Op/Ed: Who Are You Again?
by Pixeleen Mistral on 05/05/07 at 6:51 pm
Ah! But how do I know who you REALLY are?
by Inigo Chamerberlin
Ok, here we go again. What’s waiting for me on Saturday morning but another brilliant Linden Lab initiative – announced, as always, on a San Francisco Friday with the office about to close. What a surprise. This time it’s Daniel Linden posting an entry on the Linden blog called Age and Identity Verification in Second Life.
This initiative demands that I, someone who’s spent tens of thousands of dollars with Linden Lab using the Visa card which I originally used to verify my age and ID when I first took out a trial membership (remember those days?), ‘verify’ my age and identity.
Of course, it’s not (quite) compulsory (yet), if I don’t care to ‘verify’ myself – and trust me, I don’t, not bearing in mind the sentence above – I can no longer wander and explore Second Life freely – certain areas will be denied to me, based on whether the landowner has any declared ‘adult’ content (with no definition of ‘adult’ provided please note) – something Philip publicly said he absolutely refused to do to anyone, it was his reason for REMOVING all forms of verification and allowing anyone, regardless of age, sex, geographic location, etc, etc free access to Second Life! Nothing at all to do with producing totally unrealistic ‘signup’ figures of course – oh no!
Not ‘bits of Second Life’ – he never said that. Not ‘just the nice bits, not the naughty ones’. He said he was determined to allow everyone access to Second Life. No conditions. Really? Well how long did THAT last Philip?
So, ignoring what this tells us about Philip Rosedale’s integrity and suitability for his position at Linden Lab for the moment – why the sudden change? What exactly has happened to cause Linden Lab to make such a sudden change to the access arrangements for Second Life?
I can see two likely explanations at present – one is in some way connected with inworld gambling. It still continues, though somewhat curtailed. Could it be that Linden Lab is concerned at the possibility of someone underage gambling inworld and causing the wrath of the US, or some other, more restrictive, government to descend on Linden Lab? Possible I suppose, but it seems a bit of a long shot to provoke this reaction – though we did have that recent clamp-down on casino advertising recently.
Another possibility is that Linden Lab is already facing investigation concerning subsequent real life events which were initiated with the meeting of an adult resident with an under-age resident in Second Life. This could be a more likely explanation for the rather precipitate announcement of a new feature in such a short timeframe.
Sadly, this one seems more plausible. Hopefully it hasn’t yet happened, someone at Linden Lab, after all there must be some sensible people there, is trying to head off the possibility maybe?
Ignoring for the moment the fact that neither of the above scenarios would be so likely to have occurred, nor any others more fertile imaginations than mine might conjure up, IF our respected CEO hadn’t become obsessed with ‘signups’ and allowed all comers, with no verification whatsoever, to enter Second Life. Something fairly drastic must have prompted this sudden change. Unless it’s just another Linden Lab whim.
Still, it’s a typical Linden Lab poorly thought out messy compromise ‘solution’. After all, we can’t upset Philip by quietly dropping unverified signups, can we?
So, let’s approach it ass backwards by attempting to segregate Second Life, create ghettos.
Brilliant idea!
Yet again, Linden Lab appears to have fallen foul of one of its own CEO’s questionable decisions. A decision every responsible adult in Second Life at the time protested for reasons that now may be coming home to roost – and was, as usual, ignored.
Meantime, who has to live with the consequences? Yes. As usual. The residents.
Fresh from having Cory tell us the bugs were all OUR fault for not using Beta more – right after admitting Beta was ineffective as it couldn’t replicate main grid loading – we are now told we are legally and morally responsible for what happens on our land.
Going to enjoy hanging out on your land 24/7 and acting as a ‘morals policeperson’ to cover Linden Lab’s corporate ass? Hmmm, I must try and get a response from Anshe on that one.
It seems to me of late, that besides hiding in a corner with their corporate fingers in their ears and the phone off the hook, Linden Lab are now seeking to avoid any and all responsibility or liability for any aspect of Second Life, and offloading everything onto their customer’s shoulders.
One can’t help wondering just what they think we, those of us who DO pay our way, are actually paying them for?
Or are they just laughing? All the way to the bank…
Obscure Doodad
May 5th, 2007
It is absolutely imperative that everyone understand one critical thing.
Forget the details of whether it will work or not, or has international problems or can be evaded or applies to land owners in what situation or any of the other details spoken of in the past 24 hours. None of that matters.
What matters is that you will be placing your name and information in a database for the specific, express purpose of accessing adult content, i.e., porn. Period and Full Stop. Your are submitting to this process for that specific and undeniable reason. That database will be FOREVER. It will not be erased. Ever. If they say it will be erased, ask to see some TOS assurance with spells out financial penalties that LL agrees to pay if that data is ever revealed to anyone.
Oh, and btw, “anyone” means any background investigation for a security clearance. Any background investigation to work as a teacher in a school. Or a counselor. Or . . . and keep in mind this WILL happen, anyone also means divorce attorneys who subpoena the information as part of a process of establishing what sort of scum you are in adjusting your future divorce settlement. Those claims that they will not reveal the data mean NOTHING in the presence of a government demand or a subpoena.
