The Alphaville Herald

131 Responses to “Typepad Threatens Takedown of Herald Justice League Unlimited Exposé”

1. 

   Jahar Aabye
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   Wow, looks like Typepad bowed to the pressure faster than Yahoo giving out Chinese dissidents’ account info. Oh yes, I’m going there, because the comparison is apt. Like the Chinese government, the JLU seems to believe that the public should be shielded from any information that would make them look bad.

   “Copyright” is a fairly obvious cover, since they had no copyright over other people’s private conversations (which has been pointed out ad nauseam). Also, you can’t copyright other people’s RL names and info, you can’t copyright other people’s SL account names…hell, even the fucking name of the database, “Brainiac” is taken from copyrighted works. And of course, I’m pretty sure that the actual owners of the copyrigh to any chatlogs originating in SL would be Linden Lab.

   But anything to remove any info that would make you guys look bad, right? After all, can’t have people learning that there’s a database with their information on it. Or…is Kalel simply filing these DMCA requests in the hopes that people will counterfile, and thus reveal their RL info to him. After all, we all know Kalel’s views on privacy regarding other people’s RL info, and I’m sure he’s eager to add new names and addresses to his database. Since jlu.sl4.me appears to have a Montenegrin domain name, Kalel must know that he can’t DMCA this information away forever.

   And as for the question of the SL ToS, if the information in this database could be accessed in-world, and thus the RL information sent in-world, then it would in fact violate the ToS Disclosure rules. It would not fall under the protection afforded to unaffiliated blogs if the information was sent in-world from the database.

   I am certain that Linden Lab would have access to the communications coming from this database to the servers at agni.lindenlab.com, at least on their end. If someone were to access the database from in-world and look up “N3X15″ and the database were to then send information in-world containing that individuals RL name and info, then that would clearly be a violation of the ToS Disclosure policy.

   I’m pretty sure Linden Lab takes Disclosure very seriously. In fact, I believe it can result in an immediate ban depending on the circumstances. All that the official LL policy allows to be disclosed is information that is contained in that resident’s profile. Since the information would be sent in-world from this database, then the owners of the database are the responsible parties and should be subject to disciplinary action.

   Something else to consider: I doubt that it would be very difficult to find my RL identity and info, or that of many other people in SL. But is that really worth it? Many people who work in SL do so because we are disabled. Many of us have families, real life people who we care about. All it takes is one stalker, one mentally unstable individual getting ahold of that information…maybe they were upset over a product or a business deal, maybe it’s just random, who knows. We all know that these sorts of psychopaths exist, not just in SL but in any large enough internet community, just as in RL. Many of us prefer psudonymity specifically because of this risk.

   So why the FUCK would you go to the trouble to gather that information about people, and put it in a centralized database accessable to all of your members, including ones who clearly were not vetted properly. You want to talk about legal liability, this goes far beyond copyright infringement. All it takes is one fucked up stalker, and you guys could find yourselves in criminal court, as defendants charged with conspiracy and accessory to lord knows what kinds of horrific crimes.

   And all because you wanted to keep tabs on people who rezzed offensive prims and particles in sandboxes? Did any of this enter your tiny little fucked up minds? Were your spandex tights cutting off circulation to your brains? Stupidity and ignorance aren’t allowed as criminal defenses, you know. Your actions were reckless and irresponsible, and Kalel must clearly have realized this by now.

   Fuck this shit, I hope LL bans the accounts of every single member of this fucked up little “justice” club before their actions cause serious real-life harm, and before the blowback and bad press reaches LL. After all, we all know that the mainstream press are simply going to run with this as “Linden Lab employees were complicit in helping people gather RL information about SL residents.” I can’t imagine LL will find many investors still sitting around if that happens, so I really hope that this ends quietly: Plexus resigns, Kalel, Greenlantern, and their associates have all of their accounts permanently banned, and this database gets turned off for good. That’s the only endgame that I can see where things work out well for the Lab, for SL, and for its residents.
2. 

   Gaara Sandalwood
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   Well said Rob. And yes, I was hoping someone was taking note.

   To be honest though, I never actually expected the Herald to undergo such a thing. I didn’t figure the spandex furs would be able to pull something like that off.

   Looks like I’ll be a tad busy later today checking a few things(JLU leaked wiki downloads I made as a backup, oh noes), in between security work, and get stuff together. I may not be a core participater in these events, but I sure ain’t gonna sit back at this point.
3. 

   Tux Winkler
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   IT would seem the JLU members have taken a vow of silence. Even GLE who previously stated how he enjoyed chatting to people in sandboxes has gone quiet.

   I do enjoy a conversation (can talk the hind legs off a donkey – people often say), but no member of the JLU ever respond to an IM, perhaps I am one of the bad guys now – XD.

   Seriously though, if a JLU member reads this, IM me, lets chat. I don’t ask for you to stand trial and justify yourself, because that would just be a mind trip. Instead I want just to chat.

   . . . . I wont hold my breath though – XD
4. 

   Senban Babii
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   @Frizzlefry

   “I still have that screencap of kalel bending over for frontier linden in gay yiffy club, the one frontier banned a guy for taking.”

   What……this one?

   http://encyclopediadramatica.com/File:JLU_Furry_Buttsecks.jpg

   O.o
5. 

   We
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   Looks like Kalel’s tactic to lie and claim copyright on something he doesn’t own worked. Not only did he break SL ToS but also apparently real laws in doing so. The Justice League further proves that they will break, bend, and step over any law or rule as long as it gets their way.

   You know, I’m wondering: exactly what is the point of this wiki? Why keep all this information at all? Does having mounds of secret information on people help write abuse reports? Especially, why have all the real life information: names, addresses, pictures, facebook links? Do you plan to hit someone in real life if they piss you off too much?

   All this information they keep seems so pointless for the obvious liability risk it causes, the only reason I can think of as why they have it at all, is that it plays into the Super-Hero role-play fantasy of having some big database on the “Super Villains”. Deny it all you like, but what the JLU and GLC does is Super Hero roleplay: you dress up as a superhero, go out “Patrol”, use “superpowers” like those Power Rings, fight “evil”, and stand around in the hopes that someone new enough to not know better takes you seriously. Except you’re worse than roleplayers, roleplayers know it’s all fake and they know where to draw the line.

   I think that’s why they refuse to drop the Justice League name and copyrighted material, despite showing their massive hypocrisy by claiming copyrights they don’t own on others at the same time. Because if they were just normal people or super heroes they made up themselves, then they wouldn’t be able to role play their favorite characters and pretend they’re some “real-life” version of the Justice League.
6. 

   Kiddoh
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   If the JLU got their way, why is the link to the leaked wiki still there?
7. 

   Jahar Aabye
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   @Tux,

   I IMed Plexus a few days ago in-world simply asking him whether these allegations about this “Brainiac” database, his access to it, and whether it contained RL information were true. I received no reply, and I do not expect to. As he did not respond to my IM, I take that as an obvious sign that he does not wish me to IM him again, and so I will respect that.

   I suspect that the reason why you are not receiving responses from Kalel or GLC are for similar reasons. They recognize that they fucked up big time, and if they haven’t been advised by a lawyer (or anyone with half a brain) to keep their mouths shut by now, they certainly should have been.

   This has the potential to become a massive clusterfuck, and they’re hoping that if they remain silent and file enough DMCA takedown notices to intimidate people and get these stories taken down, then it will all go away.

   I’m tempted to IM Kalel in-world to advise him that he does not have my permission, under any circumstances, to store any information regarding my SL account, including but not limited to chatlogs, RL information, payment information, group affiliations, postings made on public message boards, or anything else containing my SL account name, and that if he has stored any such information, that I am requesting that he delete it immediately. Perhaps other people who are concerned about their privacy should do the same. Of course, this would run the risk that many of us who are likely not already in their little database (I can’t imagine why I would be) would probably then be added as suspected “griefers” or “persons of interest.”

