SL Residents Protest New Members
by Alphaville Herald on 23/06/06 at 7:29 pm
SL’s third birthday celebration was not without its excitement and controversy today — although it wouldn’t be SL if it had been, would it? To voice their dissatisfaction with the new registration requirements — or lack thereof — put in recently by Linden Lab, a group of residents got together to protest what they say will open SL to limitless griefing and the sullying of young people’s virgin ears (and prim private parts). Fortunately, SL machinima-maker Pierce Portocarrero was on the scene and caught some footage of the event, which we present above. Is this the kind of place they should be letting just anyone into? You decide.
Prokofy Neva
Jun 23rd, 2006
I think it’s hilarious to see how the FIC, when they want to turn the full blast of the media on a situation, take it over and have every blog and paper saturated, and even have a machinima posted lol. Hilarious! They are limousine liberals. They’re protesting not about the griefing and scamming that affects people like me and harms our businesses and causes us real losses. They are protesting the idea of children being let in, then some unwanted repercussions coming that would end their cybersex and animations-selling field-day in SL ROLF. Too funny!
You wonder what they could accomplish if they *really* protested, and for more than a day, and for more than a big photo op during the national holiday, and for more than the five minutes their interest is held on this topic before they retreat to their walled gardens.
Cocoanut
Jun 24th, 2006
What a ridiculous headline.
coco
Mera
Jun 25th, 2006
I’d like to protest the fact that *MY* picture is the static picture for the video and I am the build manager for the event. I was there to try to make sure our plans ran smoothly, not in support of the protest.
Remember folks, this was a resident organized and run event. They interrupted a celebration that many residents spent many hours building and planning. Had this been a Linden event, I’d have no issue, but these people had no care in the world about the other residents of SL.
Bob the Tomato
Jun 25th, 2006
Oh Mera… you aren’t still sprouting that tired old crap? It’s been beaten to death on the forums, you’ve been told a thousand times you are wrong, and you still won’t let it lie.
We did not interrupt anything, we were holding signs up before the event, when NOTHING ELSE WAS GOING ON THERE. We agreed beforehand that when Philip turned up, we would remove our signs, and sit there like good little residents, and if it hadn’t have been for our group tags and t-shirts you wouldn’t have even known it was a protest. We behaved in an exemplary manner, and the three Lindens who came to check us out beforehand had no issue with our presence – so why you, just a plain resident should have concerns is beyond me. Free speech – you should try it one day.
It was an open event, in an open sim, for all residents to participate in, howevever they desired. Just because you built the stage does not mean you can control how it is used in any way or at any time. You don’t like us being there? Tough, leave. We broke no rules, we had every right to be there, and we were.
Your calling us jerks, and threats to get us ‘kicked out’ were nothing but abusive, and I would suggest that you read the community standards on tolerance. The AR’s sent were well deserved and I hope you learn a lesson before the next time you get in the way of our legitimate protest.
Why don’t you send some of your hate against the griefers who crashed the sim by dropping the rainbow coloured torii on Philip, instead of a few innocent, CS-abiding residents, whose concern for the future of SL led them to take a stand in the time-honoured tradition and let the Lindens know that we weren’t happy?
Bob
Cocoanut
Jun 26th, 2006
The issue, in my view, is not to prevent “the sullying of young people’s virgin ears (and prim private parts)”.
That cute little description minimizes the very real problem of making things significantly easier for adult predators to prey on minors, and for minors to fall prey to them. On both grids.
And just because of the lack of registration procedures, but because of the attitude this conveys: “We don’t care.”
Putting minors at risk in turn puts us all, and LL, at risk.
Why does no one any longer sign the articles on SLH? Is it because there is only one person writing them?
A newspaper where the writers don’t sign their names to their pieces is absurd, and renders the paper itself literally worthless.
coco
Walker Spaight
Jun 27th, 2006
“A newspaper where the writers don’t sign their names to their pieces is absurd, and renders the paper itself literally worthless.”
I invite you not to waste your time on worthless publications, Coco. But since I know you’ll stay, I’ll reveal the dirty secret of the Herald: Anything posted by SLHerald has been posted by me: Walker Spaight of Second Life, aka Walker Spaight of EVE Online, aka Arctor of World of Warcraft, aka Mark Wallace of Brooklyn, New York. I also invite you to sign your posts similarly.
