LordGregGreg Exits Emerald Viewer Team
by Pixeleen Mistral on 15/08/10 at 8:10 pm
Developer concerned about stealth code in Emerald viewer
LordGregGreg announced his departure from the Emerald viewer development team, saying that he is unable to track code added by other developers, and can no longer to provide assurances that Emerald does not contain stealth user-tracking "features". This is the latest in a series of internal Emerald disagreements that have apparently taken the fun out of working on the popular third party Second Life viewer for LordGregGreg – a player who was instrumental in assembling the Emerald viewer team.
LordGregGreg
I chatted with LordGregGreg Saturday as he considered his options while sitting under a tree next to several pools of molten lava, appearing as his signature one-of-a-kind custom avatar. When asked what he plans to do next, he said, "Right now I do not have anything serious lined up for my free time, I will be looking for a way to make a few people smile, but probably on a much more private level for now on".
While LordGregGreg was reluctant to talk in detail, he agreed to allow the Herald to re-post his Emerald Reassessment post — apparently his reticence is due to concerns his departure may create more drama within the Emerald team.
But drama has plagued the group – most recently the Emerald developers have been at the center of a series of revelations that the Emerald viewer harvests the directory path from which the application is run and stores this in the baked avatar texture, where it can be retrieved by others. With some users running Emerald from their home directory, usernames and real life full names can be exposed via the avatar texture. While the directory path is encrypted, the encryption has been broken on two occasions to date.
LordGregGreg’s lair
Although it appears that only one of the Emerald developers – Phox – is responsible for this "feature", it is distressing that he has claimed to have removed the stealth collection of potentially player identifying information on several occasions, yet the information was later shown to still be present leading some to believe that Phox may not be entirely trustworthy.
Hazim Gazov neatly summarized the situation on the sluniverse forums saying,
A few people were working on decoding the messages encoded in the baked layers, and we spoke with LGG each time we found something. LGG spoke with the other Emerald developers at length about it, but it appears that they either didn’t care, or they wanted that information stored in the baked layers, in the case of "the three" that he mentioned.
The first time the encryption was broken, and it came out that paths and window titles were being disclosed for anyone with the right software to see, LGG spoke with Phox about it and Phox said the encryption would be changed to AES and any possibly identifying information other than what viewer was being run would be removed.
The encryption was broken again, the exact same things were left in from before, only the encryption had changed, LGG spoke with Phox again. Phox said the encryption would be changed, and identifying information other than what viewer was being run would be removed. You’ll notice there’s a pattern emerging here.
Likely they will now move the leak to some other component, but if they do decide to keep it in there and change the encryption, I’m sure people will work on it to break it again.
TL;DR lying to your own users is a shitty thing to do.
With a lack of trust within the team, unable to gain transparent access into the binary build process, and unhappy Phox’s "feature" was added to the Emerald viewer without his knowledge, it is not surprising LordGregGreg quit the team saying, "Unfortunately, I do not feel confident enough to support it any more, for a number of reasons. I did not realize at the time that emkdu was added, that it could be used to add in code I was not able to see. These things were done behind my back, it was found out by others that code was placed in that braodcasted your viewers title bar and executable path in a obfuscated manner. This was addressed, promised to be fixed, and (luckily) people broke through the now encrypted layer to find out that it was not."
The relationships within the team had apparently been strained for some time – LordGregGreg had fought for viewer controls over a hidden media exploit that can be used by Second Life landowners to silently harvest other players’ IP addresses – the basis for the CDS system — but was overruled.
The full text of LordGregGreg’s post is reproduced below:
This post is one I have needed to make a long time ago. This is totally in my eyes, my personal perception, as very few things were ever written down.
Emerald is no longer what It was for me, I have been dedicating a ridiculous amount of my time to this project for near two years now, and It’s been difficult to see it go the way it has.
It started off as a joint effort to bring talented people together to make something that people could really appreciate it, something that I could work on and give as a gift to my friends. All sorts of people have worked on it over the time, some people whom I trusted and respected, and some that I took things as they came. The similar thing was that it appeared that we were all working to be productive and helpful, to make an amazing viewer. Trust was never a critical point in the project, as everything that was done was transparent to everyone. Every code change was easily viewable by everyone, including the public, so there was really no issue with worrying about someone adding something nasty. Back when there were questions of the viewers integrity, I personally put my support behind it, promising that I would double and triple check code commits as much as I could to ensure that everyone was secure.