   But then again, if enough people do so, then their database gets clogged with completely useless information. After all, it already contains plenty of people listed as “griefers” simply for their group memberships (hell, I’ll prolly get listed for being in the Emerald Beta Testers group anyways), and they list Soft Linden in there as a “possible griefer” which was just a WTF moment for me when I read it. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of meeting Soft, he is one of the Lindens who is most active in tracking down bugs, and hosts weekly bug triage meetings to sort through bugs and try to get them assigned to the right people to get them fixed. As with Andrew Linden, Alexa Linden, and many residents who report bugs and exploits, he has probably done more to prevent griefing than the entire JLU will ever accomplish.

   ARing griefers just forces them to come back with alts. Fixing the exploits that they use to grief makes their griefing a lot less fun. Just browse through the JIRA tickets and watch how various people who make griefer HUDs BAWWWWWW every time people try to fix various exploits such as spam attacks. When you remove (or curtail) the ability to grief, when you make it less appealing, harder to accomplish, or cause it to have much less of an effect on the lives of everyday residents, then griefers will give up and go jack off to the fantasy that they actually have productive lives.

   And all the while, the average SL resident will barely notice. They’re too busy creating content, or purchasing content, or enjoying beautifully built regions…regions that can no longer be crashed by a bunch of colliding physical cubes, where they can no longer be orbited to 2 billion meters, etc.

   There are regions where you can roleplay as a superhero or a villain, or post-apocalyptic sims filled with people RPing as vampires or demons or werewolves or pretty much anything you could imagine. The difference is that the residents in those regions generally tend to grasp that they’re just playing characters, and have fun with it. There are even combat meters (too many to count) to facilitate consensual combat. But at the end of the day, none of them actually think of the other people there as “enemies,” but rather as fellow residents with similar tastes, and the only databases involved tend to be character stat sheets (ie “Level 10 Vampire, 10 stamina, 8 agility, 22 perception,” etc). Most sane people don’t feel the need to compile lists of enemies, especially thousands of pages of them.

   I think that SL will be quite better off without the likes of Kalel Venkman and his stalker thugs.
8. 

   GreenLantern Excelsior
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   @ Tux Winkler

   “Seriously though, if a JLU member reads this, IM me, lets chat.”

   I posted a long response here and it wasn’t published. I’m not sure if JLU members aren’t welcome at the Herald any more or what’s going on. I will send you an IM when I get home tonight.
9. 

   Tux Winkler
   

   Feb 3rd, 2010
   

   @Jahar: I agree with you totally. I have spoke with Plexus in fact very recently, he is cool in his no comment about that kind of way (he didn’t say no comment, just evaded the wiki topic).

   I think if Kalel apologised for the wiki this would all go away (after some humor). In fact, I don’t actually think the wiki is the issue. I think it is more the way the JLU become self appointed judges and pass sentence in their opinion. Then add it to the wiki so the next time that name is check – instant griefer – no consideration.

   I am truly disgusted with some of the content I have read. If there ever was a police force in SL (sanctioned) then it would have to be void of opinion. And as trials are today, past crimes should not be used to sway the verdict. Plus they would have to practice what they preach, no spying, with alts or devices etc. I mean come on guys, take a deep breath – thats it right there – your little piece of RL now build on it.

   @GLE: Thanks. I look forward to it!
10. 

    GreenLantern Excelsior
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    I have to apologize for accusing the Herald of not posting my message because I’m a JLU member. That was not called for. I realized afterward that I had included some text from one of the wiki entries, and of course the Herald can’t publish anything from the wiki. So I’m sorry for saying that.

    @ N3X15

    “If the JLU aren’t going to serve the public by making their anti-griefing stuff available for the public to learn from, then perhaps it’s time for someone to step up and make a wiki for people to contribute to?”

    The wiki at secondlife.wikia.com might be a good place to start.

    @ Tux Winkler

    “However, there is one point: your brainiac device, which recalls info into public chat. Thats right, then it is back in SL, oh, guess what, now it breaches TOS.”

    Brainiac doesn’t post chat logs in SL. There’s no Disclosure involved, so there’s no violation of Community Standards.

    “Lantern Man: I already muted the faggot.”

    This doesn’t sound like any peacekeeper Lantern I’ve ever heard. Maybe it was one of those guys from the “Injustice League.” I was chatting with one of them (who was dressed in a Green Lantern uniform) and he said that his group tries to find ToS violations by JLU so they can write ARs on us. He also let it slip that he writes ARs on griefer attacks, so I offered to provide him and his group some training so they could improve their response. He said he didn’t need any training, and suddenly remembered he needed to be somewhere else. I think maybe he realized that his group was turning into another collection of sandbox peacekeepers. Like the old saying goes, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

    Finding that chat spam object was an interesting test. I realized just now that there was something I forgot to try that would have nailed its position easily – turning on “bounding boxes” shows invisiprims that might be hiding chat spam objects. I’ll give that a shot next time and put it into training so everyone else can learn it too. Thanks for helping us to improve our field response.

    @ Robble

    “No GLE quit lying, we talked one day in sandbox island extension and I told you exactly who it was and you admitted it was an external op for JLU. You know exactly who it was who was relaying chat information.”

    You have my permission to post the chat log where I said I knew who it came from. I don’t recall saying that.

    @ FrizzleFry

    “It is true, the best you’ve managed was making an alt in clown clothes, screencapping it and writing poems about us.”

    Well well, it appears that the “Green Lantern Core’s Heroic Epic Poetry” article in the Herald still stings a little. That picture at the top of the article was an actual sandbox shooter who was suspended in mid-stride, leaving his ghosted image for us to photograph.

    “You didn’t do a good job spying that’s for sure, we ended up stealing your sl accounts and wiping your base.”

    Was that the night you attacked the roleplay Hall of Justice in Aftermath and then claimed it was JLU headquarters? Brilliant! You know, I kind of miss the old PN. Watching their antics was like watching the circus act where the little car pulls up and all the clowns jump out and start beating each other over the head with wiffle bats. Sadly, Nightmare Dench just doesn’t provide the same level of entertainment.

    @ Senban

    “If I’d joined the JLU and discovered that such files were being kept without the consent of those within them, I would likewise have walked away because to remain would have condone an immoral act.”

    If you look at the Brainiac entry for Rob Nelson among the leaked files (for as long as they’re available), you’ll see explanations for why the information is there, as well as warnings not to use the information to contact Rob Nelson. Keeping the information is not illegal or immoral. Using it to harass someone is both.

    @ Jahar Aabye

    “If someone were to access the database from in-world and look up “N3X15″ and the database were to then send information in-world containing that individuals RL name and info, then that would clearly be a violation of the ToS Disclosure policy.”

    When Brainiac is asked to identify a certain resident, it retrieves the serial numbers of any ARs written against that resident by JLU members. It also retrieves the serial numbers of any Articles written on that resident by JLU members. The AR information consists of the email header sent to the author of the AR by Linden Lab (name, date, location, author, perpetrator, offense, etc.). The Article is a single line of text written by a JLU member and stored in the database. So Brainiac is unable to send chat logs, photos, web pages, or multiple lines of text into Second Life. Although it would be technically possible to place a resident’s real name or other personal information into an Article, in practice this is not done because the information is not needed inworld.

    “And all because you wanted to keep tabs on people who rezzed offensive prims and particles in sandboxes?”

    No. JLU doesn’t normally collect people’s RL information. In the rare case of a serial griefer who’s basically conducting Denial of Service attacks, JLU members have done research to be prepared in case the information was needed to give to federal law enforcement. In the case of N3X15, he was a PN member at the time the PN was harassing Kalel on the phone, so it was thought to be prudent to collect his information to give to local law enforcement. He was fairly open about his identity, so anyone could have found the same information by using a simple Google search. Every bit of this “private” information is freely available on the Internet, and most of it is posted there by the subject himself, or one or more of his friends. If you want to sue someone, have your lawyer camp out on Google’s front door and see how far you get. In the meantime, take a lesson from the leaked wiki files and be careful about the personal information you post on the web. You too can end up with your information written down somewhere by someone you might not want to have it.
11. 

    Senban Babii
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GLE

    “If you look at the Brainiac entry for Rob Nelson among the leaked files (for as long as they’re available)”

    They’ve been available on my hard drive since before the story broke my little green fruit

    “No. JLU doesn’t normally collect people’s RL information. In the rare case of a serial griefer who’s basically conducting Denial of Service attacks, JLU members have done research to be prepared in case the information was needed to give to federal law enforcement.”