All the promises in the world that this data will never be released, or that it will be erased immediately, could be made by LL and those promises will have zero teeth. Do you think LL will guarantee the security of data at a 3rd party? And guarantee it with money in 7-figure USD totals laid out in the TOS? Of course not. They will do no such thing. They will offer assurances and will never back them up.
So recognize this. If you verify your age to these people for the reason specified by LL, i.e., to access adult content, you cut your own throat some time in the future.
Luth Brodie
May 5th, 2007
Actually they did state in the blog post that the adult content flag is for “sexually explicit and extreme violence.”
Addison Mills
May 5th, 2007
I find it interesting in the blog entry on this that LL will rely on residents for information on which adult areas haven’t flagged themselves as adults. So does that mean we’re supposed to all turn informant on our neighbors? Oh no, the people next door have poseballs and engage in all sorts of unspeakable acts. Send in the feds.
Will they make a distinction between public property (clubs, shops, etc.) and private property (houses, private beaches, and the like) or are all areas in world subject to the same standards? If I have a private party in my house where people may do things considered “adult” (and who’s to say, since there’s no specific definition of what is adult content and what isn’t ) does that mean I need to mark my property as adult? What if I’m just with one person, with the blinds closed? I would hope common sense would prevail, but history has proven that it never does.
It’s troubling that LL will rely on infomation from players to find out who’s complying with this decision. And if I don’t? Will I be thrown out of Second Life? Will they confiscate my property? Will there be an appeals process? And whose definition of “adult” will prevail? Obviously everyone has a different sense of what is adult.
I find it absurd that a game specifically geared toward adults – where kids under 18 are not even allowed on the grid – needs to further limit the actions of its residents. Or is it that LL wants to further expand past its base and feels that its reputation as a place for easy sex and pornography is a hinderance to its ultimate goals?
Jessica Holyoke
May 5th, 2007
I posted about this over at Second Life Insider but I’ve also had a chance to think about it more. The official blog mentions that the age verification system will not retain information unless the resident choses to. Thinking about this more, it suggests that verification won’t be a once and done issue, but rather a continuous process. With the lindens also looking at ways to eliminate camping, by doing away with traffic, it seems that the Lindens are trying to increase the amount of money flowing into the economy via the Lindex.
It is very unlikely that a real life adult/minor meeting occurred soley due to the search costs involved. In order to find someone underaged would take a great deal of work. As has been reported in the herald before, if you’re 15 years old, you’re not going to hang out at places for 15 year olds.
One side effect of the process that hasn’t been mentioned in this article would be the decrease of false alt griefing. Any verification process would look at the name on the account and the name on the identification form. The process would allow for the Lindens to halt some of the griefing by alts created through false information.
Does anyone have thoughts as to what adult content might mean? Robin Linden suggest adult content was adult in nature while Mature content was not adult.
marilyn murphy
May 5th, 2007
i don’t know about all this. some of the reaction to this is a tad shrill. if you use a credit card at all your exposing yourself to identity theft and what not. anyway, i guess it depends on whose ox is being gored how someone takes this latest news.
personally this has no impact on me at all. if someday i want to run for president or dog catcher, and someone wants to dig around and find this little tid bit…. ha ha. well then ok.
i think that the reasoning for the LL to take this action is clear, and well founded. i have certainly been hearing a lot of people complain in the forums about unverifieds and children getting onto the grid.
heres the solution.
Leam Cunningham
May 5th, 2007
@Inigo, I’d like to point out you’re forgetting one obvious benefit this quasi-verification will bring: the reduction of trolling (griefing is a loaded word). While I won’t get into safe harbor and minor discussions, I will point out that as long as identities are bannable, it drastically reduces the effectiveness of trolls. If free, unverified accounts still exist, but said accounts are programmatically limited to non-adult parcels, there will be increasingly fewer targets available to troll.
@Obscure Doodad. Guess what happens anytime to submit a link or allow a cookie to be set? When LL folds, they’ll sell your information out to the highest bidder just like any other company, and just like with your phone, it’s already subject to court orderless tapping. Online privacy is a myth, and attacking this latest idea because they use an independant verification service is absurd. Be paranoid, but don’t use paranoia as an argument.
JimBean
May 5th, 2007
you fucking idiots. if LL gets wrapped up in some kiddie porn suit, the feds will pull the plug and our whole world will be toast. can’t you people think more than 1 step ahead?
marilyn murphy
May 5th, 2007
tsk. jimbeam, u sill boy. myspace has had a ton of juvenile/adult court cases come up, criminal in nature, and it folded when??
Brent Recreant
May 5th, 2007
There’s only one way SL can stay away from the FED’s. Relocate to Antarctica!
nimrod yaffle
May 5th, 2007
You forgot the name of the company doing it! It’s called Integrity, and their site is: http://integrity.aristotle.com/
But for more fun, backspace the Integrity and go to http://www.aristotle.com/home_expand.htm
Discussion at: http://forums.secondcitizen.com/showthread.php?t=12206
JimBean
May 5th, 2007
so marilyn – what’s you’re theory as to why LL is doing this?
i bet it’s because THEY HATE YOU, AND ARE OUT TO GET YOU, huh?
must be hard being you.
Economic Mip
May 5th, 2007
Well I for one will not be giving Linden Labs any ID. Forget that idea, because Obscure Doodad forgot that anyone also includes despots like Mugabe and his CIO (Central Intelligence Organization) who have repeatedly harassed and tortured individuals related to those in diaspora who dared to speak the truth about his government. Also, I could really care less about virtual violence and yiffing, so won’t mind at all not ending up in its areas.
