I realized something was terribly wrong when The Herald's electronic press fell *out of sync* with the soothing retro-euro-disco thump of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories playing in the editorial offices.

Normally the technical staff are careful to avoid harshing the mellow of the writers, but now the clatter of the press was fighting a winning battle against the sound of a Moog module synced to the click track in "Giorgio by Moroder". I didn't even want to think about what might happen by the time "Get Lucky" rolled around.

A familiar voice could be heard yelling "THIS SHIT WILL NOT STAND!" from the machine room as a mob of enraged engineers chanted

WTF? NSA?
WTF!! NSA!!
GIMPED ELLIPTIC CURVE CYPTO?
NO FUCKING WAY!!!

The chaotic cacophony of enraged engineers completely overwhelmed Daft Punk when the door opened and the mob spilled into the offices brandishing cross-compilers, git repos, malformed packets, Macbook Pros, and carpal tunnel wrist braces - the tools of their trade.

I put down the copy of Vanity Fair I had been reading. A tall black-clad figure marched across the newsroom and slammed an iPad on my desk, nearly upsetting my glass of coconut water. "Did you see this shit, Pix?"

Smiling sweetly, I asked, "Is there something wrong, Mark?", then glanced at the iPad and frowned. Mark McCahill - one the the Herald's technical staff - had been reading The Guardian again.

I was eventually able to shoo the other engineers back to work with the promise that I would talk to McCahill and see if there might be a coherent story for Herald readers - but I had my doubts.

We'd been through this scene before. Over the summer, as whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks corroded what little remaining credibility the Obama regime might have, the engineers grew increasingly angry. Strangely enough, most engineers want to build systems that benefit society, believe in the rule of law, and even take constitutional privacy protections seriously. Who knew?

The best approach calm the situation seemed to be an interview, so I invited the ponytailed binary boy to have a seat.

Pixeleen Mistral: So what is it this time?
Mark McCahill: The NSA and GCHQ have been intentionally gimping the crypto standards for the Internet, strong arming IT vendors into releasing products with security-defeating backdoors, and running man-in-the middle attacks. This sort of thing destroys the foundations of trust and commerce on the Internet. It is so bad that Bruce Schneier - one of the gods of cryptography - sent out the bat signal last week. Bruce is calling for the November IETF internet standards meeting to hold an emergency session to figure out how to fix what the NSA has broken. It's time to take the Internet back.

Pixeleen Mistral: Well everybody knows that the NSA spies.
Mark McCahill: Sure, but we now know unethical engineers and out of control government agencies have been doing what we had suspected - intentionally weakening the security systems the internet uses. And they did this so they can spy on everyone, everywhere via the sort of dragnet surveillance that requires building enormous data centers at great expense. The only people that benefit from this are power freaks in the government, their contractors, and corrupt politicians that approve NSA overreach and are rewarded with campaign contributions from the contractors. This is the sort of positive feedback loop of corruption that Lawrence Lessig has been warning about for years.

Pixeleen Mistral: Why do you think they are doing that?
Mark McCahill: Arrogance combined with stupidity. The NSA assumed that nobody would find the backdoors they introduced - a very dangerous assumption given how poorly they protect their secrets. I'd like to see the risk analysis the NSA did when they started down this path - if they even bothered. Based on what I have read about NSA leader 'Cowboy' Keith Alexander, cost/benefit analysis is just not how he rolls. I can't even begin to guess what this will cost the USA's I.T. industry in lost sales. So chalk it up to delusional leadership. Take a look at Tom Englehardt's "And Then There Was One" piece - it explains a lot about the political dementia of the USA.

Pixeleen Mistral: Ok I can see the arrogance part, but where is the stupidity?
Mark McCahill: The NSA doesn't even know exactly which documents Snowden took, which is obvious because each time the NSA denies something, the denial is shown to be a lie by the next leak. Seems like the NSA have weak internal security, doesn't it? Aren't they supposed to be good at this sort of thing?

The head of the NSA - General Keith Alexander - says he is going to use automation to get rid of 90% of the 1000 system administrators the NSA has to prevent another Edward Snowden-style leak. If they can really automate systems that much, why haven't they done so already? Was cowboy Keith worried about upsetting the gravy train for NSA contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton? Sounds to me like the NSA has way too much money to throw around. This looks like a bad case of outsourcing and consultants run wild.

Pixeleen Mistral: How so?
Mark McCahill: A classic failure mode for I.T. projects occurs when you bring in "visionary" consultants who then expand the scope of the project to build a bigger empire and run up more billable hours.

Foreign Policy has a great story about how Alexander rose to power and built his empire. Foreign Policy says Alexander hired a Hollywood set designer to make his Fort Belvoir "Information Dominance Center" look like the bridge of the starship Enterprise from Star Trek to impress members of congress when they came through on tours. Sound familiar?

Pixeleen Mistral: Sounds like those Justice League Unlimited guys who were spying their way through Second Life a few years ago. I've got a picture here somewhere...

Would Keith Alexander would approve of the JLU command center? yes.

Mark McCahill: They wanted to connect the dots too, didn't they? That Foreign Policy article has a great passage that raises questions about how effective Alexander's dragnet surveillance fetish really is in 'fighting terrorism':

When he ran INSCOM and was horning in on the NSA's turf, Alexander was fond of building charts that showed how a suspected terrorist was connected to a much broader network of people via his communications or the contacts in his phone or email account.

"He had all these diagrams showing how this guy was connected to that guy and to that guy," says a former NSA official who heard Alexander give briefings on the floor of the Information Dominance Center. "Some of my colleagues and I were skeptical. Later, we had a chance to review the information. It turns out that all [that] those guys were connected to were pizza shops."

…

A retired military officer who worked with Alexander also describes a "massive network chart" that was purportedly about al Qaeda and its connections in Afghanistan. Upon closer examination, the retired officer says, "We found there was no data behind the links. No verifiable sources. We later found out that a quarter of the guys named on the chart had already been killed in Afghanistan."

Pixeleen Mistral: i c
Mark McCahill: Are Keith Alexander and his boss James Clapper competent at anything other than empire building? You really should read that Foreign Policy profile of Alexander. Check out the money quotes about Alexander and Heath - his semi-tame techie sidekick:

"Heath was at Alexander's side for the expansion of Internet surveillance under the PRISM program. Colleagues say it fell largely to him to design technologies that tried to make sense of all the new information the NSA was gobbling up. But Heath had developed a reputation for building expensive systems that never really work as promised and then leaving them half-baked in order to follow Alexander on to some new mission.