Unfortunately, I do not feel confident enough to support it any more, for a number of reasons. I did not realize at the time that emkdu was added, that it could be used to add in code I was not able to see. These things were done behind my back, it was found out by others that code was placed in that braodcasted your viewers title bar and executable path in a obfuscated manner. This was addressed, promised to be fixed, and (luckily) people broke through the now encrypted layer to find out that it was not. Of-course, it has been promised to be fixed a third time, but now with an encryption level too high to be broken. Although replacing or deleting emkdu would resolve this issue, I also have to consider that this was hidden in the code for months without anyone knowing..
Regardless of the intentions of those who placed this code there, It has made one thing inescapably clear. I am not able to double check everything any more. I tried to find a solution to resolve this matter, but it appears that most people do not care about this to the level that I do. I made sure the other emerald devs were aware of what is going on via this. As mentioned there, closed source, hidden designs and single developer licenses have no place in emerald. People can make mistakes, but it is important that others can double check without having to break through encryption. Nothing has changed however. This issue of being able to transparently check up on everyone is only to get worse in my opinion, as all new builds are planned to be done from a central build server, where access is cut off from the other developers. I consider trust issues with any binary of the highest importance, as even small library like this can have access to every file or memory on the computer, the same care must be taken with them as everything else.
Furthermore, there has been a issue with money, donations, advertisement profit, that has not been resolved how I felt that it should. Instead of the money being treated as a group project, and used appropriately (transparently to the other devs), it has been handled privately instead.
Additionally there has been some playful talk by a few developers to add services to emerald that would be used to profit certain developers. I have always felt that emerald should be a free project, both speech and beer, and that adding ways to make money off others free work was wrong in some way. Though, this is my personal opinion, and it is most defiantly not part of the GPL.
There have also been issues with public appearance and ignorant association. Although most intelligent people understand that the people who work on emerald do so separately, and that for the most part it is the only thing they work on together, this is not always clear, and there have been numerous times when I have had to fight to make it clear who participates in what, even on our own website. Before hand I could point out that what other devs have/are/will do is unrelated to me, but now even emerald now is moving in the direction they want it, to the extent that I feel it is important to distinguish myself from it.
I have had a few people ask me why I did not do something about this, something sooner, and the reason is that this is not my project more than it is all of the other developers, in my opinion. I have done my part to make sure that they are aware of this, but their decisions are their own. I would have said something sooner, but I was trying my hardest to get this resolved internally.
This seems to have mostly been a misunderstanding on my part. I had assumed emerald was what I wanted it to be, when now it is very clear that it is not on a number of issues. Therefore I feel that it is my responsibility to make a few points clear from now on.
-
Emerald is beyond my ability to verify the integrity of the code involved. For people concerned about spy-ware, adware, backdoors, etc, I strongly encore you to do your own research, as you should with every program you install, and make this decision yourself. I am aware of two instances of what I consider bad code in emkdu, and have given instructions on how to remove this part from emerald, however in the future even that will not be enough. A decent solution is to compile the viewer yourself, and only include components that you trust.
-
The money made by emerald has not, and will not ever go to me. It has always been important to me that my work has been completely for free on this project.
-
The actions behind emerald, and other developers other projects, and any implied moral implications have nothing to do with me. I personally disagree with the points in emerald that I have mentioned here, and for projects that I am unrelated in (like onyx, cds) I don’t have anything to do with them!
Furthermore, as you can probably guess, my involvement in emerald will be much less in the future, unless something is done to address these issues. I would still love to help people as I always have with emerald support, and I will still be adding any features I think would help people out to emerald (though i think a good patch for other viewers will also be provided), but as far as the direction emerald is going, I am out of it.
It is very distressful to have to sever some ties to a project I have put so much dedication and time behind.. it has postponed this decision for a long while, but there is a time for everything, and I think I can find new ways to be productive better than working on emerald.
To the people who have took my word on emerald’s credibility, I apologize deeply for my claims.
