Emerald Gang Implodes – Viewer Ban Hammer Next?
by Pixeleen Mistral on 01/09/10 at 9:45 pm
Jessica Lyon has resigned from the Emerald viewer team and published the formerly secret requirements Linden Lab made of the group – which include the expulsion of Skills Hak, Discrete Dreamscape, and Lonely Bluebird (a.k.a. Phox) from the development team – previously Fractured Crystal resigned from the group.
Emerald meeting M Linden, Marty Linden, Joe Linden, and others in happier days (click image for closeup view)
The Emerald gang has been plagued by accusations they were responsible for a DDoS attack on a critic’s web site, revelations of leaking user-identifiable information, high profile resignations, and what is believed to be a case of using unauthorized access to the Vivox admin console to silence another player’s voice – then taunt him in-world. This led Linden Lab to issue a warning against the rogue viewer and remove it from the third party viewer list.
Understandably, Linden Lab seems intent on removing developers with questionable track records from the team, and threatened to block access of the Emerald viewer to Second Life. But in a desperate bid to keep Emerald alive, Arabella Steadham – who does not lie – and Lonely Bluebird felt it best that Lonely Bluebird remain on the team – and so have locked everyone else’s access to the modularsystems servers, according to Jessica’s resignation announcement:
As of some time this morning, all access to the servers have been severed to all but Arabella Steadham and Lonely Bluebird. Neither me, nor any of the other Emerald Developers have the ability to put out releases at this time.
Some speculate that the return of Fractured Crystal to the Emerald gang is now likely – according to an update on Jessica’s blog Fractured Crystal has applied for a trademark on the Emerald Viewer.
But this may all be in vain, if Jessica’s account of the Linden Lab requirements is accurate (full text at the end of this story). Will a skeleton development crew led by Arabella Steadham be able to comply with the Lab’s demand for a sanitized Emerald viewer by Friday?
Apparently Jessica’s ejection from the gang was the culmination of a heated discussion – portions of which were provided by Ms. Lyons, and say in part:
[1:02:01 PM] Jessica Trinity: users aside, everyone here is here because we want to see emerald succeed
[1:02:09 PM] Jessica Trinity: and we’re still here because we believe it can
[1:02:34 PM] Jessica Trinity: leaving for the sake of the project would be the only honorable thing to do hon
[1:02:55 PM] Phox: I guess I’m not honorable then.
[1:03:04 PM] Jessica Trinity: so your willing to be the reason emerald dies?
[1:03:25 PM] Phox: No, Linden Lab will be the reason Emerald dies, regardless of what I do.
[1:03:35 PM] Phox: If my staying results in that outcome, well you can say I told you so.
…
[1:07:14 PM] Jessica Trinity: If i was told to leave, and i had to leave to keep this project going i wouldn’t think twice about it. I would be sad, but i would also be proud that i made the sacrifice to keep it alive
[1:07:48 PM] Phox: Well when I’m told to do something I don’t immediately bend over and let linden lab fuck me.
[1:08:00 PM] Jessica Trinity: phox, they are going to kill the project
[1:08:04 PM] Jessica Trinity: are you living in denial?
[1:08:05 PM] Phox: Let them
Meanwhile an Emerald gang project meeting has appeared on YouTube – apparently Phox will include the capability for the viewer to spoof it’s identity in the very near future.
With an unrepentant Phox standing shoulder to shoulder with Arabella Steadham effectively daring the Lab to ban the Emerald viewer, the clock ticks toward a friday deadline for compliance – or an Emerald viewer ban. All of this suggest now might be a good time for even hardcore Emerald fans to consider their options.
Emerald Project Team:
We have removed the Emerald viewer from our Third-Party Viewer Directory because of its multiple violations of our Policy on Third-Party Viewers.
Our Policy prohibits the intentional targeting of third-party sites as was done recently by the Emerald viewer’s login page. Specifically, the Policy prohibits the distribution of harmful functionality like denial of service attacks or griefing attacks. (TPVP section 2.d.iii)
Our Policy also requires a published privacy policy that specifically describes what user data the third-party viewer collects, stores, or uses, and how it uses, displays, or shares that data. (TPVP section 4.b.i).