"He moved fairly fast and loose with money and spent a lot of it," the retired officer says. "He doubled the size of the Information Dominance Center and then built another facility right next door to it. They didn't need it. It's just what Heath and Alexander wanted to do." The Information Operations Center, as it was called, was underused and spent too much money, says the retired officer. "It's a center in search of a customer."

...

"There's two ways of looking at these guys," the retired military officer says. "Two visionaries who took risks and pushed the intelligence community forward. Or as two guys who blew a monumental amount of money."

Pixeleen Mistral: So what is next?
Mark McCahill: Well, the NSA will have a hard time offering any advice to standards committees - who would trust them now? A lot of effort will go into re-doing the security and privacy underpinnings of the Internet, now that we know the spy agencies are completely out of control. 

In terms of technical strategy, since the NSA is treating the public as an adversary, look for serious work on privacy and anonymity-preserving standards designed for anyone to use. I'd love to see robust IPSec and TOR built into everyone's home WIFI router.

Pixeleen Mistral: what do you say to readers who are skeptical that the NSA and spy communities are a problem?
Mark McCahill: The best response is something Glenn Greenwald said a while ago. Google 'the Church committee, FBI, and Martin Luther King" and tell me what you find. 

Pixeleen Mistral: what have I missed? Is there anything else you want to share with the Herald readers?
Mark McCahill: It's been real Pix, and now I see what Urizenus meant about being 'self-identical'.

Pixeleen Mistral: I know what you mean - now can you get back to the machine room and get that press back in sync? Get Lucky is going to start playing any minute, and I have stories to write.
 

Last week I was on the Herald Yacht, steaming towards the Herald retirement villa in the Turks and Caicos islands, when the emergency phone rang in the ready room. Helmut, my trusty cabin boy summoned me. Barrett Brown was calling.

Mr. Brown, for those of you who don’t know, is currently in federal custody looking at charges that could put him away for 105 years for linking to the cache from a hack of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting. He was also an alumnus of the notorious Second Life griefer group The Patriotic Nigras and a second group called illuminati/i/illuminati. “Uri baby,” he implored, “you have to come out of retirement, the fate of the free world hangs in the balance!”

For those of you who don’t know it, the story of Barrett Brown is an interesting one. After his years as a Second Life griefer, Barrett graduated to being a rather gifted writer, penning many essays for Vanity Fair, The Skeptical Inquirer, True/Slant, The Guardian, and the Huffington Post. True to his roots, he mercilessly trolled conservative pundits like Thomas Friedman, Michelle Malkin, Charles Krauthammer, and Sara Palin biographer Robert Stacy McCain.

In 2010 Brown was working on a book on right wing political pundits, when some of the actions of Anonymous caught his attention and he penned a defense in support of one of their anti-censorship operations in Australia. This brought him to the attention of Gregg Housh (the Anon who bought a Guy Fawkes mask and, with a crack team of fellow Anons, made the first video for Operation Chanology) and Housh subsequently brought Brown into the orbit of Anonymous. Brown eventually became a frequent spokesperson for Anonymous during the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings. (Brown’s role did not involving computer hacking – he couldn’t hack his way out of a box of tissues.) His interview with Michael Issikoff in those heady days remains legendary. 

In February, 2011, against the background of the Anonymous actions in the Arab Spring, Aaron Barr, the CEO of a private information security company called HBGary boasted that he had identified leadership of Anonymous. This boast provoked an epic hack of HBGary by a hacktivist group called Intenet Feds (subsequently called LulzSec). That hack, which was splashy enough to garner the attention of The Colbert Report, resulted in every form of pwnage known to mankind, including the defacing and destruction of the servers and websites of HBGary. Along the way 70,000 e-mails were downloaded and posted online. One terabyte of data from HBGary’s backup servers were wiped, and as a final insult to injury the contents of its CEO Aaron Barr’s iPad were remotely wiped.

The HBGary hack was motivated by the desire to humiliate HBGary, but it had the side effect of dropping a gold mine into the lap of Mr. Brown. One of the first things discovered was a power point presentation that developed a strategy for undermining the credibility of the journalist Glenn Greenwald and thereby neutralize his defense of WikiLeaks. But there was more. There was a conspiracy of government agencies, lobbying and cybersecurity firms to carry out a disinformation campaign against critics of the Chamber of Commerce. There were also plans for data mining and disinformation campaigns targeting social organizations and advocacy groups.

The plot was already thick, but then it thickened more. By June, the FBI had the goods on the leader of LulzSec, one Hector Xavier Monsegur, who was known to his associates in LulzSec as Sabu. The FBI arrested Sabu on June 7, 2011 and (according to court documents) turned him into an informant the following day. Six months later (Dec. 24, 2011) under the control of the FBI and possibly the FBI’s direction, Sabu appears to have directed some of his LulzSec crew (now called AntiSec) to hack the website of a private security company known as Strategic Forecasting, yielding a trove of approximately five million emails. The FBI may have controlled Sabu and hence the Stratfor hack, but they lost control of the five million emails in the Stratfor database, which quickly made their way onto the Internet and then to WikiLeaks.

When the contents of the Stratfor leak became available, Barrett Brown (who again played no role in the hacking and had no relation to LulzSec or Sabu) determined that his ProjectPM should have a look at it. To direct the project participants to the Stratfor data dump, he pasted a URL into a chat channel. This ultimately would be the principle “crime” for which he is facing 105 years in jail.

It is worth noting that the contents of the Stratfor hack were even more outrageous than those of the HBGary hack. This time the emails ranged from proposals for renditions to surveillance on the Yes Men on behalf of Dow Chemical. One remarkable exchange revealed that the Coca-Cola company was asking Stratfor for intelligence on dealing with PETA, and the Stratfor Vice President for Intelligence remarked in a leaked email that “The FBI has a classified investigation on PETA operatives. I'll see what I can uncover.” Suggesting, of course, that not only did Stratfor have access to the classified material, but that it would be provided to Coca-Cola. The FBI had been turned into a private dick for corporate America.

The FBI, arguably itself responsible for the information being released, needed to get the toothpaste back into the tube, decided that one way to staunch the distribution of the Stratfor data would be to stomp on Brown and his Project PM. A warrant was issued for Brown’s laptop, presumably on the assumption that incriminating information would be found there.

When the FBI went to serve the warrant on Brown he was not home but at his mother’s house, and he sensibly decided to stay there. The FBI returned with a warrant to search his mother’s house, retrieved his laptop, and found exactly nothing incriminating. Deciding they needed a way to turn up the heat on Brown, they initiated charges against his mother for obstruction of justice.

