LL Borks Shields – Just Another Phase?
by Alphaville Herald on 15/02/08 at 6:18 am
Breaking user-created content to protect users
by Siobhan McCallen, metaverse weapons expert
Darling Brody – creator of the Quantum Core – and phase shield fan
Okay, here you are, ready to test your first weapon, the Zingblatt XXX-4J Super-Defenestrator with Tint Control. But you don’t really want to build it in your little 512, surrounded by placid residential areas, ad farms, and the occasional strip club, whose owners would cheerfully send your body parts to two billion meters if you dared do it anywhere nearby. So you pop over to your friendly neighborhood Linden Weapons Testing Sandbox to put the final polish on it and give it a good workout.
But soon after appearing in the sandbox, you start getting hit with all sorts of things, from yellow octopi to push bullets to cages to penises that chase you around. You can’t get anything done for getting shot, caged, orbited, spammed, and otherwise killed in weird and hideous ways. You’re getting frantic, relogging over and over, staring repeatedly into your own navel, avatar screwed into a shape oddly reminiscent of something your cat hocked up last week on your favorite pair of jeans…but what can you do? (And yes, I know, the activity level of such things does wax and wane at any sim. I’ve gone to a Linden Weapons Testing Sandbox and had absolutely nothing happen, and gone there other times and been wiped out before I could take three steps. Depends on the time of day, phase of the moon, entrails of a goat…)
You check the Linden Wisdom For Avoiding Grief, and it Says Right Here to “rez a box and sit on it”. So you do. And BOOM, you’re at 2 million meters, your right foot coming out of your left ear! “But I was sitting on a box,” you whimper, “how did that happen?” Easy. Someone hit you with a weapon that doesn’t care about no silly boxes. And a box won’t help you against the followers, trackers, or particle spam that clobbers your viewer and makes you relog. All it does is make you a stationary target instead of a mobile one. So your rez shields — no soap, a griefer pops up and hits you with a phantom shieldbreaker, and once again, you’re off to ten-second pingland high above the grid, pulling what’s left of your hair out of your ass.
To the rescue comes the “phase chair” or “phase bot”, a device akin to the nonphys chair, inasmuch that when you are on it your avatar passes through solid objects. But wait, there’s more! Effectively, you’ve been offset by a great distance, enough that the scanners of the person attacking you can’t easily find you, nor can the sensors of the weapon they have deployed, so you are effectively “off the radar”. Following weapons will not track, traps will not hold you, those hideous little octopi lose interest, and those phantom shieldbreaker bullets? Not a problem with a well-crafted shield.
An example of a good tool for defending yourself against these griefer weapons, especially the freebie ones that plague sandboxes, is the Quantum Core, created by Darling Brody. There are many other such tools, but the Quantum Core is one of the most popular.
Darling Brody: “The Quantum Core gained popularity originally because it was the first shield that could deal with phantom bullets (also called shield breakers). Most people like the PNPV (phased nonphysical vehicle) because it provides great protection from freebie weapons that all noobies seem to find within 5 minutes of logging into SL, while providing reasonable mobility.”
Quantum Core EPNPV Phase Chair
The Quantum Core, inspired by a teleportation script, started as an oversized scepter and later was whittled down to just the “power core” containing only the active elements. This “quantum core” is small enough to be hidden inside the wearer’s body, though it can make a striking piece of jewelry or pretty belt buckle, belying its powerful nature. It has dozens of functions, both offensive and defensive, and users are exhorted to adhere to policies of responsible use in defending themselves against grief, or for playing with willing, consenting friends. Darling’s profile bemoans her popularity as a weapons’ designer by saying, “My passion is teleporters, but I am best known for weapons 
” The Quantum Core has two phase-type defensive shields of escalating capability, the PNPV (phased non-physical vehicle) and the EPNPV (enhanced phased non-physical vehicle).
