Linden GTeam and JLU – Improper Conduct?

by Alphaville Herald on 12/01/10 at 8:56 am

BrainiacWiki papers claim Lab staff leaks to role play game cops

by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk

Plexus Linden

A troubling pattern of what may be Linden governance team staff collusion with the Justice League Unlimited is beginning to emerge after the JLU's BrainiacWiki papers were leaked to the internet at large by the Wrong Hands infiltration group. Linden staff coaching on abuse reports, sharing alt account identities, apparently using JLU's database and avatar scanners – the list goes on and on. Perhaps most telling are claims that the JLU accounts for 1/6th of all abuse reports on a weekly bases as of the summer of 2009. Have some Linden GTeam members decided to take sides in the game – and keep the volume of abuse reports artificially high by indulging the JLU with special favors and special access? Fueling the faction wars between the JLU "superheros" and the supervillain griefers might be a form of game moderator job security after all.

Given the volume of the papers – imagine trying to report on an encyclopedia – it is likely to be some time before all of the gems have been uncovered. For readers without their own copy of the JLU BrainiacWiki papers here are some highlights:

Plexus Linden using JLU database and wearing JLU avatar key logger

"Not the leader of the LindenLabs Governance and Response Team, butcertainly one of its more influential members. Of the G-Team, Plexus isthe most conversational and responsive, and is currently listed in theBrainiac database as an external operative. This gives him access toour communications system, and the ability to wear and use the avatarkey logger in the commlink (which he uses in full knowledge of what itdoes) and the ability to use the Brainiac Mini terminal he now wears onhis right shoulder.

At one point he was also is a memberof the GLC/JLU Tactical Groupand could see and respond to messages there. However, in the interestsof complete transparency and equanimity towards all groups, herelinquished his membership in this group.

Plexus was made a part of the Linden Maintenance Groupon Nov.8, 07, and was a forthcoming and valuable asset to the Justice League,frequently volunteering information relevant to the anti-griefer workwe do."

Plexus Linden revealing alt account identities to JLU

ARS

JLU generates 1/6th of all Abuse Reports

BrainiacWiki_Mal-W/default_399.html

Notices for June 30, 2009 – August 1, 2009
….
TheLeagueitself generates about one-sixth of all the abuse reports filedon the entire grid on a weekly basis. By giving the peacekeepercommunity specific targetted instruction on the quality of filedreports, Harry Linden improved the system by making it easier andfaster for Lindens to evaluate and to respond to emergent situations.This was a surgical strike on a growing problem by the GTeam.
The GLC are focused on a "magic number", making the same error thatmost ordinary citizens do – that the abuse report system is a machine,and that decisions are made solely by that machine.

–KalelVenkman 14:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The source of the above information is, unfortunately, secure GLCforums. Yes, the GLC is leaking information, and this is informationthe GLC would probably prefer not to have been disclosed to anynon-Core reader. The closed nature of GLC internal politics suggeststhat most of the rank and file know little to nothing of thisdiscussion. As with anything else in the BWiki, it is important indeference to the GLC's own needs that we allow this information to gono further than it already has, so any discussion must remain here. Iunderstand that this information was just dropped in our laps, but wemust take better care of their information than the GLC apparently did.

–Kalel Venkman 01:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Not the leader of the Linden Labs Governance and Response Team, but certainly one of its more influential members. Of the G-Team, Plexus is the most conversational and responsive, and is currently listed in the Brainiac database as an external operative. This gives him access to our communications system, and the ability to wear and use the avatar key logger in the commlink (which he uses in full knowledge of what it does) and the ability to use the Brainiac Mini terminal he now wears on his right shoulder."

Teagan

Teagan Linden coaches JLU onabuse reporting

[21:12]  Kalel Venkman: Hey, Teagan,quick procedural question: the AR queue still triggers
on multipleAR's filed in an incident to escalate the urgency of a noted situation,correct? 
I just want to make sure we're not wasting the RESI team's time siftingthrough extra AR's if
this doesn't actually help.
[21:17]  TeaganLinden: One person filing over and over on an incident doesn't doanything to
enhance the urgency really, no. One AR is all that's needed.
[21:17] Kalel Venkman: No, we knew that.
[21:17]  Kalel Venkman: One personper incident, and as detailed as possible.
[21:18]  Teagan Linden:yes, exactly :)
[21:18]  Kalel Venkman: What happens if more than one person files on anincident.  Does that
escalate the incident in the queue?
[21:18] Teagan Linden: details details details, but just the facts
[21:18] Teagan Linden: too many variables to really say. It's a complexsystem :)
[21:18]  Teagan Linden: sometimes it might, sometimes not, all depends
[21:18] Kalel Venkman: Back in October, Socrates Linden told us that yes, itdid, that it was
algorithmic.
[21:19]  Teagan Linden: It didthen, yes. We've made changes and improvements since then
[21:19]  Teagan Linden: so now it doesn't necessarily
[21:20]  KalelVenkman: But you are not aware of the situational triggers at thispoint.
[21:20]  Kalel Venkman: We have noticed that responsiveness isup over this time last year.
[21:21]  Teagan Linden: oh good! seems to be working much better for us;glad it's showing up
for you guys too!
[21:21]  Kalel Venkman: Iapologize for the questions – I'm just trying to make my team's work
as efficient as possible.
[21:22]  Kalel Venkman: If there are thingsthat waste everyone's time, we shouldn't be doing
them.
[21:23] Kalel Venkman: Energy and effort in SL is so hard to come by, and allthat.
[21:23]  Teagan Linden: No problem :) Same thing as always really – ifit's an attack at an
event where it's disrupting many people, thenit's important to get everyone affected to send
an abuse report.It's best if they do it in their own words; I dont know if the systempicks
up on copy/paste ARs where everyone sends the same text (we see thatsometimes) but it might.
[21:23]  Kalel Venkman: It probably does.
[21:23] Kalel Venkman: If I were programming it, that's what I'd filter for.
[21:23]  Teagan Linden: also everyone doing their own perspective of itgives us better details
and a better idea of what's going on
[21:23] Teagan Linden: yes, makes sense :)
[21:24]  Kalel Venkman: Iunderstand – so that pretty much answers my questions, it's working
pretty much as we had theorized based on our observations.
[21:24] Kalel Venkman: Thank you, Teagan!

A Caution:
Wedo not have permission from Teagan to distribute these chatlogs, sothey should not be retransmitted in any form. The BWiki is a securelocation, and most people are not even aware of its existence. Theselogs should be safe enough left here.
–Kalel Venkman 05:13, 24 July 2009 (UTC)


JLU'scozy relationship with Teagan Linden – ban powers fail on God Modegriefer

Meeting of June 28, 2009 morning

[9:15]   Maverick Grunfeld: Shortly after all this is happening, Teagan Linden
showed up on site followed by Harry Linden.
[9:15]    MaverickGrunfeld: I did my usual hello to Teagan
[9:15]    Kara Timtam: YayTeagan!
[9:15]    Melanippe Karas: Yay Teagan!
[9:15]    MaverickGrunfeld: And explained the environment
[9:15]    Maverick Grunfeld: Teagan at that point tells me to IM herdirectly
[9:15]    JB Hancroft: and Harry? interesting….
[9:15]   Maverick Grunfeld: And bypass the ARs.
[9:15]    DianaPrince Carter:Coolness!
[9:15]    JB Hancroft: excellent!
[9:16]    BilliAnn Bravin: Wow.
[9:16]   Maverick Grunfeld: That basically if I spotted a person or a
troublemaker,to IM her and they would jump on it.
[9:16]    Kara Timtam: Teaganknows she can trust you. That's BIG.
[9:16]    Melanippe Karas: Awesome.
[9:16]    DianaPrince Carter:Bugger than big, huge!
[9:16]    JB Hancroft: .me hands Princess an"i"
[9:16]    DianaPrince Carter: *bigger, I meant bigger! OhBugger :P
[9:16]    Maverick Grunfeld: It was quite the colaboration yesterday.Estate
banned, LL account banned, and JLU was the eyes and ears.
[9:17]   Kalel Venkman: I don't want to get into breakdowns of sentences that
involve the words "bugger", and "huge".
[9:17]    DianaPrince Carter:XD
[9:17]    Maverick Grunfeld: The most interesting case thoughshould be noted for
the record, an abuser claimed to be Dick Burns tome in IM after he did the usual
disruption.
[9:17]    Maverick Grunfeld: The issue was, he IMed meafter having his accoutn
banned.
[9:18]    Kara Timtam: Goodtrick.
[9:18]    Maverick Grunfeld: I pointed out the abuser outrightto estate and Teagan
[9:18]    Maverick Grunfeld: It gets worse.
[9:18]    MaverickGrunfeld: So estate banned him, which meant he went to the
regionnext door to lay out his party gifts.
[9:19]    Maverick Grunfeld: Atthat point, Teagan banned based on my IM id and an
AR I fired off for good measure
[9:19]    Maverick Grunfeld: Theaccount then basically entered into God Mode
[9:19]    Kalel Venkman:Note that at this point Lindens are now talking directly
to JLU, notreading the AR logs.
[9:19]    Maverick Grunfeld: As he was banned from LL, he was no longerAR'able
[9:19]    DianaPrince Carter: eek!
[9:19]    MaverickGrunfeld: And was no longer visible in the GTeam's tools or
process
[9:19]    JB Hancroft: Excuse me… the griefer went into God mode?
[9:19]   Maverick Grunfeld: And as SL no longer saw the account
[9:20]   Kara Foley: how is that possible?
[9:20]    Maverick Grunfeld: He wasable to bypass the region ban
[9:20]    Samantha Lowell: Hooboy
[9:20]    JB Hancroft: Do we knowwhich client he was using?
[9:20]    Kalel Venkman: No, we don't knowthat.
[9:20]    Maverick Grunfeld: And was able to bypass the nobuilding on the parcel
[9:20]    Maverick Grunfeld: So he was able to rez right on top of theevent stage.