The published privacy policy for the Emerald viewer does not disclose what user information the viewer collects. When it came to our attention that the Emerald viewer was collecting the installation path without stripping any user account names present in the path, and storing it in textures produced by the viewer’s graphics library wrapper, we asked that this code be altered to omit full directory paths. After assurances from Emerald developers (Lonely Bluebird) that the code would be altered, we were disappointed to learn that instead of stopping the practice of adding data to textures, the Emerald viewer code encrypted the data in order to obfuscate the data collection practices.
In addition to violating our Policy on Third-Party Viewers, these actions are significant breaches of the trust of the Second Life community. Please remedy these breaches immediately by taking the steps outlined below. Taking these steps is critical to providing transparency around Emerald’s viewer functionality and collection of user data, and to ensuring that the viewer complies with Linden Lab policies and the law. The steps alone do not, however, guarantee that the Emerald viewer will be readmitted to the Third-Party Viewer Directory.
-
Provide transparency in your development efforts to both the Second Life community and Linden Lab, including:
-
Use open mailing lists or forums for your developer communications.
-
Provide a publicly viewable source code repository.
-
Provide public code commit notices.
-
-
Demand accountability from each and every Emerald developer, including:
-
Require each committer to provide real-world identity information to Linden Lab as a signatory to the certification of compliance with the Third Party Viewer Policy.
-
End the participation of any developer who has deliberately violated Linden Lab policy or the law.
-
-
The Emerald viewer’s closed source emkdu library is not in compliance with the GPL. Bring all current and future versions of the Emerald viewer into compliance with the GPL by omitting emkdu. Use OpenJPEG or other GPL-compatible code.
-
Update your posted Privacy Policy for the Emerald viewer to specifically describe what user data has been collected or stored by any version of the Emerald viewer that may be used to log into Second Life. For all user data collected or stored, specifically describe in the policy how that user data has been used, displayed, or shared. If you wish to disable login of any versions of the Emerald viewer that may be collecting user data, please advise us immediately of the specific viewer versions.
-
Do not distribute any functionality that conceals information in Second Life assets, including through encryption or steganographic techniques, with the sole exception of information that LSL scripts produce or consume. We will be updating the Third-Party Viewer Policy shortly to clarify this requirement. Be sure to bring all current and future versions of the Emerald viewer into compliance with the requirement.
Please respond to this notice no later than this Friday, August 27 and confirm the date by which you will have completed the above steps. Failure to comply with the steps may result in further action by Linden Lab, beyond removal from the Third-Party Viewer Directory. We look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,
Oz Linden
And our second response from LL was.
Your responses are acceptable, with the following exceptions and clarifications:
-
We have considered your request to retain Phox, Skills, and Discrete on the team in some advisory capacity, and have made a final decision: No association with the project in any capacity is acceptable. All connections between those individuals and Emerald Viewer project must be terminated, and that fact made public by the team.
-
The time frame for a release that does not include the emkdu.dll is not acceptable. A release must be made available that will not use an emkdu.dll or an llkdu.dll even if they are on the users system must be made available.
Each of the above issues must be addressed no later than Friday September 3rd or Linden Lab will begin taking steps that will culminate in blocking all access by the Emerald Viewer.
With respect to the identification of contributors: the use of age or payment verification will not be sufficient. We will provide more details on the new requirements as part of updates to the Third Party Viewer Directory policies; these will apply to all new applications, not just yours. Specifics are still being worked on, and I’ll share them publicly as soon as possible, but the essence of the change is that each person with commit access to the viewer code or any project web assets served through the viewer will need to individually execute a certification of compliance with the Third Party Viewer Policy, including real identification and addressing information. Those identities will be confidential.
With respect to the public code repository – the googlecode repository is acceptable, but a link to it should be added to the set of links in your project web site footer, not only on the FAQ page.
BMM
Sep 1st, 2010
Good riddance Emerald.
Hazim Gazov
Sep 1st, 2010
Yep. .
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
Hungry for Josh.
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
They already put up the new version of emerald with channel spoofing.
When is CDS going to ban emerald clients? Oh wait. Skills made emerald. She cannot ban her own client.