Kerian Bunin
May 5th, 2007
Wow, I love giving my vital details to a company with a political agenda.
Cocoanut Koala
May 5th, 2007
I think what happened was they created the problem by opening up SL to absolutely anyone of any age. And people of any age came.
Now they have to take draconian measures to try to fix the problem they created in the first place.
As for my name being associated with porn places, well, I will have to assume the info will be obliterated.
I’m not interested in porn, but I wouldn’t be able to stand being in SL if there are parcels I can’t go to. Just last night, for instance, a friend TP’d me to a club where there were escorts and patrons dancing topless.
In the future, if I don’t verify myself (again – my account says I’m already verified), that TP wouldn’t work. That would be ridiculous.
coco
Prokofy Neva
May 5th, 2007
This concept was not sprung suddenly today on us, Inigo, they’ve been talking about it for months. When they first rolled out the anti-casino advertising policy, they talked about it.
You can’t have 3,900 people bitching about unverifieds as the main problem of SL, and not then expect that the Lindens would do *this*.
So you have Cristiano, and 3,899 other people to thank for this gift. Because how else would they do it? They couldn’t see any point in trying to run around chasing all the Europeans and making them come up with credit cards that might not fit. It’s easier just to say, ok, you want to play at Hard Alley? Fax a passport in, and then you’re done.
I don’t quite get the venom about Philip or the claim that he has lost his integrity, either. They still have unverifieds. Unverifieds are people who spend time griefing and creating scripted menaces, they aren’t the types to go hang at sex clubs, so they won’t care. They will simply violate the rules on obscentiy and violence, get banned, and make new alts, they won’t care.
I don’t think Philip ever promised us a rose garden. I think he has always been about leaving us to our own devices and making us shoulder the burden.
Everybody always jaws on and on about open source. With great open sourcedness comes great responsibility with the feds, yes. that’s what’s being prepared. Want to run a world? Well, deal with the authorities then like you want the Lindens to deal.
This huffing and puffing is just more of the usual entitlement generation stuff.
This seems to me an utterly brilliant move on LL’s part to get rid of the den of iniquity that has become a huge problem and embarrassment for them. They can palm the entire problem off on the mainly amateur managers they have running clubs and rentals. Those people can now decide: do they want their RL names linked with providing Internet porn services? It will start to separate the men from the boys, literally. Some with more skills in management and more willingness to integrate with real life, getting licensed porn movies and being adept at staying on the right side of RL laws, will continue. Others will give up, and that’s ok, because the Lindens want to shake loose the amateurs from the grid and make sure only professionals run worlds and take responsibility for them.
The task of the amateur now is to leave gracefully.
BANS-HE
May 5th, 2007
Nerds
JimBean
May 5th, 2007
> I think what happened was they created the problem by opening up SL to absolutely anyone of any age.
oh coco you’re so right. if only they’d started these age checks three years ago, we could have complained about it then instead of now.
i wonder, do you get paid extra for that big brain of yours?
Obscure Doodad
May 5th, 2007
>>
@Obscure Doodad. Guess what happens anytime to submit a link or allow a cookie to be set? When LL folds, they’ll sell your information out to the highest bidder just like any other company, and just like with your phone, it’s already subject to court orderless tapping. Online privacy is a myth, and attacking this latest idea because they use an independant verification service is absurd. Be paranoid, but don’t use paranoia as an argument.
>>
No. This is utterly NOT the same thing. In this instance you are explicitly and overtly taking very specific action to have access to adult material, i.e., porn. This is the DC madam situation unfolding in Washington right now. This is not wandering around the web and having cookies wind up in your cache. This is typing in extensive information for the very specific and explicit purpose of getting access to porn.
This is something that is going to affect your life some day. A divorce attorney will turn it into several tens of thousands of dollars for your ex spouse. You will not be offered particular jobs because of this. Eventually, this database will be available to anyone with a subpoena . . . or perhaps to anyone with a few dollars to pay during a background check.
The magnitude of this act of submitting to the verification procedure is enormous in likely future consequence.
Kerian Bunin
May 5th, 2007
Has anyone here seriously looked at the company doing the verification. Their primary service is providing data for PACs and other political organizations. This is some creepy shit. I just don’t trust these people and would like to be offered a different way to verify.
reeneebob Birmingham
May 5th, 2007
Well, it’s interesting what the Canadian’s do, because the company LL ‘chose’ only accesses US and UK databases. So I guess our money isn’t good enough anymore?
Fuck LL. And fuck you too, prok.
Prokofy Neva
May 5th, 2007
Again, marvelling — nay, goggling my eyes out — that no one is drawing the dotted line between Cristiano and the Limousine Liberals protesting and blaming the problems of lag and database losses on unverifieds…and now this measure to add vertification.
Dot dot dot.
Big Horkeheiser
May 5th, 2007
So prok is on the “limousine liberals” side!
You heard it here first folks!
Prokofy Neva
May 6th, 2007
Hardly. I’m not for adding verification restrictions so as not to prevent Europeans and Latin Americans from joining easily. And it’s not my idea to have this new verification of adult material. I don’t know how it will be defined, and I don’t understand what it driving it. I don’t think the Lindens are being open with us on this.
