help forward the debate on this.
Ian Betteridge
Apr 10th, 2007
Prokofy says: “There is a great deal of difference. If I have a web page, I can’t meet my friend there, in physical form, and chat or dance or build together, with the ability to see whoever else is there, or approaching, in physical form, at the same time.”
I hate to break this to you, but you can’t meet anyone “in physical form” in SL either. Those things on the screen are pixels, not a physical form.
I know that this is something that you’ve railed against again and again, but SL isn’t the real world, any more than a web page is. That doesn’t mean it’s not *part of the real world*, but it’s only real in the same was as this blog is. It’s intellectual property.
Panda
Apr 10th, 2007
“I hate to break this to you, but you can’t meet anyone “in physical form” in SL either.”
Ian, don’t be daft. SL tries very hard to emulate meeting in physical form (immersion, if you will), a webpage does not. If you want to be obtuse and say web pages try to emulate it to, then yes, fine, but there’s a HUGE of difference between the two.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 10th, 2007
Yes, Ian, don’t be daft, I totally agree.
>I’m not at all oblivious to it, it’s simply not relevant to the matter at hand. People were (and in some cases, still are) just as immersionist over MUDs and MOOs.
I realize that. They obtained immersion in their imagination with the use of mere text; virtual worlds provide more props for people who have less imagination in some respects, so it’s more like a movie or TV. That doesn’t mean we have to constantly genuflect and worship MUD history. It’s merely an earlier form of the story. We don’t scream at people in MUDS constantly that they can’t express an opinion about their sacred MUDS unless they first study the history of the novel or the legend or Greek myth. MUDs broken with all those things in important ways because of live interactivity, even though of course they draw on them. Ditto for Virtual Worlds, they draw on MUDS, ok, so what? Next? They’re different.
>No one is “deconstructing somebody’s world experience”: they’re saying that your claims about the world are wrong. If someone’s view of the world – virtual or otherwise – doesn’t match reality and they persistently deny the facts, they’re simply delusional.
No one is delusional merely because they wish to partake of the age-old human invention of story-telling not by novels, or televisions, or newspapers, but by virtual worlds. You don’t tell people that are wrapped up in a mystery novel, or deep into the newspaper as they sit on the subway that they are “delusional”. And you don’t kick the book or the paper out of their hands and invade their privacy.
>Which shows you know nothing about MUDs.
Um, MUDS don’t have pictures. VWs have streaming video. Next?
>And emulation is not reality. Your point is?
Much of what passes for reality in human affairs is actually rather virtual and untethered. Much of your commentary, for example. When you have a business, a family, a scholarly project — something — to tether you, you’ll be able to be less obsessive and snarky on forums.
>But the fact that it is *more* immersive and *more* interactive does not make it intrinsically qualitatively different, anymore than putting video on a web page makes it a television. And you saying “it just is” repeatedly – which is the sum contribution of your posts so far – isn’t going to help forward the debate on this.
There are many metrics that will trump absolutely everything you say in a vain effort to try to deconstruct virtual worlds because you are a has-been Web 1.0 guru who didn’t retrain yet:
o hours spent online in them
o money spent on them
o numbers of subscriptions
o salaries of developers
o growing interest of advertisers and marketers in them
o growing sophistication and diversity of them
o serious games movement
>Prokofy says: “There is a great deal of difference. If I have a web page, I can’t meet my friend there, in physical form, and chat or dance or build together, with the ability to see whoever else is there, or approaching, in physical form, at the same time.”
>I hate to break this to you, but you can’t meet anyone “in physical form” in SL either. Those things on the screen are pixels, not a physical form.
They are synthetic placebos for the real thing that work, like an artificial leg, that gets you to walk.
Just because it is not carbon-based, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
>I know that this is something that you’ve railed against again and again, but SL isn’t the real world, any more than a web page is. That doesn’t mean it’s not *part of the real world*, but it’s only real in the same was as this blog is. It’s intellectual property
The days when programmers can go on crowing that what they make belongs to them alone are over. This is especially true of virtual worlds. By partaking, buying, interacting, using the product, the user becomes co-creator. The sooner that programmers understand that, the better they will do in business.
Scott McMillin
Apr 10th, 2007
Reality said: “Common sense should also have told you that my comment had nothing to do with private, real life data and that as far as second Life is concerned, the only private data that exists is data that only Linden Lab can access.”
