Dead Pop Stars, 9/11 Terrorist IDs — Second Life Adult Verification?
by Alphaville Herald on 20/07/09 at 8:10 am
Mohamed Atta enjoys 72 virgins in cyber heaven as players sidestep ID checks, visit sex clubs
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Second Life’s age verification process may have some serious gaps, if reports of players age-verifying using the identities of Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur, and 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta are true. Recently, the Linden Lab game gods added an adult’s-only filter to limit underage access to the walled garden of cyber delights and began migrating all adult activities to the Zindra continent in-world, creating a virtual red light district with compulsory ID checks at the door.
But the effectiveness of Aristotle's Integrity adult verification remains a question, and at least two web sites are providing personal information on dead public figures and detailed suggestions on how to use the identities for Second Life age verification. This information is also spreading via Second Life's group chats as those unable or unwilling to submit valid real life identities seek to join in the adult fun.
The Herald was tipped off to the story by a reader who confirms that Mohamed Atta’s identity was accepted for adult verification purposes. This leads us to believe that terrorists promised 72 virgins in heaven as their "reward" actually spend eternity watching their identities stuck in particularly bot infested and laggy Second Life sex clubs, helpless victims of underage joy riders experimenting with naughty animations — a sort of ironic rough justice.
players enter false information – affirm they are telling the truth, then click the submit button
The source reports:
“I came across this blog a few days back and got wondering if it was true. A way around SL age verification
http://www.kabalyero.com/2009/06/16/second-lifes-age-verification-made-easy/
Idecided rather then risk my avatar to create a second account to testwith. I am not sure if this is funny or scary but it worked. My newavatar was age verified as one of the sept 11th terrorist plottersMohamed Ata and was now free to roam all the adult places on secondlife. I have included screenshots of the SL website.
So I took a peek in the Zarnia to see what the big deal was, went to a few adult only places all filled with age verified bots, and logged out. Being a wanted terrorist was only fun for about 5 min, then the lag set in so I decided after seeing all the sights as an age verified adult avatar
I canceled the account and got back to my on little SL furry world. I have now heard from friends and even in some group IMs that Elvis and Tupac work as well 100% for age verification."
After submitting to the game god's will, Mohamed Atta is free to seek virgins in Second Life's adult regions
LOL
Jul 20th, 2009
OK I knew Linden Lab was stupid, but basicly to now list thier company as a terrorist orgazination? BRAVO LINDEN LAB! oh sorry, that should be Allah Ack-Bar
mootykips
Jul 20th, 2009
i’ve been using Yasser Arafat
Darien Caldwell
Jul 20th, 2009
When you enter identity information, you attest to the fact the information is true and factual and represents your true identity. It’s not LL’s job to prove you’re lying.
And good idea telling the service you’re a Terrorist. Have fun explaining why you’re not really Mohamed Atta when Homeland Security comes knocking. Or should I say comes battering down your door.
WTF
Jul 20th, 2009
Thanks a lot SL Herald to tell people how to cheat the system,instead of not publishing the info.
Pappy Enoch, Herald Reporter
Jul 20th, 2009
What in the Sam Hill am wrong with being a tourist?
I don’t git this dang post at all.
Alexander
Jul 20th, 2009
The age verification system is still in beta, it says on the website itself, as you’re filling it in. That being said, not only is it a bit ridiculous to criticize a feature being beta tested in this manner, there is also something to be said that LL does not have the responsibility to screen every single age verification application. If you’re intelligent at all, you might know that even our own government has trouble identifying terrorist names, do you honestly expect a small to medium sized company to be perfect? That being said, if you were to input false information, and then say someone complains of you in-world and they look at it, and it’s irrelevant and false, you’re likely to have some severe consequences. That all being said, nice hit and run journalism
BRB
Jul 20th, 2009
@WTF
This is hardly a “cheat”. I think it is quite a good example of company rushing to meet deadlines and cutting corners. Basicly extremly shoddy work and little or no standards of quality on the part of Linden Lab and the developers of this age
verification system. As for this website and it’s choice to publish the information, my hat is off to the Alphaville Herald.