[9:21]    Melanippe Karas: And Teagan wasmade aware of these irregularities?
[9:21]    Samantha Lowell:*exploit
[9:21]    Maverick Grunfeld: Yes, that's the concerning part-Teagancouldn't
believe it herself.
[9:21]    DianaPrince Carter: LLshould implement Kal-El's JIRA :/
[9:21]    Kara Timtam: Dick Burnsis a PN
[9:21]    Maverick Grunfeld: Asked me to TP her right on top of theabuser.
[9:21]    BilliAnn Bravin: On a related note, New Oa wasattacked last night by the
PN during our Doors concert.
[9:21]   JB Hancroft: There are a *lot* of exploits in SL.. but most are kept
closely by the people who discover them, so they won't get fixed.
[9:21]   Maverick Grunfeld: Dick Burns was also known to be a highly talented
scripterfor the PN.
[9:22]    BilliAnn Bravin: At least one Dick Burns wasthere.
[9:22]    Maverick Grunfeld: Usually, PN claim the memes but aren'treally the
individual
[9:22]    Kalel Venkman: This must have beenafter I left.
[9:22]    Maverick Grunfeld: I've had people tell methey were Dick before or
DeadyCodeac
[9:22]    Kalel Venkman: Hold that thought, Billi.
[9:22]   BilliAnn Bravin: Yes, after the Doors stsrted.
[9:22]    KaraTimtam: Whomever this was, they surely had the scripting chops.
[9:23]   Maverick Grunfeld: But, given this guy's abilities and use of asecurity
exploit, he had the skills.
[9:23]    Maverick Grunfeld: It was as ifthe ban enabilled him to have greater
powers/permissions on thegrid.
[9:23]    Samantha Lowell: SO, what is the worst-case scenariohere?
[9:23]    Kalel Venkman: Worst case scenario is that a PN can be givenpowers even
Lindens don't have.
[9:24]    Kalel Venkman: Goanywhere, do anything, destroy anything.
[9:24]    Gawyn Philbin:Which in short, means the entire grid is pretty much boned
[9:24]    Maverick Grunfeld: With that said, eventually, LL was able tokill the
account.
[9:24]    JB Hancroft: Before we jump from thewindows (not flying… ;)
[9:24]    Maverick Grunfeld: But, that wason their backend, not sure what magic
they had to work.
[9:24]    JB Hancroft: have we seen anything likethis before?
[9:24]    Samantha Lowell: I suggest, for the timebeing, we keep a very low
profile in the field

111 Responses to “Linden GTeam and JLU – Improper Conduct?”

  1. Neo Citizen

    Jan 14th, 2010

    @NebulaCS: Of course not, Nebula, it’s no more a violation of law than somebody Googling you and printing out the pages and sticking them in the desk drawer. But I can see why you’d be upset. Nobody likes getting caught doing something they’re not supposed to be doing, which is why I’m so incredulous that the griefers thought that exposing the single largest body of information on griefers, their activities and their personal information was a good idea – including their OWN information.

    Reading through this amazing pile of bullshit they collected and may have partially made up, there’s a lot of accurate stuff in it too. Now the information is out there, loose and impossible to control, and there are a whole lot of people with access to it now that would think nothing of using it. The JLU asshats may have built the bomb, but Tizzers pushed the button. If I were looking for somebody to blame for this, it’d be him.

  2. Crisco Twister

    Jan 14th, 2010

    The JLU built the bomb but Tizzers pushed the button? What kind of slimy GenX gay assed talk is that? You best go back and play some more Crisco Twister with the rest of your JLU pals Neo Dork. Grease up real good. I’m sure the raging egos of Venkman and Greenlantern Excelsior are hard to deal with right now. They’re hard men but you can handle them. They had better learn their lessons though. They had better learn when to suck their sick obsessive egos back into their asses and fade into obscurity, and become a memory, because if they don’t I have a feeling that they will have to be taken down hard too. They have crossed the line and its too late for them. Keep an eye on them though, because like any evil spirit, once the light has been shone on them and they are out of the body and flying around the room uncontrollably… well somebody had better set up surveillance real soon… they are stupid and will try to escalate.

  3. Tuomy Boa

    Jan 14th, 2010

    Unless people with access to the Wiki were forced to sign NDA, they are free to quote the source any way they want as long as they mention the source. Thats how universal copyright law works.

    Only right JLU has is to close access to those people who are quoting it.

    Without signed agreement, its just public document under restricted access.

  4. GreenLantern Excelsior

    Jan 14th, 2010

    @ Robble

    “I think Warner Brothers will care about people using their IPs while collecting massive amounts of personal information about people and violating california cyberstalking laws.”

    In my opinion, they won’t care. They aren’t losing any money due to JLU actions, and JLU isn’t making any money from their intellectual property. There’s no confusion about whether JLU in SL is the same thing as JLU on TV reruns. Having characters from DC Comics flying around in Second Life is basically free advertising for DC and WB.

    “Aren’t you a cop irl?”

    I am a uniformed law enforcement volunteer. I want to make that clear, because impersonating a police officer is a crime.

    “Shouldn’t you know better than aid a group of people who stockpile people’s personal information.”

    It’s hard for me to understand this obsession people seem to have with JLU’s use of Google. If I recall correctly, there were only a few people whose RL information was stored on the JLU wiki: Tizzers Foxchase, N3X15, Deadly Codec, and (posthumously) Nikola Shirakawa. Since the information is freely available on the Internet, would you have the same concern if, instead of the person’s name, JLU provided a link to the website where the person’s name was available? Or if they provided a list of references to show that each person’s personal information was obtained through legal search methods, that could be acceptable to some people. But from a law enforcement standpoint, it seems to me that since the information was stored on a password-protected website, and wasn’t used to stalk or harass anyone, there is no problem with having it. Of course, now that it’s out in the open due to malicious action, anyone can see it without taking the trouble to go to the Google website. And still no crime has been committed. Now if someone orders 20 pizzas and has them sent to Tizzers’ house, that rises to the level of harassment or maybe stalking, but I’m sure no one would do that. Tizzers, do you like anchovies? JUST KIDDING!!! :)

    “I’ll post a quote from Kalel talking about the night tizzers trick or treated at his house.

    [22:35] Kalel Venkman: Had I been home at the time, I’d have been within my legal rights to shoot them all dead
    on the spot.
    [22:35] Kalel Venkman: Four shots, wouldn’t even empty the clip”

    Well, that’s assuming four one-shot kills, which is kind of hard to do. But let’s continue:

    “Here’s a snippet of California’s cyberstalking laws:
    (snippet snipped)
    California’s Castle laws only apply when an intruder is INSIDE a person’s house AND presenting an immediate threat.”

    After reading the law and what Kalel said, this is what I think:

    - “I am going to come to your house right now and shoot you” is a threat under that law.

    - “If you come to my house I will shoot you” is probably not a threat under that law. Note that the first sentence of the law requires that the person is threatening to commit a crime. Depending on whether the intruder enters the house or not, and threatens the residents or not, such a shooting may not be a crime.

    - “If I had been home, I could have shot them according to state law” is not a threat. First, he’s saying specifically that he’s not committing a crime since the action would be taken in accordance with the law. Second, since the event occurred in the past, the statement wouldn’t have caused Tizzers “reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety.” And third, there’s no evidence that Kalel had the “specific intent” for the statement to be a threat and to cause fear.

    Kalel was quite understandably concerned that his RL space had been invaded by someone from SL whose intentions were not clear. If my wife opened the door and found a SL griefer standing there, I would be concerned too, and angry. I might even say something I would regret later.