TrannyPet Barmy
Jun 27th, 2006
Beleive it or not i almost agree with Porky on this one.
Look at the people in the video of the event, now tell me, why is it i recognise alot of them as merchants(people who sell and make an income in SL) ? Now why would it be that alot of merchants want to make a fuss ? Because of teens getting into SL ? LMAO get real, please dont try and tell me that this number of people actually care one way or another, thats BS.
The real reason behind this, is fear, fear that they’re once easy and relatively small competition market place, is now going to explode, with many people being in the market to play the game to. Some real competition, and things not being quite so easy to make easy money in SL any longer. In otherwords, once the markets more equatable to that of the real world, we’ll see people actually having to produce QUALITY goods, that they are prepare to SUPPORT, and continually UPDATE, in order to stay in the running for some sales. Quality, Support, and Update, this equates to WORK, hard work at times i’m sure.
No these protests are nothing to do with teens getting in SL’s grid, if they were, then these same people would be up in arms on all manner of internet content control forums, and they aren’t, and if they are, then why are they not promoting them in SL as well as protesting over this one issue ? No these protests are based solely around loss of business, and the prospect of actually having to WORK for the L$ they take out of the game. Up until now the market place was fairly throttled, due to the fact that many people dont want to put credit card information into any online system …… therefore the level of actual users(as opposed to avatards) was kept fairly low, and so the number of people producing content is literally small, meaning less competition to sell goods.
What’s really dumb, is if these protesters actually had any confidence in their abilities, or appeal in their products, they’d be happy about this change in the sign up, not annoyed. The market should get MUCH larger, and for those who are prepared to put the work in, and really do have a worth while product, sales should rocket with all the additional business coming into the universe. All this protesting says to me, is what i’ve said all along, SL is full of 2nd rate wannabe coders, writing poor and useless 20 liner scripts, and ripping every one else off for stupid amounts of cash.
“time has come to seperate the men from the boys” – i only wish i could be bothered with SecondLife again, to be honest though, the thought of wasting time in such a two faced double standard driven environment controlled by one sole non-moderated body who can remove you and refuse access to assets at any time they please, and hanging out around such fake people driven in action by fear of a draconian and double standard driven and easily exploitable Abuse Reporting system again makes me nauseous.
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[future editor of the SecondLifeHerald - Walker, where is my confirmation of employment email ?? ]
Cocoanut
Jun 27th, 2006
Since you brought it up, I’ll let you know that though I am “still here,” the SLH has become one of my lesser-frequented hangouts. Used to be I’d check it every day; now I have to remember it exists and check it every week or so, if that.
Are you saying it is simply an oversight that you haven’t signed your articles? Are you the only one still writing? Seems to me Matthew started not signing his first, giving me the impression that all unsigned pieces from then on were written by him.
Given the piece above, though, I can’t I blame you for not signing them.
coco
Cocoanut
Jun 28th, 2006
I don’t think so, Tranny. I was there mainly because of my fear of open season on teens. I didn’t think I could stay in SL and be a party to it.
Increased griefing was a concern to me, of course, but secondary.
Fear of competition or any of all that – not a factor at all.
Maybe you saw well-known business-owners at the demonstration because they are, in fact, upstanding, involved citizens, concerned not merely for their own businesses, but for everyone’s experiences, and the future of LL – including concerns about pedophiles and teenagers.
Think about it – who would you EXPECT to be there? The griefers? The casual once-a-week players?
I think everyone involved would be happy with more players, competition and all.
What no one would be happy with, though – and least of all those who have invested a lot of time building solid businesses – is anarchy.
The Lindens have reinstated the requirements for identifying information on the teen grid, and I am very, very much relieved.
Whatever we did to help that happen was wonderful work on our part.
In fact, even if someone involved WERE involved for fear of losing some of their own business to competition – which I just can’t see – they still would have achieved something good.
coco
TrannyPet Barmy
Jun 29th, 2006
Coco
that may well be true of yourself, but i’m afraid i find that hard to beleive of the majority, otherwise why have none of them ever set up some huge internet organisation(or a small one) out to promote prevention of teen corruption and internet peedos ? When was the last time you were actively a member of any such organisation ? Surely if you feel so strongly about this topic you would be an active member of many right ?