    It is NOT the place of the JLU to conduct such investigation and intelligence gathering. Honestly, you people amaze me! You have no legal or moral authority to support your actions.

    “In the case of N3X15, he was a PN member at the time the PN was harassing Kalel on the phone, so it was thought to be prudent to collect his information to give to local law enforcement.”

    See my above point also. I’ve been stalked on the phone in RL. And do you know what I did? I brought in the appropriate people to investigate i.e. the phone company and then later the police were contacted for advice. The stalker was identified and dealt with. I changed my number and went ex-directory (which means I am unlisted for those unfamiliar with that term). If Kalel was dumb enough to post his phone numbers and whatever else online or elsewhere then that’s his own stupidity and I’m sure he’s learned his lesson in that regard. But that absolutely does NOT give Kalel the moral imperative to collect data on people. It absolutely does NOT. What Kalel has done – and by extension, the JLU – is to cross the line from victim to revenge-driven vigilante. That might appeal to those who live in the fantasy world of comic books naturally but in the real world, you people are sick criminals who can’t see that you’ve crossed the line.

    Just like this moron who has started a campaign to hunt down and remove all avatar Facebook profiles (http://banfakefacebookprofiles.wordpress.com/), you’ve taken it upon yourselves to clean up the grid. You don’t operate with any legal or moral authority, even though you’ve apparently tried to create a relationship with certain Lindens to legitimise yourselves. You are self-appointed vigilantes, nothing more.

    Some might say that we all have a right to live our Second Lives in the way we want and I’d agree and I’d even agree that if you want to spend your time wandering around dreaming of Bat signals and Superman costumes whilst reporting TOS violations that aren’t even anything to do with you then go for it. But the minute you began crossing lines, in my opinion you forfeited your privilege to enjoy the grid because you were no longer simply living a different Second Life to others, you were taking that outside the grid and also conducting secret campaigns and abusing the AR system to get people banned simply because you didn’t like them or because they exposed your fantasy world for what it is.
12. 

    Tux Winkler
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GLE: From your brainiac device:

    Remote Brainiac Access:
    - Article #1223
    - Written by Sen Pixie in ‘Artificial Isle (279552, 250112)’
    - Last Updated: 2007-06-23 08:44:49
    - Subjects: Darling Brody
    - Long time SL member, weapons developer. Has developed SIM killing tech, and almost certainly used it, but never gotten caught. Dangerous, keep out a watchful eye.

    Darling Brody is (imo) the best weapons creator in SL, and whilst she has found ways to crash sims, she has reported to jira immediately. This single line, that brainiac pastes into local chat, prejudges Darling and any JLU who reads it would have their finger on the AR trigger the first time she sneezed in a sandbox. What isn’t explained is the fact that the JLU who submitted it was in direct competition with Darling. Therefore this is not only inciting hatred toward her but an abuse of power (in the broadest sense of the word).

    I am of the firm belief that the JLU is simply a RP group verging on being a Cult . . . . . ‘and the lord said unto me, though shall smite the non believers with smears and lies, for I name thee Superman. Travel forth my child and light the way for our ilk.’. These words probably was a little misinterpreted, hence the reason for so many lantern groups!
13. 

    Robble Rubble
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GLE

    Sorry I don’t have a large wiki that I use to hoard all of my chatlogs in.

    Also here’s a screencap of our spy using the Brainiac to pull up a chat quote (that you guys didn’t have permission to repost) into sl.

    http://imgur.com/vX2zr.png

    I also have a video of it in use but people are going to have to talk to me on skype to get that.
    
14. 

    We
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GreenLantern Excelsior

    “I have to apologize for accusing the Herald of not posting my message because I’m a JLU member. That was not called for. I realized afterward that I had included some text from one of the wiki entries, and of course the Herald can’t publish anything from the wiki. So I’m sorry for saying that.”

    Unlike the JLU, the Herald believes in freedom of speech, and will never delete or deny a comment, even one saying that the Herald sucks, unless it is spam. And don’t try to deny the JLU doesn’t, there’s abuse reports on the JLU wiki with summaries like “Anti-JLU car” (filed under “Intolerance” no less, I didn’t know the JLU was a race, ethnicity, gender, or religion) and “Defaming JLU”, and who knows how many more like it outside the Abuse Report buffer.

    “No. JLU doesn’t normally collect people’s RL information. In the rare case of a serial griefer who’s basically conducting Denial of Service attacks, JLU members have done research to be prepared in case the information was needed to give to federal law enforcement.”

    Odd, so what did Joshua Nightshade do? A person who apparently once helped the JLU by giving them a password to PN forums, for that an article was made about him in the wiki listing his real life name and real life residence including other unnecessary information and opinions by the author on him to the point of insulting him: “Josh is… a loud mouth”. You also have mounds of RL information on Plastic Duck, despite having not a single Abuse Report or griefing event filed on him.

    Furthermore, it’s not your PLACE to be gathering real life information, even for the sake of giving to Law Enforcement, and it’s certainly not your place to be sharing said RL information with every member of JLU who has access to the wiki, which as this wiki leak proves: is not hard to get. If the police are interested, they can (and will) simply ask Linden Labs for the Real Life information, who’s info will be far more complete, accurate, and official than yours will be. There is no reason for you to have RL information at all, and certainly no reason for you to be sharing it on a wiki with all JLU members.

    So I ask again, what is the point of keeping all this information? Both the Real Life information and the Second Life information? Does keeping thousands of pages of information on residents, Lindens, chat logs, etc. REALLY help you at all? All your group can do is file abuse reports, and like real law, past crimes should not factor into the verdict of the current crime. The only logical reason I see that you keep this information, is because it fits into your Superhero fantasy role-play.

    “Brainiac doesn’t post chat logs in SL. There’s no Disclosure involved, so there’s no violation of Community Standards.”

    Curious, and yet when Nikola Shirakawa leaked the JLU wiki, the JLU filed 17 abuse reports claiming disclosure, even though the wiki was outside of SL. Or is this another one of those hypocrisy situations that the JLU loves?

    “This doesn’t sound like any peacekeeper Lantern I’ve ever heard”

    And yet you failed to recognize the corruption and power abuse in the Second Life Mentors, a claim that three others collaborated with, so you’ve proven yourself as incapable of seeing the reality of a situation such as this. I think you’d prefer to believe that all people involved are paragons of justice and truth, because anything else wouldn’t fit into your Superhero fantasy role-play.

    “Finding that chat spam object was an interesting test. I realized just now that there was something I forgot to try that would have nailed its position easily – turning on “bounding boxes” shows invisiprims that might be hiding chat spam objects. I’ll give that a shot next time and put it into training so everyone else can learn it too. Thanks for helping us to improve our field response.”

    The JLU has existed THAT long and doesn’t know how to do that? Wow, that’s just….sad.
15. 

    Senban Babii
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    Watch. Watch carefully. Ignore the crappy sponsored advert at the start and also Little Jimmie Krankie flashing her wares. At around 3.46, you will see an griefer raiding on Simon Cowell. Unfortunately, it wasn’t with cricket bats. Look who is standing right behind him, allowing the griefing to happen and indeed apparently joining in! O.O

    http://player.uk.msn.com/entertainment/banzai?GT1=66752

    (If the video sticks after the sponsored bit, just click to skip forward and it should come up with a “Caution – Contains Scenes Of An Adult Nature” notice before starting the video. If it still messes you about, the one you want is Banzai 03, Episode 01 from the bar on the right).

    Obviously this is just for a giggle. Still, anything to poke fun at the JLU, eh? 8D
16. 

    Haruhi Thespian
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GLE

    “Brainiac doesn’t post chat logs in SL. There’s no Disclosure involved, so there’s no violation of Community Standards.” ~ GreenLantern Excelsior

    Oh really?!?! HAHAHAHAHA!!! http://imgur.com/Gjbmm.jpg

    Thats only a screenshot of the video I have, proving that the Brainiac wiki does disclose information and broadcasts it to anyone in the room (Provided they are on the brainiac channel or have a hud that displays every channel).