I’m merely pointing out that these 3,900 people who jumped up and down and hooted and hollered about poor performance, and were prepared to have removal of unverifieds as the solution to lag and database losses now have their wish.
It’s just that they never thought of themselves and their adult desires as the thing that was unverified. Now they are going to have to verify themselves.
It really is an amazing irony. Funny that Cristiano has been silent, probably still having an apopleptic fit that it turned out THIS way.
Big Horkenheiser
May 6th, 2007
>>This seems to me an utterly brilliant move on LL’s part to get rid of the den of iniquity that has become a huge problem and embarrassment for them.<<
Am I misreading this prok?
Is your use of “brilliant” lauding LL or are you being sarcastic or something else altogether?
Katerina Qinan
May 6th, 2007
As someone who had their identity stolen and is still suffering the fallout, this makes me very nervous. Institutions that promised me the data would be secure weren’t telling the truth. So why should I believe another institution telling me that my personal info will be secure?
Sure, I could just stay away from adult content, but that means I’ll be throwing parties on my own land instead of visiting friends. Of course, I still wish a Linden would answer the issue others brought up as to what happens when an avatar engages in sexual relations on someone else’s PG or non-adult content land. Before 1.15 rolled out, I could mark my land as mature, even though I was in a PG sim. Now I can’t. So what do I do when someone stumbles upon my skypod hovering at 550 meters and sees me *gasp!* changing clothes and reports me? Or sees my RL husband and I engaging in sexual relations? What happens when someone takes offense at a pin-up poster I have in my lab? I mean, nevermind that the person would have had to come onto my land and alt+camera into it since it’s locked, it’s ADULT CONTENT IN A PG SIM!
I still want to know how in the world LL thinks it can hold people responsible for another’s actions on their own land. These days, I’ve been lucky to log onto SL for an hour a day. For the other 23 hours in the day, people could be naked and screwing in the open and I’d never know one way or the other. But LL thinks I should be held responsible for another person’s actions just because they decided to do something on my land, whether or not I was actually there. What happens when I have no internet access for several days and come back to find myself zapped because someone was doing something on my land and some nosy jackass decided I had offended their sense of propriety? Reminds me a lot of the guy who was griefing me because I had gotten him banned from a website when I hadn’t even been on that website in more than a year.
What’s really funny is LL can say all it wants that landowners are “morally and legally responsible” for actions on their land, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. Phrases like that are thrown around all over the intarwebs as some sort of magical thing that keeps people from being liable for another’s actions. If landowners are “morally and legally responsible” for what happens on their land, then LL is “morally and legally responsible” for what happens in the entire game. They just aren’t admitting it. They can say what they want, but if anyone pushed the matter it wouldn’t go too well for them.
I’m sure some people will be praising this move as a way to restrict griefing, but only idiots think that will solve the problem. If people want to grief, then they will grief and no amount of restricting non-griefing residents will work. Anyone who thinks otherwise is pretty delusional.
marilyn murphy
May 6th, 2007
gosh, this seems a tempest in a teapot. i agree with prok in the first statement he made in this thread. i would also like to point out, this is the information age. the govt, and political action parties, and various business interests know who you are, your name is on several lists, your shopping habits are noticed etc.. etc.. if u want to avoid being on lists u would have to move to a shack in the woods with no services whatsoever.
i dont see the problem with a genuine verification to be in sl. and, horrors, you mean i might get on another pacs list? big deal. i already hang up on a few as it is, one more to hang up on is not worth getting stressed over.
so, i want verification to be in adult places in sl. maybe some might disagree with the method LL is using.
personally i just dont care. verify away.
Petey
May 6th, 2007
Goddamn, this will make my job all the more difficult.
Big Horkenheiser
May 6th, 2007
Marilyn, it appears that someone was able to sign up for a Bud.TV account, which uses the same company as LL is going to for AVS, and this person was able to get “verified” using their SL name and a Aussie 4 digit postal code…
Here is the post: http://forums.secondlife.com/showpost.php?p=1497352&postcount=52
Are you still ready to call this “genuine verification”?
Furthermore, just because YOU don’t give a crap about your info, doesn’t mean that everyone else feels the same way. You come across to me as a person who tries really hard to come across as disaffected. Almost too hard…
Anyway, I digress. Just because we live in the “age of technology” (which is what people called it when the telegraph, steamships, telephones, windmills, et al, were invented, and no doubt have for centuries) doesn’t mean that we should all just roll over and allow possibly overarching collection of our personal data, without some close and careful scrutiny.
Withheld
May 6th, 2007
As someone who has been involved with running adults only websites for years and an owner of an adults only venue in Second Life, I am very surprised that Second Life has gotten away with not verifying age as long as it has. I’m pretty damn confident that what happened here is that when the feds were brought in about the gambling they noticed the adult content which under our Taliban-like current administration is a far worse crime in their eyes.
Owners of adult websites in the United States have had to deal with insane record keeping requirements, seizures and storming of our offices by federal agents, and a general witch hunt for years. Age verification is just the start folks, wait until Linden Lab starts asking you for a notarized copy of your driver’s license, passport, and social security number. To be in compliance with Section 2257 of Title 18 they are going to have to do that or simply ban adult content altogether.
marilyn murphy
May 6th, 2007
big, i had not seen that, how interesting. so the verification is just a sham bs thing also, just like everything LL tells us. tsk, shame on me, i should have known.
well, that pretty much kills the whole debate dont u think? no true verification so what are we talking about?