You raise an important point though, the bit about preventing “over-agers”, for want of a better word, from getting on the teen grid, which i agree, *IS* important and a much better way round to look at things. The teen-grid at all costs be ensured to be exactly that – ONLY teens. I’m assuming the population of the teen grid is greatly smaller than that of the maingrid, and because of which, the goal of ensuring that this is a safe ground for teens should be more attainable by LindenLab, and i’m glad they’ve taken measures to ensure this.
If the ranters(protestors) were to consider this for a moment, before daubing up their placards and making a fuss they’d realise how transparent this all is. I think some body already mentioned previously, ultimately what’s the point of having cellphone/paypal/creditcard id authetication in place any way ? Any teen can get a cellphone, a credit card(prepay) or a paypal account, so all this ranting is over a some what rather moot.
I think at the end of the day the majority of the protestors realise this any way, but still dont like the idea of increased competition in SecondLife, and are using this to try prevent the market, and therefore the competition, increasing any further.
On the note of griefing and malicious users getting in the game, do you really beleive they couldn’t prior to this change ??? Do you really beleive that LindenLab’s permban actually stopped any one with a bit of know how ??? Sorry to burst that one for you, but that really was never the case. Unfortunately for LindenLabs, paypal accounts, and cell phone accounts are easily obtainable, legally, as are pre pay credit cards, on top of which, mac addresses are so easily spoofable, even within Windows. No i’m afraid to inform you, the previous authentication system no more prevented malicious users than the present does.
Like i said, this may not be the case for yourself, however, it’s the majority i refer to. It’s now time for those out for an easy buck to step aside to the truely creative, truely able, and truely hard working. I wonder how appealing SecondLife is going to be once that easy money aspect has all but disappeared
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[future editor of The SL Herald]
Random Writer
Jun 30th, 2006
TrannyPet, while you make some certain good points, like abilities to get in, the methods you listed are neither common, and for many teens, impossible. Majority of pre-paid phones do not link a name to the account and therefore are not admissible, and pre-paid credit card can still run off credit. Most of the time, you still need a parent on them in some form, whether as guarantor, or such. (I know this from experience.)
So in that case, it would have been most of the time, up to the parents to determine responsibility, and also, if the parents had gotten them the verification means, then again, LL could have pointed back to the parents.
Now, anyone with any sort of modem can come online. My mother (I am only 22) would NEVER have let me on this game, nor would she have given me a credit card of my own, cell phone, etc. when I was a teen. So frankly, I would have had no way to come on. And without any requirements, *poof* I could have.
Many parents are like mine, and many parents don’t care or would do it. And to be honest, I am not worried about teens being in the grid in a sense of griefing, but a sense of maturity. Obviously, if they had means to get on the game in the first place with the bans in place, SOMEONE along the line thought they were responsible.
Something else to think about, we all knew teens were in the adult grid. It’s a definite. But how will the ratio of teens before and after the registration requirements change? Any intelligent thought would easily say, considerably.
At least before there was a small roadblock, that frankly, most teens couldn’t get over.
Random Writer
Jun 30th, 2006
Also forgot to mention, PayPal accounts are linked to Social Security numbers, and bank accounts, so really, getting more than one is a bitch, and even if you did, getting past two once you are banned for it… near impossible.
Frankly, once you ran out of credit cards (the average American has 4, dunno about other countries), bank account, pay pal and a phone, are you REALLY gonna keep applying for more credit cards and get a new phone number every other day? Probably not.
TrannyPet Barmy
Jul 3rd, 2006
Random
since when has Paypal been linked to Social Security number ? That’s the first i’ve known of it, and my paypal accounts certainly dont have such information pertaining to me. As a matter of fact, i dont even know what my social security number is myself, i had it written on a piece of paper some years ago, but lost it.
Agreed on the bank accounts and credit card linkage, however, this is fallable. For starters *anyone* can buy a prepaid credit card with no need to prove age or ID, the fact is, prepaid credit cards arent really ‘credit’ cards as such any way, they simply hold a prepaid amount of cash, which isn’t strictly speaking ‘credit’(that would involve some form of borrowing), therefore, the same restrictions on who can hold these dont count. On top of this, from the paypal perspective, there are many ways to create a new account and get credit on it, with out having to link it to any payment form. Create a new account, and then pay that account from an account that you already have credit in. Fact is though that wont actually help you much, lol, if you look into PayPals payment’s api, you’ll find that certain information is passed accross to the payee during any transaction, some of which details the paypal account holder’s name, and weather they are a verified user or not. Still not a problem though, since you could just kill your old paypal account, and sign up a new one, new account number, and undoubtedly, LindenLab’s system will only check the paypal account number(as opposed to the account number and the name) to decide weather the paypal account is restricted or not – even after reading this, if they ever re-enable account verification i doubt they’ll update their implementation.