    I have a few misconceptions that are in peoples heads now though.
    -The JLU don’t Role Play as their ‘Heroes’. They dress up.
    -The incident report list is not a list of ARs, The abuse report list is though.
    (see http://jlu.sl4.me/BrainiacWiki/ARIndex.htm)

    “‘You went from teleporting to sims we trashed a half hour after we left to walking around sandboxes checking profiles for excuses to AR…’

    This is untrue, as I’m sure you know.” ~ GreenLantern Excelsior

    At least one member of the JLU, Maverick Grunfield, does teach new JLUers to AR for every ‘crime’ possible. I was told to AR someone for saying that my avatar was really hot. Maverick claimed that was clearly sexual harassment worthy of an AR.

    “JLU does not submit false or exaggerated Abuse Reports.”
    ——-tediz kira | Kohaku Owatatsumi | 2009-12-22 04:25:17 | Justice Island |Sandbox Newcomb | Indecency > Broadly offensive content or conduct | “Pedobear” image in group profile———
    I would hardly call a picture of a cartoon bear -=”BROADLY”=- Offensive, because the mere image itself is of a bear (http://nerdiest-kids.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/pedobear.png) with no relation to child abuse.

    1218560 Page: Cam Mitchell Melanippe Karas 2008-09-09 12:20:07 Amella Amella Other ALT ABUSE: Angus Fassnacht = Cam Mitchell
    1218558 Page: Cam Mitchell Kalel Venkman 2008-06-25 02:00:01 Amella Amel Other ALT ABUSE: Angus Fassnacht

    Cam never had an alt with that name.

    “The Second Life Terms of Service and Community Standards do not apply outside Second Life or the Second Life forums. Linden Lab will not be doing any hardware bans because someone posted chat logs on an Internet wiki page.” ~ GreenLantern Excelsior

    ——–IntLibber Alcott | Kalel Venkman | 2008-07-07 11:35:02 | Justice Island | Unknown | Disclosure | Gave Skype logs about Corsi Mousehold to Jester Spearmann———-

    So tell me GLE, do the JLU believe that ToS only apply in SL or outside of SL? Kalel seems to think sharing SKYPE LOGS is an act so terrible, the lindens must be told!
17. 

    Jahar Aabye
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @ Tux:

    Yes, you make an excellent point about the problems inherent with any attempt at an “SL Police Force” whether authorized or unauthorized. I’m not sure that Darling Brody is the best example to bring up, however, given that she has in the past included client-crashing modules of several types (one was actually named “Crash”) as well as DoS attack modules in her products.

    Those sorts of devices (not only Ms Brody’s) tend to promote their own form of vigilante-ism, especially when people are encouraged to use such functions for “anti-griefer” purposes. As someone who scripts weapons in SL myself (most tend to be used for RP purposes), I know that it can sometimes be a fine line to walk between creating a device that may have an unpleasant effect, while trying to prevent a product from having abilities that could be misused so as to overly disrupt another resident’s SL experience. In general, I personally prefer to work within consensual combat systems (usually resident created) so as to ensure that there is only an intended effect (ie “death”) for those who are likewise consensually engaged. To the extent that our products could be misused or abused, the worst that might happen is that the victim could be pushed around the sim for a few seconds, and sitting on a prim is sufficient protection.

    To bring my point back to your mention of any SL Police Force, I suppose that I am trying to say that many weapons developers in SL try to create products that can be used for fun, but that would not be suitable for use by any such force. The reason is fairly obvious: Linden Lab controls the service, and thus Linden Lab ought to be the sole arbiter regarding violations of their rules, and sim owners, managers, and members of land-owning groups have the tools necessary to enforce their own rules on their own land (eject/ban/TPHome). I would not want someone using one of my guns to try to “police” the grid. I’d much rather they use it to “kill” someone in a consensual RP combat, and leave the “policing” to actual Lindens.

    @GLE:

    The ending of your last comment towards me sounded vaguely threatening. I have no idea why anyone would want to record my personal information. I have no doubt that someone could find some way to connect my SL and RL identities if they tried hard enough. I would consider such an effort to be evidence of severe obsession bordering on paranoia, however. Besides, I can assure you that my RL life is about as boring as it gets. However, I am disabled and I have family members who I care about, and anyone compiling such information could potentially put myself and my family at risk. You may be a peaceful person who lives nowhere near me in RL. However, by compiling such information and storing it, you run the risk that anyone else who accesses it might live near me, and might not be so peaceful.

    Remember that the 1st Amendment does not protect such speech as incitement towards violence, nor does it protect one from becoming an accessory to a crime if they provided the information that enabled the crime to be committed. Otherwise “Kingpin Laws” would be unconstitutional.

    But don’t worry, I may very well die of natural causes first anyways. I’d still advise against trying to do such a search, and especially against compiling such information in any sort of database.

    Oh, by the way, I noticed that your database contained personal health information on other individuals as well. I wonder if those individuals are aware that under HIPAA, you are not authorized to collect and disseminate such information, regardless of its source. Don’t believe me, go search through hhs.gov and see what you find.
18. 

    Tux Winkler
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    I found this video, I think it could be the person behind Kalel:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELNh23yRiJc

    LMAO . . . .
19. 

    GreenLantern Excelsior
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @ Senban

    “It is NOT the place of the JLU to conduct such investigation and intelligence gathering.”
    “But that absolutely does NOT give Kalel the moral imperative to collect data on people. It absolutely does NOT.”

    I will let you have all of your righteous indignation, hold it close to your chest, take it out at night and brush its fur, if you will do one thing for me. Place your hand on a Bible and swear under oath that you have never in your life put someone’s name into a Google window and clicked the search button. If you have ever done a Google search, then congratulations – you did the same thing JLU did. Here’s an example of how it works. Suppose we’re interested in finding out the RL identity of Tizzers Foxchase, just so we know who showed up at Kalel’s door on Halloween and greeted his wife. We know Tizzers used to be a griefer in Second Life, so we could go to Google and type in the search window “tizzers foxchase” (in quotes), “second life” (in quotes), and “griefer” (quotes not needed). Now do the search, and go to the second page of results. Look for a news article entitled “Reuters/Second Life – What will the next year bring for Second Life?” Scroll down and you will see a quote from Tizzers, the “self-identified griefer, banned from Second Life,” along with Tizzers’ RL name and photo. We don’t know what Tizzers might do in RL, so it is prudent for us to have the information on hand to give to the police when it comes time to say “This is the guy who threw the road flare inside my wife’s car while she was pulling into the driveway.” We don’t have to use that information for anything like calling his home phone, because that’s stalking, but there’s nothing at all wrong with keeping it on hand in case we need it.

    “What Kalel has done – and by extension, the JLU – is to cross the line from victim to revenge-driven vigilante.”

    You are completely wrong about this, as I’m sure you will realize when you think about it. Here’s another example. I have a photo saved somewhere on my hard disk of actress Lisa Marie in her costume from the movie “Mars Attacks!” I haven’t send threatening letters to the actress, I haven’t called her on the phone, and I haven’t showed up at her house. That doesn’t make me a stalker, just a guy with a file saved on disk. The information about Tizzers saved on the wiki is the same scenario. No one ordered 25 pizzas sent to his address, or subscribed him to any girlie magazines, or showed up at his doorstep on October 31. There is no vigilantism here at all, just a file saved on a server. To put it another way, it’s not the information storage that’s the problem. It’s what you do with it that defines you as a researcher vs. a stalker.

    @ Tux

    “What isn’t explained is the fact that the JLU who submitted it was in direct competition with Darling. Therefore this is not only inciting hatred toward her but an abuse of power (in the broadest sense of the word).”

    That’s an interesting thought, but I can’t make that call and Sen isn’t a JLU member any more. It does support a suggestion I’ve been thinking of bringing up, though. Thanks for pointing that out.

    @ Robble

    “Also here’s a screencap of our spy using the Brainiac to pull up a chat quote (that you guys didn’t have permission to repost) into sl.”

    Please see the response to Haruhi below.

    @ We

    “…there’s abuse reports on the JLU wiki with summaries like “Anti-JLU car”…”

    Okay, once again, people got the idea that those were Abuse Reports because the Herald article wasn’t clear. Those were Articles, not ARs. Think of them as Post-It Notes stuck on the JLU computer monitor so any member can read them. Those were not ARs and were not sent to LL.