@Reality:
If you are honestly telling me that there is absolutely no data of any kind in Second Life besides info only LL can access (credit card & account info) that *some people* feel needs to be kept private, you’re either a complete newb to Second Life or just trolling.
In fact:
“Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident –including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident’s privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.” from: http://secondlife.com/corporate/cs.php
The goings-on in Second Life impact real commerce and real relationships. Contractual agreements exist between users. Plenty of, what some would consider, unusual sexual behavior is ‘practiced.’ Developers rely on proprietary code and passwords to connect to external services. I could spell out the myriad ways certain private information could ruin marriages, ruin reputations, and ruin businesses.
And my point about your using a pseudonym to post anonymously apparently needs spelling out. Since the only thing we know about you is a nickname, which is meaningless, your privacy on the site is almost perfectly secured. Sure, SL Herald might have your IP address — even then you could be using Tor to spoof that. So you are allowed to post here with impunity and anonymity. Why then can you not afford the same rights to user in Second Life?
Of course, if we can’t agree that there’s information, apart from the account info LL only has access to, that people want kept private, we will go around and around in circles. And of course the wall between SL and RL is not impenetrable. We’re talking about human nature.
Also let’s keep in mind in this discussion that we’re talking about the community, a wildly diverse mix of people. Not just you, not just me. Just because you’ve got nothing that needs keeping private in SL, doesn’t mean other people don’t.
–
Side note: there may come a day (sooner, possibly, see Kathy Sierra fallout and both O’Reilly’s and Jimmy Wales Code of Conduct proposals) when posting anonymously to a blog or any sort of Web service may become a thing of the past. I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. When is privacy important?
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
Prok, I had the privilege of reading the log from last night’s meeting, and you come across as a juvenile delinquent with far too much ego to be contained in one person.
From teleporting into the meeting and saying, “You should be slapped, Cory. Seriously. You are so arrogant.” (Hello, pot? This is kettle, and I just wanted to notify you that you’re STILL BLACK.)
To attempting to take a meeting of professionals down to your level by the amount of cussing you were doing (“Get the fuck off our land, Cory”) and all the self-centered, egotistical demands and comments you were making (“I want you to close the database, dump it and get the fuck off my property NOW as in THIS MINUTE”)…
And then there’s when you suddenly realized that no one wanted to reply to you and help you induce the fight you were trying to pick: “Cory must have me on mute because she isn’t responding to a single thing I’m saying”. No, of course Cory couldn’t be classy enough to IGNORE YOU simply because you’re a babbling imbecile… which of course, was the case. She hasn’t muted you. You just weren’t worth replying to.
Prok, come back when YOU have grown up please. You’re 50 years old and demanding like a child. Get over it.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 10th, 2007
Prok, I had the privilege of reading the log from last night’s meeting, and you come across as a juvenile delinquent with far too much ego to be contained in one person.
I’m happy to be as obnoxious and in-your-face as I possibly can to the evangelist for an intrusive, aggressive, *bot* that has invaded my privacy.
They’ve been rude, intrusive, aggressive, and assholey to me FIRST, so they’ll learn what it’s like to get it RIGHT back in their faces.
And Cory Edo has a long history of trolling on my blog, and bragging on Second Citizen of her exploits, and also being the first one to test CopyBot in that gang and brag about it. So Cory Edo is someone who can only understand forceful commentary, in my experience.
Groups of professionals are welcome to waltz around and be misled by the wily Sheep all they want. They will get nowhere. They are aggressive, inconsiderate, ambitious, driven, and zealous people. Only answering them in kind works.
>From teleporting into the meeting and saying, “You should be slapped, Cory. Seriously. You are so arrogant.” (Hello, pot? This is kettle, and I just wanted to notify you that you’re STILL BLACK.)
It matters not to me that I’m black or a kettle or whatever, because I’m not the one who just unleased an artificially-intelligent bot to scrape all the data off people’s private property in Second Life, now, am I? So when I come to speak to someone who has committed that heinous act, with all the temerity, arrogance, and cynicism so customary to the Sheep in these endeavours, they are going to get the full monte from me. Don’t scrape my personal data without my consent, then I’ll speak to you as a human being. Scrape it, and I will tell you that you need to be slapped right back, just like you just slapped me.