Red Zone. Please ban Emerald.
Emerald should have also added hardware spoofing while they were at it.
UM. JOSH.
They are retarded. Block the clothing protection key.
Get LGG to change emergence’s key and problem solved.
Vilkacis Mason
Sep 1st, 2010
http://jessicalyons.wordpress.com/
i’m twelve and what is this.
Gaara Sandalwood
Sep 1st, 2010
*Eats a burrito*
ah……..Friday will be such a good day.
We
Sep 1st, 2010
It’s sad how many people, judging by the Modular systems blog comments, believe that LL did this because they’re “jealous” of Emerald, and that Arabella is pushing for that angle. Oh the poor victims! They put the noose around their neck and knocked the chair away, LL had nothing to do with it besides to enforce their rules.
I’m guessing Emerald is going to cling on and slowly turn into a malicious client, with a number of blind followers supporting Emerald. Since the “last emerald client” will be made by Phox and include client spoofing, I’d say we should expect to see a bunch of exploits and maybe password stealing from Emerald in the future.
Billyjoe Benoir
Sep 1st, 2010
Oh how the mighty have fallen..
Glenn Beck
Sep 1st, 2010
You know who else banished people from their land?
…Hitler.
Tracey Humphreys
Sep 1st, 2010
Why doesn’t LL ban these people?
Oh, of course, Insilico, Emerald Point, etc etc
Just pay the Lindens some $$$ and you are untouchable!
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
Probably he may continue phoxsl.
http://pastebin.com/PUH4CjGN is the vivox lsl script they used to hack into the servers. Shame on them.
Nelson Jenkins
Sep 1st, 2010
@ We
Emerald already is a malicious client.
It’s just going to get worse and worse, to the point where malware will be stuffed inside, as with 95% of copybot viewers today.
Also, the “last Emerald client” was already released.
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
@We
Phoxsl = password stealer already.
How do I know? Cmon. Its Phox we are talking about.
Nelson Jenkins
Sep 1st, 2010
Also…
http://emeraldscandal.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine/
I win.
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
I am still hungry for josh. Yum. Yum.
http://pastebin.com/PUH4CjGN
We
Sep 1st, 2010
@Tracey Humphreys
“Oh, of course, Insilico, Emerald Point, etc etc
Just pay the Lindens some $$$ and you are untouchable!”
Tell that to Woodbury.
Friend of all
Sep 1st, 2010
Hazim is representative of woodbury.
Hazim helped destroy emerald by revealing their stupidity.
He is also the brain behind Inertia.
Jayd3n
Sep 2nd, 2010
This is really good, now please just get rid of CDS, and Permently Ban Skills Hak if he refuse to stop the Data Mining. Now that Emerald is really screwed for everything they have done to us, I dont see the need to have others screwing over us all more.
Recalibar
Sep 2nd, 2010
Here’s what I think. I had this friend once that whenever I presented things that made me seem better than him, he would go around spreading nasty rumors about me in an effort to try to “stay on top.” Truly a lose-lose attitude that says “If I cant be good, than you can’t ether.” Anyway, this happened twice, and we are no longer friends.
That’s what I think about this drama. Since LL has tried very hard to create a good viewer, they looked at the competition, and tore it down so they can be the “preferred viewer” as they strive so hard to be. Call me brainwashed, I don’t care. I want LL to have competition, because we all (at least we should know) that if one company has one product, they can make it as horrid as they like with no time spent at all on it, and people are forced to use it.
I want LL to be the preferred viewer, but not like this, never like this…
Nelson Jenkins
Sep 2nd, 2010
Would you like a few reasons why LL did this, other than your blatantly incorrect assumption that they’re just killing off the competition?
http://is.gd/eQejL
General Drama
Sep 2nd, 2010
FOA,
So, Woodbury loses all their sims because Hazim was a good citizen in whistleblowing on the criminality of Emerald and thats ok? Time to give WU back its land or refund them their money, period. Especially the last two sims, purchased less than a week before the massban.
Jack Linden, this means you.
Nelson Jenkins
Sep 2nd, 2010
@ Gen-no, wait, I’m not going to do this again.