Recently, however, there has been a change in the SL system, one that renders “phasing” impossible. JIRA article SVC-125 was worded thus: “Using an llSitTarget technique where the object you sit on is over 96m away can render an avatar invisible to llSensor and llSensorRepeat. Examples of this can be seen by purchasing ‘Non-phys Seat’ from K.R. Engineering in SL. This acts as a vehicle whilst making you out of range and not detected with sensors. This has an impact on security and games.” The primary complaint being that, while using such a chair, one could evade some security systems, and spy with impunity on persons within the perimeter. I asked Darling, whose Quantum Core phase defenses were borked by this change, if she felt phasing posed a significant threat to resident security.
Darling Brody: “Not at all. If you are using one [a phase chair] over private land there are commands in LSL that will give your the name, key, and location of the person using it. That makes it easy to have your security orb EJECT them from your land. If I was working at linden labs I would have closed the issue in the JIRA and put a link to the LSL wiki as my response to their problems. There have been commands to detect and eject phased avatars available to land owners from before I joined SL. The creators of the security orbs just saw this as an easier option. It doesn’t take long to make a JIRA issue, but it might take a few days to fix your product. To answer your question directly, the creators should have fixed their own products instead of breaking other peoples’.”
And there we arrive at the heart of the matter — breaking content. It has been long accepted that retroactive changes that “break” that which has come before, are Simply Not Done. But here is a case of a change that affects not only the Quantum Core, but dozens of other products, with a loss to their creators of untold thousands of lindens and even more hours of labor in their creation. There is also the issue of the residents who purchased these items, whose investments, sometimes thousands of lindens for the more advanced devices, are now at least in part wasted.
Omega Concern’s Omicron Phase Bot – Broken!
Let us examine for a moment the core issue of the “phase chair” debate: the code exploit that enabled it to work in the first place. Those who have demanded phasing be disabled have called it a “bug”, and say they are only asking that an error in the system be repaired. Those who see phasing as a useful, important, and valuable defensive tool, as well as an important part of their product line, do not see it as a bug, they see it as a feature. One side says “it’s a bug, content shouldn’t be based upon broken code”…the other says “it’s not broken code, it simply does not restrict you from doing this particular thing”. WarpPos, a code library routine that makes ultra-fast teleportation and movement possible, is an example of code that exploits unintentional loopholes in certain function, but is now a de-facto standard. It, like phasing, isn’t so much a “bug” as an unforeseen result of clever programming.
Bug or feature, does it matter? It defends tens of thousands of people from griefing, situations defused harmlessly instead of turning to more direct retaliation, such as shooting, trapping, or spamming. Is it reasonable to cripple the products of dozens of vendors to protect a potential few victims? Is the wasted money of tens of thousands of residents that negligible? Should the Quantum Core its cousins have to find a new way to do things? Or could it be solved by rewriting the security systems instead, so phasing did not matter?
Darling Brody: “You might argue that I should also take that advice, however it is not possible to fix the problem they have made for me, while their problem was totally fixable. I even offered them free code to do it.”
As the one who submitted the original JIRA post requesting the phasing change, we asked Psyke Phaeton of Psyke’s Defense Systems for an interview. PDS is one company whose security systems are reportedly vulnerable to phase chairs. I could not get an interview at first, so I tried asking one of his Home Security Orbs its opinion about phase chairs.
PDS Home Defense Orb, being defensive
Home Security Orb: Ommmminnnoushummmmmm…
I interpreted that as “no comment” and backed away slowly.
Soon afterward, Psyke Phaeton issued a press release in lieu of an interview. It is his statement that when he put in the JIRA request SVC-125, which calls for a vote to fix the alleged bug between llSitTarget() and llSensors(), “It was not realised at this point that people were also using llSitTarget() to avoid griefers who were using llSensor() based scripts to annoy and attack them.”
He maintains that land owners should always be able to detect another avatar within range of their own llSensor() scripts, but residents should always be able to avoid such scripts from non-land owners. Psyke suggests that, rather than “unfix” the changed code, a new approach helping private and non-private land owners and users together should be cooperatively worked out, such as allowing avatars to decide whose scripts can see them, or to have a land option to “allow scripted sensors”.