Karl Reisman
Jul 20th, 2009
Well, now I see that the Age verification is just like gon control, useless to prevent the motivated, and a pain in the ass for the law abiding. Was it wise not to greek the info for this? I was hoping that the verificatin might return the grid to some semblance of what it was prior to June 6, 2006. I can see i was mistaken in that hope. Now then, might we put in a JIRA request for an estate owner to ban individuals by groups and client types? that at least gives a better set of protection tools to the land owners.
–Karl
Alyx Stoklitsky
Jul 21st, 2009
brb, signing up as Jeremy Clarkson.
Alun Dudek
Jul 21st, 2009
OK folks, here’s a question for you. How do you prove that the person at the other end of the link is who they say they are? Because, at the end of the day, that is what you need to prove. Until you can do that, it doesn’t matter how you “prove” your age.
It’s hard enough to prove when the person is standing in front of you (and I have worked in a shop selling alcohol, so I do know of what I speak).
The reality is that there is no reliable way of proving who you are to a stranger at the other end of a link, nor for them to prove who they are to you. And until there is, we are dependent on trust. The measures introduced by LL may only slow things down, both for legitimate users and potential mis-users, but that’s the best anyone can do at this time. The only reasons why LL is doing it is (a) in the hope that it might deter a few illigitimate (and lazy) users from trying and (b) because in the present moral climate, they MUST DO SOMETHING, and frankly, it’s probably mostly the latter reason. The fact that what they are doing is practically pointless is neither here nor there. The need is to be seen to act.
Is the panic justified? Not sure. I suspect that if parents had more time with their kids (not practical for many due to economic reasons) we would be less worried about what our children were doing – or at least would know better what it was, and be better placed to protect them from the nastier consequences (which, in the final analysis, is what this SHOULD be about). Given that, there would be less pressure for companies like LL to protect children, something I was brought up to believe was first and foremost a parent’s job.
Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what, if any, age proofs were required for people trying to join the TeenGrid? I never tried it (my teen years being some *mumble*ty *mumble* years ago), but maybe someone who’s grown up from TeenGrid to MainGrid could comment.
And if you do have an answer to my original question, please, don’t keep it to yourself.
rawst berry
Jul 21st, 2009
@Darien Caldwell
I think the point is that age verification is the same exact thing as checking a box that says “I am 18 years of age.” Except without giving personal info.
In both cases, there is no way to tell 100% for sure if the person is lying or using someone else’s information. They both cover LL’s ass if kids get into SL– as you said, “It’s not LL’s job to prove you’re lying”. Age verification is completely useless and retarded.
Wordfromthe Wise
Jul 21st, 2009
@Darien, Caldwell, Alexander and all others : if you set up a system for Age Verification whether it is beta or alpha or whatever .. it should at least work minimal. And obvious Names should be identiied with ease. If they ‘allow’ a Muhammad Atta i could understand this ; to track him down but Elvis .. c`mon ?
If you say .. that it is not ‘Lindens fault’ or because they are ‘to small’ blablabla .. Thats why the hired those Aristoteles guys to do this job… At least some amount of your monthly Tier/(Premium)Subscriptions will be given to that company .. and therefore they should do it right.
and @WTF .. public scrutiny is the only reliable way to improve security, while secrecy only makes it less secure.
and btw. i have never Adult verfied myself and visited Zindra
Darien Caldwell
Jul 21st, 2009
“I think the point is that age verification is the same exact thing as checking a box that says “I am 18 years of age.” Except without giving personal info.”
True, but just checking a box doesn’t make you criminally liable if you check it wrong. Putting in deliberately false information does. So if some parent comes complaining about their kid seeing virtual boobs, and LL can show they put in false identifying information, The Parent may very well think twice about pushing the issue, since the kid could face criminal charges. (Identity theft comes to mind, probably others).
BRB
Jul 21st, 2009
BRB,signing up as Buddy Holly.
Jenny Fallopias
Jul 21st, 2009
“Have fun explaining why you’re not really Mohamed Atta when Homeland Security comes knocking. Or should I say comes battering down your door.
”
How about: “I’m not really Mohamed Atta because he’s dead.”
You fucking idiot.
General Drama
Jul 21st, 2009
Oh you mean 14 year old Turkey Yip didn’t need to talk his mom into verifying his account under her ID? Good thing Turkey only spends PART of the week in the furry sex clubs. But is the user during that time the 14 year old or his mother? I guess thats a question left to the Amherst, NH Dept of Child Protective Services….