It’s been fun, I have learned allot from people who code better than I probably ever will be able to, and there are times when it has been great, thank you very much to all the other developers, and supporters. I hope you understand.
(edit: no, i really don’t feel like forking or doing my own builds or taking anyone’s money to do so, im quite sick of emerald right now, if one were to do so, the code you can see in the svn is clean last i checked, the rest, i don’t know)
(edit: for the people who believe that I am doing this to cause drama, or that I am trying to destroy emerald, please reconsider. This post was made to clear my conscience and bring the truth as best as I saw it to people who were relying on me. I wish no harm on anyone, I am sorry that things came to this, but it was all stuff I could have fixed long ago, I do not hate anyone. Please beware of people misquoting me or adding on to what I have said here, I have made this long an thorough for a reason, I do not need drama people corrupting it)
(edit: to be extremely clear, most devs in emerald do not have anything to do with emkdu. The code was for a single developer, and it was passed around to no more than 3 devs that I am aware of, the rest of them are all in a similar boat as me afaik)
(edit: so apparently someone got my access removed from the svn and a few other things for posting this, sorry to the people who have pointed out the few last minute things I should have fixed, looks like they will have to wait)
(edit: to the other developers who feel like I have betrayed you and was foolish by making this public, I am very affected and would please ask you to consider my position. I have tried every way I know of to get this resolved before hand, but I have been left in a position where I have people relying on my public words on this, keeping this to myself or trying to whisper it to all of them would have been betraying the rest of these people, and there wasn’t any other way to correct this)
Ajax Manatiso
Aug 18th, 2010
Emerald now has a stealth code that will steal your soul and send it to a Bavarian website where you will peddle Progressive Insurance for all eternity!!!!!
Baloo Uriza
Aug 18th, 2010
@tatanya: That seems a little misdirected, are you sure you meant Baloo and not someone else in this thread? I believe we’re on the same side of this conversation.
Uncle Martin
Aug 18th, 2010
I think the article should have been named “Qarl Linden Joins Modular Systems”. I think it’s a lot more significant that a Linden arrived than some other developer left.
We
Aug 18th, 2010
@Uncle Martin
Which I imagine was the point. LGG leaving Emerald is a pretty big deal, since he’s one of the two people that most considered to be the only trustworthy members of the team. If he leaves because he can no longer trust the team and is being blocked off from sections of code, then it’s a pretty large trust issue with Emerald.
Emerald grabbing Qarl seems almost more like a PR gimmick to overshadow this news of LGG leaving. They’re vague on what exactly he’s even been brought over to do, if anything at all. Just “Hey look over here, Qarl joined the team! Don’t look at that other thing!”
Jayd3n
Aug 19th, 2010
Thanks LGG, I knew you were the only half way nice developer of Emerald I could even think about Trusting…
And Yeah Emerald now is a piece of shit, I remember when I first got emerald back in 09 first hear about it, it was good, but then they made all these changes, screwed up the code, Started their spyware crap…
Baloo Uriza
Aug 19th, 2010
Jayd3n: Wait, only now? That’s been the case as long as I can remember, not a recent development.
Uncle Martin
Aug 19th, 2010
On the other hand, fully half of Second Life uses Emerald now. I’m sure Linden Lab realizes this – there must be SOME kind of controls on this, or Linden Lab wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.
dirkpieter
Aug 19th, 2010
It is a pity that this fantastic viewer is abused by some criminal intent people. Like so many on the internet just trying to ruïn the pleasure of so many for their dirty greed.
Hihger punishment for abusers and claim of all damages done is the only way to stop this. Lifelong ban on internet, a ban on posession of computers and confiscating all that is linked to it.
Darien Caldwell
Aug 19th, 2010
“there must be SOME kind of controls on this, or Linden Lab wouldn’t have allowed this to happen.”
Wow, you must be new to SL…
Emperor Norton hears a who?
Aug 19th, 2010
I heard the Emerald team has a code in their viewer that disables the Excite male genital ully erect state. They hope by suppressing virtual sexual desire this will make the SL residents easier to control.
You hear that, Emerald makes you virtually important! Your prim hair will detach and your e-wife will leave you.