Gaara Sandalwood
Sep 2nd, 2010
I don’t even wanna repeat what everyone has said a thousand times over, but…….
two still active people from that group made griefer/ripper clients, one created a bandwidth/DDoS attack, then there’s the datamining, the new already out there latest client apparently including spoofing because Phox “Wants who connects via Emerald to be a choice the people make”, the mass banning system called CDS, the god complexes that at least three members of the group seem to have a serious case of, the list goes on.
Recalibur, no rumors were spread in this situation. None. No one went behind Emerald’s back and made all this shit appear. They did it to themselves.
One odd factor I find interesting is, in the recent Jessica Lyons blog post the convo between her and Phox involves him not giving a shit about Emerald being killed or not, for monetary reasons, and that if it is it’s purely LL’s fault, like a whiny little kid.
Then he turns around and suddenly blocks almost all other access to the sites and everything regarding the EV devs and MS, taking total control, and even openly admitting to making a final viewer with client spoofing so that the people can be the ones to choose whether or not to use Emerald.
I highly doubt that’s the reason this guy put client spoofing in there.
Nelson Jenkins
Sep 2nd, 2010
@ Gaara Sandalwood
He put client spoofing in there so people would still use it. Then he just uses the login page to do a drive-by-download for some kind of malware, and tada, he just fucked over the entire Emerald community for the 28th time.
We
Sep 2nd, 2010
@Recalibar
“Since LL has tried very hard to create a good viewer, they looked at the competition, and tore it down so they can be the “preferred viewer” as they strive so hard to be”
This would be an interesting point, but unfortunately there are no facts to back it up. LL hasn’t gone after any of the other viewers in any context, and Emerald has earned every thing it’s gotten.
These are some of the offenses that the Emerald team has commited:
-Broke the TPV policy: 4 of the devs were alts of permabanned avatars, all of them banned for either griefing or ripping reasons. The TPV policy specifically outlines that none of the devs can have permabanned accounts to be compliant
-Used their viewer to DDoS a critic of emerald’s website
-Used closed source emkdu to violate privacy of their users, when this was found out, they lied saying they’d take it out, but instead kept it in and increased the encryption.
-Created a closed source ripper/griefer side-project called Onyx.
-Maintained a Datamine that stored Avatar names and connected them to IP addresses and geo-location data to figure out where the avatars live based on their IPs. All of which violating their users privacy.
And probably a number of smaller things that I’ve failed to mention.
Each one of them was cause for ban, and these have been around for months. If LL was interested in shutting down competition, they could have jumped on any one of them. What did they do? They held weekly meetings, talking to the devs, trying to keep them in line so that Emerald could continue being used as the preferred viewer. They gave them chance after chance after chance, each one squandered by another act of one of the Emerald dev’s selfishness and childishness.
They didn’t even demand Emerald be taken down after the DDoS, a fragrant violation of both the TPV policy and US law. They made a bunch of requests, pretty much all of them only demanding they follow the basic TPV compliance they agreed to in the first place. They would have had to remove the permabanned devs, which would have hurt their core scripting team, but they could have recovered from that with new talent. LL didn’t even take Emerald down in the end, Emerald themselves exploded in drama and in-fighting and took themselves down.
LL has given Emerald SO many chances, much more than they deserved. The idea that any of this was fueled by jealousy on LL’s part is viciously and disgustingly untrue.
Emerald brought down Emerald, they drowned in their own scum.
J
Sep 2nd, 2010
Phox and Arabella evidently share the same psychological problem.
hobo kelly
Sep 2nd, 2010
Snowglobe I reckon
Gaara Sandalwood
Sep 2nd, 2010
“He put client spoofing in there so people would still use it. Then he just uses the login page to do a drive-by-download for some kind of malware, and tada, he just fucked over the entire Emerald community for the 28th time.”
Yeah, that was the kind of thing I was considering.
“LL has given Emerald SO many chances, much more than they deserved. The idea that any of this was fueled by jealousy on LL’s part is viciously and disgustingly untrue.”
That doesn’t mean hiveminds won’t circulate that idea through every corner of the internet involving SL that they can find.
ah….silly, silly hiveminds.