    “Odd, so what did Joshua Nightshade do?”

    From the article, it looks like he’s a friend of the JLU. I don’t know whether he gave us the information or what. The page is dated 2007, so it would be hard to tell.

    “There is no reason for you to have RL information at all, and certainly no reason for you to be sharing it on a wiki with all JLU members.”

    You may be right. It’s certainly something to consider and discuss internally.

    “Curious, and yet when Nikola Shirakawa leaked the JLU wiki, the JLU filed 17 abuse reports claiming disclosure…”

    According to the article, the ARs were written on Nikola’s alt, Shoopydoobydoo Fride, for harassment. The only thing that happened to Nikola himself (may he rest in peace) is removal from JLU for posting the passwords to the Bwiki on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

    “And yet you failed to recognize the corruption and power abuse in the Second Life Mentors…”

    I thought we were talking about JLU here. I don’t hang out with Mentors very often so I don’t have a good feel for their behavior in person. I know the mentors in the group IM window were usually nice folks.

    @ Haruhi

    “Thats only a screenshot of the video I have, proving that the Brainiac wiki does disclose information and broadcasts it to anyone in the room…”

    That was an Article stored in the Brainiac database. It looks like we need to be more careful to keep information like that out of our Articles. But really, how many of those did you find? Did you have to search for a long time to come up with that? That’s one out of however many thousands of Articles that have been written. I think as a response, I will recommend that we remove that one and do a spot check to see if there are any other potential problems. Thanks for pointing it out.

    “At least one member of the JLU, Maverick Grunfield, does teach new JLUers to AR for every ‘crime’ possible. I was told to AR someone for saying that my avatar was really hot. Maverick claimed that was clearly sexual harassment worthy of an AR.”

    I wasn’t there and I’m certainly not going to pass judgment on that. There could have been all kinds of other circumstances that made the situation ARable. We certainly don’t tell members to write nonstop ARs on everything, though, so you must have misunderstood.

    “I would hardly call a picture of a cartoon bear -=”BROADLY”=- Offensive…”

    I’m not up to date on my 4chan memes, so I can’t comment on this other than to say it’s a judgment call.

    “Cam never had an alt with that name.”

    Then that may be what’s known in the scientific community as a “mistake.”

    “Kalel seems to think sharing SKYPE LOGS is an act so terrible, the lindens must be told!”

    It sounds like Intlibber gave Jester some text files inworld that disclosed information about Corsi. Disclosure is a violation of the Community Standards. Whether they were SL chat logs or Skype logs or IRC logs, if it happens inworld it’s still disclosure.

    @ Jahar

    “The ending of your last comment towards me sounded vaguely threatening.”

    It wasn’t a threat. I have no reason to threaten you. You’ve done nothing to me.

    “I wonder if those individuals are aware that under HIPAA, you are not authorized to collect and disseminate such information, regardless of its source.”

    I’m not a HIPAA expert, but I believe HIPAA governs only health care providers like doctors and dentists and pharmacists.
20. 

    We
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GreenLantern Excelsior

    “Okay, once again, people got the idea that those were Abuse Reports because the Herald article wasn’t clear. Those were Articles, not ARs. Think of them as Post-It Notes stuck on the JLU computer monitor so any member can read them. Those were not ARs and were not sent to LL.”

    I know the difference. Note that I pointed out that the “Anti-JLU car” was filed under “Intolerance”? The fact that you’re denying these are abuse reports at all means you think they shouldn’t have been reported. That’s interesting, especially since you were the one who filed the Anti JLU car one. Here’s the full reports:

    1466220 Page: Scout Detritus GreenLantern Excelsior 2009-05-05 22:54:06 Sandbox Cordova Sandbox Cordova Intolerance Anti JLU police car

    1543593 Page: Tizzers Foxchase Kohaku Owatatsumi 2009-06-12 01:43:24 Kitsuhana Metaversity Harassment > Defaming individuals or groups Map defaming ‘JLU’

    Both of these people may be considered griefers, but neither of these events would be considered griefing, they’d be speaking out against your group. Certainly being against your group would not qualify as intolerance or a breach of the Second Life Terms of Service.

    “From the article, it looks like he’s a friend of the JLU. I don’t know whether he gave us the information or what. The page is dated 2007, so it would be hard to tell.”

    As a person who knows him, he was surprised and annoyed that you had his RL name and address information in the wiki. So I ask again, why is it there? You said only “rare cases” of serial griefers had real life information, but here you have two examples: someone who is supposedly a friend of the JLU, and someone who as far as you’re concerned, has never griefed anyone, having RL information. Can you explain this discrepancy?

    “According to the article, the ARs were written on Nikola’s alt, Shoopydoobydoo Fride, for harassment. The only thing that happened to Nikola himself (may he rest in peace) is removal from JLU for posting the passwords to the Bwiki on Encyclopedia Dramatica.”

    Please stop assuming that I don’t know how to read your wiki. The reports I was referring to are listed on the Nikola Shirakawa page, there are 17 abuse reports filed against Nikola, 13 of which filed under “Disclosure”, but all 17 of them seemingly having to do with the Wiki leak, which was outside of SL and therefore not applicable to the SL ToS as you said so yourself.

    “You may be right. It’s certainly something to consider and discuss internally.”

    I really hope you do, and I hope that’s not the kind of thing you say when you just want to brush the question off.

    “We don’t know what Tizzers might do in RL, so it is prudent for us to have the information on hand to give to the police when it comes time to say “This is the guy who threw the road flare inside my wife’s car while she was pulling into the driveway.” We don’t have to use that information for anything like calling his home phone, because that’s stalking, but there’s nothing at all wrong with keeping it on hand in case we need it.”

    Ignoring the laughable fact that you consider it possible that Tizzers or any other griefer might try real life violence on you or someone you know: If it’s so easy to google, why not leave it as something to google, or keep this information in a private file on your computer, not in a wiki accessible by everyone in the group? You can collect real life information without posting it on a internet you know.

    So barring the chance of real life violence, of which there has been no precedents with these griefers, if the Police wanted information on someone in Second Life, they’d ask Linden Lab, if they wanted information on someone sending phone calls, they’d ask the phone company, if they wanted information on a real life event, they’d investigate themselves. These are all providers of legitimate, accurate, and official information; “Obtained from secret Second Life Super-hero group wiki” isn’t exactly going to be reputable evidence in court.
21. 

    LOL
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    Muhahahhaha

    @Pix post the next JLU article now, no comment can top Tux Winkler’s. That was by far one of the strangest things i have ever been subjected to, and infact I feel stupider now after watching the first 2 min. Bravo!

    @Everyone else, this whole Exposé series has been the biggest LOLz fest I have ever seen! Keep up the good work
22. 

    Haruhi Thespian
    

    Feb 4th, 2010
    

    @GLE
    “Did you have to search for a long time to come up with that”
    Less than one minute, searched Tizzers Foxchase, then picked an incident report at random. Might have been beginners luck, but I damn the person who claims there is no disclosure through the wiki. And the problem is that there HAS BEEN DISCLOSURE of information. Someone must take responsibility for the crimes already committed and also fix the problem, not just one or the other.

    “…you must have misunderstood.”
    No, YOU must have misunderstood, GreenLantern Excelsior. Maverick Grunfield told me to AR him, I have chat logs, but I ‘must not’ post them, BECAUSE IF I DO- YOU WILL CRY OVER WHOSE CHOICE IT IS TO POST CHATLOGS AND WHO OWNS IT. And if you “can’t” pass judgement on that issue, then don’t. But if you dare say that without the “other circumstances that made the situation ARable” you cant “pass judgement”, then don’t make it an ABSOLUTE IMPOSSIBILITY that Maverick did as I said, because anyone with the slightest ability to reason will tell you that that WOULD BE passing judgement against me.
23. 

    Obvious Schism
    

    Feb 5th, 2010
    

    @ Jahar Aabye

    “hell, I’ll prolly get listed for being in the Emerald Beta Testers group anyways”

    Actually, GreenLantern Excelsior recommends Emerald:

    http://kryptonradio.com/?p=524
24. 