Baloo Uriza
Aug 19th, 2010
“On the other hand, fully half of Second Life uses Emerald now.”
So? AOL proved that 34 million people can be wrong.
“It is a pity that this fantastic viewer is abused by some criminal intent people.”
Actually, it was developed by those people with criminal intent; for that reason alone, I’d say it’s not very fantastic at all.
“Emerald makes you virtually important!”
That word, “important,” I do not think it means what you think it means. I believe the word you’re looking for is “impotent.”
Millennium Sands
Aug 19th, 2010
There WAS a discussion about this issue in the Modular Systems Forums, where users expressed concerns and waited for answers.
Modular Systems answered in it’s own way: The thread was deleted!
Plain surpression, trying to sweep a serious matter like this under the rug.
I still use Emerald, because I love that viewer. But if I don’t see a credible change in policy very soon, my trust will be annihilated.
Baloo Uriza
Aug 19th, 2010
Why do you still trust them at all at this point, particularly when there are viable alternatives with feature parity to Emerald?
Millennium Sands
Aug 19th, 2010
I don’t trust them anymore. My trust is already shattered and I think I have to make a decision in the next 48 hours.
Anyway… If I switch to Imprudence, I loose Showcase. It doesn’t seem to work there.
The radar of Emerald seems to work better than that of Imprudence, at least for me.
Take me for a nutter, but I love the breast physics of Emerald. Imprudence has physics too, but I found no way to adjust them.
These were the first issues that struck me when I compared the two viewers.
In any case I think I have to get along with these drawbacks and send out a warning about Emerald to friends quite soon, unless a miracle happens. I recommended Emerald to a lot of friends, so I would be responsible if they have to suffer any bad experiences due to my recommendation.
Baloo Uriza
Aug 19th, 2010
Showcase is in the Find dialogue, it’s one of the tabs. I just tested it in this week’s Imprudence, and it is working.
The radar requires the minimap to be open, you can minimize this subwindow.
Boob physics can be adjusted in the debug settings, look for EmeraldBoob* and EmeraldBreast* keys.
Selene Putzo
Aug 20th, 2010
It’s simple, if you wish to continue using this SL authorised third party viewer called Emerald, and you find later on that your privacy has been compromised while using it, then you make a legal claim to Linden Labs because they said it was safe and met their requirements for use in their grid. Linden Labs then launch a claim against the Emerald team.
randy
Aug 20th, 2010
how about this nice little bit of action over in SLU?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Satomi Ahn
Well, so much for transparency… Emerald guys deleted the topic on the forum after somebody pointed out that Emerald login page contained many references to Hazim’s blog (references to non-existing pages and to images hosted on his blog)… meaning that every time this page was loaded, resources from the other site were also downloaded (so that would have happened every time somebody launches the Emerald client, generating a lot of traffic).
I don’t know who made the page like this and to what purpose, but that was really fishy.
Fortunately they fixed the login page now. (but seriously, why do we always need to publicly expose their flaws for them to fix these? How are we suppose to keep any trust?)
Just for reference, here is the version in google cache:
Emerald Login
(display the source and look about the end of the file)
—————————————————————————
I’m not terribly surprised. They’ve also tried to spam my email, which I didn’t notice until I checked my spam folder.
Then they messed with Vivox’s servers to get my voice account disabled, and stalked me to gloat about it when I hadn’t even noticed until they kept bugging me to talk on voice.
Then they allegedly got my ISP account to cut off my internet, which I found out about from people telling me Phox was gloating about it. I’m still using my internet, so I’m assuming someone else’s was disabled.
Now my website that I never use or update is being attacked, and I’m the last person to know or care. If they can’t even take down a dreamhost hosted site, they’re the bunch of assclowns I’ve always known they were.
Modsys is always good for a lol.
EDIT: Anyways, I guess I’ll add a referrer blocker to the .htaccess or something stupid like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Masami Kuramoto
Let’s call the cops.
Kids trying to pull shit like this on me is what I live for, why would I want to make them go away? I will speak with their ISP about it, however.
Total number of requests referred by that page: 16,541,673 (huh, I didn’t even notice lag when I was messing with a script on the site a couple days ago)
Code:
They used the images that proved they were disclosing private info about their users to launch a DDoS attack against me using their users’ bandwith? Nice touch, actually.