  5. GreenLantern Excelsior

    Jan 14th, 2010

    @ Senban

    “Yet if I can go through all that and never find it necessary to file an abuse report about it, and yet the JLU are responsible for such a vast swathe of the abuse reports, then something is wrong. Something is very wrong, don’t you think? They are either filing abuse reports where simple common sense would dictate that none is necessary or they are going out of their way to file batches of abuse reports to game the system against certain people.”

    Here’s Linden Lab’s guidance on filing an Abuse Report, from the Second Life Knowledge Base:

    “When should you file an abuse report?

    Whenever you see one of these rules being broken and you believe it to be intentional or malicious, everyone present at the scene should file an abuse report. The abuse-reporting system exists to make your Second Life more pleasant and satisfying. If there are multiple incidents, file multiple reports.

    We encourage you to file reports on abuse you see happening anywhere in addition to abuse that targets you personally. Not every Resident is aware of the abuse reporting mechanisms, or remembers to use them in times of trouble, so help out your fellow Residents! Reports from multiple people show the RESI (Resident Experience Support Inworld) Team that an incident affected more people than a single report would. If twenty Residents are affected, we should receive at least twenty abuse reports from twenty different Residents, which can corroborate evidence.”

    JLU does follow the LL guidance on filing ARs. If a sim full of people is being knocked around by physical cubes with pictures of Goatse Man on them, several JLU members respond and write ARs to show LL that the problem is severe. We don’t copy/paste the event description, we don’t tell our members what abuse category to use, and each member only writes one AR per event. If (in the words of Jeff Beckenbauer) there are “two residents arguing in a hot tub,” per LL guidelines we wouldn’t call out a group response. We get calls for help several times a day due to griefer attacks, and it’s very abnormal when I don’t write at least one AR if I’m in SL all day. Now, does that mean “something is very wrong?” No it doesn’t. It means that we try to “help out our fellow Residents,” as LL has requested. Certainly we write more ARs than the average Resident, but for us, that’s a point of pride, not an indication of wrongdoing. I can’t imagine being in SL for two and a half years, sitting through multiple griefer attacks, but only writing three ARs. If someone doesn’t want to help their fellow Residents during griefer attacks, that’s their choice, but to me, that’s an indication that “something is very wrong.”

    “Abuse reports should never be the first response. There are plenty of simpler ways to deal with the majority of griefers e.g. muting, ejecting and so on.”

    That’s fine if you have parcel powers everywhere in Second Life. Most of us don’t have that. No resident has the power to eject and ban griefers and return their objects in Linden-owned land like the public sandboxes, so ARs are the only way to deal with griefer attacks there. The Linden RESI Team has to come clean up their own land, and the AR is the way they receive notification about it.

    “Peacekeepers prevent two sides from resuming conflict by standing between them in effect.”

    That’s exactly what we do. I like to say during training that we stand between the griefers and the innocent Residents they would harm. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but essentially that’s what we are all about. We also do fundraising and charity and event security. That along with the peacekeeping adds up to Community Service, and we do it for free, as volunteers.

    “The JLU aren’t “peacekeepers” – they are vigilantes and should be treated as such.”

    No, you’re wrong. A vigilante is defined as a member of a Vigilance Committee, “a group extralegally assuming authority for summary action professedly to keep order and punish crime because of the alleged lack or failure of the usual law-enforcement agencies.” We don’t assume any authority and we don’t punish any crime. All we do is observe and report. Basically we are a Neighborhood Watch in Second Life. If you hear someone talking about JLU members shooting and caging and orbiting residents, that’s a lie.

  6. Conspiratorial Collusion

    Jan 14th, 2010

    Direct Quote Excerpted From Plexus Linden page on JLU Docs. It shows Linden Labs giving info on ALTS to the JLU:

    And also from the Plexus Linden page we have Linden Labs analysing CHAT LOGS and giving Chat infos to the JLU:

    I SAY SUE THE CRAP OUT OF LINDEN LABS RIGHT AWAY

  7. Neo Citizen

    Jan 14th, 2010

    @ Gaara Sandalwood

    You’ve already been debunked as a griefer on one of the other comment threads. Anything you have to say at this point is nulled. I’m sure enjoying watching all the other griefers try to e-Lawyer some justifications for doing what they do. It’s really hi-LAR-ious. All these sixteen year old kids who think they’re experts on the law, just because they’ve managed not to be caught by their parents so far.

  8. Gaara Sandalwood

    Jan 14th, 2010

    Indeed I have. I don’t really care about being labelled as a griefer. The JLU and whoever buys into this shit can think what they want. But when those people hand NCs out to the owners of sims I have been known to hang out at to inform them blatantly that a I’m a major griefer that needs estate banning I just feel it’s a load of shit.

    Oh, nice little story btw(just for the lulz): there’s a marvel RP sim that doesn’t believe in caging. I’m serious. They call it pushing and think it’s completely okay to do that to none group members that enter the sim.

  9. corona anatine

    Jan 14th, 2010

    why do SL players need a group such as JLU to file AR’s for them ?
    surely people are quitew capable of doing that for themselves?

    both sides seem to be legends / important only in their own minds

    I have yet to encounter any greifing even after 3 years in sL
    and have only ever once meet an avi in stretch tights [ and that was in a mall selling superhero stuff

    ps
    I thought the idea of being a comic book superhero was to have a secret identity
    not go around proclaiming to everyone who you are

    who watches the watchmen : )

  10. corona anatine

    Jan 14th, 2010

    secondly

    given that greifers are babyish attention seekers
    surely devoting all your time to fighting them just gives them the attention they so childishly crave ?

  11. Senban Babii

    Jan 14th, 2010

    @GreenLantern Excelsior

    Hi, we actually met once, although I doubt you’d remember me :)

    “If someone doesn’t want to help their fellow Residents during griefer attacks, that’s their choice, but to me, that’s an indication that “something is very wrong.”"

    I have to disagree with this assertion that just because I don’t run around firing off abuse reports during “griefer attacks” that I’m not helping my fellow residents at those times. On the rare occasions I actually come across griefer attacks, I usually do offer advice *if people seem shocked and surprised by the events and don’t seem to understand what is happening*

    “We get calls for help several times a day due to griefer attacks, and it’s very abnormal when I don’t write at least one AR if I’m in SL all day.”

    See, this is what I don’t get. I spend more than a few hours every day working in SL. Partly due to my job and partly for pleasure in my own time. I’m running round the grid all the time, meeting new people, going to new places. You’d think if griefer attacks were as prevalent as you claim, I’d come across them more often. And yet I don’t. In fact it’s such a rare occasion that where a few years ago I’d have said “Typical, another griefer attack”, these days I often end up having to explain to people what a griefer attack is when they see one. It comes to something when you have to try to explain what Cosby cubes are to people because they’ve never seen such things. I’m not saying you don’t see griefer attacks any more because of course you do. I was passing through Furnation recently while researching an article and saw my first one in months. I simply refuse to believe that they are as prevalent as the self-appointed vigilantes (I stick by that term) try to make out and I honestly don’t believe that firing off hundreds of abuse reports is necessary when all that is really needed to counter most griefer attacks is a little knowledge and understanding of what’s happening.

    I think one of the real problems, if I’m honest, is that people these days seem to just shout “GRIEFAHZ” for the slightest issue. I had someone accuse me of being a griefer just recently for using gestures! Gestures! Can you believe that? I even had someone threaten to file an abuse report on me for trying to show someone what Mario spam looks like because they’d never seen that kind of thing before on the grid. A five second burst so as to educate and inform, not even near people and someone came running over in a panic that terrorists had taken over the Nakatomi Plaza! And that’s my other point here. The self-appointed groups like the JLU run around and convince people that there are griefers behind every prim, a bit like “reds under the bed” syndrome. Their efforts actually end up convincing everyone on the grid that someone coughing on the next sim is actually the work of the PN Interweb Terrorists Who Corrupt Our Precious Bodily Fluids.

    I honestly applaud people who wish to help others, whatever form that help takes. But I don’t believe that the JLU and similar groups have a good approach and that they do as much damage as they prevent. And given the contents of the files that were leaked, I think that the JLU *are* vigilantes who have crossed the line big time. Did Tizzers turn up on Kalel’s doorstep? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. If he did then fair enough, that was going too far but then how many of us can honestly say we’ve never done something stupid in our lives? But for the JLU to claim the high ground and then do things that are just as bad, gathering data on people’s RL is unjustifiable. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

    And my final issue here is lack of oversight. Who watchers the watchers? There is no accountability for your actions, there is no one looking over your shoulders. If you want to convince me otherwise, please feel free to try but until you do, I’ll continue to consider the JLU and similar groups to be self-righteous and self-appointed vigilante groups who act without oversight and who in effect create a culture of fear so they’ll have something to do that makes them feel powerful. And please don’t take that as a personal attack because it isn’t. I’m sure there are genuine people trying to do a good job in these groups but they are being tarred with the same brush as the power-mad supervillains masquerading as heroes.