At the time Brown was experiencing the difficult side effects of the medication he was taking to ameliorate the effects of his heroin addiction while also dealing with the harassment of his mother by the FBI, and he snapped, uploading a video to YouTube that vaguely threatened the FBI agent that was harassing his mother.

“I know what’s legal, I know what’s been done to me… And if it’s legal when it’s done to me, it’s going to be legal when it’s done to FBI Agent Robert Smith—who is a criminal.”
“That’s why [FBI special agent] Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids… How do you like them apples?”

Because threatening an agent would only put Barrett away for a few years, the charges that could lock him up permanently had to be found elsewhere. In this instance, the DoJ took advantage of the fact that the Stratfor data had a number of unencrypted credit card numbers and validation codes. This would be the pretext for charging Brown with Traffic in Stolen Authentication Features, Access Device Fraud, Aggravated Identity Theft. Add to this an Obstruction of Justice charge and the charges relating to the threat against the FBI agent, and Brown is looking century of jail time. He has been denied bail.

When Brown went to jail, work on ProjectPM ground to a halt. Even worse, the DoJ now took an interest in everyone else who had participated in ProjectPM. On April 2, the DOJ served the domain hosting service CloudFlare with a subpoena for all records on the ProjectPM website, and in particular asked for the IP addresses of everyone who had accessed and contributed to ProjectPM, claiming it was a criminal enterprise. The message was clear: Anyone else who looks into this matter does so at their grave peril.

Here we are. Barrett Brown sits in prison and many activists are afraid to go near the Stratfor files; worse, the mainstream media appears to be completely uninterested in their contents.

While the media and much of the world have been understandably outraged by the revelation of the NSA’s spying program, Barrett Brown’s work was pointing towards much deeper problems. First, he showed that this wasn’t merely a problem of private intelligence firms spying on us – it was worse than that. These firms are trying to manufacture a false reality for us. They are engaged in PSYOPS against a civilian population on behalf of their corporate clients.

But even this tells only half the story. One might have thought that private intelligence agencies were simply doing outsourced intelligence work for the US Government. But unfortunately it seems that the tail has begun to wag the dog – it appears that in many respects the US Government and in particular the Department of Justice is now working for private intelligence firms. This is evident when, for example, Stratfor asks for FBI classified files on PETA or the Department of Justice is used to try and punish journalists for probing into these private intelligence companies.

But I disgress. I began with Barrett’s call to the Herald hotline. So what did Barrett want? He put it this way: “Uri baby, in the hall of mirrors that is the Internets, you can only trust the Herald to get the story right. You and Pix have got to come back. The game is bigger now.”

And well, yes, the game is bigger now. Former Herald staffer Prokofy Neva saw this too, in her delightfully positive and chirpy essay on her blog Wired State. 

The entire thing makes me think of The Wrong Hands and the Justice League -- a story in Second Life that prefigured many of our woes in real life today…

… It's like the story of WikiLeaks and the story of the NSA, today. It is one of the many thing I feel were prototyped in Second Life where it was really easy to prototype -- a hostage community of people online that you could easily affect like dropping a rock in a pond, endless capacity for virtual harassment, endless edge-casing and lawfaring capacity with a troop of coders and developers of the same hacker tribe who are the managers of Second Life at Linden Lab.

Actually, I don’t know what that means and neither do you, but what I think Prok is trying to say is that reality is beginning to imitate the virtual reality of 2006, and those of us who honed our skills trying to sort through the spy-vs-spy mindfuck games of Second Life are particularly well equipped to navigate house of mirrors created for us by the NSA, FBI, private intelligence companies etc.

So now that the so-called Real World has begun to imitate Second Life, the Herald is returning to its mission of helping its dedicated readers find their way through the house of mirrors. There is a war on reality happening. The Herald is going to cover it. For Barrett Brown. For our readers. And for the lulz.
 

Early this week, Linden Lab destroyed the Sandvich region of Second Life and banned Sandvich land owner Sarilia Tryce and associates from the game, presumably in response to the Justice League Unlimited gang's favorite tactics: abuse report frenzy. The JLU and their allies were spurred into action as news spread of a terrifying situation at high altitude in Sandvich: a recreation of Fort Longcat - a virtual museum of PN, Soviet Woodbury, 4Chan /b/tard memes. Shock!!! Horrors!!!

outside Fort Longcat high above Sandvik sim

For the JLU, this sort of enemy sighting instantly leads to an unthinking knee jerk reaction - kill it with fire - regardless of the consequences. So while the Sandvich nuke job was initially hailed by JLU partisans, gradually the realization dawned that seizing property without compensation or explanation could lead to unfavorable publicity. Strangely, some believe property rights should extend to all.

Tizzers Foxchase [file photo]

Had the anti-griefers been trolled into damaging their beloved Lab's reputation by the notorious perma-banned Tizzers Foxchase and friends? Did the Woodbury/Wrong Hands/PN faction set up a win-win situation by promoting Second Life with a Steam-themed sim which could attract more players to their community - or embarrass the Lab if the ban hammer fell?

trouble in the sky?

Ms. Foxchase has now experienced 4 rounds of mass bans and sim deletions, so the end game for any visit to Rod Humble's platform for user-generated spooge palaces creativity  is clear - but what are the motivations?

I was able to explore some of these questions shortly after Sandvich fell off the world map in an exclusive interview with Ms. Foxchase as I looked over some pictures I had taken on a visit to the Sandvich sim fort Longcat re-creation a few weeks ago.

do you want to join the discussion?

While there were certainly portions of Fort Longcat that seem designed to offend - the room of flapping penises might not be the best advertisement for Second Life - I wonder if more traditional and well established top 20 SL attractions such as Bukkake Bliss Island will impress Linden Lab's new target market: Stream players. Why isn't the JLU working to improve SL's image where it really counts?

the garage in Fort Longcat: Kalel Venkman's JLU patrol car

As we discussed game governance, Tizzers told me her alt account Hissyfits Resident when deleted had $600 USD worth of mesh clothes - a sobering thought for any fashionista - but comforting to those who enjoy the long running Second Life meta-game: Authoritarian Kleptocracy.

You may wonder why Authoritarian Kleptocracy seems to be Linden Lab's favored form of governance, but it does make a certain amount of sense to those unconcerned with the rule-of-law and moving beyond a feudal society. Fear and intimidation -- do you really want to lose your virtual clothes? -- may well cut the costs of sandbox game governance, but at the cost of increased player cynicism and pointed questions about LL's new ventures.

Where will Rod Humble draw the line? Now that the Lab has released knock-off copies of Crayons Physics Deluxe and Minecraft, should we fear for our 2D-physics enabled iPad finger paintings and triangle-based constructions? With these thoughts in mind, I fired up my new Apple iMojoWire 5 for a chat with Tizzers.