Journey Yellowlist
Aug 20th, 2010
“I heard the Emerald team has a code in their viewer that disables the Excite male genital fully erect state. They hope by suppressing virtual sexual desire this will make the SL residents easier to control.”
The District Court of Second Life is now bringing additional charges against Miss Petunia for this outrage. The SL League of Decency prudes were behind this, I’m certain!
There is no Emerald City! Do not follow that Yellow Brick Road!
woooot
Aug 20th, 2010
i kicked the emerald habit after this week.
where there’s smoke there’s fire, and the clouds have been billowing all year now. i kept ignoring it and hoping it would stop, but it obviously never will.
ps. don’t forget to change your password after you find a new viewer!
Millennium Sands
Aug 20th, 2010
@ Baloo
Thanks for your help. Boobs physics work great now for me.
I knew how the radar works, I only have to get used to the different way to handle it. I liked the Emerald solution more.
I couldn’t spot a find dialogue. There’s the common Search where I see Showcase in the tabs, just where it is in Emerald as well. But hitting it only displays what I already see in the “All (web)” tab, and there’s even no further search option in that part of the tab. Looks to me like the Showcase tab is only a placeholder without functionality.
Right now I switched to Imprudence nevertheless, but the experience with Emerald left me worried about third party viewers in general. Modular Systems demonstrated that code can be hidden (I didn’t know this), so there can be hidden code in every other viewer too. Tomorrow it might be revealed that Imprudence is also a spy viewer, or even something worse.
I have no more doubts that Modular Systems only started a test balloon in preparation of something really evil, and the only way to stay out of trouble seems to be to stick with an official client from LL.
Since I’d rather leave SL than using 2.0 (all my tests lead to endless frustration, particularly concerning the obstruction of view caused by the sidebar), I downloaded 1.23 etc from LL again, just in case I might need it sooner or later.
We
Aug 20th, 2010
Looks like the Emerald team made everyone who logged into Emerald around August 9th an unknowing accomplice to an illegal DDoS attack on one of the major critiques of Emerald and person who exposes their shady practices. The same person who discovered and posted the leak in emkdu and provided proof of what Emerald’s privacy violations in it, which caused LGG to leave the team.
The website, displayed on the login screen when you open up Emerald, had hidden links opening up about 20 different images and pages from the person’s site, requesting around 1-2 MB of data from his site every time someone tried to log into Emerald. They’ve removed the links from the page now after it was pointed out in their forums (the post was swiftly deleted), but you can still find it in the google cached version of the login page (By viewing source and looking at the bottom). Overall, he claimed that the DDoS attack did over 16 million requests to his web server.
TL;DR: Emerald put an illegal DDoS attack in their viewer to harass the person who found out about their shady emkdu privacy violations that caused LGG to leave.
If that’s not reason enough to uninstall Emerald for good and change your passwords, nothing is.
lol
Aug 20th, 2010
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jD_B973EpVUJ:modularsystems.sl/app/login/+http://modularsystems.sl/app/login/
32 hidden iframes, that is very very funny
Wolf Baginski
Aug 20th, 2010
So they’ve been breaking the data protection and computer misuse laws of various countries? But hiding illicitly-gathered data in baked textures: how do you get at them without using a copybot? Who can get them without being able to see the target avatar in-world?
There’s something funny about this claim, and I know just enough not to believe a claim such as this without better evidence.
Millennium Sands
Aug 20th, 2010
“TL;DR: Emerald put an illegal DDoS attack in their viewer to harass the person who found out about their shady emkdu privacy violations that caused LGG to leave.
If that’s not reason enough to uninstall Emerald for good and change your passwords, nothing is.”
It’s enough reason to perceive Modular Systems as a gang of hack mafia mobsters once again rather than taking them for a group of honest and trustworthy developers.
Now that their shady intentions are revealed, they seem to be set on harakiri. I guess they will try to cause as much damage as they can, exploiting their user base for as long as it’s still there, before the word is spread.
Well, I already sent out the word to some friends, making them aware of this report and the comments. It’s up to them to make their own conclusions….