Phil Liberty
Sep 2nd, 2010
Just visited 5 different major sims. Why the fuck are so many people still using Emerald?
We
Sep 2nd, 2010
@Gaara Sandalwood
“That doesn’t mean hiveminds won’t circulate that idea through every corner of the internet involving SL that they can find.”
Yeah, the Modular Systems blog post is full of “LL IS JEALOUS” posts. Both Phox and Arabella have been pushing that lie as hard as they can. I’m seeing it spread elsewhere, but often when I do, it’s followed by replies saying how absurd and stupid that statement is, so there is hope.
I imagine if LL locks it out on Friday, people will be forced to try other viewers, realize that the choices aren’t just “emerald and 2.0″, realize that other viewers are as good as if not better than Emerald, and then soon forget about Emerald as it fades into obscurity.
We
Sep 2nd, 2010
Addendum:
The Modular Systems blog is also heavily moderated, so it’s not surprising that it’s nothing but posts that support their lie. Anything that tries to explain the truth gets rejected from being posted.
Gomalt
Sep 2nd, 2010
Just as Phox bragged in the Emerald dev chat, they moderate all the “negative” or “critical” comments on their blog. Check it out, nothing but positive outrage on their side. If people only knew the truth… how crooked and douchebagg-y Phox and Arabella are. They’d fit right in with Fox news. Crooked fucking scumbags. Good riddance. I loved the features emerald brought but this just totally turns me off. Imprudence here I come. Fuck emerald.
Gaara Sandalwood
Sep 2nd, 2010
eh, all we can do is see what happens on Friday.
8D
Blindside Bluebird
Sep 2nd, 2010
What really saddens me, is how a lot of residents are so blindly dependent on the emerald viewer.
Listen to the first man in the video. He sounded like his world was about to crumble around him if he didn’t get the latest viewer. That’s sad.. There are a lot of people on SL who are just like him. They won’t use any other viewer.
Some claim it’s because Emerald performs better for them (I really don’t agree with that, considering all the stuff that’s in it).
Others just rely heavily on the features not in the normal client. What the Emerald people were very good at, was Brand Recognition. Emerald is like McDonalds at this point. It’s not good for your health, but god damn it tastes so good.
Also, for the WU comment up top. I believe they weren’t just banned because of whistleblowing. LL didn’t want WU and their 4chan related friends in the SL, period. It was bad publicity for them.
I think they were looking for a reason to remove them for a long time. When the Whistleblower came out, that’s when they saw their opportunity to dispose of them.
LL would have done the same thing to W-hat years ago. But as we’ve all seen, W-hat is a beatened, submissive puppy dog now. Hmm not even that, it’s dead..
We
Sep 2nd, 2010
@Blindside Bluebird
“Also, for the WU comment up top. I believe they weren’t just banned because of whistleblowing”
I mentioned it only because someone said that you pay for a sim or two and that makes you banproof to LL. Woodbury had paid for like 3 sims and were planning to buy a bunch more, and they got slammed by the ban hammer hard.
But really, it does seem like WU got hit only for whistleblowing if you look through the evidence. They were buying more sims with LL, they had a friendly reception with LL employees, they weren’t causing any problems (at the very least nothing obvious), then the hacking is done, and suddenly they go from amiable reception to banning almost all of the group and shutting down the sims. It’d take a lot for LL to bite the bullet of suffering the loss of that much revenue from the sims, and I doubt it was just vague accusations of griefing and “not wanting to be associated”.
General Drama
Sep 2nd, 2010
Thank you, We, for that objective and fair comment.
It wouldn’t be that hard for LL to rectify things with WU, really. They can easily blame it all on Kingdon, since what WU was told was that the ban order came from the top levels of managment.
What I can say is that nobody at Woodbury will trust LL ever again. Give WU their money back and call it even.
OUCH!!!!
Sep 2nd, 2010
From Secondlie – http://twitter.com/SECONDLIE
“I feel bad for Qarl. Now he’s got to find a new gig to get dumped from.”
about 9 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone
/me hugs Qarl
Little Lost Linden
Sep 2nd, 2010
Holy Moly!!