Cocoanut Koala
May 6th, 2007
I AM for verification, but this is not the verification people were for.
They were for the verification that LL threw OUT. When they opened the doors to everyone, with not even requiring so much as an e-mail address that could even be verified!
No one was EVER asking for LL to start requiring social security numbers and passports.
This is, after all, supposed to be an 18+ venue. (Though I suspect that is about to change.)
People were simply asking for the measures LL ONCE had to be reinstated, Jimbeam, you dunce.
coco
Prokofy Neva
May 6th, 2007
>>This seems to me an utterly brilliant move on LL’s part to get rid of the den of iniquity that has become a huge problem and embarrassment for them.<<
I give credit where credit is due. It is brilliant from their perspective to shift responsibility very handily. That’s not lauding the fact that they have instituted this all of a sudden now, when frankly THEY bear the responsibility as THEY OWN THE SERVERS and we merely rent them. Still, I rent from tripod, say, for a website, and if I put up something pornographic or copyright-protected on my website, I bear responsibility for taking it down, not tripod, and they may pre-emptively take it down if I don’t just to keep themselves out of trouble.
As for “brilliance,” I made that clear by my earlier statements, and digging and nagging at me as someone somehow defending this action by LL is just retarded. I’m describing what they are doing, that’s all, but these sorts of nuances are usually lost on the caustin comments comrades anyway.
And who the hell are you Big Hork? You have no recognizable SL name and are just the latest troll incarnation. Why are we required to justify ourselves before you? You are yammering on about anonymity and about keeping your identity safe and using a non-SL name, yet we’re supposed to answer to you? Why?
What I find annoying and hilarious is this usual lame Internet meme stampede focusing on the instrument of verification and picking away at that, instead of the major issue itself. It’s a distraction.
We’ve heard that it is funds PACs. No it provides voter lists. No it sells your information to PACs. No, it’s owned 50 percent by Murdoch and therefore ebil!!! No, it’s just incompetent and doesn’t even verify shit. Gosh, it’s evil, part-owned by Murdoch, doesn’t verify shit but is still a menace! Whatever. I hate all these silly kneejerk stupid Internet memes of anti-Americanism or anti-capitalism that always lead to the same thing OMGOD THE MAN IS EXPLOITING US AREN’T WE VICTIMS.
But…we aren’t. There’s a simple solution. Don’t use it and don’t verify it yourself and then avoid going to the sex palaces *shrugs*. Or verify yourself and not care. I mean, how different is it than all those porn sites requiring credit cards?
JimBean
May 6th, 2007
> No one was EVER asking for LL to start requiring social security numbers and passports.
no one except the FEDS, you numbnuts.
Alyx Stoklitsky
May 6th, 2007
Sounds to me like LL is obviously embroiled in some legal battle over child porn, or their lawyers are shitting bricks that they will be at some point in the future.
I’m debating whether I’m willing to verify or not – afterall, I’m not here for crude, low-poly porn, or shitty cybersex, but all of the PG sims simply suck.
Toby McAllister
May 6th, 2007
Second Life as we know it is dead.
That is all.
marilyn murphy
May 6th, 2007
again i agree with prok. im a bit stunned at the hysteria this has generated.
Inigo Chamerberlin
May 6th, 2007
That’s very interesting Nimrod, IF Integrity IS the verification provider, and until I see am official Linden Lab post to that effect it isn’t as far as I’m concerned.
However I have to say that if it IS – bye-bye Second Life.
There’s no way I’m hanging around while Linden Lab climbs into bed with a company run by people like the Phillips brothers. Those two are so far up the American and UK government’s arses it’s scary, and living in the UK… Confirm my identity to THOSE guys? I wouldn’t confirm the time of day to them!
I think our CEO is getting in WAY over his head here, he’s now showing signs of playing RL politics (sleazing up with Slick Willy recently, instead of doing his job, representing LL at a conference) when he’s already amply demonstrated his ineptness at virtual politics.
Time for Philip to step back I feel – if he’s not already in too deep.
marilyn murphy
May 6th, 2007
i have said many times that i wish LL would sell SL to a business that knows how to work with this product.
LL simply continues to demonstrate it is basically incompetent, and im not talking about this verification issue at all.
it has reached the point where the people who actually use and populate the grid don’t believe the people who run it any more at all.
Allana Dion
May 6th, 2007
>”You can’t have 3,900 people bitching about unverifieds as the main problem of SL, and not then expect that the Lindens would do *this*.
So you have Cristiano, and 3,899 other people to thank for this gift.”
This is not only a flat out lie, but just an excuse to blast someone you don’t like yet again. Anyone who read the Open Letter could see that it did not say that unverified accounts were the main problem of SL, it said that one of the main problems of SL was that it couldn’t hold the ammount of concurrent users it had in a single day and asked if the Lindens were ever planning to implement the limiting of logins as they had indicated they would.
The ID verification plan is not in response to the Open Letter, a thing like this would require much more planning and was clearly in the process for quite awhile now. It is possible that revealing it at the time they chose was a way to silence discussion about the Open Letter. But this plan is obviously something that LL has been working on for awhile.