  12. deadlycodec

    Jan 14th, 2010

    Neo Citizen is most likely kalolz or the gargantuan Kara Timtam. Maybe Samantha whats-her-face, but clearly a JLU member. Just thought I’d point that out. No one who isn’t one of these sad, sad, people is going to spend time defending them so fervently, responding to the backlash over, and over, and over, and over again.

    @GLE

    Dude, you’re an idiot. A uniformed law enforcement volunteer? Does that mean you squeeze your fat ass into spandex every morning to go out fighting crime by calling the cops over things like kittens in trees, and teenagers using swear words (OH NOES!) and skipping school? That’s some pretty vague terminology. Last I checked, law enforcement doesn’t have civilian volunteers because it’d be a legal liability. I have never met any civilian law enforcement volunteer, and I had plenty of encounters with the copszors in my teenage years.

    Secondly, as if the above isn’t enough to invalidate your ‘law enforcement perspective’, even if you actually had those affiliations, city and state law enforcement officials are not trained to interpret computer crime laws, aside from acting on threats on the internet.

    Let me tell you the story of Jasper Cook, of Augusta State University, a deputized (apparently) officer (who retired from the PD, but still has arrest powers) who handles security at the school. Last year, a former friend of mine was being threatened by some students at the school. Now, apparently it was over some super BS where some chick claimed that the guy said that her friend was dating some dude that she wasn’t dating – extremely petty high school-esque bullshit. Now, they escalated it and the girl’s roommate’s boyfriend was threatening to assault the dude the next time he was at school. This all happened on facebook, and I was sitting next to him while it was going down. My friend asked me if I could talk to them. I did, and I told them that if they bothered my buddy I’d be cutting off their power and phone service – he was a good kid, the extremely geeky type who had never been into a fight in his life. The guy began threatening me, trying to get me to go to University Village to fight him (hey, we’re in GA. People are super dumb like that over here). So the girl gets back on and says, “Alright, we’re going to handle this like mature adults. Nobody is going to touch him.” She knew me, and she knew what I can do with a computer and a phone, and she knew I was dead serious. I said, “good deal, we’re cool then” and that was it. Or so I thought.

    After the conversation ended, they took edited chatlogs to campus police, who began calling my cell and my friend’s cell. I refused to talk to the officer, Jasper Cook, and when he told me he’d be getting a warrant for my arrest for terroristic threats, I lol’d and said good luck with that. He tried to claim that it was in his jurisdiction because they were on school property while they were talking to me on facebook.

    The officer told me he had ‘logs’, and that he already had my ip address (I knew the latter to be false, he’d have to wait to get it from facebook, plus if he had subpoena’d it, he’d then have to subpoena the ISP after which he’d learn it wasn’t my IP – all over an e-argument). Come to find out, the logs were nothing more than a .txt file of copypasta in which these nitwits had removed the threats they made before handing them over to these cops, and proceeded to file a false police report (a felony, and grounds for expulsion – I didn’t pursue it though). This was their ‘investigative’ work when it came to alleged internet crime.

    Local police are not trained nor equipped to investigate crime on the internet. In some jurisdictions, state troopers have resources and the forensic training to investigate and prosecute such things, but generally it’s left to the feds.

    Remember Jenna Fairplay? She was a land baron who jacked some money from me when I was Sil Demina in 2007 and refused to refund me after I got permab& for the first time. After I began spamming her like crazy, crashing her sims, and generally disrupting her business, a cop from Mississippi calls me on her behalf threatening me with harassment charges. I told him I wasn’t going to talk to him, and ended up hanging up on the guy like 4 times before he finally got the message. What did I do next? On principle, I immediately turned the shit up a notch and set to work attacking her some more. Was I ever prosecuted for it in Mississippi or elsewhere? No. And in the end, I got my money back too.

    The point I am illustrating is, that even if your ‘law enforcement perspective’ were valid, unless it was a ‘federal law enforcement’ perspective, as in Secret Service or FBI, it means jack shit. You’re just another 40 year old in Second Life, one of countless rejects who join these ridiculous police forces, all likewise claiming law enforcement affiliations, or that they’re former marines. There is a profile for weirdos like this, and you’re a perfect fucking match.

    “If you come to my house I will shoot you” not a threat? Um, clearly, it is. I was arrested as a juvenile for ‘making terroristic threats’ just because I told someone that they would be sorry. That was it.

    tl;dr you’re an annoying pain in the ass.

    All that said, it is not a crime to have a person’s personal information, or to ‘drop dox’. That isn’t stalking, as defined by law, though it is unethical and morally objectionable. I’ve done it too. In any case, there appears to be a lot of misinformation in those pages, which potentially exposes the JLU to civil litigation should those parties choose to pursue it. Additionally, it seems quite possible that Linden Lab may be exposed to litigation as well since it’s pretty clear that they have leaked information about their player’s private interactions and identities to other players. If not, at the very least, they could incur enormous financial damages from the backlash should this story hit the mainstream media. It’s a pretty huge story when mods of a sizeable MMO are doing crooked stuff like this. I sincerely hope one of the major outlets picks this up.

    I personally don’t care that they have my infos in there. Flattering, really. If I were still griefing, I’d be trying to compete with Tizzers for most-documented griefer. But I respect the fact that not everyone in there will feel similarly.

    I’m sort of lolling, because the JLU was apparently still handing over infos on me to the FBI as of late 2008 (if kalolz wasn’t just talking, that is), long after I was gone.

    10/26/2008

    [17:50] Kalel Venkman: Moving forward with whatever we can do against DeadlyCodec would be good – he’s still close enough to them that they’d smell the smoke if Deadly started burning.

    ^ they were talking about the eff bee eyez and getting griefers arrested and during the above convo, all pretty laughable really. However, any information they gave them during that time would be false, since I was not in second life. Hadn’t been for awhile, and this was shortly after I got sick, has just been diagnosed,etc,etc. and SL was the LAST thing on my mind. Isn’t lying to law enforcement officers a crime?

    In 2/09:
    [9:40] Samantha Lowell: Well, they DO have Codec
    [9:40] Fenix Harbinger: Hey Walden
    [9:40] Samantha Lowell: We daren;t discount him
    [9:41] Kalel Venkman: In fact, last month they were bragging that they had a hack that they were working on that would allow them to escalate their permissions to Linden status.
    [9:41] Kalel Venkman: They don’t have Codec anymore, Sam, he left months and months ago now.
    [9:41] Walden Mannonen: Who is this now?
    [9:41] Samantha Lowell: Ostensibly
    [9:41] Kalel Venkman: DeadlyCodec.
    [9:41] Melanippe Karas is still waiting for a clear answer to her question
    [9:41] Kalel Venkman: He had a fight with the leader of the PN around this time last year.

    Wow, this Samantha Lowell character is pretty sloooow. So is kalolz for that matter. I didn’t have a fight with the PN leader in 2/08. I really left the PN in 2007 on my own accord, and didn’t come back. Griefed a little at one point for all of like 3 weeks, and that was it.

    All in all, the JLU are just a bunch of retards. They’re fun to play with (hehe I remember covering their whole team with self replicating penises in waterhead and standing and taking numerous screenshots while they just AR’d for like 20 minutes) , so I’d keep them around for the enjoyment of future generations of griefers, provided they don’t become too irritating. But that’s just me.

    I felt bad about griefing at times, but in the grand scheme of things, Second Life is just a game and the people who treat it as otherwise just have severe psychological problems. They’re not to be taken seriously.

  13. Hewee Zetkin

    Jan 15th, 2010

    Senban,

    You’re right. There IS a lot less griefing these days than there was a couple of years ago. Care to guess one of the big reasons for that? ;-)

  14. Robble Rubble

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Greenlantern Excelsior

    You forgot to mention that you have stockpiled personal info on Rodney Linden. You also classified him as a griefer, you classified a linden as a griefer. How does that even make sense?

    What is the excuse for that?

    What the hell man?!

  15. Obvious Schism

    Jan 15th, 2010

    “@LL: Actually, I was there, and Kalel’s dox were on his domain name registration, totally public information. Tiz wasn’t the one who got them, that was disclosure by PN spies in Encyclopedia Dramatica and the PN wiki, back when Kalel and I were still allies and friends. I will note that at that time Kalel was blackmailing Tizzers to use the Woodbury campus to spy on the PN for JLU. Tiz came to me offering to spy for me instead of for JLU, and when he told Kalel to stuff it, Kalel got the g-team to take the original WU sim down permanently.”