I have to pinch myself and say it again….
Holy Moly!!
Boyo
Sep 2nd, 2010
@ Phil Liberty
QUOTE: “Just visited 5 different major sims. Why the fuck are so many people still using Emerald?”
Because no notice was sent out informing people…or if it was it could of been lost in all the notices I got. I only found out because I wanted to post a question in the Emerald Group and found it had gone! Now i’m an inquisitive person, so looked into the whole thing, but most won’t until they hear it from someone else. Even then, so much has gone on and been said (whether truthfully or untruthfully) that most people don’t know what to believe…
It will take time for word to spread about what has gone on…and then people will have to decide whether they continue to use it or not…the information on this site is very informative…but most people in SL will not get all this info…only what is going around/being said in-world…
But sooner or later…perhaps all these facts will be spread to the masses…?
Ann Onymous
Sep 2nd, 2010
There are Emerald fanatics out there. It boggles me that they are so defensive over this. I think they don’t realize that there are quite a few other viewers that are basically the same as Emerald, and that they don’t need to go back to SL V.2.
But the main players.. They really love the attention, don’t they?
Emerald Viewer DEAD!!! « Nalates' Things & Stuff Blog
Sep 2nd, 2010
[...] Alphaville Herald also published: Emerald Gang Implodes – Viewer Ban Hammer Next? [...]
Gundel Gaukelei
Sep 2nd, 2010
…and all it would take is just one single guy forking the code base. LOL! STFU and code!
At0m0 Beerbaum
Sep 2nd, 2010
Woodbury doesnt need to come back.
Linden Labs doesn’t deserve money.
God it’s like a frat initiation. “Please sir may I have another?”
At0m0 Beerbaum
Sep 2nd, 2010
@ we, much of it had to do with emerald, and the fact that at the time, emerald had LL by the balls.
“fuck with us or dont do what we say? we know enough exploits in your system, and have control of a large portion of your users, that we could easily bury you.”
of course that’s all now invalidated as Emerald is now a certain threat to the company.
supporting a client that does things that break several laws is a surefire way to get raided by the feds, especially these days.
Rob "N3X15" Nelson
Sep 2nd, 2010
Gundel: Luna still needs developers. :V
http://github.com/N3X15/Luna-Viewer/
Then again, it violates TPV since I got nailed for cussing a while ago and decided not to rejoin SL. Minecraft and Garry’s Mod are 8x as fun.
Dave Bell
Sep 2nd, 2010
On the timing of all this, it’s about 12 hours since the really spectacular blow-up, starting with Jessica’s resignation announcement in a Group Notice, followed by counter-claims and weird stuff happening to the Emerald Viewer group. With time-zones and everything, a lot of people may not have seen it as it happened, and some of the weirdness may have been an attempt at cover-up before US players got home from work.
It’s possible that a lot of people just don’t know anything has happened.
The people coming here will at least see the allegations, but I wonder if they trust the reports. It wouldn’t surprise me if Linden Lab take a while longer to respond officially. Maybe another 12 hours.
Rob "N3X15" Nelson
Sep 2nd, 2010
@Dave Bell
With LL, Hours->Days, Days->Weeks, Weeks->Months…
Alyx Stoklitsky
Sep 2nd, 2010
1. Hazim uncovers Emerald datamining.
2. LL tell him to keep it hush-hush while they investigate.
3. Hazim ignores their request, LL responds by destroying the Woodbury group and seizing all land.
4. Hazim uncovers Emerald DDoS’ing.
5. LL still scared to drop the banhammer on Emerald.
lol.
Little Lost Linden
Sep 2nd, 2010
The drama never ends thanks to Emerald.
http://thebotzone.net/2010/09/02/emerald-viewer-destroyed/
I say thank you Emerald dev team, thank you.
And to Hitler, I say “Guten Tag!”
JustMe
Sep 2nd, 2010
Despite all of this, Emerald keeps getting downloaded and used, while in the meantime, Linden Lab shut down Ajaxlife with no notice at all.
Thanks to Katharine Berry for all her great work on AjaxLife .. it was a fantastic tool for all of us who couldn’t use a full viewer at school, work, while traveling, and so on.