>To attempting to take a meeting of professionals down to your level by the amount of cussing you were doing (“Get the fuck off our land, Cory”) and all the self-centered, egotistical demands and comments you were making (“I want you to close the database, dump it and get the fuck off my property NOW as in THIS MINUTE”)…
That’s the only kind of statement you can make to aggressive assholes who just got done scrapping your entire properties and everybody else’s for their own commercial and political gain. Sorry, but there isn’t any sort of “dialogue” you have with arrogant and aggressive fucks like that, you need to respond in kind. Like begets like. They treat me as a thing to be exploited. I tell them to get the fuck off my property.
>And then there’s when you suddenly realized that no one wanted to reply to you and help you induce the fight you were trying to pick: “Cory must have me on mute because she isn’t responding to a single thing I’m saying”. No, of course Cory couldn’t be classy enough to IGNORE YOU simply because you’re a babbling imbecile… which of course, was the case. She hasn’t muted you. You just weren’t worth replying to.
No, she’s had me on mute before. She has a long history of goading me and behaving like a twit, she’s terribly annoying. You’re just tuning in now. I honestly don’t care WHAT you think of this kind of coarse expression, I chose it deliberately as befitting the occasion where an aggressive bot has just dumped all my private information into a public data base.
People who do that can only understand force.
>Prok, come back when YOU have grown up please. You’re 50 years old and demanding like a child. Get over it.
Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
Prokofy, YOU are the troll here. And I don’t need to teach you to suck eggs; if it benefits you, you apparently already know how. This subject doesn’t benefit you, however, so you are more than happy to troll the ESC and attempt to deface people associated with them. This still doesn’t clear up that you popped straight into a professional (READ THAT WORD PROKOFY) meeting and started cussing in a poor attempt to get your way.
YOU are the twit in this case, and YOU are terribly annoying. This isn’t a matter of “force”. That wasn’t “force” you were applying at the meeting. Force can be done in a much more legible and tolerant manner without resorting to cussing at someone.
Jorus Xi
Apr 10th, 2007
Why do you let a luddite write articles about technology? It is like having a chimpanzee come in and cover an article about what life as a cat is like.
Cory Edo
Apr 10th, 2007
I’d just like to state that I’ve never had Prok on mute. In fact I’ve never muted anyone in Second Life. It would be terribly rude of me to stoop to your level, which was essentially trying to pick a fight, while I was in a discussion (a very civil and productive one, I might add) while on someone else’s property as a guest. Which you also were, which is a secondary reason not to engage in whatever vulgar insults you chose to throw at me.
You’re far easier to ignore than I think you realize Prokofy. Goading someone into noticing you using insults and threatening language is a pretty common griefer tactic, and in the end, its really not that hard to gloss over in favor of dissenting opinions that are discussed with civility, intelligence, and tactfulness, as the other members of the discussion group contributed. I learned a lot from the other members of the discussion last night, whereas your contributions basically amounted to trying childishly to get a rise out of me in between setting up signs and announcing who you had contacted, what emails you had sent, and what blog posts you had just put up. The conversation continued without you, and rather productively I think.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 10th, 2007
There’s nothing civil or productive about scraping my data, Cory Edo. Nothing whatsoever. Sorry, but you cannot prettify that. I didn’t opt-in. Opting out isn’t enough to undo the damage of all the information you grab for your commecial benefit. Get off my lawn. It’s that simple.
I don’t care if people put me on mute or ignore me or pontificate about how using insults isn’t effective. It’s what I do. If someone has a better way, by all means use it. If someone finds something more effective, hey, it’s all yours. Work it.
But nobody *is* challenging these people. So you really have to jump up and down and really get in their face. Sit on the sidelines and walk the tennis ball if you like — or get involved before you find it affects you more than you’re comfortable with, too.
I think it’s important to reply to people who have unconscionably scraped your private land with the following information:
o an announcement that they deserve a slap in the face — a virtual one of course, a la the Sims, where that was easy to do.
o a boycott ESC ad put in the Special Attractions sections of the classifieds
o a copy of a letter to Reuters correspondents who had asked to interview me — I’m not going to be cooperating with them until they use their influence on their hired hand, the Sheep, to make their search opt-in.
o a rez of a box giving information to people on how to opt-out, protest directly to ESC, and protest to ESC’s clients to make the point register
o blog about it, Twitter about it, etc.
o hold meetings inworld about it
And so on. All the normal types of actions that people engaged in peaceful protest engage in. If they say “fuck you” while doing it, well, “fuck you” is what you said to them by scraping their land with a bot *shrugs*.