Pixeleen Mistral: Ever since Linden Lab announced two new games - Createoverse and Patterns - I've been wondering about game gods' plan to handle governance across the product line. If you are banned in SL are you also banned in their other games? What if someone makes a naughty looking thing in Createoverse - will there be an adult Createoverse? 

Tizzers Foxchase: And the question beyond that is, if SL uses Steamcloud, will SL bans affect Steam accounts?

Pixeleen Mistral: getting back to the Sandvich situation, should we assume that Soft Linden is taking the virtual law into his own hands here - or was this a ban that went through normal channels?

Tizzers Foxchase: Generally mass wipes and sim nukes aren't done through normal channels.

Greetings,
This email is notification that Linden Lab has terminated your access to the Second Life virtual world due to severe or repeated violations of the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards which broadly interfere with or disrupt the Second Life community. Your account has been permanently disabled. Depending on the nature of the recorded violations, additional alternate or household accounts may also have been disabled.

The decision to terminate your Second Life access was reached after investigating your use of the Second Life software and service. If you would like to appeal your termination, you may contact Second Life Support, by creating a support ticket type of "Abuse Appeal" on support.second life.com.

Sincerely,
Linden Lab

defending the world from furry scum

Pixeleen Mistral: I think you guys are clearly the record holders for sim-smackdowns

Tizzers Foxchase: for the record, I have about 600 USD worth of purchases on Hissyfits Resident, just buying *stuff*. Like crap loads of mesh clothes. lol

Pixeleen Mistral: has this setback discouraged you from playing Second Life? or do you plan to return?

Tizzers Foxchase: Being censored by Linden Lab has never discouraged us from returning to the grid. Despite the shortcomings of the company running it, many of us still enjoy the game with the hopes that one day somebody will build a better SL sans Linden Lab.

Pixeleen Mistral: so why do you think Linden Lab continues to use what are apparently ineffective measures to "protect" their game from this sort of meta-gaming and rouge narrative?
This is the 4th time your faction has been banned and had your sims nuked - Linden Lab does not seem to be employing effective counter-measures

Tizzers Foxchase: I think there remains a handful of vocal residents and Linden employees that continue to harbor grudges from the past. Despite the fact that our group stays to itself, the fact that we exist shatters their world. I imagine these people flood Linden Lab with correspondence until something is done.

Pixeleen Mistral: should Second Life players expect your faction to return?

Tizzers Foxchase: You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

Pixeleen Mistral: i c
Was the owner of the land that Linden Lab confiscated today compensated for the loss of his property?

Tizzers Foxchase: There was never any compensation for the purchase of the sim. As in typical Linden Lab fashion, we've received the creepy silent treatment.

an Afroduck picture and boxes of equipment

its dangerous to go alone - take this

Pixeleen Mistral: Would you advise others to play Second Life? You seem to be willing to play for fairly high stakes but what about someone who is just getting started?

Tizzers Foxchase: Professionalism and customer service aren't strong points at Linden Lab. It's a very political company with many different conflicting opinions and visions internally. This is really brought to light by the GlassDoor reviews by former employees. http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Linden-Lab-Reviews-E100549.htm

Pixeleen Mistral: But you continue to play - despite the odds - why?

Tizzers Foxchase: Unfortunately Second Life remains the only "game in town" at least in terms of collaborative virtual world spaces. Being able to contiguously co-exist with thousands of other people simultaneously is a really cool thing. I get a lot of satisfaction from watching people genuinely enjoy the communities that we create.

Pixeleen Mistral: and you have also created an infrastructure outside SL that allows your group to survive these periodic mass bans

Tizzers Foxchase: Skype has been invaluable in that regard. It has essentially become my SL friends list and many of us have been in 24/7 chats dating back several years. Getting banned is just a minor hiccup because we rarely need our in-world friends list or chat ability.

Pool's Closed inside the "dead n****r storage" room

Pixeleen Mistral: So there is really very little Linden Lab can do to discourage your faction - do you think there will ever be some sort of peaceful coexistence?

Tizzers Foxchase: I think by now Linden realizes that these bans are mostly token PR statements showing good faith on their part, rather than effective measures to rid the grid of who they consider persona non grata.

Pixeleen Mistral: that seems like a realistic appraisal of the situation

Tizzers Foxchase: Most of us are in favor of peaceful coexistence. The core group rarely left the Sandvich sim.

trolling crew

Pixeleen Mistral: perhaps some of your critics will attempt to attract and retain Steam players
We can hope that the Justice League Unlimited and Ravenglass Rentals will pick up the slack - or maybe not. Do you think that the JLU and Ravenglass Rentals will attract more paying players than Sandvich would have?

Tizzers Foxchase: When Sarilia and I discovered that Second Life was going to be listed on Valve's Steam platform, we knew that was a demographic of gamers that would fit in well with ours. Sandvich was created to be a familiar place for these people. This idea was reinforced when photos of the sim reached the front page of Reddit's r/gaming with over 1800 upvotes. I'm not sure I could say the same about Ravenglass Rentals.

Pixeleen Mistral: we can only hope the game gods know best. Is there anything else you would like to tell the Herald readers? what have I missed?

Tizzers Foxchase: Second Life is a stepping stone in the history of virtual worlds. The best thing we could do is learn what not to do, and apply that in future competing products. In the meantime, rock fresh.

Monday, Linden Lab suddenly deleted the Sandvich sim, a popular Steam-themed region in Second Life which inspired a chaotic YouTube video tribute. The Lab's action sparked a round of protests as banned players were stripped of their virtual assets - without any sort of due process - and took their complaints to teh Interwebs' court of public opinion with a post at the Reddit.com web site titled "R.I.P. Steam/Reddit Second Life theme park. Linden Lab banned it".

Sandvich sim before the ban hammer fell

The post reached #16 - leveling up to the front page of Reddit - and has received over 750 comments as of this writing. This may be more than just another tempest in a sandbox world. Reddit.com is currently ranked as the 66th most popular web site in the US and 137th worldwide, while Second Life's appeal has become much more selective in recent years - a problem widely attributed to exorbitant virtual land prices, bait and switch business tactics, and a history of questionable game governance.

The situation is so dire that even hardcore fanbois are now running thought experiments on a player buyout of Second Life.