BTW: Mooty, aren’t you 18 by now?
FWIW, I am looking forward to the day when LL deletes the 5,000 accounts owned by Mohammad Atta, the 15,000 accounts owned by Michael Jackson, the 7,000 accounts owned by Elvis Presley, etc etc and all the land and space bux held by the idiots who verified with the same info as thousands of other people. Giving false ID like that is stupid.
Smart individuals know that the proper way to create a fake ID is to go to small towns, look up in the newspapers from 21+ years ago in the local library archives for obits of babies/children born elsewhere who died locally (preferably born in another state or country). You then pay a PI to find out if the kid had an SSN (likely not as they werent required back then for underagers), and either get it, or track down the birth certificate and apply for one. Once you have the SSN, you can get a DL, passport, etc. all entirely valid.
Alexander
Jul 21st, 2009
Think of age verification as the same thing as checking that little “I agree” box that someone spoke of, but a bit more complex. By having the additional information, LL can look into troublesome accounts and attempt to decipher not so much “who” the person is but how old they are, and what access they should have, and currently have. I know there have been cases of people using names like “elvis” and whatnot on voting forms, so why then would this come as such a shock to people?
It’s like lying on your tax form, you might not get caught if you don’t make yourself known or earn too much money. But if you cause trouble, or make a lot of money, the government is going to snatch you up for tax evasion. Same with this age verification crap
mootykips
Jul 22nd, 2009
general drama: there is never a bad time to be Yasser Arafat okay.
At0m0 Beerbaum
Jul 22nd, 2009
@Jenny Fallopias
You GREATLY underestimate the stupidity of our government and the people who work for homeland security.
Then there are the TSA officials who will detain people for inane reasons, and get confused and angry if they’re asked simple questions such as “why am I being detained?”
Baeric Constantine
Jul 24th, 2009
Naturally, a site such as Second Life, Facebook, MySpace etc… or any other form of social networking site (twitter included), all require that the person signing up attests that, as mootykips states “…information is true and factual and represents your true identity…” However, the line needs to be drawn between privacy and security of self, which is not addressed here. It is fact that social networking sites are the targets of identity thieves and articles such as “Identity theft from Facebook enough to jail cyber crims” posted in the daily telegraph testify to this fact (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/identity-theft-from-facebook-enough-to-jail-cyber-crims/story-e6freuy9-1225748412148). As for it not being LL’s job to prove a person is lying, LL do have a duty of care to exercise to every other user within LL which they are failing in miserably. This is one area.
The age verification is in fact in direct contravention of several legal systems… and how do they actually verify my data against a system? I do not think that this method of verification is sufficient. Facebook have been to court of inadequate security measures… perhaps its SL’s turn?
LOL
Jul 24th, 2009
@Baeric Constantine
Good points you bring up here. Infact Facebook is now being vetted by the canadian Gov’t for it extremly lax stance for protecting Canadian’s Personal Information. The Gov’t of Canada is even going as far to say that Facebook is in breech of international and canadian Law by keeping Information like Drivers Lisence info, SIN #’s and Passport info in a database who’s security has been challanged. Facebook even admits that it keeps the data after a User deleted thier account. I do not think it will take the canadian Gov’t long to discover just how pathetic a job Linden Lab is doing to ensure canadian’s Privacy and security of person.
ProteusPater
Aug 7th, 2009
My son “Proteus Hand” got by the age verification process and is now addicted to SL( 9 to 15 hours/day). Whe we interveined to limit his time online he became violent and ran away from home.
I have contacted Linden with his information. They informed me that they will possibly ban all accounts currently on his friends list or in association with his account one they verify the information. Tat could effect as many as 200 accounts, many of them innocent. It is the nuclear option so to speak but when faced with possible liability and legal ramifications, it may be the lesser of two evils for LL.
mr whippy
Sep 17th, 2009
adolf hitler worked well for a while
quietscream21
May 21st, 2011
Heyy.. uhm i need your help guyz. Uhm just want to ask where can I get their informations.. For example elvis, mohamed atta, Tupac Shakkur… I really need you help.. Thanks