It’s not unreasonable for LL to ask newly registering accounts to now begin giving them some form of payment or ID info. What is unreasonable is expecting their current customers whose identity and payment info has been acceptable for this long, to suddenly agree to pony up more. What is unacceptable is that for this long they’ve assumed us to be adults and now instead wish to treat us as children and force us to prove our adult status a second time.
However what is even less acceptable than that is the company LL chose to handle all our information … http://www.aristotle.com/home_expand.htm … a company whose primary source of income comes from the sale of junk mail and voter registration lists to political organizations.
Jessica Holyoke
May 6th, 2007
I believe that part of the reason why people are up in arms about the methods of this verification is the intrusiveness of it and the changing nature of people’s Second Lifes. Credit Card numbers have already been provided, or that option was given, upon resident’s entry into SL. That number, similar to what is requested on pornography websites, has various protections against its misuse already in place. A Driver’s license or social security number is something else entirely. Those numbers are able to access a lot more to a person than simple false credit card charges.
Part of the appeal of Second Life is the anonymity. Asking for a verification process that requests real life address information with corresponding official information to back it up, decreases the amount of that anonymity. Additionally, how is the verification process going to actually work? Whichever Linden posted about it said that Premium members would pay less than $10L to be verified. Since the Linden is an “in-world” currency, then that suggests the verification would happen in-world. Whether that’s a client function, ie similar to the upload system or if you have to go to an Sim and state the information, like a current SL financial transaction, is unclear.
To the adult website person, 18 USC 2257 is to ensure that the performers are over 18. The record keeping requirements are there to prevent underage photography. See also, Lords, Traci. There are many pornography sites, both words and pictures, that only require an over 18 click through as opposed to an adult verification process. Second Life currently would be in compliance with an over 18 certifaction click through with the log in process.
Also, the verification system requested in relation to the gambling wasn’t solely for age, but for nationality. This proposed system does not account for that.
Inigo Chamerberlin
May 6th, 2007
Leam – Your idea is interesting, though it has the disadvantage of sounding like a facile Linden argument in favour of third party verification.
What it overlooks is that many of us fully verified adult fee paying customers will simply NOT provide the sort of personal information Linden Lab is talking about being required to ANY third party ‘verification’ provider – still less something with the connections ‘Integrity’ (if that IS the third party ‘verifier’ LL intends using) has.
The reasons are many and varied – political, unwillingness to provide verification over and above a valid functional CC, in some countries – fear of laying themselves open to prosecution for revealing that information, pure and simple ‘point of principle’… any number of reasons.
That means those people will be excluded from every area of SL that has am ‘adult content’ tag. A ‘tag’ mind you – not necessarily containing anything remotely ‘adult’ in nature. Irrespective of the fact that they ARE adults. And bear in mind that there are already many individuals indicating their intention to use the ‘adult content’ tag as a tactic against griefers.
In other words we will be excluded from large parts of Second Life that actually don’t contain ‘Adult Content’ (however THAT is going to be defined) for no other reason than that we don’t care to RE-VERIFY ourselves as adults by submitting even more confidential information to, if Nimrod and others are correct, a third party verification ‘authority’ with, for many of us, unacceptable connections and questionable – oh the irony here – integrity.
Angel
May 6th, 2007
Sigh.
“For their part, land owners will be required to flag their land as ‘adult’ if it contains adult content using the estate and land management tools provided to landowners.”
I have a few naked pictures on my wall at 750M. This *is* adult content so i suppose I am going to be *required* to flag my land as mature?
“non-US Residents may need to provide a passport”
Nice, you USA people get a few thousand dollars skimmed from your account, but the majority of people now have their passport number on file, a number terrorists can use with happiness if they get hold of it.
Which is worse? A few thousand dollars (normally refundable by the bank) or 5 years being tortured in Guantanamo Bay?
“estate and parcel owners will be required to flag the presence of adult content on their land. Access to that area will then be restricted to age-verified Residents only” and @45 in the blog “If you are not age verified you will not be able to access these flagged parcels or any island estates that are flagged as containing adult content.”
Oooh, Anshe will need to flag ALL her land as mature I guess. Well, I won’t be visiting Plush Iota anymore to buy pretty trees
“We hope you’ll agree that the small inconvenience of doing this once is far outweighed by the benefits of protecting minors from inappropriate content.”
No, I dont, definately not. If puritanical fucktard parents in the USSR of A can’t control their own offspring and take responsibility for parenting then why should I?
It’s not my responsibility to look after your kids, it’s yours!
I’ve used a credit card, my credit card, for as long as I’ve been in the game, I’ve pushed about US$10,000 through it. ((Yes, I’m under 18 and using mom’s card to sneak into the main grid. LOLZ.))
Jessica Holyoke
May 6th, 2007
Interesting point. I was re-reading the Daniel Linden post and I noticed that Teens are being asked for age verification before entering the teen grid. “Anyone wishing to gain access to Teen Second Life must all be age-verified. “http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/04/age-and-indentity-verification-in-second-life/#more-946
Guess all those 13 year old drivers will need to be verified as well.
Another point being missed.
“Although we want to limit age-verification processes to adult content and Teen Second Life, in the event we encounter abuses of self-regulation, Second Life may have to require age-verification throughout the world. We hope that does not happen.”