“The community should debate the scripted griefing and scripted defense issue and then present a proposal to Linden Labs that solves the problems of all sides of this debate, the private and non-private land owners and users,” Psyke said.
Asked about alternatives to phasing, Darling Brody said, “I can think of several ways to protect from being killed without the use of phased, but none of them are as elegant or friendly to the person trying to avoid being killed. It is likely we will see more of the high density prim matrix type shields being used. They are very unfriendly as they can crash a region instantly and keep it crashed for days.”
No Linden was available to comment by press time, but Torley Linden had this comment in the Jira SVC-1475 thread regarding the reinstatement of phasing: “This has understandably resulted in much discussion…I’ll import this for further investigation in relation to SVC-125.”
This reporter will be watching, and reporting, on the disposition of this issue in the future.
Angel
Feb 15th, 2008
tl;dr
Is it fixed or still broken?
Ann Otoole
Feb 15th, 2008
hows these orb thingies gonna do under Havoc 4 and the build limit height up to 4096 meters high. anyone heard anything about that? need them to scan out to over 512 meters at least.
Ari Blackthorne
Feb 15th, 2008
Man smashes thumb with hammer.
World government passes new law that all hammers must no longer be allowed to have a ‘hammer head’ and contain safety rubber in it’s construction at the impact point “just in case it misses”.
It is wise and good and honorable to ruin the tool of bazillions to feel good in reacting to ONE to protect against ANOTHER.
“The needs of the ONE outweighs the needs of the MANY.”
Captain Dumbass Kirk, Star Struck III (Hey, it’s CANON) – All worship him.
Artemis Fate
Feb 15th, 2008
I just got to the part where it said you could get pushed while sitting on a box. Except you can’t, because sitting locks you in that spot and nothing can move you except a land owner or yourself. Hell, that’s what all those non-physics phase shields that you write about are primarily based off of. Sitting on a box and letting the box move non-physically lets you move through walls and such. The only thing the phase shield part does that the box doesn’t is protect you from getting killed in Damage Enabled land.
Penance Sautereau
Feb 15th, 2008
Funny stuff.
Greefin Oh
Feb 15th, 2008
Well that’s rough. It’s sad too, QC was pretty nice and fun to play with. But QC was pretty easy to break as well. I had a feeling this was going to happen though. Woo! Havok 4 is going to be awesome! /sarcasm
Jahar Aabye
Feb 15th, 2008
Technically speaking, SVC-125 fixed a problem with the llSensor() and llSensorRepeat() functions, where they would fail to return data from an avatar in scan range if they were sitting on an object which was out of the scan’s range. To this extent, the “phase” trick was a bug, it caused llSensor and llSensorRepeat to function in a manner very different from that documented by Linden Labs.
If llSensor is supposed to return info on all avatars within the scan range (maximum of 96m), then it should do so. All that Linden Labs did was fix things so that it now does so.
Incidentally, the phase-offset did not provide complete protection from all attacks even before this fix. One would still be vulnerable to the “Banish” and “Crash” functions in Darling Brody’s Quantum Core device. The former caused map spamming that prevented one from using ones account and that would continue after relog for as long as 1.5 hours, thus essentially disabling one’s account, and the latter would crash a target’s client.
GreenLantern Excelsior
Feb 15th, 2008
Sometimes the best humor is unintentional humor!
“Darling’s profile BEMOANS her popularity as a weapons’ designer”
- “Bemoan – to moan about or deplore (a loss, grief, etc.); lament (to bemoan one’s fate).”
- “Belie – to give a false idea of; disguise or misrepresent (his smile belies his anger).”
“Darling’s profile BELIES her popularity as a weapons’ designer”
“Recently, however, there has been a change in the SL system, one that renders “phasing” impossible.”
Has this been changed already or is it only under discussion in the JIRA? Last time I looked, a couple of days ago, my phase shield still worked fine.