    Senban Babii
    

    Feb 5th, 2010
    

    @GLE

    “I will let you have all of your righteous indignation, hold it close to your chest, take it out at night and brush its fur, if you will do one thing for me. Place your hand on a Bible and swear under oath that you have never in your life put someone’s name into a Google window and clicked the search button. If you have ever done a Google search, then congratulations – you did the same thing JLU did.”

    Ooh! Nice try! Let me see now.

    One, I can honestly say that the incidences of me personally needing to Google somebody’s name, whether RL or SL are so minimal as to be negligible. The honest truth is, I really don’t have that much interest in other people and I certainly don’t feel the need to go poking round in their business. I’ve never even Googled “Kalel Venkman” for example. The closest I’ve come to that for example was when I recently Googled “JLU” to see whether these Herald articles had begun to make the front page yet, as pointed out in another comment somewhere. I saw a link to Encyclopedia Dramatica from that search and clicked a few further links before basically losing interest. And I’d happily swear that under oath with my hand on any holy book of your choice and still be able to sleep at night. Incidentally, this applies to searches in SL too and even looking at the Facebook pages and blogs of people I know. As I pointed out in a comment somewhere in this mess, in regard to Intlibber Brautigan, I’ve never so much as looked at his profile and that’s pretty much par for the course. I just don’t find other people’s profiles that interesting and only ever bother to look at them if there’s a specific reason such as researching a story or someone specifically asks me to look at something.

    Even the link I posted above showing an Green Lantern standing behind Simon Cowell on that video clip wasn’t Googled. It was something I noticed completely randomly in passing as I went to log into one of my emails.

    Point two. Even on those amazingly rare occasions that I’ve needed to Google someone, I’ve never felt it necessary to retain copies of what I have Googled such as images or text. If you could look into my computer’s hard drives you wouldn’t find folders labelled “JLU” or “Kalel Venkman” and so forth full of gathered intelligence and I certainly don’t share anything of that nature amongst a group of secret superfriends. The truth is, you people simply aren’t important enough or interesting enough to waste storage on.

    Oh, in the interests of full disclosure to prove I’m being honest, the closest thing I have to some kind of archive on my computer is a folder with all my SL snapshots and SL chatlogs in. There may be a couple of other odds and ends in there but nothing of any consequence as I recall.

    Now you *could* at this point say “Aha but you’ve already said that you have copies of the JLU wikis on your hard drive! And chatlogs showing Maverick Grunfeld exaggerating an event to give the JLU more credence when the event was in fact blatantly escalated by Mr Grunfeld intimidating and boasting (actually I haven’t mentioned that yet but oh look, I just did 8P). And other assorted chatlogs and images”. Haha, see? That is evidence that could be used against me, see how fair I am in pointing that out? But those things have been gathered whilst researching the various JLU stories which is a legitimate reason to have those materials. Now you could try and argue that in effect, I am as bad as you. But in truth, the information wasn’t gathered by myself. It was gathered by the JLU and later exposed by The Wrong Hands. I’m not gathering it – I’m analysing what YOU gathered so as to help show people what the JLU are really like.

    So thank you for your kind offer to allow me to retain my righteous indignation. I intend to accept this offer and enjoy it. I will brush its fur daily and send you pictures of me playing with my righteous indignation in the park 8D
25. 

    GreenLantern Excelsior
    

    Feb 5th, 2010
    

    @ We

    “That’s interesting, especially since you were the one who filed the Anti JLU car one.”

    As I recall, the license plate on that car said “JLU SUX” or something similar, or maybe there was something insulting written on the side of it. It looked to me like they were asking to be ARed for it, so I gave them what they wanted. “Intolerance” and “Defaming Individuals or Groups” is roughly the same thing. Back when the GTeam was holding office hours, they gave us conflicting information about that. One week they said that defamation and intolerance applied only to RL people or groups, so if someone said something bad about furries, that couldn’t be classified as intolerance. A week or two later, a different group of GTeamers said that defamation and intolerance applied to SL groups as well as RL groups. The second group seemed to be more sure of themselves, so we took their guidance as the gospel.

    “Can you explain this discrepancy?”

    No, I can’t. As I said, the page was created in 2007 and I don’t know why the personal information is on it.

    “The reports I was referring to are listed on the Nikola Shirakawa page, there are 17 abuse reports filed against Nikola, 13 of which filed under “Disclosure”, but all 17 of them seemingly having to do with the Wiki leak, which was outside of SL and therefore not applicable to the SL ToS as you said so yourself.”

    The wiki leak occurred “on or about July 17, 2008.” Nikola was removed from the JLU on July 26, 2007. All of the ARs on Nikola were written between August 18 and December 23, 2007. Here’s the basis for one set of ARs against Nikola: “In the first of many instances of content theft, Nikola distributed scripts of an early version of Brainiac Mini. For his efforts he received an AR party which resulted in his first suspension by LL which only embittered him further.” Other ARs appear to be related to his disclosure of RL information by distributing notecards inworld.

    “Ignoring the laughable fact that you consider it possible that Tizzers or any other griefer might try real life violence on you or someone you know…”

    If you don’t take anything else away from the conversation, remember this: The World Is Not A Safe Place. I say that not to frighten you, but because it’s the simple truth.

    “If it’s so easy to google, why not leave it as something to google, or keep this information in a private file on your computer, not in a wiki accessible by everyone in the group? You can collect real life information without posting it on a internet you know.”

    URLs are revised, information scrolls off the page, and web pages generally keep getting changed. Also, sometimes you won’t be able to remember the search terms you entered to get the results you wanted. If you keep the information on your hard disk then it’s for sure you will be on an extended vacation just when someone else needs the information. As to why the information needs to be available to all group members, I think that’s a good question that needs further discussion within the group.

    @ Senban

    “But those things have been gathered whilst researching the various JLU stories which is a legitimate reason to have those materials. Now you could try and argue that in effect, I am as bad as you. But in truth, the information wasn’t gathered by myself. It was gathered by the JLU and later exposed by The Wrong Hands. I’m not gathering it – I’m analysing what YOU gathered so as to help show people what the JLU are really like.”

    So the end result is that both JLU’s web server and Senban Babii’s computer have the personal RL information of a few SL avatars on their hard disks. You say yours is a legitimate use, we say ours is a legitimate use. None of the information from either hard disk is being used to harass or stalk people. To say that one use is legitimate but the other isn’t is, in my opinion, a judgment call.

    I had a long and interesting conversation about this inworld last night. I asked my opponent two questions:
    1) Suppose the RL photos and personal information on the wiki were replaced with hyperlinks to where the information can be found online. Assuming none of the information was used for RL harassment, would this be an acceptable use of the wiki pages, where having the information itself stored there would be judged unethical?
    2) Now suppose we leave the photos and text on the wiki page, but we provide a hyperlink reference for each one, and we check the links periodically and remove the information from the page if the link goes bad. Would this be a reasonable use also?
    I was trying to determine why people think it’s immoral, unethical, or undesirable to have personal information stored on the wiki when it’s also stored on public servers where it can be accessed by anyone.

    “So thank you for your kind offer to allow me to retain my righteous indignation. I intend to accept this offer and enjoy it. I will brush its fur daily and send you pictures of me playing with my righteous indignation in the park 8D”

    You should name it “Cuddles” and put a pink bow on its head.
26. 

    Jahar Aabye
    

    Feb 5th, 2010
    

    I actually decided to Google my SL screename along with “Second Life” just to see if, as GreenLantern claims, RL information would be so easy to find. I see a bunch of hits for comments left on Herald pages, on SLU and other SL-related forums where I’ve posted in the past. Lots of hits for comments on JIRA tickets, of course. I see that some of Andrew Linden’s office hours were logged and posted to the wiki.secondlife.com site, which is perfectly legitimate since those were public office hours, and one would hope that others might find use in any comments made there, including mine. For the record, I’ve also attended Soft Linden’s bug triage hours many times, but that didn’t show up in the google search. I think I might have attended a few of the Linden Office Hours back during the OpenSpace price increase issue too, but those don’t show up.

    The vast majority of hits seem to link to the secondlife.com domain in some form or another, though, or else to the Herald or a few to SLU. Now granted, I’ve posted to a few blogs using just “Jahar” when it was people who knew me in-world, where it was obvious and they wouldn’t be scratching their heads going “Jahar who???”