This is the Linden plan to deal with concurrency, stop people from coming into Second Life.
Im
May 6th, 2007
I was extremely disheartened to see the blog post and I did not sign the open letter simply because this world was open to me without providing personal information at the beginning and I didn’t know such a chasm existed between those who don’t mind giving out their credit card info and those that do (me). People don’t provide personal information for a lot of reasons, many of which are listed above (inability to get one, identity theft, or, god forbid, you don’t pay for your RL on credit). Because of this, I take issue with comments such as: “Unverifieds are people who spend time griefing and creating scripted menaces, they aren’t the types to go hang at sex clubs, so they won’t care.”
Generalizations such as this are analogous to “all black people…”; “all poor people…”; “all people with freckles…”. It’s an arbitrary generalization based on a few people. While I don’t deny that some unverified residents do participate in such activities, I’ve met plenty of verified residents who are much more capable of such things. Personally, I wouldn’t know how to begin to create “scripted menaces” (I’m still at the t-shirt making phase in my SL career) and I do hang out in places with adult content because as JimBeam aptly said, “all of the PG sims simply suck”.
I participate in a lot of activities in SL to be a contributing member of society (translating ads, writing instruction notecards, writing reviews, assisting with charity events, etc.). I also spend all the money I earn in world. By requiring this kind of information to be given to a third party, you will see no fewer griefers – they will find new and more inventive ways of causing havoc. What you will see is less, if any, of people like me who shop at your stores because we don’t have tier fees and membership fees to pay. When tp’s aren’t working and I turn into a stumpy blob of indeterminate sex named Ruth, I log off…. I will be doing the same when I can’t get to my usual shopping or social areas.
I won’t repeat all the valid reasons listed above and on other sites as to why this will not curtail minors from visiting SL, but just add, isn’t it easier for kids to borrow their parent’s DL than credit card (and by borrow, I mean open the purse on the kitchen counter, write down the number and put it back)? Even bars that put wrist bands on people over 21 can’t keep the kids from figuring out how to get booze, and that’s with face to face interaction.
There seems to be a significant portion of the population opposed to this, so have any of you truly brilliant people out there thought of a way to protest? All the blogging and commenting in the world doesn’t seem to have any effect on SL, so let me know where to be and I will be there with a t-shirt that reads: I’m 27, my mom, the bunny, the tiny, and the neko can vouch for me.
janeforyou Barbara
May 6th, 2007
If the law in USA demands that anyone thay want to look at or play with adult content need to give out accountnumber with age verifications as sosial securety number ( not all 11 tho)Driverlisence-passport-and so,and this are handed ove to a 3th party thay will be responsible for ANY teft from there accuonts!! If a memberdatabase are hacked and accounts are drained for mony the “holder” of the many = Linden lab wil be resposible,If i got 1000 USD real mony in SL account Linden lab are resposible.
If i got 1000 USD in my bank the bank are resposible, BUT if i am “sloppy” and hand out MORE information then there are on my creditcard my bank will NOT be resposible if my account are hacked!
So all Linden lab will get from me are the information on my creditcard!
I am a member and a partner owner in 2 other USA based adult content 3D web chats online we use a 3th party billingcompany BUT thay dont need more info then my creditcards gives! http://www.jewelofindra.com/ the service are provided bt CCbill.com
Untameable Wildcat
May 6th, 2007
I have to say that what they’re asking for now doesn’t really bother me all that much. They want my details to access “mature content”? Fair enough – I say no, and I’m happy to live without such content.
What upsets me is the pandora’s box this is opening. I am being asked to trust the judgement of Linden Labs, in their appointing of a third party to handle my data. LL, not me, have the agreement with this company, and that means that I have no legal recourse should I suspect my data has been or is being misused, as I do not have an agreement with the company concerned.
I shall leave if Linden Labs start – as I fear they will – demanding this information for EVERYONE on the system. They already appear to want it from what I’ve read for everyone using Teen Second Life. I would be prepared to share details with Linden Labs themselves, as they are providing me with a service that I have approached them and asked for, and for that they get whatever details they deem fit to suitably provide me with that service. But that’s where I draw the line. They MAY NOT provide my details to a third party for ANY PURPOSES WHATSOEVER without my express permission – which I do not give – and particularly not for the purposes of indemnifying themselves at what could potentially be my expense.
So when it comes in, I shall exercise my right not to give those details, and in return I will stay out of “adult” areas. No great loss there. And if it comes in, as I suspect it will 3-6 months down the line for ALL users… then I shall leave Second Life for good. I will be sorry to do so, but I have drawn my lines where privacy is concerned.
JimBean
May 6th, 2007
I HEARD THAT TEH LINDENS WOULD MAKE US GET ID NUMBERS TATOOED ON OUR ARMS!!!
PHILIP IS SATAN!!!!!!!666.
Spankubux
May 6th, 2007
Inigo, you obviously hate SL. You never have anything good to say about the service. So leave you piece of shit. Leave you human canker sore.
You won’t be missed. Not the screeds you vomit up onto this ridiculous blog. Not your shit-ass writing. And certainly not your lack of originality in bitchfest topics.