    Amazing, absolutely amazing.

  16. Senban Babii

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Hewee Zetkin

    “Senban,

    “You’re right. There IS a lot less griefing these days than there was a couple of years ago. Care to guess one of the big reasons for that? ;-)

    Yes, sure, I will :)

    Is it because griefers are being banned? Erm, no. If an account gets banned, they come in with another within seconds.

    Is it because land owners are smarter these days and make less mistakes when setting up permissions on their land and so on? Erm, yes.

    Is it because the majority of the old school griefers grew up and either turned respectable or simply drifted away, leaving only a few genuine griefers left? Erm, yes.

    Conclusion – mass abuse reporting does nothing. Education is the real answer. Education of land owners so they set their land up properly to minimise loopholes and education of the residents so they know the difference between genuine griefing and something that lasts ten seconds and can be ignored as inconsequential.

    The truth is, the JLU would have nothing to do if there were no reports of griefers. So they encourage everyone to treat everything as griefing so they maintain their raison d’etre.

  17. deadlycodec

    Jan 15th, 2010

    “Senban,

    You’re right. There IS a lot less griefing these days than there was a couple of years ago. Care to guess one of the big reasons for that? ;-)

    You think I stopped because I wasn’t anonymous anymore? You think any griefer who go dox’d did? I stopped mainly because griefing got boring, and because I got tired of always fighting with people. Believe me, there are locals who know where I am, and where I live, and they have found that they cannot silence me. Every time they pushed (making harassing phone calls, spreading libelous lies and anti-AIDS propaganda), I pushed back a little bit harder and when they began making legal threats, I came at them so hard that they clammed up (recently) for fear that they would lose their livelihood and their reputations, and these people were journalists who know who I am. However, I dug up some very embarrassing tidbits on one of them (they’re a couple) and his relationship with a certain local politician is very interesting. They’re pretty buddy-buddy, even smoke pot together. The politician, I found, has been getting kick-backs for his part in awarding contracts to a certain company that the local gov outsources probation to. A lot of people at the upper echelons of local county government are involved in this scandal. As if that wasn’t enough, I found major vulnerabilities in both of their employer’s corporate networks, and freaked out the company executives to the point that they threatened to fire these people, by reporting the vulnerabilities (and explaining how to fix them) in a not-so-friendly tone. I’m not the least bit threatened by morons in spandex over in CA – they can fucking bring it.

    How pathetic is it when people create accounts on a video game where everyone else is having fun, but instead of having fun themselves, they spend their time walking around trying to spot people who are breaking the rules, even when it has nothing to do with them and no one is being harmed. They are nosey tattle-tales. Far more immature than any of the other griefers I have seen. I bet they call the cops on people in real life for stupid shit like file-sharing, jaywalking, broken tail lights, and spitting on the sidewalk. Why? Because they feel that their lives are worthless, and they want to feel important. That’s the only reason I can fathom. Perhaps they should see a psychiatrist instead.

  18. Faye Serendipity

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Robble Rubble

    Haven’t you heard? Lindens are playing the game too! It’s so fun to play virtual world cops and griefers. Getting paid from your internet business and playing video games all day long, woo! Lindens Sticking to their own TOS? Pfft.

  19. Patasha Marikh

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @HEWEE
    “You’re right. There IS a lot less griefing these days than there was a couple of years ago. Care to guess one of the big reasons for that? ;-)

    Ummm… Havoc4 breaking a vast majority of the low level griefing tools maybe?

  20. GreenLantern Excelsior

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @ Senban

    “Hi, we actually met once, although I doubt you’d remember me :)

    I apologize for my poor memory. I hope it was a good meeting.

    “You’d think if griefer attacks were as prevalent as you claim, I’d come across them more often. And yet I don’t.”

    It’s a function of where you hang out. In sims where building and scripts are turned off, there’s very little griefing. In the Linden sandboxes where (mostly) everything is turned on, griefers can rez their cubes and the replication scripts will cause them to multiply. Also, we get called to other places besides sandboxes, so there’s something going on every day.

    “..I honestly don’t believe that firing off hundreds of abuse reports is necessary when all that is really needed to counter most griefer attacks is a little knowledge and understanding of what’s happening.”

    Knowledge and understanding are fine, but they don’t solve griefer problems. If you’re on Linden-owned land, an AR is the only thing you can do to get the problem fixed.

    “The self-appointed groups like the JLU run around and convince people that there are griefers behind every prim, a bit like “reds under the bed” syndrome.”

    I’ve never done this and I’ve never seen a JLU member do it. I’m not even sure what it means. Have you seen people flying around shouting “Griefer attack!”??

    “But for the JLU to claim the high ground and then do things that are just as bad, gathering data on people’s RL is unjustifiable.”

    As Neo Citizen said, collecting information about people is like printing out a Google search and putting the paper into a desk drawer. Doing a search on Google is not a criminal act, and neither is keeping the search results in a place where you can access them later. People keep saying that this is “bad” in some way, but no one seems to be able to explain why.

    “And my final issue here is lack of oversight. Who watchers the watchers?”

    Linden Lab does. Last year a couple of peacekeepers were suspended for 24 hours for writing multiple ARs on the same griefer attack. Back when the GTeam was still holding office hours meetings, one of the Lindens told us that if we had one object that had porn pictures on it, was emitting loud screaming sounds, and was pushing people around, they wanted to receive three ARs on it (Indecency, Disturbing the Peace, Assault). The Linden who did the suspension said they only wanted to see one AR for each griefer attack. That news spread instantly through the peacekeeper community, and everyone sent out Notices and adjusted their training. I’ve heard that there are ARs filed on peacekeepers all the time, but the vast majority of them are false reports. We probably come under more scrutiny than the average Resident, just because we’re right in the middle of the bad stuff after it happens.

    @ deadlycodec

    Wow, I haven’t heard from you in a long time. I hope you’re doing okay.

    “Last I checked, law enforcement doesn’t have civilian volunteers because it’d be a legal liability.”

    I didn’t say I was a civilian. I have an ID card and training that has to be kept up to date. On duty, I wear a uniform and a badge and I carry a gun and a TASER and handcuffs and all the standard gear. If you saw me on the street you wouldn’t be able to tell me from a regular law enforcement officer unless you inspected my badge closely.

    “…city and state law enforcement officials are not trained to interpret computer crime laws, aside from acting on threats on the internet.”

    If you try a Google search for “computer crimes” sheriff, and “computer crime” police, you will find that state and local law enforcement agencies have plenty of computer crimes units.

    “Let me tell you the story of Jasper Cook…”

    Sounds like a local School Resource Officer who tried to do his best to fix a problem he wasn’t equipped to handle.

    “…a cop from Mississippi calls me on her behalf threatening me with harassment charges.”

    I doubt that was a real cop. He would have no jurisdiction unless you were in Mississippi too.

    “The point I am illustrating is, that even if your ‘law enforcement perspective’ were valid, unless it was a ‘federal law enforcement’ perspective, as in Secret Service or FBI, it means jack shit.”

    I said “But from a law enforcement standpoint, it seems to me that since the information was stored on a password-protected website, and wasn’t used to stalk or harass anyone, there is no problem with having it.” It’s my opinion, and I have the same right to state an opinion as you do.

    “”If you come to my house I will shoot you” not a threat? Um, clearly, it is. I was arrested as a juvenile for ‘making terroristic threats’ just because I told someone that they would be sorry. That was it.”

    That sounds like a threat to me too (although it’s a pretty weak threat). It sounds like you’re going to go get somebody. The statement I posted would be more on the order of a promise to defend myself against an attack.

    “In any case, there appears to be a lot of misinformation in those pages, which potentially exposes the JLU to civil litigation should those parties choose to pursue it.”

    What would be the basis of the lawsuit? “Your information about me stored in your private, password-protected database is not up to date?”

    “Additionally, it seems quite possible that Linden Lab may be exposed to litigation as well since it’s pretty clear that they have leaked information about their player’s private interactions and identities to other players.”

    The Linden Lab privacy policy appears to apply only to a Resident’s RL information, not to SL avatar names. I don’t believe LL ever supplies anyone with real names and addresses unless a crime has been committed.

    “I felt bad about griefing at times, but in the grand scheme of things, Second Life is just a game and the people who treat it as otherwise just have severe psychological problems.”

    I feel the same way about griefers. BTW, I’m glad you stopped. There are several former griefers I know in SL who are now trying to be productive Residents. With their knowledge, they can rake in a few spacebux.

    @ Senban

    “Conclusion – mass abuse reporting does nothing. Education is the real answer.”

    Actually, ARing griefers is a form of education too. It teaches that actions have consequences.

    “The truth is, the JLU would have nothing to do if there were no reports of griefers. So they encourage everyone to treat everything as griefing so they maintain their raison d’etre.”