I don’t care if I don’t get any hearing, or following, or attention. That’s fine. It’s just something that has to be done because it’s the right thing to do. At least history can record that when they came for everybody’s private information, at least one avatar stood up and tried to get in the way of the tank.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 10th, 2007
I’m absolutely impressed at the amount of trouble you’re willing to go to, Prok. Everyone, IF YOU PLAN ON FOLLOWING PROK’S ADVICE please paste your URL or tell us what you did so that we can at least have the satisfaction of knowing you took the advice from none other than Prokofy Neva.
Artemis Fate
Apr 10th, 2007
“I don’t care if I don’t get any hearing, or following, or attention. That’s fine. It’s just something that has to be done because it’s the right thing to do. At least history can record that when they came for everybody’s private information, at least one avatar stood up and tried to get in the way of the tank.”
Ah Prokofy, you don’t hold back at all do you? Comparing yourself to the Tiananmen square incident? Surely you can’t believe that, that would be totally insane to- oh right, right, forgot. You are insane. This is nothing like Tiananmen square. This is more like one crazy lady standing in front of an 18 wheeler trying to get to it’s destination, because she concieved that it was stealing her information somehow.
Again. This information never was and never will be private. If you put something up for sale, it’s for sale for public, you don’t privately sell something to no one but yourself.
So, I imagine you’ll be boycotting google, yahoo, altavista, askjeeves, and whatever webpage search engine next right? I mean, it’d be hypocritical not too, after all, they’re doing the SAME EXACT thing, searching the net for public data without the permission of the webpage owner (besides the initial give in information of “when you put this up in the net, it won’t be private”), I mean, there’s no difference. I can put in Prokofy Neva in a search engine and get all kinds of stuff that you didn’t opt in for, oh noes!
Face it Prokofy, the only reason you even CARE about this here, is because ESC did it, and you think it’d be a good way to give them a shot in the mouth, because you hate them for whatever conspiracy-theory/jealous derived reason.
secondlifetribune
Apr 10th, 2007
ESC: Searching theMetaverse
The Electric Sheep Company released a new beta search engine over easter weekend, accessible to anyone in the metaverse and beyond. It allows you to search publicly accessible sims for particular items for sale. The search is supplied by an in-world av…
Cocoanut Koala
Apr 10th, 2007
I will tell you what else isn’t private. Anything you ever say in SL. Someone can be nearby listening, or listening through a spy device.
It is folly to think that anything you say in SL is in the slightest bit private.
Therefore – it is okay for someone to log it and post it without your knowledge?
Here’s another thing that isn’t private: What you are wearing under your SL clothes. There is something now that can see through them.
Therefore – it is okay for people to take pictures of you without your SL clothes and post them without your knowledge?
Here’s something else that isn’t private in SL: The entire contents of your SL house. Anyone can go around and cam in anywhere and make lists of who has what sex toys.
Therefore – it is okay for people to publish these lists on a website without your permission?
Here’s another thing that isn’t private: Who you associate with and when. There was a device not long ago which compiled who you spent your time with, called a “friendship” something or other, I believe.
Therefore it’s okay to track people with this device and publish their day-to-day schedules and activities, and who they spend time with, and how long?
That is the problem with this, “You don’t have any privacy, so you have no right to privacy” line of argument.
Of course, listing items for sale comes nowhere near to the invasion of privacy in the case of the hypothetical situations I listed above. But invasion of privacy it is.
They need to scrap this little experiment, wipe all the data, and start over again, this time inviting people to opt IN, and publishing nothing until the person has.
I would be thrilled to opt in, and I’m sure many, many other residents would be as well.
coco
Mark
Apr 10th, 2007
What exactly is “Easter Monday”?
Never heard of it.
mootykips
Apr 10th, 2007
tl;dr ahead.
“As Prok says above ‘People don’t have sex inside Google. They don’t have lives and work and relationships on Google.’”
Ding ding ding, straw man alert. Nobody was talking about Google. People do indeed have “cybersex” in all sorts of ways, including 2D text-based mediums like IRC and IM formats.