You are a surplus human. Unnecessary and unwanted. Surely your mother regrets the day she shat you out from between her legs, looked on the bloody tumor slopping about the bedpan placed under her and decided to love it and hug and try and teach it to be a human being.
Prokofy Neva
May 6th, 2007
This is not only a flat out lie, but just an excuse to blast someone you don’t like yet again. Anyone who read the Open Letter could see that it did not say that unverified accounts were the main problem of SL, it said that one of the main problems of SL was that it couldn’t hold the ammount of concurrent users it had in a single day and asked if the Lindens were ever planning to implement the limiting of logins as they had indicated they would.
It isn’t at all a lie. And if I blast someone and don’t like them, it’s because a) they have behaved badly to me for 2 years and participated in the outing of my RL identity and the continual harassment of me by all manner of fucktards and b) they have reprehensible views, like you.
Read the Open Letter, duh, the words don’t lie, they’re all there. The letter proposes only one solution: verifiy the unverifieds.
Nobody likes to think of themselves as unverified — and yet we all are now, if we haven’t submitted a driver’s license or passport. How do you like them apples?
You are completing spinning and softening the Open Letter’s slam on verifieds, which mentions them as a problem on two points, and urges that they not even be allowed to log on, or that THEY limit their inventory (when they haven’t hardly got any compared to us oldbies).
This is definitely a case of Pogo’s “We have met the enemy, and he is us!”. Unverifieds are merely existing verified players with alts, which they use to have sex with multiple partners on. Unverifieds are merely people who work at IBM and wanted to try to program mentioned at work. Unverifieds are merely European or Asian designers without American credit cards, who make money and eventually become verified through waiting the long waits to get PayPal established (I’ve seen this time and again). And so on. Unverifieds are not the enemy.
All you’re cranking about, Allana, is the problems that you and a list of 609 BDSM practitioners are now going to face given that your elaborate dungeons and sex furniture all over the place may be characterized as “explicit” by some tattle-tale or another.
>The ID verification plan is not in response to the Open Letter, a thing like this would require much more planning and was clearly in the process for quite awhile now. It is possible that revealing it at the time they chose was a way to silence discussion about the Open Letter. But this plan is obviously something that LL has been working on for awhile.
The *announcement* of the age verification *right after* the Open Letter is DEFINITELY calculated and it is DEFINITELY a “be careful what you wish for” answers.
The Lindens are like parents dealing with a lot of kids who whine and complain a lot, but don’t grasp the larger issues of responsibility and its difficulties, that’s all.
>It’s not unreasonable for LL to ask newly registering accounts to now begin giving them some form of payment or ID info.
Why? That will cut down on foreigners, IBM workers, and people who simply want to make quick alts, and not always for griefing and only in a small number of cases for camping on YOUR sim. so get over it. The Lindens won’t be pushing the verification microscope on THEM it will be pushing it on YOU. I find it a delicious irony, frankly, after all the hatred you and others have dished out to the unverifieds.
>What is unreasonable is expecting their current customers whose identity and payment info has been acceptable for this long, to suddenly agree to pony up more. What is unacceptable is that for this long they’ve assumed us to be adults and now instead wish to treat us as children and force us to prove our adult status a second time.
They aren’t asking that. They’are asking that their long-time customers who wish to run the equivalent of Internet porn sites be asked to provide ID for themselves and their customers to avoid the underage accessing the content.
There’s a reason why the Internt porn sites have all those caveats about being 18 and have all those demands for credit cards, and some of them also use verification companies. There’s a reason why those in the porn film industry have to clear a lot of verification and legal hurdles in their U.S. states. It’s because it’s the law.
What will dawn on people on Second Life running sex clubs now is that they are the moral and legal equivalent of a porn film company. They provide streaming porn via the Internet. They are film company manager equivalents now. Surprising, shocking, wierd, but…there’s the analogy, and how it will be looked at by the law.
Ultimately, if enough people don’t like this, the laws will have to be changed in some states or countries. Good luck going and campaigning on the BDSM ticket, Allana… I hear you can buy good voter and rich people’s list from a company called Aristotle…
>However what is even less acceptable than that is the company LL chose to handle all our information … http://www.aristotle.com/home_expand.htm … a company whose primary source of income comes from the sale of junk mail and voter registration lists to political organizations.
So? This troubles me not in the slightest. People who run political or issue campaigns need mailing lists. That’s how it works. Mailing lists are for sale. This is a completely normal and necessary practice. All political parties keep voter list and list of contributors. This is how democracy works.You may not like it, or find aspects of it corrupt, but it’s just plain ridiculous not to understand the basics of how campaigning is done. Or…do you think it should be done like Russia or China or *gasp* the UK?
BTW, reading this site, I’m not sure that they sell the *lists* but sell *the software for you to make your own list*. But list-selling is a big business. Most non-profit organizations that you think are squeaky-clean and noble have to buy mailing lists and pay people to fund-raise and maintain them. This is how political and civic work is done. There’s nothing intrinsically evil about it whatsoever.
sage
May 6th, 2007
YIFF IN HELL, FURFAGS.
I HOPE YOU GET AIDS AND BURN TO DEATH SLOWLY.
THE PATRIOTIC NIGRAS WILL END YOU.
DO NOT THINK THAT ANY MORE “VERIFICATION” CAN STOP US.
WE ARE LEGION.
WE DO NOT FORGIVE.