We
Aug 20th, 2010
@lol
Thanks, wasn’t sure if it’d let me post links. If anyone views the source on that and looks at the bottom they’ll see the DDoS attack set up.
@Millenium Sands
The Emerald team just secretly forced all their users who logged in during that time to help perform an illegal DoS attack to attempt to silence someone who revealed some of their shady dealings.
I would have to wonder about the person who doesn’t think that’s enough of a violation of trust to at the very least quit using Emerald.
Millennium Sands
Aug 20th, 2010
@Wolf
The evidence is Modular Systems way to handle these claims.
Instead of making a stand and responding to concerns of worried users with credible answers to reasonable questions, they try to sweep everything under the carpet by deleting theads in their own forums that could just as well be used for clearing up things.
Not the claims against them convinced me that they are up to something evil, their own way to deal with these claims did it!
Their tries to discredit LGG only confirmed what I already perceived.
I don’t know much about LGG, but evidence FOR his reputation outmatches other voices by far.
Baloo Uriza
Aug 20th, 2010
@Selene Putzo: You have it backwards. The Lindens even state in their TPV policy that they do not endorse or even check if listed viewers are TPV compliant before listing them. They only blacklist viewers that they know positively aren’t (and don’t publish that list).
We
Aug 21st, 2010
LGG leaves and slams Emerald as untrustworthy, a day later it’s announced Qarl Linden has joined the Emerald team.
Emerald gets caught red-handed enacting an illegal DDoS, a couple hours later it’s announced Data Linden has joined the Emerald Support Team.
How many Lindens do they have waiting on the back-burner to yank out as “joining the team” to cover up a serious fuck up on their part?
Baloo Uriza
Aug 21st, 2010
Wait, Data got laid off from the Lab?
We
Aug 21st, 2010
@Baloo Uriza
Yeah, I think he was laid off when M Linden culled a large portion of the staff.
We
Aug 21st, 2010
Chalice Yao has now announced that she’s leaving Emerald as well.
Bubblesort Triskaidekaphobia
Aug 21st, 2010
Seems like Emerald is in a cycle of replacing competent personnel with ex-Lindens. Every time somebody leaves they get a new useless ex-Linden.
In their blog post Modular systems says this about Data Linden: “If you’ve ever filed a support ticket to LL and it was resolved to your satisfaction, chances are it was handled by this man.”
Support ticket resolved to the user’s satisfaction? LOL, I have never ran across anybody with anything nice to say about how LL handles tickets. Their customer service is a joke. The sad part is that Data was not fired for that. He was laid off.
Link to Chalice Yao’s announcement:
http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/47885-emerald-problem-conspiracy-theory-6.html#post999779
Emerald Viewer Login Screen Sneak DDOS Attack? | The Alphaville Herald
Aug 21st, 2010
[...] about Second Life playes running the Emerald client – a revelation that led to the resignation of Emerald developer LordGregGreg last week. In response, Bagdhad Arabella Ms. Steadham announced [...]
Baloo Uriza
Aug 21st, 2010
Actually, Michael Linden is very good about handing and responding to tickets filed regarding the Linden Department of Public Works and it’s subsidiaries, such as the Bay City Bridge Authority, Second Life Railroad, Kama City Metropolitan Transit Authority, etc.
Chronos Ghost
Aug 21st, 2010
SO…
is it just me or is this nonrelevant? The only people this will affect will be those who have stupidly named base control and logins in their PCs with their own names.
If you are that foolish to begin with… then what are you doing on the internet besides asking to be a victim.
Kiddoh
Aug 21st, 2010
@Chronos: That’s a mighty big elitist point of view. Society has come to a point where everyone who uses a computer has come to rely on it in one way or another. Some people shouldn’t be on the internet, but they need to be.
BEWARE: An Emerald in the Rough! «
Aug 22nd, 2010
[...] circling about recently regarding the popular Modular Systems Emerald Viewer, and it’s all bad. From the leaked avatar database to the ability to track avatar alts, to the brand new DDoS proof [...]
Emerald Viewer Mutiny – Fractured Crystal Thrown To Sharks | The Alphaville Herald
Aug 23rd, 2010
[...] scandal-plagued Emerald viewer development team has undergone radical change with the resignation of Fractured [...]