I’ve been in SL for 4 years now and seen plenty of real life relationships ruined over secrets kept in SL. You may have nothing to hide in SL, but plenty of people do.”
Then get off Second Life and stop whining about how it’s ruining your life. You should have the common sense to stop letting a game impact your “real life relationships”.
“It is understood that a Web page, unprotected by password or other means of security, is open to the public. I guarantee that the same understanding does not exist within Second Life.”
Why, because someone hasn’t indexed it yet? This is akin to not adding a nofollow tag to your META tags in a page and then getting butthurt when Google indexes it.
“”Web Page: Data.
Second Life (All of it): Data.”
@Reality:
Your Avatar Name: Data
Your Real Life Name: Data
Your ATM PIN Number: Data
Your Social Security Number: Data
A list of everything you’ve purchased this year: Data”
All of that can be tracked down by WHOIS data and a bit of sleuthing or social engineering. Another delicious strawman.
Ian is telling you that it doesn’t matter what sort of pixel arrangement there is on the screen. Second Life is not any different than a webpage just because it uses 3D player models. Going around and visiting places in Second Life is by its very nature a security hole, someone could follow you around and spy on you or whatever. It’s equivalent to making a blog of where you went in real life and then posting it in a hidden subdirectory on a domain. There IS no privacy in Second Life. Even the Lindens can listen in on IMs.
Cocoanut: There’s a difference, a rather large one, between being too stupid and lazy to turn a checkbox off and someone spying on you. It’s called “volition”.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 10th, 2007
Easter Monday:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Monday
It’s interesting to see the true Luddites, if you will, the backward technophobes.
Humanity is evolving to be able to utilize the inner spaces inside of things, and the minds, its ability to construct worlds. People are making worlds and relationships and business out of “thin air”. It’s just like Shakespeare’s famous quote from the Tempest. People are already “such things as dreams are made of,” but now they’re able to utilize it more and be very creative with it.
Of course, there will always be those you drag kicking and screaming into the future, the people who refuse to go along with the new technology and the new capacities, the people who scream with Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about those who make and live in worlds. They’ll say they have “no lies” or that it’s “all data” and that it has “no privacy”.
But they’ve utterly failed to realize that people make privacy out of a cardboard box if they want to, because it enables them to go deeper rather than wider. And they’ll go on doing that. The Lindens don’t have the time or the staff or the capacity to listen to conversations on 7800 sims.
Nobody talked much on phones when they were first made; they didn’t drive cars much, either. In time, the use of them grew. In the same way virtual worlds will be accepted and used, and the people screaming that they have no validity, that they aren’t real, that they can be scraped without consideration of people in them — they’ll recede into the background, as there won’t be very many of them.
Reality
Apr 10th, 2007
Scott, do yourself a favor and cease typing up any further responses to my comments: It is apparent that you are quite incapable of properly reading them or for that matter of proper thought.
I will make my comment clear to you one final time and that is it – if you are still quite incapable of grasping what I am saying … Then kindly do not bother responding.
Any Information which is available to the general public without using an illegal means is not private data at all Scott, your Instant Messages and E-Mails however are.
The bulk of your response has been little but BS, filler material, one quote from the community standards (a laughable thing to use for your support as none of the information it supposedly protects is available to the public until someone makes it available, not to mention that Linden Lab can do nothing outside of its own corner of the web), assumption …. the list of things that can be thrown away is quite long – this includes your reasons for asking about my using a pseudonym – to be honest on that one, I was being nice and humoring you.
The topic here is data within Second Life being treated the same way as data one can find on a web page – not me or my reasons for using a pseudonym. Keep to the topic.
to boil this down to a nutshell for you Scott: I said that the only data that is private is data that only Linden Lab has access to. This implies not just the account information (which was cited as the obvious example) but any private IM conversations that you have with another user. If any information can be viewed by another user without needing to break into the system then guess what? It is not private.
It really is that simple. corporations understand that – which is why the things they really do not want people knowing are not put out where John Doe can see/read it just by simply being there.
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
God… Prokofy you have finally, and completely, snapped. Good grief.
Second Life isn’t a world. It’s not a reality. It’s not an alternate universe. It’s an immeasurably poorly run game with lofty expectations and not enough drive to see it through.