    First sentence: JLU would still be able to do tons of fund raising, which in many ways is more fun than peacekeeping.
    Second sentence: I have no idea how you could develop an opinion like this. Or is it just hyperbole?

    @ deadlycodec

    “You think I stopped because I wasn’t anonymous anymore? You think any griefer who go dox’d did? I stopped mainly because griefing got boring, and because I got tired of always fighting with people.”

    My personal opinion is that griefers stop griefing when they grow up and get some maturity. Once they leave home and get a job, there’s not a whole lot of time for griefing. It’s either that or they start getting legal notices that their denial of service attacks will end up in court. Continued griefing isn’t worth paying a lawyer, so they stop. I’m sure the constant internal squabbles and repeated outing of PN leaders as furries plays a part too.

    “How pathetic is it when people create accounts on a video game where everyone else is having fun, but instead of having fun themselves, they spend their time walking around trying to spot people who are breaking the rules, even when it has nothing to do with them and no one is being harmed.”

    Oh, I thought you were going to say “…spend their time rezzing Spongebob cubes in the sandbox.” Actually, patrolling SL is a fun and rewarding experience. I get to meet lots of new Residents, and I love giving them information about how SL works. I wandered clueless for a long time when I first got to SL, and I remember what it was like trying to figure out the grid while not knowing anyone, so it’s nice to get newbies off to a good start. There are so many amazing things being built in the sandboxes that you never know what you’re going to see next. And I like hanging out with the sandbox rats, because they’re interesting people who have some incredible talent (they’re generous, too). But the most rewarding thing to me is watching a griefer attack start up in the middle of a bunch of people who are just trying to build something nice. Most of us can write an AR in 30 seconds or less, so within a few minutes the RESI team comes to clean up the mess, and people can get back to enjoying SL and building again. If the builders aren’t really sure what happened and don’t know who fixed the problem, that’s fine too. I don’t need to be acknowledged or thanked, and I’m not looking for fame or fortune or power. I just want to help people.

  21. Cartman

    Jan 15th, 2010

    No, actually I thikn they may have something here – you can’t just copy shit because you say so, you have to get explicit written permission. If Haruhi didn’t have that then it’s covered by the DMCA and Haruhi is a felon.

  22. Robble Rubble

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @ Greenlantern Excelsior

    What’s your response to JLU dropping dox on Rodney Linden?

  23. Senban Babii

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @GLE

    “I apologize for my poor memory. I hope it was a good meeting.”

    Don’t worry, it was a blink-and-you-miss-it type thing :)

    “As Neo Citizen said, collecting information about people is like printing out a Google search and putting the paper into a desk drawer. Doing a search on Google is not a criminal act, and neither is keeping the search results in a place where you can access them later. People keep saying that this is “bad” in some way, but no one seems to be able to explain why.”

    I disagree. A Google search is one thing, the JLU wiki thing went further in my opinion. I’m going to try to explain briefly why it’s bad (in my opinion) as you raised this point. Let’s say Tizzers (who I met once and shared maybe two lines of chat with and so have no connection to that I am aware of) did this really bad thing and turned up on Kalel Venkman’s doorstep. Although I can’t guess at Tizzers’ intentions, my guess was that it was a prank rather than anything malicious. But okay, let’s assume that it was a prank and that Tizzers did something which in hindsight he may decide was stupid or whatever. Now I’ve done stupid stuff in my life. Wow have I done stupid stuff. Can you, GLE, honestly put your hand up and say that you never did anything stupid in your life? I certainly can’t and so while I might think that turning up at Kalel’s door wasn’t the smartest thing to do, I can also admit that I’m in no position to judge, on account of not being all that perfect and innocent myself.

    Okay, so now Kalel has a bukkit-o-pissed with Tizzers’ name on the side, right? Does he do the right thing, like the superheroes he’s convinced he emulates? No. He starts gathering RL data on a bunch of people, especially Tizzers. I’m not the only one who has commented that the contents of those files go beyond a simple Google search and enter the realms of obsessive and creepy in regard to Tizzers. Kalel is less Superman and more Punisher if you like. And how many times has the Punisher come up against the other superheroes in the comics? Admittedly I haven’t read comics for years so I might be out of touch on this point, forgive me if I am 8P

    What was the name of that famous Batman story? Oh yes, A Death In The Family. And what happens? Superman ends up having to stop Batman because he’s gone too far in retaliation for the death of Robin. To my eyes, Kalel Venkman has gone too far in retaliation. Your mileage may vary, naturally.

    “Actually, ARing griefers is a form of education too. It teaches that actions have consequences.”

    Do you honestly believe this? The evidence suggests that it’s not correct.

    “Have you seen people flying around shouting “Griefer attack!”??”

    I have, yes. And I’m not lying, I have no reason to lie because I have no dog in this race, I have no connection to either side. I have seen members of the JLU (or at least people who *appeared* to be members of the JLU) running around during griefer attacks shouting “everyone start filing abuse reports!” And I have seen all the newer residents basically jumping up and doing it because of the perceived authority of these JLU members. “Someone seems to know what’s going on, I’ll do what they say” so to speak. And those people end up believing that every gesture, every particle, every sound that gets used is the onset of the Griefer Apocalypse. As I said in an earlier post, people have come screaming over to me shouting “griefer!” because I’ve used mere gestures. I also mentioned the incident with the Mario spam earlier too. Both of those happened within the last week.

    “Actually, patrolling SL is a fun and rewarding experience. I get to meet lots of new Residents, and I love giving them information about how SL works. I wandered clueless for a long time when I first got to SL, and I remember what it was like trying to figure out the grid while not knowing anyone, so it’s nice to get newbies off to a good start. There are so many amazing things being built in the sandboxes that you never know what you’re going to see next. And I like hanging out with the sandbox rats, because they’re interesting people who have some incredible talent (they’re generous, too).”

    Yes, I enjoy helping new residents too. I wrote a collection of notecards with tons of helpful advice and landmarks and website links and everything. I collected freebies that I hand out to help people get started. I found a friend of mine had done something similar, creating ready-made avatars for new residents to play around with. We now collaborate and combine our work and spend a lot of time helping new residents as well as finding time for our own fun. And yes, I hang around sandboxes and similar areas too. I’m hopeless at building but I enjoy being around creative people. And I still don’t see many *genuine* griefer attacks and I still don’t feel the need to chase around firing off abuse reports.

    Okay, to finish off, I want to show you what you yourself just wrote. Because it provides evidence for what I’ve been saying all along; that superhero-types need villains to give them a raison d’etre and to feel valued and important. This is what you wrote.

    “But the most rewarding thing to me is watching a griefer attack start up in the middle of a bunch of people who are just trying to build something nice.”

    Think about this and then tell me again that it’s just hyperbole on my part.

    Hehe, I should become a superhero. Mild-mannered Herald reporter during the day, superhero by night. Oh wait, it’s been done 8P

  24. Obvious Schism

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @senban

    “genuine griefers”

    A new class of avatar?

  25. full of it

    Jan 15th, 2010

    What a wannabe cop. Probably not good enough to even do mall security. Keep up the word salad Green Lantern Stupidor, the docs are out and everybody is reading about you and your spandex weirdos plotting against people. “I just want to help people” hahaaa what a load. Get out of second life you pervo

  26. Gaara Sandalwood

    Jan 15th, 2010

    I’m gonna side with Codec on this one. And as for what Robble said, that’s not even half of it. On their griefer list they have labeled Governor Linden as one several times for occasionally leaving prims and large objects laying around in sims.

  27. anon

    Jan 15th, 2010

    ^ So here’s a guy whose power trip is running to mommy every time he sees something “wrong”. And what’s better, he prides himself on how FAST he can run to mommy.

  28. deth

    Jan 15th, 2010

    “No, actually I thikn they may have something here – you can’t just copy shit because you say so, you have to get explicit written permission. If Haruhi didn’t have that then it’s covered by the DMCA and Haruhi is a felon.”

    You are ‘thikn’ wrong. I find it hard to take someone seriously who can’t even spell think right.

  29. Senban Babii

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Obvious Schism

    “@senban

    “genuine griefers”

    A new class of avatar?”

    8D

    I think the point I was trying to make (badly) was that there is a difference between someone who is an “Annoyance-class” griefer who might set off some spam cubes or an annoying noise or whatever and then run and a “Bastard-class” griefer who isn’t there to be a slight annoyance but to crash sims, turn the sim phantom, melt people’s brains, stuff like that. In other words, the people who really know their trade as opposed to people just using a couple of toys that have been passed around since time began (which may have happened last Thursday). Most of the people who really knew their stuff have retired, moved on, turned respectable and so forth although there are a few still around. The other type of griefer I could mention isn’t even a griefer. We’ll call them “Troll-class”. People who just like winding people up to get a rise out of them. Of course, these are arbitrary names I just made up to sort of explain what I meant.