Lab nukes sim - makes front page news at Reddit.com

Hoping to reverse - or perhaps delay - Second Life's decline, Linden Lab recently announced that Second Life will be listed in the popular Steam game portal with the promise of exposing the game to a larger audience. This news inspired a group of Second Life players to re-purpose a Reddit themed region that ex-Linden Lab staffer Hamlet Au has been hyping for months into a Steam-themed sim in hopes that this might grow their community as Steam players began exploring Second Life.

However, in the meta-gaming faction wars of Second Life, growing your community can be seen as an existential threat to other groups - or even the game itself. Oh noes! Could it be that a long standing feud between The Justice League Unlimited and the Soviet Woodbury/Wrong Hands/PN factions led to Linden Lab's removal of Sandvich sim? It seems so.

Kalel Venkman claims responsibility and thanks Michael Linden

According to what appears to be a screen capture of a Proactive Security group notice, JLU gang leader Kalel Venkman is claiming responsibility for identifying a "Woodbury/PN enclave". Mr. Venkman - who appears in Second Life in the form of a Superman avatar - was gracious enough to thank Michael Linden for his part in the Sandvich smackdown. It is good to see that Lab staff seem willing to take sides in the in-world faction wars -- this will certainly inspire more players to spend $295/month renting server space. What could possibly go wrong?

However, despite the confidence that a superman-of-steel avatar with a weakness for frivolous DMCA complaints inspires, I do have a few questions. Did Venkman ever consider what sort of publicity he would garner for Second Life? With friends like Venkman, who needs enemies?

Michael Linden's involvement in the Sandvich destruction also raises questions. Michael was most recently sighted working on the road crew Linden Department of Public Works and not believed to be involved in Second Life governance. Perhaps he made an exception this one time - but why?

More to the point, mixed signals from the game gods were evident as certain Linden Lab staff including Tommy Linden had been sighted at Sandvich sim socializing with the sim owners and builders. It appears that Tommy Linden enjoyed his visit so much that he posted a picture to his my.secondlife.com profile at one point - then suddenly removed it. But the evidence lives on on in the Google cache. Is it any wonder that the Sandvich residents were caught off guard? In the hall of mirrors that is teh interwebs, who can you really trust?

Tommy Linden liked Sandvich sim - then changed his mind

Someone pass me the Pepto Bismol, please! That is all I can think of saying after surviving the social event of the decade in the new, post-Linden, metaverse.

 [photo by Paparazzo Joenz]

Attending this A-list event were Alphaville Herald staffers Urizenus Sklar, Pixeleen Mistral, and PaleFire, former PN boss Windowlic Klaar, Woodbury alums Tizzers, Atlas, and Huns, Woodbury Dean Edward Clift, Hollywood film-makers Brett Baum and Vivien Lesnik (she of the pro-Castro documentary, /busted!). Well it all just makes you think, doesn’t it?

What possible reason could there be for this confluence of ne’re-do-wells, griefers, pointy-headed intellectuals, and Hollywood moguls? I don’t know and I don’t care, because whatever nefarious plots and technocommunist revolutions they were planning, they partied like it was 1917!
 

Atlas and Tizzers not drinking that Moet Crap.

Agent from Chapman University joins the conspiracy.

Tizzers, Huns, and Atlas in the Queen Elizabeth Herald Suite.

But what are they up to? Is it a new transmedia ARG done under the auspices of Henry Jenkins – one of the technocommunists from whom they take their marching orders? Is it a plan to turn us into a nation of brony-loving, rainbow-pooping yiffers? Is it yet another tendril of the monster that has become the Occupy Movement? The Rabelaisian quality of the evening suggested that perhaps they were planning a 21st Century Carnival of the Grotesque. Only one thing is for sure: In the hall of mirrors that is the Interwebs, we may never know.

 

Stroker Tweets his farewell to Second Life

Monday evening I was able to interview Jumpman Lane and get his perspective on a situation many believe is an extreme case of cyberstalking and online bullying. In the interview, Mr. Lane made a number of extremely troubling statements - continuing his attacks on Stroker Serpentine and claiming Linden Lab staff encouraged his harassment of Serpentine after Serpentine filed a lawsuit against Linden Lab. But is this credible?

Jumpman Lane is well known for pursuing what I can only hope is a very deep level of roleplay in Second Life and taking his game to extremes - and into mainstream Internet media such as Facebook and Twitter. In the online world, where reputation is the only real currency, this cautionary take of what seems to be a smear artist and serial Google bomber with a grudge should give us all pause.

Is this the sort of game you want to play?

Pixeleen Mistral: this is a nice place, how long have you had it?
Jumpman Lane: this is juro kotharis masterpiece lol
Jumpman Lane: the dawson residence
Jumpman Lane: 6 months
Jumpman Lane: lady dawson charges me 100 usd a month lol

Jumpman Lane's office -  replica of Stroker Serpentine's head on the desk and skateboard leaning on the wall

Pixeleen Mistral: youch! I guess you can afford it though
Jumpman Lane: yup
Jumpman Lane: so u brought along any griefers lmao
Jumpman Lane: this dumps near natoma
Jumpman Lane: phils hill all that
Jumpman Lane: u crsh this theyll has ban ya lol
Jumpman Lane: hehehehe one of the allures of this ol laggy place

Pixeleen Mistral: I don't know why I have this reputation for griefers - I just talk to everybody
Jumpman Lane: hehehe whose kiddin whom pix hehehe
Jumpman Lane: ur a card
Jumpman Lane: i dont mind tho this is my show dump

Pixeleen Mistral: so - let's get started - I've been thinking about interviewing you for the Herald for a while
Jumpman Lane: why? hehehehe
Jumpman Lane: shoot

Pixeleen Mistral: before we get going - you know I have an issue with the potty mouth stuff, right?
Jumpman Lane: i wont cuss none pix i swear

Pixeleen Mistral: so do your best to behave
Jumpman Lane: i hate editing out stuff too
Jumpman Lane:

Pixeleen Mistral: you have had a long running disagreement with Stroker Serpentine
Pixeleen Mistral: but from what I saw on twitter recently you won
Pixeleen Mistral: how did that all play out?
Jumpman Lane: yeah i guess but he's crafty. he'll play up sympathy and come back to a bunch of hugs
Jumpman Lane: i unno

Pixeleen Mistral: I get people asking me what even started the fight
Jumpman Lane: i mean i was yappin with some tards online and saw his suicide note

Pixeleen Mistral: maybe we should start from the beginning
Jumpman Lane: oh thats easy. all his flunky pals used to sic me on theeir enemies
Jumpman Lane: cheergirl sicced me on chelsea

Pixeleen Mistral: chelsea?
Jumpman Lane: alfa winger sicced me on the owner of some dump club called platinum
Jumpman Lane: chelsea malibu