The fact that any one can get a prepaid card in mind though, paypal doesn’t even come into the equation any longer, since once armed with a new pre paid credit card number you could have verified yourself directly on the SecondLife sign up any way.(and before you continue, one of the times i got back in the game, was via pre-paid credit card
so just so you’re aware, i to have experience of this)
On the note of prepaid phones, lindenlab’s system has no idea if a name is registered to the phone or not, it simply sends out a text to the phone, the phone company supplies LindenLab with no information in return, again tried and tested. I got a friend in the US to register a SecondLife account some time ago, they put in junk details, entered their prepaid cell phone number, and guess what ? Verification code sent, entered, Account created.
Like i said, there is no way that LindenLab will prevent access, either through account details verification, or mac/ip address access control, these things are all completely fallable. What they should be looking into is effective methods of ‘patrolling’ the universe either through Lindens directly roaming, or, perhaps come up with some automated AI system that will detect certain phrases, or subjects of chat – this could also work for griefer detection to. But then again, historically, LindenLab are not up to much in the software development league, nor in the financing of their universe, so i guess no matter how much sense it would make, any semi AI teen/griefer detection system would be out of the question.
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[future editor of SLHerald - still waiting for the email Walker]
Random Writer
Jul 6th, 2006
Sorry for the delay… holidays you know…
You again make some good points. As for paypal, my social had to be linked and my bank account cannot be used more than once, and since I freakin forgot my password, I cannot access it without providing ungodly amounts of info and I am not able to sign up a new account at all with the bank account number, even after trying to close out the previous account.
But the means you listed, as for prepaid phones, the cards are actually verified in a semi process when they are purchased, but yes it is true that you can get as many as you want. HOWEVER: since the last time I owned a pre-paid phone it could certainly have changed, but once you registered a number with that pre-paid phone, it could not be used for another number. A few may allow this NOW, I am not sure, but when I got my phone, I couldn’t sell it, because it came with the number and frankly, I didn’t want to give it out to any random person, add to that that the cost to purchase new phones often, on top of the ridiculous amount to own the minutes, and after I think it’s either 30 or 45 days without use, the minutes are wasted and you have to buy a new card to “re-activate”.
As I said, a few companies may have changed this, but most are still in tact as I said.
Also, the same goes with pre paid credit cards, they have to have revolving usage to stay open, because it’s “supposed” to be to build credit, and obviously if you aren’t using it, they are giving you “free” credit, by reporting back to agencies that it’s in good standing.
Granted, all your scenarios are possible. But most kids in the USA don’t have the means, or the mode to acheive this more than one or two times.
And didn’t paypal used to be an 18 and older site? Can’t remember for sure.
TrannyPet Barmy
Jul 6th, 2006
Random
2 points.
Firstly i’m not nessecarily talking about kids getting on the grid, i’m talking about malicious users, that i am supposedly one of, by the by, i got back in the game a number of times via the above methods, heh and via a fuck up i found in their sign up site around about xmas time
Secondly, the fact is, any one, can go and buy a pay-as-you-go style sim card for a mobile phone, they can buy as many as they like with little or no identification at all, for each one they have they could have registered a new account in SecondLife. Similarly, there are many ways to get a paypal account off the ground for use in the verification scenario, as discussed above.
So in light of this, i still maintain that LindenLab will NEVER acheive any effective level of access control through verification means, or “permabanning” on hardware mac address. All things are easily and legally manipulated. Like i said, LindenLab need to either look at actively “patrolling” their universe, or invest some time, cash and effort into developing an effective griefer/underager recognition system that will automatically remove players of this status from the game. Heh at least if they automated the removal process at least every one would know they were being treated fairly and neutrally, instead of becoming pawns in some higher game
I’d offer to get involved in this sort of system with LindenLab, only problem is, the tight fuckers probably couldn’t afford me, and to be totally honest i’m not sure i’d want to get involved with such blatent amateurs, LMFAO, god from what i remember, they release more patches and updates than Microsoft !!! Not to mention *cough* *cough* leaving full client and server side god-mode access in the public client around a year ago *cough* *cough* PMFSL AMATEURS !!!