    Although I think there should be a group set up with Genuine Grieferâ„¢ tags! And the word genuine should be pronounced “Genyooine” XD Sorry sorry j/k 8P

  30. Obvious Schism

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Robbie

    I think I was at that meeting too. It was either at Port Salut or Cherry Chapstick sim if I remember rightly. I don’t keep chatlogs on this computer because it belongs to my great grandpa (who is CEO of an airport baggage handling company) but he has said that I can use the computer until this curfuffle blows over. So basically I can’t prove anything, but I really don’t recall any of that being said.

    I do hope that this mess gets cleared up soon cos there are some other important things going on in the world that my grandpa needs to deal with.

  31. Hewee Zetkin

    Jan 15th, 2010

    > Senban: “Does he do the right thing, like the superheroes he’s convinced he emulates? No. He starts gathering RL data on a bunch of people, especially Tizzers.”

    This one is common sense. If a group of people showed up when you weren’t home and scared your family with something like, “Give Senban regards from the griefers of Second Life,” what exactly would YOU do? First off, I bet you’d want to know who they were, where they came from, and what kind of things motivate them. Second you’d probably do your best to prepare in case they came back, or to give you a direction to start investigating in case something was done to your property or loved ones. You’d want to be able to tell the police about your little visit, and who it was, and where they live. In fact, you’d want to be able to tell them as much as you possibly could. If it was likely the unwelcome visitors might know about your friends and be able to find them, you’d probably also want to make sure your friends were as well prepared information-wise as you are.

    Most of this is pretty easy to understand if you put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment, but for some reason the environment of the virtual world seems to get in the way of that a lot. It’s the same reason griefers get so much enjoyment out of harassing others; they can’t understand the real people who are sitting at the other end of the wire, or empathize with how the receiving end feels. Whether or not it’s, “just a game,” people want to be able to go about their business and enjoy their persuits.

    > Gaara: “On their griefer list they have labeled Governor Linden as one several times for occasionally leaving prims and large objects laying around in sims.”

    Ah, this might be an area where we can help you in the event you ever need it. And believe me, helping others help themselves is far more rewarding for us than filing abuse reports ourselves. If someone has been banned or temporarily suspended they will no longer show up in Search->People or the abuse report people finder, but it is still helpful to let LL know about additional things they have done, in case they come back after a suspension or try to evade a ban. In that case the recommended thing is to file an Abuse Report against a Linden (or yourself if you want to risk being misunderstood) but state in the description (and ideally the summary) the fact that another resident is actually the subject of the report, and include that resident’s name. That would be the reason you’ve seen many ARs filed against Governor Linden.

  32. SirLordChikkinz

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @GreenLantern Excelsior

    Lol, how he thinks law enforcement cares about if you saw a flying box in your videogame. Lol’d at his, “I’m sure the constant internal squabbles and repeated outing of PN leaders as furries plays a part too”. Funny as there is a leader not leaders. Now let us count how many of the thirty plus members (about 20 or so active right now) were furfilth, very very few none of which were leaders. The PN has one leader at a time, there have only been 3 leaders. The people who were furfags were: Yara (Spy), N3XI5 (server admin), and JWAN (You could consider him leader but, lol no didn’t last very long what so ever). Keep praising the JLU you should of seen what they wrote about you guys at the GLC in their wiki, not something good.

  33. deadlycodec

    Jan 15th, 2010

    “I didn’t say I was a civilian. I have an ID card and training that has to be kept up to date. On duty, I wear a uniform and a badge and I carry a gun and a TASER and handcuffs and all the standard gear. If you saw me on the street you wouldn’t be able to tell me from a regular law enforcement officer unless you inspected my badge closely.”

    Okay, you’re a liar. You’re either a cop, or you’re not, which makes you a civilian. Never heard of any fake civilian cops being allowed to run around with guns and make arrests along with the real cops. In fact, in most jurisdictions that I am aware of, that would be illegal – they couldn’t allow that even if they wanted to, and they wouldn’t. There is a reason that there are stringent training requirements and background checks, POST certification,etc,etc that cops have to go through. You’re a fraud, and I’m calling you out on it.

    “If you try a Google search for “computer crimes” sheriff, and “computer crime” police”

    Show me a news story where state troopers arrested a hacker, and the feds weren’t involved. Some of this is because of jurisdictional limitations. These state troopers and their forensic labs are just ‘backup’ for the feds, extra resources. Some county sheriff’s departments have computer crime units too, but how often do you hear about them doing much of anything? You don’t. Durr. Because they assist the feds, or they investigate blatantly obvious cases that don’t involve any sort of serious ‘hacking’ at all. You really shouldn’t try to argue with me about computer crimes, of all people. I am intimately familiar with those, and information security. And hicks who investigate twelve year olds for infecting their friends with netbus don’t count as computer crime units lmao.

    I just found a huge vuln in one of America’s largest telcoms/ISPs yesterday that would allow me to penetrate their internal network through backend MSSQL database servers*. If I exploited it (and I haven’t, and won’t), are you telling me the local hicks are going to run in here and investigate it? Hehe, I could get away with just about anything if that was the case.

    *Actually, I could penetrate the internal network and run commands on the db server, but as far as getting a shell, I think I could prob do it based on the very verbose error messages (they could have taken steps to prevent this if they had proper security staff) which imply that the server is likely not configured to be secure. Unfortunately, I can’t find out without engaging in very high risk behavior that could bring the FBI right to my doorstep. Trying to decide if I’m going to report it or keep it to myself. SysAdmins can be so pissy about this stuff sometimes. *sigh*

  34. Doc

    Jan 15th, 2010

    @Hewee Zetkin

    no, i wouldn’t do anything of that.
    and even if i would, i wouldn’t do it in a wiki.
    Someone should donate kalel a notepad.

  35. so long

    Jan 16th, 2010

    *** One of the owners of the Alphaville Herald here (mark wallace) just became Wallace Linden. You can now expect to have all the IP addresses from all these comments turned over to Linden Labs. Reconsider before you post further.

  36. Bedpan Unknown

    Jan 16th, 2010

    Hah this was a pretty cute exchange from the Dec 20 2009 meeting:

    (8:47) Ookamisuke Babenco: As I said, Kal’el. I’ll talk to my Linden Contact at
    the cnclusion of the meeting.
    (8:47) Ookamisuke Babenco: I have him on MSN, if you ant meto talk to him.
    (9:15) Ookamisuke Babenco: My Linden contact has said this to me, in not so many
    words: “If invited, I would attend a JLU Meeting as a Linden.”.
    (9:16) Kalel Venkman: Which Linden is it, may I ask?
    (9:17) Ookamisuke Babenco: do not hold me to this, but I beliebe he has told me
    his Linden name is Christopher Linden.
    (9:18) Ookamisuke Babenco: Oh. Also, everyone? Please do not let the Linden’s
    name leave this room.
    (9:18) Ookamisuke Babenco: He doe snot wish for anyone else to know.

    Whoops! :3

  37. Obvious Schism

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @ so long

    What would the purpose be in that? And why would I care? What exactly are they going to do with that information even if it did happen? LL get your IP every time you connect to SL anyway and these comments aren’t even tied to any SL accounts.

    The bigger worry is that there is a potential conflict of interest between Wallace’s position here and his new role at LL. Mind you, if he wants to do some serious leaking to the Herald, then I’m all for that. Maybe we will get to see LL’s sekrit Wiki now too ;)

  38. Senban Babii

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @Hewee Zetkin

    “This one is common sense. If a group of people showed up when you weren’t home and scared your family with something like, “Give Senban regards from the griefers of Second Life,” what exactly would YOU do? First off, I bet you’d want to know who they were, where they came from, and what kind of things motivate them. Second you’d probably do your best to prepare in case they came back, or to give you a direction to start investigating in case something was done to your property or loved ones. You’d want to be able to tell the police about your little visit, and who it was, and where they live. In fact, you’d want to be able to tell them as much as you possibly could. If it was likely the unwelcome visitors might know about your friends and be able to find them, you’d probably also want to make sure your friends were as well prepared information-wise as you are.”

    See? You just gave evidence that proves my argument, exactly like GLE did when I quoted his own words.

    You don’t gather evidence in retaliation or in anticipation. You report the incident to the police and THEY gather evidence using correct procedures. All the JLU did was put themselves in the same boat as their alleged attackers. If the police came along to that situation, they’d simply say “you’re as bad as each other, you made your beds, start lying in them”.

    Your own words have just shown that the so-called superhero peacekeepers are self-appointed vigilantes who place themselves outside the law and legal process or seek to circumvent it. Which, given the preponderance of anti-hero characters that are so appealing to people e.g. Wolverine, Punisher, is probably what appeals to them in the first place (in my opinion).