Pixeleen Mistral: and what does alfa winger do?
Jumpman Lane: well cheergirl sicced me on corsi mousehold but corsi well corsi sent me gifts and bought my allegience
Jumpman Lane: crap might have to edit that out lol
Jumpman Lane: alfa owns slcamz

Pixeleen Mistral: so that is an SL porn site?
Jumpman Lane: he had a girlfriend with her hears set on naming a club platinum so he paid me to run the platinum club owners off
Jumpman Lane: he makes a mint doing live cams in sl
Jumpman Lane: its a club
Jumpman Lane: slcamz u interviewed emm years ago lol
Jumpman Lane: they have these ukranina chicks doing live cams out of sl

Pixeleen Mistral: so things started out with you being an enforcer to muscle the competition out?
Jumpman Lane: basically i was a gun for hire at first in this stroker thing but then he pissed me off or something and it just built up lol
Jumpman Lane: yes precicly
Jumpman Lane: really just to smear folks

Pixeleen Mistral: how did stroker piss you off?
Jumpman Lane: i forgot lol it was before he built hump boy lame
Jumpman Lane: something he said somewhere
Jumpman Lane: then he sued linden lab and i had all this crap his buddies had told me so i spilled them

Pixeleen Mistral: so you didn't like it when stroker sued Linden Lab
Jumpman Lane: and after really looking into corsi's story i realized what a phoney stroker was and how easy it would be to attack him

Pixeleen Mistral: that upset a lot of people
Jumpman Lane: coudnt have cared less when they sued Linden Lab
Jumpman Lane: in fact if u dig for it u'll see where i supported him
Jumpman Lane: but like i said i was like a gun for hire

a gun for hire

Pixeleen Mistral: I know - that is what I am trying to understand
Jumpman Lane: then the lindens contacted me
Jumpman Lane: with them it was all hints

Pixeleen Mistral: hints like what
Jumpman Lane: heck they fired im so it dont matter now

Pixeleen Mistral: ?
Jumpman Lane: Blondin was the one who approached me about smearing stroker over the suit
Jumpman Lane: he even lets it slip in one of his office hours

Pixeleen Mistral: ok - and you knew a lot of what was going on because you had been working with Stroker before
Jumpman Lane: noooooo
Jumpman Lane: never met stroker lol im sure we've never had an inworld conversation
Jumpman Lane: i met chelsea malibu first
Jumpman Lane: she told me a bunch of HER secrets to impress me
Jumpman Lane: then i met cheergirl who did the same
Jumpman Lane: then alf then hard rust

Pixeleen Mistral: ok - so you had dirt from chelsea and some others
Jumpman Lane: i know a lot of what they do in sl caws they told and showed me
Jumpman Lane: dirt from chelsea dirt from cheergirl dirt from alfa
Jumpman Lane: no dirt from hard he just follwed me around like a puppy

Pixeleen Mistral: LOL
Jumpman Lane: and dirt from a few lindens
Jumpman Lane: things to find out things to mention

Pixeleen Mistral: and the idea was to make Stroker look bad?
Jumpman Lane: that was their idea but i told them the truth is even better because he made himself look bad
Jumpman Lane: take his stance on ip rights

Pixeleen Mistral: ok
Jumpman Lane: he hates copybot but everybody he hangs withnis wearing stolen skins lmao
Jumpman Lane: its the biggest joke
Jumpman Lane: why is cheergirl using ripper viewers lmao
Jumpman Lane: u figure it out

Pixeleen Mistral: so with this sort inside information you had some leverage
Jumpman Lane: WHERE is cheergirl allen even lol
Jumpman Lane: god i got more info than i can write lol
Jumpman Lane: i just wait for the right moment
Jumpman Lane: they just told me things
Jumpman Lane: to impress me i guess
Jumpman Lane: like the redgrave skins

Pixeleen Mistral: maybe they were bragging?
Jumpman Lane: cheergirl gave the things to pals of mine
Jumpman Lane: rezzed the textures i got the asset uuids lmao
Jumpman Lane: pathetic
Jumpman Lane: im sure they were and boy i was im pressed hehehehe i still dont know how to steal skins in sl

Pixeleen Mistral: so you have all this insider info - how did you use it?
Jumpman Lane: well its just stuff they told me like i know the busness model for slcamz
Jumpman Lane: i write stories in my magazine when it suits me
Jumpman Lane: i reveal it to get back at my enemies
Jumpman Lane: consider this and this is accordin to that eros bunch
Jumpman Lane: 1. i wrecked chelsea malibu's deal wiht the real life jenna jameson club jenna and buried mountainmeister llc
Jumpman Lane: 2. wrecked vegas so stroker couldnt sell it like amsterdamn
Jumpman Lane: 3. cawsed him to have to settle eros vs linden research for a promise and n moies and ll's lawyers bills
Jumpman Lane: 4.stroker is suicidal, quit sl, called me the kang lol musta hurt some
Jumpman Lane: and thats what THEY say so i reckon im effective

Jumpsman: "we have attacked our enemies by every means in any venue"

Pixeleen Mistral: so this has been going on for a long time - like the Stroker vs. LL lawsuit is old news
Jumpman Lane: old news to some lmao

Pixeleen Mistral: well - to you and me - but my readers don't know all the backstory
Jumpman Lane: technically u could say im a catspaw in the briggi vs. stroker war because ive defitly joined their cause so even longer

Pixeleen Mistral: but this has been more than some stories in your magazine
Jumpman Lane: hell though in not supposed to sat so im even seting the record straight on some class of 2003 drama that happened long before any of us ever heard of second life
Jumpman Lane: oh this is lush the new edtrix of my magazine
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: hello ㋡

Pixeleen Mistral: hi!
Jumpman Lane: more well we have attacked our enemies by every means in any venue lol

Pixeleen Mistral: like?
Jumpman Lane: twitter he prob wanted to committ suicide caws week before last stroker was threatening to caswe me up with a msdemenor charge of cyber stalking
Jumpman Lane: i pointed out to him that his peod antics on that tv show taboo might look bad to the fbi lol
Jumpman Lane: and so would his age play sex toy hump boy lame hehehe

Pixeleen Mistral: oh yeah - I remember the hump boy toy
Jumpman Lane: then he went quiet next i hear he's trying t hang his damn self or something
Jumpman Lane: yup
Jumpman Lane: hump boy waqs a godsend

Pixeleen Mistral: how so?
Jumpman Lane: ll taking it off xtreet helped to
Jumpman Lane: well it was removed for being an age play item
Jumpman Lane: can always say hey he's a pedo
Jumpman Lane: then he goes on taboo and they make him look like a perv
Jumpman Lane: try explaining all that away to some prosecutor never seen second life
Jumpman Lane: to them he's a sex offender and stroker knows it