No doubt, at all, have people attached a great deal of sentiment to it. I’ve valued the friendships I’ve made through SL much as I’ve valued the friendships I’ve made from people who read my website, emailed me, and allowed a conversation to develop. At no point however did I start thinking it was reality.
You have a serious disconnect between what you think SL is and what you think the goal of SL is and what the developers have clearly stated they wanted it to be. They want it to be the internet. They want it to replace Firefox and IE. They want it to be a dynamic representation of a static website. That’s why they gave up trying to police land sales; long ago they made it clear that Anshe and her lot were “hosting services” and they were the ISP. Long ago they made it clear that parcels are websites, and they won’t moderate (well in theory) the content on those webpages.
True, people missed the memo. It happens. It’s pissed people off, some have left, some troll the blogs. It’s very rare that people treat SL as “reality.” Except for you.
You’re disturbed and it’s… it’s fucking weird. I can’t get my head around that.
So here again, let me lay it out for you.
Second Life is not a world. You have no privacy. The items you have in-world, rezzed, viewable, are viewable to everyone. Get over it. Your chat can be monitored, even by the Lindens directly, your items can be scanned. The ESC is being a lot more admirable about it than they need be. Someone will come by and make a scanner that does a lot worse than this and you will have no recourse. No crying about “lawns” and refrigerators. No cries about privacy.
You never had privacy. Ever. You had the illusion in your deluded head that there was some, because you want SL to make up for all of the various shortcomings in your life.
Sorry sugartits. You’ve got to deal with RL before you level up.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2007
Joshua Nightshade is a creepy stalker.
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
Rational responses FTW!
Prokofy Neva is an angry lesbian?
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2007
Joshua Nightshade is a misogynist.
Dusk
Apr 11th, 2007
And here I thought I’d return to some intelligent dialogue on the internet and privacy issues! It saddens me that even the most interesting issues related to Second Life all degrade to petty, paranoia riddled, flame-fests. (Additionally I thought I’d chosen the right post to plant my flag in, but alas – the Anshe article has this one beat for comments, but that’s neither here nor there. I think though that there is more constructive criticism here though – better signal to noise ratio anyway.)
I apologize for any incoherence, I work strange hours and haven’t slept in about 29.
The notion that the ownership is the only reason people are involved in Second Life is absurd. Certainly that’s a reason for many users, but that utterly disregards any other place-on-the-internet-where-people-congregate. World of Warcraft is a great example, “8 Million” users – who own no part of that world. (It is worth noting though that like LL they count their userbase improperly.)
I’ve said in other places that the only reason any of this becomes an issue is because of the money involved. Were this any other virtual world, where all a user really has as *theirs* are the moments-that-comprise-the-time-they’ve-spent-there, and the sale of virtual currency was a grey-market sort of thing, we wouldn’t be having these sorts of histrionics. The money issue tends to bungle up things quite a bit.
Real-World Privacy concerns are far more pressing, as they will dictate what Virtual-World Privacy concerns are when they actually become an issue. Viewing SL as just-another-place on the internet is far from being a luddite. It is being a realist. It is about keeping yourself, and your information SAFE. It would be nice if SL really was a no-consequences playground where you could do whatever you want, but the sad reality is that the internet, and it’s services can never be that. There are plenty of stories about how people get in trouble at work or home, lose out on jobs, for their believed-to-be-secret internet habits. The sad truth of the internet is that if the data is there, it is accessable by someone. How many someones and how much know-how that takes is all dependent on a variety of factors. Right now though, it matters little if a XXXFUNBED or Goreans of Gor Fanfic shows up attributed to your internet handle – you’ve got plenty of time to cover those tracks before THE MAN comes for you.
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
“Joshua Nightshade is a misogynist.”
I admit to not getting a copy of the rulebook until this morning, so I’m kindof winging this.
Let’s see, how many points does this get me?
“Prokofy Neva caught herpes from a vor-fur.”
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 11th, 2007
Josh, if you don’t stop RIGHT NOW I will put your face in between my boobs in an effort to stifle your persistent quest to get down on Prok’s level and beat her. Stop. Don’t make me use the girls.
We all realize the extent of what Prok has written here, whether it be him or her, (by the way, you’re not part of the trans-gendered community) and that it’s gone completely beyond the line. You two are going down to an absolutely idiotic level. Stopppppppppppppppppp. Now.
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
HA!
Please, no suffocation by breasts. :\ I acquiesce.