Pavig Lok
Feb 15th, 2008
It aint “phasing”, it’s a sit target bug. If we don’t let them fix bugs havok4 will be worse than havok1. Issues like this where folk complain that fixing broken behavior breaks their product really have only one answer – fix the product. Unfortunately products based on broken behavior may die. This kind of “phasing” despite it’s utility is relying on a misfeature in SL. One could perhaps argue that if you sit on an object out of range you truly are out of range but that’s getting philosophical.
This reminds me of another “phase”. Ye olde Omniphase allows one to travel faster than havok1 physics collisions can detect, and thus jump through walls and things. With havok4′s higher fidelity Omniphase users just bump their poor heads on those walls. I’ve heard many complaints that it’s Havok4′s fault and “should be fixed” but really…. finally physical objects are acting physically no matter how fast you run at them. WE DO NOT WANT TO FIX THIS SO IT WORKS THE OLD WAY, as doing so means we’ll keep seeing vehicles stuck in the side of buildings like with the old system.
This is not the kind of bug that falls under issues like llSetLinkPrimitiveParams to move avatars sitting on an object – the lindies called that a hack but well if an av is part of a linkset then you should be able to move them (but not change them into a torus to crash a sim tho.) In that case there is an “interesting” behavior by doing something unexpected (we know an av is acting like a prim when they’re sitting, let’s treat them like a prim) and so though unexpected, we can see that behavior as correct.
In this case however there is a correct behavior expected of LSL – namely that scanners work consistently. They don’t – and relying on the bugs in scanners for your product is an invitation to disaster. If they fix the behavior or even bug it out in a different way you have no cause for complaint to LL, but your customers will certainly be complaining to you. Products based on bugs and exploits have an inherently tenuous lifespan.
When it comes to the technological escalation between security providers and weapons designers, we need as few exploits and hacks available as possible. Every time a bug provides a loophole for new behaviors there will be new weapons and security scripts to take advantage of them, increasing the complexity of the scripts and systems lagging our grid.
If people actually owned land (or stayed on land owned by friends or responsible managers) instead of renting with restricted access to the tools they need then dealing with griefers, then these weapons and shields would not be a requirement. Instead most folk in SL are living on snake-oil land which doesn’t give them the tools to do this, and without these tools they are forced into war with griefers and technological escalation of security tools.
I am yet to come across a newbie weapon of any reasonable level of sophistication, anything that can’t be avoided or dealt with by sitting on a prim. If one is being attacked by weapons of reasonable sophistication it is almost a given that their attacker has bought expensive “offensive security” systems to do it. These are not anonymous newbies, they are long term, mostly payment info on file, residents of sl who have invested time or money to be here. They may well be idiots, but unlikely to be day old alts.
Surely engaging in an arms race with such folk is folly. Walking around with a shield that (for example) orbits anything physical that gets near you certainly isn’t the answer – yes i’ve seen folk with popular security systems who can’t even get near in a hamster ball to run around gleefuly without the thing getting pushed into space. A simple freebie non phys vehicle offers better protection, as do chairs of any sort, sitting inside a megaprim as an extreme example (if you want to protect a bunch of folk) and other such simple tricks. Really, if you’re up against a sophisticated *cough* weapon like the quantum core device, no matter what protection you use, if they just keep pushing all the buttons in turn sooner or later they’ll find an annoyance you can’t avoid. By that time though you’ve happily filed your abuse report and if they do it enough, their payment-info-on-file av gets a linden spanking – they’ll be back to their alt and newbie weapons. Oh well.
Just my two cents.
Kalel Venkman
Feb 16th, 2008
I think the PN phrase “bawwwww” fits nicely here.
Just Me
Feb 16th, 2008
I’ve been in SL for over a year. I don’t know where you folks hang out, but I have yet to see a griefer, be orbited, have a weapon pointed at me, or need a security system of any kind.