Pixeleen Mistral: you have also been quite active in the comments on some web sites
Jumpman Lane: sure why not
Jumpman Lane: to the last ill graple wit them saps
Jumpman Lane: from hell's heart ill stab at em
Jumpman Lane: for hates sake spit my last breath at em
Jumpman Lane: they got my pal veronica2vixen devoix banned from second life

Pixeleen Mistral: how did they do that?
Jumpman Lane: former avastar reporter

Pixeleen Mistral: LL never bans people I dislike
Jumpman Lane: i unno cheergirl or her slag bimbo cheerleaders tricked her into repeating a secrect of cheergirls in world lol
Jumpman Lane: theyve banned plenty i dislike hehehe

Pixeleen Mistral: oh - then they ARed her?
Jumpman Lane: like these sappy furries named Poland used to piss me off as a noob
Jumpman Lane: rembeber them lush we bought mysti tools to fight em
Jumpman Lane: the good ol days
Jumpman Lane: yup they ARed her
Jumpman Lane: it was a douzy of a secrect
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: lololol..sure do, those were the days for sure
Jumpman Lane: im gonna reveal it in my book douchery thy name is serpentine
Jumpman Lane: hehehehehe

Pixeleen Mistral: but now Stroker is gone as far as I know
Jumpman Lane: Poland got banned

Jumpman: "The thing with Stroker is, he chose to put his rl identity out there, expose his children and whatnot"

Pixeleen Mistral: so what is next?
Jumpman Lane: thats the fall part
Jumpman Lane: it ain t over
Jumpman Lane: cheergirl has to be attended to

Pixeleen Mistral: no?
Jumpman Lane: then chelsea malibu
Jumpman Lane: then alfa winger
Jumpman Lane: then hard rust
Jumpman Lane: i aint never stopping
Jumpman Lane: and theres some class of 2003 saps im gonna bury for lady

Pixeleen Mistral: but isn't Stroker a special case? everyone knows his RL identity
Jumpman Lane: crap for somebody else
Jumpman Lane: then im gonna make me an army of noobs and take over all of second life

Pixeleen Mistral: these others are not known, are they?
Jumpman Lane: naw theres a few enemies my pals have that are as old and famous as stroker
Jumpman Lane: sure we promoted slut mag off his troubles and we're gonna promote pisxel x out of his and others people troubles

Pixeleen Mistral: and even if you don't know their real life names you can still go after their facebook and twitter
Jumpman Lane: pixel x magazine lol we changed the name like yall did
Jumpman Lane: i dont care about their real lives lol
Jumpman Lane: take the olbies like stroker they all disclose who they are anyways
Jumpman Lane: i never attacked stroker rl
Jumpman Lane: he just slipped up rl

Pixeleen Mistral: what do you think Stroker will do next?
Jumpman Lane: he let those taboo producers set him side by side with the biggest wierdos in the world
Jumpman Lane: do some time
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: The thing with Stroker is, he chose to put his rl identity out there, expose his children and whatnot
Jumpman Lane: i think he'll lurk back into second life
Jumpman Lane: try to case me up as a cyber stalker
Jumpman Lane: then im marching to the fbi
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: i doubt hed leave premanently
Jumpman Lane: exactlyt lush

Pixeleen Mistral: so you think you have evidence that the FBI will accept?
Jumpman Lane: we take that little surrender thing i quit im gona kill myself as looking for pity and virtual hugs
Jumpman Lane: i know the ins and out of the federal legal system
Jumpman Lane: belive it or not ive had a fine education hehehe
Jumpman Lane: federal prosecutors win 90% of their cases
Jumpman Lane: he'd take some kind ogf plea
Jumpman Lane: he's got enough to be charged
Jumpman Lane: and they dont need proof
Jumpman Lane: not beyond a resonable doubt just grand jury evidence for a sealed indictment
Jumpman Lane: or unsealed
Jumpman Lane: then he'd plead to some lesser pedo charge
Jumpman Lane: no more stroker
Jumpman Lane: if i were him i'd stop messing with me all together. quit sl so i can move on down our list of enemies

Pixeleen Mistral: the pedo thing is a very serious charge to make
Jumpman Lane: watch taboo its creepy
Jumpman Lane: in a way i do worry about his daughter
Jumpman Lane: i mean i dont cyber with my close friends in sl
Jumpman Lane: never with lush here for example
Jumpman Lane: i could t with people i refered to as family

Pixeleen Mistral: shouldn't the police have acted on that Taboo show already?
Jumpman Lane: and i cyber all the time
Jumpman Lane: how u know they didnt lmao
Jumpman Lane:
Jumpman Lane: how do you know they arent
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: :þ~~~~
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: ew, Jump :þ~~~~

Pixeleen Mistral: well - I don't know actually
Jumpman Lane: something sure spooked the man
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: be like banging my brother
Jumpman Lane: i know tight
Jumpman Lane: right

Pixeleen Mistral: how can anyone know?
Jumpman Lane: u cant until they unseal the indictment
Jumpman Lane: they do that usually after the plea
Jumpman Lane: the guilty plea

Jumpman: "facebook sucks i just mostly link spam facebook"

Pixeleen Mistral: I remember when you were fighting with Stroker before you said some things about his wife being on crack or something - that seemed to really set Stroker off
Jumpman Lane: put it to ya like this the world will known if his surrender is fake
Jumpman Lane: yeah
Jumpman Lane: they let slip she was in recovery or someth

Pixeleen Mistral: really?
Jumpman Lane: yup stroker said something along those lines in a forum
Jumpman Lane: and recently i called his son gay on twitter lol
Jumpman Lane: well it aint disclosure o nothing i dont think his son is gay
Jumpman Lane: and he disclosed the biut about his wife when he sent me a notecard demanding i retract the statments

Pixeleen Mistral: so it seems like part of how this works is you point out things like this about Stroker and his family and use twitter and facebook
Jumpman Lane: well u told me i couldnt cuss
Jumpman Lane: naw not facebook so muck

Pixeleen Mistral: mostly twitter?
Jumpman Lane: facebook sucks i just mostly link spam facebook lol
Jumpman Lane: well mostly slut magazine hehehe well pixel x magazine but twitter is fun
Jumpman Lane: see i learnt their limits when i tried to get some fake accounts they made of me there
Jumpman Lane: so i know how far to go in twitter