    Hey, I just realised, Spiderman had J. Jonah Jameson, right? Always writing about the webbed menace and so on? So now the JLU have a more complete roleplay experience. Oh gawd! I AM BECOME J JONAH JAMESON O.O

    I’m sorry if I always add a little flippancy to the end of a relatively serious discussion and I don’t honestly wish to poke fun at the genuine people in groups like the JLU who joined because they actually did like the idea of helping people with their time on the grid. I salute them for that and wish them well. But as we have seen from these wiki files, there are too many fruitloops running around in spandex who have left the idea behind and are now so deeply immersed in their fantasy that it has leaked past the edges of the screen.

  39. Pierce Kronos

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @SirLordChikkinz If you think the JLU had nasty things to say about the GLC on the “bwiki”, you should see what Excelsior had to say when he got exited from the group:

    http://lanternalliance.com/glestory.htm

    Beware though, the JLU have listed me as a griefer so I must be evil.

  40. Ann Otoole

    Jan 16th, 2010

    The guy that owns/runs this website is Wallace Linden now. Everyone posting nasty shit here all this time is screwed. This may as well be a Linden web site now. There is no way privacy will be maintained the way these silicone valley assholes are trying to remove it from you without any congressional laws authorizing them to do so.

    Amazing

  41. Grendel Footman

    Jan 16th, 2010

    first heard about the JLU, and thought it sounded interesting as a comic book fan, then I found out all they did was go around banning people and filing on them. really they’d of been more interesting just as an RP group, use their sim to stage fights with supervillians or something, and not obsessivley make files on people

  42. SirLordChikkinz

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @Pierce Kronos

    I don’t fear griefing as that is what I do. Ironically I am not in their wiki yet I am a PN griefer, then again these people didn’t know about soviet till Thuglyfe. Their information on everything is very shotty.

  43. SirLordChikkinz

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @Pierce Kronos
    I almost forgot, thank you good sir.

  44. Estate manager

    Jan 16th, 2010

    GreenLantern Excelsior: “If the builders aren’t really sure what happened and don’t know who fixed the problem, that’s fine too.”

    You are the problem, and people from your griefing group have repeatedly been banned from countless sandboxes for cause, yet you persist in disrupting other people’s enjoyment of Second Life, circumventing your bans, griefing and attacking land owners with false abuse reports.

    GreenLantern Excelsior: “I don’t need to be acknowledged or thanked, and I’m not looking for fame or fortune or power.”

    Why should anyone thank you? Griefer.

    GreenLantern Excelsior: “I just want to help people.”

    Well, do it on your OWN land. Stop griefing and bothering other people.

  45. Reverse Writer

    Jan 16th, 2010

    @Ann Otoole

    Way to be late to the party, take it on back to the SL blog forums, where people might not know yet just how batshit insane you are.

  46. n00b Stories

    Jan 17th, 2010

    I think that JLU needs to be disbanned from secondlife, I realise their efforts in trying to stop griefers, but with all respects they have no Idea what really happend with their system. These guys have been here since 2006, and no nothing really. I Know About the new hackers, The New Threats to second life Security. I know people who have been hacking secondlife since early 03, and not even JLU knows about it. As for Their Security breach, and Plexus Linden working with JLU against all other lindens and breaching terms of service, I hope that they get Fired Real Life. I Am totally against this crap. I myself in Second Life Run my own private groups and servers outside of second life. I can help any newbies I find, Give them freebies, Report griefers myself. I have no need gor a big group to say HEY IM A Super Hero I reported a griefer. As for Banlinks it was hacked, and Im glad they got closed down because Banlinks was getting a lot of innocent people kicked off a lot of sims for no reason. It needed newer security methods Like some other guy was developing where only reputable content creators get to use it, and Allowing people ot vote if that person is a true copybotter or not. Where they would be no abuse.

    These are just my comments and thoughts on this, I personally Do not see the need for JLU, and I dont see the need for us being spied on by some super hero’s who think they own the sandboxes. It is up to all of us to watch the grid, As a grid watcher, no not the group but Everyone in general. You see something stolen.

    AS copybots can spoof anything in second life now as of 2009 Tracking, and Abuse of origional assetsi s really hard. So not even JLU knows the truth.

  47. At0m0 Beerbaum

    Jan 17th, 2010

    @ GLE

    Saying that you help promote WB’s IP in SL is pretty arrogant. IMHO, you promote it terribly. From your portrayal of Green Lantern, I’d take it that GL is about a fascist, backstabbing spy who collects info on people and gives superman handjobs on the side.
    You basically trumpet typical fanboy bullshit as to why a company wouldnt attack its fans.
    Note: They dont care about fans, they dont try to target fans, they’re a media conglomerate, DC is a subsidiary. They’re in the business of making money and getting new audiences interested in tired and worn stories that are rehashed every 10 years.
    Trying to claim nothing will happen is a 50/50 gamble, WB shut down harry potter fansites right and left, I myself have seen obscure fan followings dispersed by legal threats.
    They dont attack just because there’s monetary loss, they will also attack if they see their image being portrayed in a way that potentially damaging.
    But you know what? Go on ahead and keep telling yourself that “I’m a fan, they love me and would never hurt me.”

    Battered women tell themselves the same lies too.

  48. GreenLantern Excelsior

    Jan 17th, 2010

    @ deadlycodec

    “Never heard of any fake civilian cops being allowed to run around with guns and make arrests along with the real cops.”

    Just because you haven’t heard of something doesn’t make it nonexistent. Go to Wikipedia and look up “Auxiliary Police” for a quick education about volunteer police units. For extra credit you can also look up “Auxiliary Constable” and “Special Constabulary.”

    @ Senban

    “You don’t gather evidence in retaliation or in anticipation. You report the incident to the police and THEY gather evidence using correct procedures.”

    The police wouldn’t lift a finger to investigate a Trick or Treat incident if no one was injured and no threats were made. It’s up to the victim to take the first step and indentify the stalker. You’ll need that information later if the situation escalates.

    “Your own words have just shown that the so-called superhero peacekeepers are self-appointed vigilantes who place themselves outside the law and legal process or seek to circumvent it.”

    That’s an erroneous conclusion. If you want to call JLU membes “vigilantes,” you’re welcome to do so, but labeling someone a vigilante because he did a Google search is quite a stretch.

  49. Senban Babii

    Jan 17th, 2010

    @GLE

    Nice avoidance of addressing your own comment as I previously highlighted.

    “But the most rewarding thing to me is watching a griefer attack start up in the middle of a bunch of people who are just trying to build something nice – GreenLantern Excelsior”

    You instead just keep coming back to saying Google searches aren’t illegal instead of addressing the facts that people are raising. The truth is, people are seeing for themselves what the superhero groups are actually all about through their own words and actions, don’t you think?

    “The police wouldn’t lift a finger to investigate a Trick or Treat incident if no one was injured and no threats were made. It’s up to the victim to take the first step and indentify the stalker. You’ll need that information later if the situation escalates.”

    Again, I believe you’re wrong. Tizzers allegedly finds out where Kalel Venkman lives and trick or treats his house. It’s a prank. How does Kalel even *know* it was Tizzers btw? If I turned up and claimed I was Tizzers, would he honestly know whether I was telling the truth or false-flagging him? Anyway, back to my point. Kalel has a hissy fit that he’s been pranked in this way (as would I probably). He calls the police and explains the situation. No one was hurt, no damage was done, no threats were made so the police say well there’s not a lot we can do based on this, assuming Tizzers got your address from a public source (did he? I don’t know), it’s just a prank. Write it off and see what happens, maybe consider a restraining order or something.

    That doesn’t then entitle you to go out and start gathering vast amounts of data which, and I really should stress this, go way beyond a basic google search. You can keep trying to say it was a basic google search but in truth, the contents of those JLU files are creepy in their level of detail. You can say they are legal as much as you want – but the fact remains that they are morally objectionable. Does that sound like superhero behaviour to you? A superhero is supposed to be a role model – exactly what kind of role model are we being presented with here?

  50. Senban Babii

    Jan 17th, 2010

    Interesting observation.

    “Need to report ABUSE? Harassment? Troubled by an object or person? Please report at Help/Report Abuse. ”

    I just took that from the profile of freshly minted Wallace Linden, open in another window as I type this.

    Does it say “in case of problems, shine the Bat signal?” No, it doesn’t. Instead what the Lindens themselves are doing is empowering the individual resident to make their own decisions about what is abusive and what isn’t and to give them a legitimate reporting pathway. What the superhero groups are trying to do is insert themselves into that pathway and then exert influence in both directions along that pathway so as to legitimise their presence and policies.

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