    However, just searching for my SL first name, “Jahar,” is unlikely to be of much use. I chose the name based off of a character in a book, so you’ll just as likely get thousands of hits to Robert Jordan fansites about Jahar Narishma, a semi-major character in his novels.

    That’s not to say that someone couldn’t connect my RL and SL identities, just that it might be a bit harder than a simple google search, as GreenLantern implies. It would require some serious research and the effort required would probably be enough to qualify as stalking in and of itself.

    The only people in SL whose RL information I have (and potentially vice-versa) are my girlfriend (since that’s an RL and SL thing), and a few coworkers where necessary…and that information is most definitely subject to NDAs, etc.

    I really don’t care to know the RL identities of anyone in SL. Ok, it was cool when a (former) member of LL brought a CalTech astrophysicist to give a talk in SL, but it wasn’t like he was hiding his RL identity. I guess maybe I’d be curious if someone who was famous had an SL screename (but I’m geeky enough to care more about Richard Dawkins or Neil Degrasse Tyson or some such than whatever anorexic shikseh ingenue is the flavor of the month for the various tabloids).

    Oh, just as an odd addendum, a long time ago someone IMed me to tell me that they’d done a WHOIS trace on a website of an SL resident who they knew I didn’t particularly like. They said they had RL info, and before they could even say anything, I immediately typed something to the effect of: “NO!” “Do not tell me!” “I don’t even want to know that, please. I don’t like that person, but that’s because of things they did in SL. I don’t care about their RL, I don’t want to know about their RL, and I’d rather ignore them in SL as well.” To this date, I have no RL information on that resident, and I am glad.

    The only people whose RL information I need to have are my girlfriend’s (kinda hard to live with someone without that) and certain coworkers in case of emergency. I cannot imagine caring about something that anyone did in SL or on an SL-related website that would justify wanting to know their RL identity. If someone in SL were to stalk me in RL, I’d contact law enforcement, and they could get the appropriate court documents to get the information from Linden Lab, who am I certain is more than willing to cooperate when presented with a warrant. Aside from that, you could be my next-door neighbor, someone I worked with in RL years ago, my 4th grade math teacher, or some random person on the other side of the world. Why the fuck should it matter?

    I think I’ll amend my earlier comments on Kalel and GLC to include the sincere suggestion that they seek mental health counseling.
27. 

    We
    

    Feb 6th, 2010
    

    @GreenLantern Excelsior

    “As I recall, the license plate on that car said “JLU SUX” or something similar, or maybe there was something insulting written on the side of it. It looked to me like they were asking to be ARed for it, so I gave them what they wanted. “Intolerance” and “Defaming Individuals or Groups” is roughly the same thing. Back when the GTeam was holding office hours, they gave us conflicting information about that. One week they said that defamation and intolerance applied only to RL people or groups, so if someone said something bad about furries, that couldn’t be classified as intolerance. A week or two later, a different group of GTeamers said that defamation and intolerance applied to SL groups as well as RL groups. The second group seemed to be more sure of themselves, so we took their guidance as the gospel.”

    The G-Team has a tendancy to give conflicting opinions. The community standards defines specifically:

    “The use of derogatory or demeaning language or images in reference to another Resident’s race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or sexual orientation is never allowed in Second Life.”

    Furries are none of the above nor is your group. I believe the other interpretation would leave some questions to ask, like is any speaking out against of any group intolerance then? Therefore all your speaking against PN or griefing groups would be intolerance. As I consider intolerance, you can only be intolerant of something that isn’t a choice: primarily ethnicity and gender(And yes I purposely do not include religion). I see a message like “JLU SUX” as no more intolerant than someone saying “The New York Yankees Suck!” at a baseball game.

    “No, I can’t. As I said, the page was created in 2007 and I don’t know why the personal information is on it.”

    Then it seems like this is a question to take to the leadership, why they’ve been collecting this information that neither you or I can see any reason for having. I trust in your ability to do so.

    “The wiki leak occurred “on or about July 17, 2008.” Nikola was removed from the JLU on July 26, 2007. All of the ARs on Nikola were written between August 18 and December 23, 2007. Here’s the basis for one set of ARs against Nikola: “In the first of many instances of content theft, Nikola distributed scripts of an early version of Brainiac Mini. For his efforts he received an AR party which resulted in his first suspension by LL which only embittered him further.” Other ARs appear to be related to his disclosure of RL information by distributing notecards inworld.”

    You make a good point, and I’m not sure exactly what happened with Nikola in the month immediately after getting kicked out of JLU.

    However, another example of Abuse Reporting disclosure when there is no disclosure in Second Life has been thrust upon me. I took it upon myself to put up signs in the Sandboxes the night before, and in fact we talked about them, where you had said, I believe your words were: “I wouldn’t write an AR on this and I doubt anyone else would.”. However, from information I gathered from you and two other JLU members I had nice conversations with over the course of hanging around my signs, it seems Kalel disagreed and formed what he calls an “AR Party” to mass-abuse report me. Though one Linden apparently had checked out the sign and thought it fine, in true G-team conflicting opinion fashion, another evidently came later and had an opposite opinion. My account was unceremoniously suspended for 2 days with no warning for “Disclosure”, despite never having a violation, and despite not disclosing anything within Second Life.

    My point, and part of my gripe with the JLU, is that I wonder if this would have been simply looked over and declined, as one linden did, if this had not been mass-reported. The JLU is looking for ways to game the Abuse Report system, like Kalel commanding multiple people to Abuse Report my objects, and to find Lindens sympathetic to their opinion and mark them down as useful contacts. I believe that this kind of vigilante-posse tactics can get through Abuse Reports that are not in violation of anything, something that the ever-shady, vague, and conflicting G-team has often had trouble with, but rather are just against the interests of the JLU or Kalel himself.

    When the suspension goes down, if the dispute is successful, I intend to put the signs back up as they are, if it’s not successful or ignored (I imagine the latter is most likely), I will still put the sign up again, but with the wiki information removed. I will be interested to see if Kalel forms another AR Party to get it that time, what form of “abuse” it will be taken as, and whether the Lindens will pay attention.

    “If you don’t take anything else away from the conversation, remember this: The World Is Not A Safe Place. I say that not to frighten you, but because it’s the simple truth.”

    It works both ways though, Jahar Aabye, stating in another Herald article comments, sees Kalel as a potential threat for RL violence and stalking as much as you seem to think Tizzers is a threat for it. Does this mean I should be setting booby traps in the hallway in case a murderer comes by, and keeping detailed documents on my friends just in case they betray me?

    Interestingly, this is similar to the plot of a comic book story, which I’m sure you can relate to in this situation; Very appropriately, it’s even a Justice League comic. Batman has been secretly keeping detailed information on all his fellow leaguers, strengths, weaknesses, history, and how to defeat them, without their knowledge. This information gets leaked and used against the league by the villains, who practically decimate the league with it, in true comic book fashion they eventually overcome the villains and manage to keep the league from being destroyed. However, the ultimate result of it? Batman is kicked out of the league for secretly keeping and gathering this information, by Superman’s swing vote no less.

    Something to think about.
28. 

    Senbanb Babii
    

    Feb 6th, 2010
    

    @We

    “Interestingly, this is similar to the plot of a comic book story, which I’m sure you can relate to in this situation; Very appropriately, it’s even a Justice League comic. Batman has been secretly keeping detailed information on all his fellow leaguers, strengths, weaknesses, history, and how to defeat them, without their knowledge. This information gets leaked and used against the league by the villains, who practically decimate the league with it, in true comic book fashion they eventually overcome the villains and manage to keep the league from being destroyed. However, the ultimate result of it? Batman is kicked out of the league for secretly keeping and gathering this information, by Superman’s swing vote no less.

    Something to think about.”

    This is priceless 8D

    @GLE

    “So the end result is that both JLU’s web server and Senban Babii’s computer have the personal RL information of a few SL avatars on their hard disks. You say yours is a legitimate use, we say ours is a legitimate use. None of the information from either hard disk is being used to harass or stalk people. To say that one use is legitimate but the other isn’t is, in my opinion, a judgment call.”