I’m guess you folks must be haning out in the wrong neighborhoods
Alyx Stoklitsky
Feb 16th, 2008
“particle spam that clobbers your viewer and makes you relog”
What, are people’s PC’s REALLY this shitty?
Raideur Ng
Feb 16th, 2008
SitTarget offsets, the bug, also allowed people to be immune to conventional and logical forms of combat, meaning rezzing a killprim on the offending target. There was no manner, aside from estate tools to defeat it.
You shouldnt be building in damage land. It is blatantly stupid. The weapon testing sandbox is just that, for testing, not building. Sandboxes and simply idle land is a better idea, where you wont bother anyone, like bohol.
Keeping avatars within the range of normal manners of combat is a plus. Avatars should not be completely immune to all weapons short of the banstick in combat zones.
Also, folks, to make an offset mover, use freebie nonphysical movement scripts, and simply change the offset and camera. It is a 5 minute tinker for free.
Greefin Oh
Feb 16th, 2008
Just Me, I imagine you hang out in a very boring sim, somewhere griefers would never expect LULZ to be had. Now if you kindly tell us where you hangout, I am sure someone will show you a gun and then some
BTW that isn’t a threat coming from me. I’m retired =D
Darling Brody
Feb 17th, 2008
@Alyx Stoklitsky
Phased can be defeated on private and public land using regular scripts with a more innovative approach to detecting avatars in the area. The kind of innovation you don’t find in griefer scripts, which is what made phased so useful in the first place.
Your confusion is understandable, you have been misslead by the kind of propaganda that was used to force through the removal of Phased protection in the first place.
@Jahar Aabye
The word BELIES implies dishonesty. Why do you feel it is necessary to insult me like that?
Do you have anything more useful to add to this topic, beyond insults poorly disguised as an English lesson?
Darling Brody
Quantum Products
anonymous
Feb 17th, 2008
More evidence of the existence of FIC. The Lindens have made it easier for griefers to attack! onoes.
Jahar Aabye
Feb 17th, 2008
LMAO
The “English lesson” post was the one below mine. It was written by Greenlantern Excelsior.
My post was the one that began “Technically speaking, SVC-125 fixed a problem with the llSensor() and llSensorRepeat() functions…”
And yes, I would like to think that my post did add to the discussion.
Just Me
Feb 17th, 2008
@ Greefin Oh
hang out in a boring sim? what’s your definition of boring? if you mean good music, friendly / fun people, good DJs, then yes, I guess I hang out in boring sim(s) because I frequent about ten different clubs — all carefully selected to not have pole dancers, flashing spotlights, loud thumping music, escorts or people HOWWWWWLLLLING all the time.
Just Me
Feb 18th, 2008
Oh, and I also have 9 shops in various malls or co-located with clubs. 7 of those shops are not near the clubs where I hang out.
When I add in the homes of my friends, I come up with approximately 30 different sims where I spend time on a regular basis, and as I said .. no griefers to be seen anywhere … EVER.
Perhaps YOU hang out in griefer-friendly places? I don’t know, but I can say that I’m always amazed at all the griefer/ad farm/land baron wars/etc articles here at the SL Herald. I certainly have an rich SL experience that doesn’t include any of that stuff.
Maggie Darwin
Feb 18th, 2008
@Just Me: Is there some way your perfect sim differs from having WinAmp and an IRC client? I don’t see much reason for you to be on the grid just so you can dance in a nerf ball.
Go hang out at with the big kids in Timeless Undergound in RavKom sometime. Live DJs, good people, stellar music, a world-class lighting system you won’t see anywhere else…and build is on and damage enabled.
An armed society is a polite society.
Just Me
Feb 18th, 2008
@Maggie
I didn’t say I just danced … I skydive, hot air balloon ride, visit friends, DJ occasionally, create and sell products in my shops, etc.
Never did I say I hang out in a “perfect sim” .. I just said that the griefers aren’t everywhere as some would make you think. They certainly aren’t present in the various sims where I go.