Tenshi Vielle
Apr 11th, 2007
There you have it, people. Peace from breasts.
urizenus
Apr 11th, 2007
I’ve been bad too!
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
:p
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2007
Prokofy is he. And since when do you get to be the transgender police and decide who is or isn’t in “the community” whatever the hell that is?
Nothing I’ve written “crosses any lines”. I write the truth about a creepy stalker and a misogynist.
Joshua Nightshade
Apr 11th, 2007
Since today, I passed Tenshi an application. We reviewed her credentials and we’re really excited to have her on board. I think the Feted Inner Genitals will really catch on.
Truth requires proof. You have none, and no one believes you.
Montana Corleone
Apr 11th, 2007
I’ll tell you what’s bad about it. It has disclosed my personal private house address which I give out to nobody and left me open to possible harassment. And provided handy tp links into the middle of my house. Without my knowledge or consent.
That is a clear violation of ToS disclosure. It also breaks privacy and data protection laws of several countries.
Furthermore it is totally borked. It has only listed items for sale in my house, like my own art, which because I sell them in my shops I didn’t change the sale info. But it has not listed any of those identical items that are for public sale in any of my shops, just the ones in my private house.
And it doesn’t matter how easy it is to Opt out, you can only opt out if you know about it. Fortunately a friend put me on to this, and I have added Grid Shepherd to my ban lists, but it would be easy to use another av to spider.
I have abuse reported both avs to Linden, and I hope they perma ban his accounts.
This is not acceptable or responsible behaviour, and he’s lucky I don’t live in the same jurisdiction otherwise my lawyer would already be biting his ass.
Prokofy Neva
Apr 11th, 2007
Joshua Nightshade is a creepy stalker and a misogynist.
Montana, I hope lots and lots and LOTS of people do what you are doing. It’s the only way to send a message to the ESC and the Lindens that this won’t fly.
reeneebob Birmingham
Apr 11th, 2007
Prok, do you honestly think anyone cares about the ravings of a old crazy cat lady? YES. LADY. YOU HAVE A VA-JAY-JAY.
One day, you will get banned from SL. I hope I’m around to see it. You’ll have to find another virtual reality to hide in so you can continue avoiding real life, like your kids for example.
You really are seriously mentally unhinged.
Mem
Apr 12th, 2007
Montana, you may want to save yourself a bit of time before consulting a lawyer, i.e. read the TOS.
Cite which privacy laws are being broken if you will? As for data protection, again, read the TOS.
From the TOS,
“You also understand and agree that by submitting your Content to any area of the Service, you automatically grant (or you warrant that the owner of such Content has expressly granted) to Linden Lab and to all other users of the Service a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, transferable, irrevocable, royalty-free and perpetual License, under any and all patent rights you may have or obtain with respect to your Content, to use your Content for all purposes within the Service.”
Additionally there is no land in SL, you are subscribing to a service. You have no property rights, there is no property, only server space and a shared asset storage system that you subscribe to and agree to use under that subscription service’s terms of service. You by using SL have already agreed to the above TOS and hence data freely available by your choice to flag it for sale would seem to render most of your lawyer threats moot even if you were living next door to LL.
I really rather doubt as its on its face not even a tos violation and opt out options are available you’ll see any action by LL or any credible legal efforts other than internet lawyer histrionics and empty threats.
NigrasOnMyLawn
Apr 12th, 2007
“Nothing I’ve written “crosses any lines”. I write the truth about a creepy stalker and a misogynist.”
I lol’ed, pretty sure youd have to be a woman for you to start playing the misogynist card.
Right now its time to play the Prokofy Neva game
Prokofy Neva is a creepy pedophile that hangs around playgrounds
NigrasOnMyLawn
Apr 12th, 2007
I’d like to add that nothing I’ve written “crosses any lines”. I write the truth about a creepy pedophile that hangs around playgrounds and masturbates to the thought of diarrhea, he is also a racist that helped the nazis round up jews, blacks and gays in world war 2. Prokofy Neva was also responsible for 9/11.
hilarious
Apr 12th, 2007
I love how anyone with a reasonable argument against her gets called names by Prokofy.
Yet if anyone calls her a name, she will fly off the handle.
Truly, truly, in need of some mental help.
Get a life, Prokofy.
A first one, a REAL one, since you obviously need the difference spelled out for you.