    This is a false argument, probably one of those strawman or red herring or argumentum infinitum things that people bandy about so much these days. I’ve never figured them out tbh so I’ll stick with “THIS ARE BOLLOCKS” because it gets the point across nicely

    The Nazis (ONOZ GODWIN’S LAW!) conducted experiments on people to amass a large database of scientific data on how the human body responds to cold etc. Such a database is obviously unethical, immoral and so forth. If I later have a copy of that database for the purposes of writing a book about Nazi atrocities in the mid-20th century, you simply can’t compare the two. One is the primary source of the ethical problem, the other is the legitimate use of the information for reporting of the facts. If I had a copy of your JLU wiki on my hard disk for the purpose of picking up where you left off, of continuing your work or recreating it, *then* you could compare the two.

    “You should name it “Cuddles” and put a pink bow on its head. ”

    Cuddles sends hugs <3
29. 

    Tux Winkler
    

    Feb 6th, 2010
    

    I actually have no issue with people knowing my RL info (after all I have a real RL picture in my profile, and all it takes is Superman to do a sweep of the UK with his X-ray vision and he’ll see me smiling up at him – XD). It’s not like my information hasn’t been published before even (A simple search produces a wave of opinions, I am everything from a communist to a nazi, griefer to anti-griefer, even a linden at times, lol). And then there are some people who do have reason to use RL information (eg. when a guest monk comes for a dharma talk or a celebrity musician comes to play).

    But should RL be stored on an external DB? Of course not, it is nothing short of Obsessive Cyberstalking! It is irrelevant that it is not available to the public. Neither Kalel nor any of the groups ‘leaders’ know the psychological profile of its members. If fact a group like the JLU would attract them. Google for the profile of a Cyberstalker/Cyberbully.

    At the end of the day Second Life is a game type social experiment which allows people to be anyone they want, and for the most part this is good, but sometimes it is very bad. I am not the one to pass judgement on the JLU members. But I have (as is my entitlement) my opinions.

    Peace and love!
30. 

    Jahar Aabye
    

    Feb 6th, 2010
    

    GLC,
    I can guarantee you that people have said (typed?) to my face, in-world, many statements to the extent that my company sucks, our products suck, etc, which I’d consider roughly analogous to the “JLU SUX” license plate on the car…although bear in mind that such statements could be far worse for us than a simple “JLU SUX” would be to the JLU, in that it could impact our business.

    However, my usual response is to ask the person why they feel that way. Sometimes it’s because they bought a product and didn’t like it. If it’s because of a bug, I make a note of it and it goes in the list of fixes for the next update (and I try to make sure that the person knows that I take it seriously). If it’s because the person simply had difficulty understanding how to use the product or had trouble adjusting various settings, I usually refer them to a Customer Service Rep who’s online (I don’t usually do CSR work…not because I’m a scripter, but because I’m an arrogant jackass and even I admit that I’m ill-suited to the role).

    Sometimes the person simply hates our company or products because of rumors or because they prefer another brand. I’ll sometimes pull out a recent product and show off some cool features that I think the person would enjoy. I’ve actually seen someone go from swearing that we were pure evil to asking me when the product would be released so that he could buy one. Granted, not everyone will react like that, and some people will just be assholes regardless, or just want to start a fight. The “mute” button is usually sufficient in those cases.

    I have never had to file an AR based on someone saying “BlackOps SUX.” I’ve criticized other people’s products in SL as well, of course. All of this usually falls under free speech, and the mute button exists for a reason, use it.

    But filing an abuse report for a license plate that says “JLU Sux” is wasting resources that could be put to better use. What happens if you guys are having an AR party over a “JLU SUX” license plate, and as a result, reports of people trying to crash the vehicle sandbox in Balance wind up waiting at the end of a long queue? Then you’ve actually enabled griefers by clogging the system with stupid ARs.

    Further, isn’t the owner of that car someone for whom you have RL information in your database? I tried to avoid reading pages on the leaked wiki that contained any RL info, because I really don’t care to know, and my memory is spotty anyways due to a combination of neurological damage and powerful anticonvulsants, but I do believe that I remembered that individual as being one of the persons on whom you had RL information.

    Is that really how low the bar is to have the JLU seek out private RL info? Rezzing a car in a sandbox with a license plate that says “JLU SUX”?

    Hell, I’ve criticized the Herald plenty of times in comments here (and I’d like to think that my comments on Little Lost Linden’s bothunt were helpful, even if they were harsh), and some of my comments might even have been insulting to the Herald and to its readership. Nonetheless, I’ve signed my comments with my SL screename and included my actual email address. To my knowledge, the Herald staff have kept my email address hidden (as is proper), and have not retaliated in any way. Similarly, I have left comments on Prok’s blog disagreeing with that individual, and also using my SL screename and email address. Prok has not retaliated in any manner either, to my knowledge, except to submit a comment in response to mine.

    To my knowledge, none of the above individuals made any attempt to compile and disseminate personal RL info about me. Why? Because that’s just sick and disturbing. Hell, Joshua Nightshade was mentioned above, and he and I have had many disagreements in the past, saying things to each other that were far worse than “JLU SUX” and yet to my knowledge he has not retaliated or attempted to compile and distribute RL info about me either.

    So let’s make sure I get this straight, as to what statements might be deemed acceptable:

    “SecondLife/Alphaville Herald SUX” – acceptable, no ARs filed, no personal info collected, will probably be mocked in ensuing comments, but that’s about it.

    “Prokofy Neva SUX” – Acceptable, no ARs filed, likely to result in an understandably angry response, but no personal info collected.

    “Joshua Nightshade SUX” – Acceptable, no ARs filed, likely to result in rather vulgar but humorous comments back and forth, with both of us displaying a maturity level that would make the creators of “Animal House” cringe. But in the end, no personal info collected.

    “JLU SUX” – Not Acceptable, multiple ARs would be filed, and personal data would then be collected and placed in a wiki accessible to all JLU members.

    Do I have that just about right? So then I shudder to think about what my previous comments calling your organization a bunch of vigilante wannabe superheros whose spandex panties were cutting off circulation to your brain will result in? Will I be labelled a griefer, and have my RL name and picture distributed to all of your members? I would strongly advise against doing so.

    As to your comment on the world being a dangerous place, I am well aware of this. I have looked right into the eyes of a drunken, mentally unstable ex-con as he waved a knife at me, and then when I locked his arm up, I watched his face go dead white when he realized that his wrist and arm were about to break, and he dropped the knife so fast it practically bounced off the floor. It was stupid of me to have stepped into that situation in the first place, but believe me, I am well aware that the world can be a dangerous place.

    The difference between you and me is, I prefer to think that people are generally good, and I try only to act to try to defuse a situation. I see no need to take pre-emptive action by compiling people’s private information. If a dangerous situation arises, it should be handled appropriately, with the goal being to end the situation as peacefully as possible. I have difficulty seeing how most things in a video game could even begin to rise to the sort of level that action would need to be taken. The closest I can think of would be various SEC JIRA tickets taken to close loopholes that could crash sims or clients, or use a sim for a DoS attack. Rather than compile personal information on the people using such devices, rational people acted to end the situation by working with LL to prevent such exploits from being used.

    Seriously GLC, you and Kalel need to seek behavioral health support. Let video games be video games. If it poses a legitimate threat to the platform, report the exploit being used and try to get it fixed. If someone tries to stalk you in RL (as Tizzers was accused of), then let law enforcement deal with it.

    But other than that, just let a video game be a fucking video game and get over yourselves about whether a car had an offensive license plate. Unless they’re directly affecting your ability to enjoy SL, or actually affecting your RL, you guys need to just let it go. Think about how much easier the G/RESI team’s job would be if the ARs in SL dropped by 10%. They might actually be able to concentrate on real griefers instead of someone rezzing a cop car as a parody.
31. 

    DarkAngel
    

    Apr 1st, 2010
    

    TypePad are a bunch of N00bs if you ask me I mean seriously FAIR USE, if it is in public chat its fair use, and secondly they cant really do sh** but make a bad reputation for themselfs being typepad, I have never been fond of their service, and I would just counter DMCA for fair use, as I have recently done so on two of my youtube videos I got falsely reported that were fair use, and won both.

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