And just the thought of a ‘world class lighting system’ turns me off .. I don’t need flashing lights and spotlights interfering with my camera views or keeping me from dropping an occasional inventory item on a friend or exchanging LMs with them.
BTW, I just checked out the RavKom sim. Huge prim walls obstructing the view of one quarter of the sim, empty shops everywhere, a strip club, a dojo, and “Timeless Underground” nowhere to be found … in fact “Timeless Underground” doesn’t even appear in Search. Oh, lots of “sky litter” too, all the way up to 700 meters. Looks like a typical junky sim to me.
Darling Brody
Feb 24th, 2008
Someone has been posting comments here using my name. Very Uncool.
Darling
Pattehph0x Katsu
Feb 25th, 2008
@Darling
Using llGetObjectDetails is hardly “innovative” and given what your product does, I’d say you shouldn’t be using the term “griefer scripts” as if what you sell is any better.
It’s simply a griefer script for people with money.
Your system has a function designed specifically to CRASH someone’s SL client, not to mention another that constantly targets a specified avatar with unstable physical prims in order to “blitz” orbit them, this continues even after they relog, sometimes for hours at a time (banish).
While a one time orbit can be useful in getting rid of someone who is causing trouble, there is no reason to force them to relog over and over again for what can be hours at a time, nor is there any reason to forcibly crash anyone’s client.
Darling Brody
Feb 26th, 2008
@Pattehph0x Katsu
[19:08] Quantum Core: Command Received : Check Registration Pattehph0x Katsu
[19:08] Quantum Core: PattehPh0x Katsu does not own a Quantum Core.
I guess that explains your post full of mis-information. You didnt get one single fact correct about me or the Quantum Core. It is just the same old rumors passed off as facts again.
You also forgot about all the other products I sell. I have a Grid Wide teleporter system that lets people teleport between different region, even with different owners of the teleporter teminals! I sell buildings, security tools, furniture, avatars, a working Tardis, and so much more. It is a great pitty people like you choose to only look at the weapon I sell. It is such a small part of what I do in SecondLife.
You call my scripts “griefer scripts” but you don’t own anything I have made. Dare I say the only thing you know about me is that someone once shot you with a weapon I made. Have you considered your hostility towards total strangers, like me, may be the reson you got shot in the first place?
Darling Brody
Quantum Products
Luc Aubret
Apr 22nd, 2008
The “phase” concept, which was around, I’m sorry, long before Quantum Core (I’m just saying let’s try not to get carried away with the term “first” here), is an excellent example of Linden Labs overlooking the “don’t break content” rule by painting all combat-related items with the same brush.
The entire concept of “don’t break existing content” is that you don’t get to choose what kind of content you think is valid. Shields aren’t the same as weapons, and to be honest, I’m a bit tired of weapons being painted as purely “griefing” tools. Griefing only occurs when you’re targeting avatars who are not willingly participating in the exchange; there is, however, an entire sub-culture of people who very simply enjoy attacking each other in novel ways.
A similar argument can be made against the recent crippling of the llPushObject function, which now is nearly useless. It was crippled, presumably to avoid “orbits,” but was neutered in such a way that it is virtually pointless, even in products which didn’t use it for that. Adding the no-push flag to parcels was fine, and should have done the trick; I’d even go so far as to say blocking repeated push attempts to avoid insane mega-pushes is fine. But shields that use push responsibly to divert bullets, amusement park rides such as waterslides and catapults that use it on willing avs, and a number of cool toys such as grav guns were also rendered ineffectual, and that’s unacceptable.
I was, oddly enough, fine with LL fixing the physics bug that allowed certain non-push orbits to work (jadSOFT called his “Ownage”, mine called it “Blitz” and the term seemed to stick for no logical reason) because there was no discernible use for those other than circumventing no-push restrictions (blah blah, I made griefer stuff, a man’s gotta eat and there was a market hole, let the trolling begin, etc.), but llPushObject was there for a reason. Why does LL constantly seem to feel that it’s okay to break content so long as it’s not prim shoes?