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[future editor of the SLHerald]
Random Writer
Jul 7th, 2006
Either way though, the means take money, and ‘most’ teens don’t have access to th crazy amounts of cash. There will also be griefers and until they start banning by IP, (which granted there are way to get around as well, but are most of the time MUCH more expensive) anyone can get any accounts. But I still think this has certainly increased the easy possibility of allowing as many accounts as one wants for FREE. Most sane people, who are griefers wouldn’t have shelled out the money or means to keep getting around the accounts being banned.
Now there is no safefall at all.
Reganite
Jul 8th, 2006
Hilarious, I can’t decide which one’s my favorite. It’s a tie between the one with the essay on it, the one with a kitten and the words “I hate everything,” and the one of the penguin w/ the words “BOOBS!!!” But seriously, I’m a libertarian, well a classical liberal really but I don’t think children should be exposed to this sort of thing but I don’t think the dateless masses of Second Life should be denied their online fantasies. No doubt, Linden Labs won’t care what children are exposed to on account that they lack ethics. So here is what will happen: A parent finds out why their kids have been playing Second Life; they’ll be shocked by libertine antics, virtual cosmopolitan lifestyles, online “mobster” bullying, swearing, gors, cybersex, and the occasional rampaging Skinhead wanna-be; their will be threats of lawsuit that will knock li’l Linden railing and being a classic knee-jerk reactionary, he will ban all erotic and mature content. This will lead to a sharp decline in the number of players who bought this game to experiment and do things they would not or could not normally do in real life, i.e. regular tantric sex with anonymous partners and occasional wars (w/ or w/out mechs) where no one gets hurt, and before u know it, the fan base is gone and Second Life suffers heat death. So my advice, keep the kiddies in the teen version, keep the mature content in the adult version which should be only for mature audiences. That way Second Life remains operational, Linden gets to continue to be a licensed, corrupt ass, Ol’ Mars gets to keep up harrasing other players to maintain his delusions of power and importance, and the Second Life’s virtual citizens get to continue their explorations and cybersex in the Second Life universe.
TrannyPet Barmy
Jul 8th, 2006
Random Writer
Either way, the point was not limited to teen access, the point is, that it doesn’t matter what ‘access control’ method LindenLab implement, it will be circumventable. The point being made specifically, that most of the ‘protestors’ also already realise this and are not really interested in teens being on the grid or the malicious user access element, but, are more interested in simply using this as an excuse to bring back restriction, for fear of a larger scale market bringing with it a larger scale competition – good bye easy money.
But since you mention the cost thing and how it being FREE, and how all the methods mentioned to circumvent access control cost money, well the SMS Text Message method ……… How hard do you think it is to sit in IRC, befriending a few people, then asking them if they mind you having a verification code sent to their cell phone ? Is that a FREE enough method of circumvention for you ? I’m sure most teens dont have any problem with access to IRC now do they ?
Boy you really need to start thinking outside of the box, instead of thinking within the bounds that LindenLab would like you to.
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[future editor of the SL Herald]
TrannyPet Barmy
Jul 8th, 2006
btw Random, prior to the verification being removed, the accounts were FREE then to. I think i’ve already mentioned IP/MAC banning previously, it’s not hard to get around, and certainly wont cost you any money to do so either
TrannyPet Barmy
The REAL ONE
[fuck i'm drunk]
Random Writer
Jul 10th, 2006
Oh I am not saying there is any fail proof way, but you and I both know, we may be able to get around the means if we wanted to… but would you really give that much credit to SL’s majority of residents? I love SL and many of the people I meet, but I wouldn’t give them enough credit to think that they could skirt a lot of the ways. Many of them are lucky to have been able to log in on their own (some self admit that).
I am just saying the more barriers that were up and in place, meant the less options, or the quicker of the way running out.
Bringing back the verification with IP banning would be a nice hit. Like I said, we may be able to know how to skirt it, but I wouldn’t say more than 5% of SL residents would know how to not only get around 1 barrier, but an additional one.
someone
Nov 25th, 2006
your’e all nerds.
Eye Korobase
Apr 17th, 2008
I love how there is a AN member at 0:20 – 0:21 with a lolcats protect sign.