Emerald In Disgrace!!! Philip Linden Warns Against Malicious Viewer!!! | The Alphaville Herald
Aug 25th, 2010
[...] into avatar textures without the knowledge of the users. A dispute over this practice led to the departure of LordGregGreg from the Emerald gang recently after Lonely Bluebird (a.k.a. Phox) promised to remove the privacy [...]
Alex
Aug 26th, 2010
WE:
“How many Lindens do they have waiting on the back-burner to yank out as “joining the team” to cover up a serious fuck up on their part?”
About as many Lindens as it takes to pad the Emerald staff and bring them under the control of Linden Lab.
Kiss the Emerald viewer (and probably many other 3rd party viewers yet to come) goodbye, if LL gets to direct development. Yeah, they fucked up but somebody tell me how LL being in control of this or any other 3rd party viewer, (esp. after 2.0), is a GOOD thing?
Des joueurs de Second-Life impliqués dans une attaque DDoS «
Aug 31st, 2010
[...] des comportements dans les monde virtuels comme Second-Life, tout aurait commencé par des suspicions de diffusion d’informations personnelles pour les personnes utilisant le ce client « Emerald [...]
EclecticJohn
Sep 2nd, 2010
It has been alleged that Emerald Viewer allowed a denial of service attack by Emerald users. If that is true, if, the Emerald team needs to help authorities prosecute to the full extent possible. If that is true, the perpetrator needs to be forced to make full reparations to the denial of service target and every user he/she stole (pilferred, ripped off, took) bandwidth from, hopefully bankrupting the perpetrator. If that is true, an option is for the Emerald team to publish the perpetrator’s real name, address, and IP number, and let the internet take care of it.
John
V
Sep 3rd, 2010
“I chatted with LordGregGreg Saturday as he considered his options while sitting under a tree next to several pools of molten lava”
I love you put that all nonchalant, like it’s nothing entirely frikking awesome.
Ford Denja
Sep 9th, 2010
Emerald Viewer ceased to be accepted in the SL grid today, and so many users have turned to the new Phoenix Viewer. Is this free of the problems that Emerald was infested by? Is it safe to use?
Baloo Uriza
Sep 9th, 2010
I would say “No, it’s not safe and not free of the problems Emerald had” until an independent third party, preferably one not particularly interested in Second Life, audits the source code. God only knows what’s getting passed under the table between those supposedly cut off and the existing group, given how close their ties were to each other as recently as last month.
Jayd3n
Sep 10th, 2010
I dont fully trust Phoenix Viewer yet either, and rumors are this…
JCool/Fractured, and the other banned members have made alternate accounts, and will be joining their development team shortly, however none of this is confirmed.
I have some respects for Lord Greg, and my other friend who is part of their testing group who I have known for quite some time, and the truth will be known if they are doing any illegal things im sure.
My friend who has been around since 03 was the first one who told me Emerald, and Skills Hak were dirty hackers, and not to trust any of them really, I didn’t believe it at first until I saw what they did to woodbury, and then the CDS system, and then all of these events. And if I hear from him anything about Phoenix Viewer, or any of my other trusted sources, coders, and spies around SL, all the info will hit the internet friend or not.
So I can say that they will not get by with anything either.
Anonymous
Jul 5th, 2011
Uncle Martin Aug 18th, 2010: “I think the article should have been named “Qarl Linden Joins Modular Systems”. I think it’s a lot more significant that a Linden arrived than some other developer left.”
Yes it was indeed a big deal… and now a year down the road we see that Quarl was a plant to dig up the dirt and gain evidence so that LL could openly deal with Emerald.
Emerald is gone and good riddance. Hope we didn’t get some of the same monomaniacal assholes on the Phoenix team. Time will tell I reckon.
But as for me, I’ll continue to use Emergence until it no longer works.
Nelson Jenkins
Jul 5th, 2011
@ Anonymous
Emergence is an unsupported clone of Emerald without the tracking code. Phoenix is a supported clone of Emerald without the tracking code that’s updated to support all of the Viewer 2 shit.
Why do people still use fucking Emergence, seriously?
Yep
Jul 5th, 2011
Getem Tiger