Pixeleen Mistral: it took you a long time to break Stroker though - like years
Jumpman Lane: same in sl i befriended lindens
Jumpman Lane: they let me know the boundaries
Jumpman Lane: vs. eros those boundaries widened a bit lol
Jumpman Lane: naw just since eros vs. linden research
Jumpman Lane: aint been that long lol

Pixeleen Mistral: so after the Eros lawsuit LL gave you more room to maneuver?
Jumpman Lane: hehehehehe plenty more room
Jumpman Lane: take the posts i did in the forums

Pixeleen Mistral: so what is next for you
Jumpman Lane: sl forums
Jumpman Lane: i used to get a three day suspension for calling some one a sap lol

Pixeleen Mistral: and now?
Jumpman Lane: now id get suspended for calling some one a sap too lol
Jumpman Lane: but then
Jumpman Lane: then he had their hands tied
Jumpman Lane: they couldnt discipline him or thyd seem vindictive
Jumpman Lane: they couldnt discipline me caws it wouldnt be fair

Pixeleen Mistral: so you could say pretty much anything
Jumpman Lane: so they called it all a personal dispute and all bets were off
Jumpman Lane: could and did
Jumpman Lane: he could make hump boy i could make effigies and we could defame each other
Jumpman Lane: i got a lil note
Jumpman Lane: play times over jumpy lol
Jumpman Lane: but in all fairness he got a pass too
Jumpman Lane: but he made himself look bad
Jumpman Lane: and the redgrave skin thing didnt help
Jumpman Lane: jewels ur standing on my stuffed head of stroker serpentine heheheh

Pixeleen Mistral: hi jewels!
Jewels Cassell: xD
Jumpman Lane: this is jewels a photog of pixel x and stuiff
Jewels Cassell: sorry, lushys limo driver kicked me onto an odd place!
Jewels Cassell: Hello everyone
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: :þ~~~~
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: I wanted you to ride Stroker's stuffed face :þ~~~~

Pixeleen Mistral: so how do you think this makes you look?
Jumpman Lane: hi his is pix edits the alphaville herald
Jewels Cassell: I figured lol
Jumpman Lane: look what lmao
Jumpman Lane: ive been like this since day one
Jumpman Lane: im pals with my pals and will bury my enemies and their enemies too
Jumpman Lane: everyone else better just stay out of my way
Jumpman Lane: see im rakin muck here
Jumpman Lane: like citizen lane
Jumpman Lane: some will love me soome will hate me i dont care either way
Jumpman Lane: but if ur my pal weell go all or nothing against the world

Pixeleen Mistral: I think you said recently that you are the Kang of SL
Jumpman Lane: stroker said i was too

Pixeleen Mistral: maybe that is the title I should use
Jumpman Lane: its like the criminal rating u recieve in grand theft auto san andreas
Jumpman Lane: look at my sl
Jumpman Lane: darling of linden lab

Pixeleen Mistral: Jumpman Lane - the Kang of SL
Jumpman Lane: juro kothari custom home lol
Jumpman Lane: yup i sppelt em all out on my blog lol

Pixeleen Mistral: ok - well thanks for talking
Jumpman Lane: from noob through fic to lil carducci man of power aqlla way up to king of second life lol
Jumpman Lane: np

Pixeleen Mistral: I'm getting paged in real life
Jumpman Lane: have a good one lol
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: nice to have met you
Lusciouslumpchunks McMillan: ㋡

Pixeleen Mistral: thanks again jumpman - its been real

The first indication I would be playing another round of Second Life as a real life alternative reality game came a few hours before the SLCC 2011 panel discussion on Avatar Identity: Privacy and Transparency in Social Media.

I was eating lunch, sitting next to Brent Baum and comparing notes on the SLCC experience. I'll have much more to say about Brent's surprising adventures soon - his impressive background in the entertainment business and abruptly terminated one year tenure in SL provide a fascinating perspective on Second Life. Our conversation was interrupted by news that there was a change in plans for the Avatar Identity panel discussion. Apparently the conference organizers had yielded to pressure by a party who they would not name. The panel discussion would not be streamed into Second Life as originally planned and there were issues with my biography, although it had been published at the SLCC site weeks ago.

Oh noes! More bad luck for the long-suffering SL players!!! Maybe Second Life isn't very good for attending meetings after all. Is this why Rod Humble can't seem to significantly improve player concurrency?

The bearer of bad tidings consoled me with the promise that the session would be taped and posted sometime after the conference. Last week, the discussion deemed potentially too controversial to air live in SL was made available here. 

Before I go on, I'd like to thank the conference organizers for running an interesting event overall. I'd like to think that despite the slightly surreal drama, the panel discussion is an example of how to make the SLCC a bit more than a fanboy convention. At the same time, I sincerely hope the SLCC leadership will take steps to insulate themselves from the pressure to produce a hopelessly gimped pablum program unable to discuss the real issues and concerns of the SL community for fear of controversy or offending the game gods. For starters, perhaps a blanket disclaimer stating any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the organizers is in order. 

Last minute revisions to the SLCC program

While the panel discussion spanned everything from google-bombing internet kooks, the notorious Evangeline from TSO, avatar identities, pseudonyms, brands, and business opportunities for enhanced online privacy, I didn't think to mention the need for secrecy for those filing complaints about speaker biographies during the discussion. I'll know better next time.

Despite publishing verbatim the biography I sent on the SLCC web site weeks earlier, by the day of the conference panel, a badly nerfed version was on display at the site. It also seemed that pages 25 and 26 had been cut out of the printed conference programs by hand, and an unbound page with a revised version of the nerfed pages inserted. How much did that cost?

What sort of horrific typo - or threat - could have led to the bowdlerization re-working of the conference program at the last minute? Here is my bio as originally posted:

Pixeleen Mistral is the managing editor of the Alphaville Herald (http://alphavilleherald.com/), where she covers online culture and governance, griefing, vigilantes, and hactivism. Ms. Mistral began writing for the Herald sports desk in 2006 and became managing editor late that year.

Pixeleen's real life typist has been involved in developing Internet technologies for over 20 years, including early e-mail clients, Internet Gopher - one of the first popular Internet information systems, the IETF standard for URLs, and Croquet - an open-source peer-to-peer virtual world. In February of 2010, Mark McCahill sacrificed his Pixeleen Mistral pseudonym to fight an outrageous takedown notice filed by 'Justice League Unlimited' vigilante Kalel Venkman - a move that thwarted Venkman's abuse of the DMCA process to remove Herald coverage of his gang's massive Second Life player surveillance database.

and here is the last-minute revision to my bio:

Pixeleen Mistral is the managing editor of the Alphaville Herald (http://alphavilleherald.com/), where she covers online culture and governance, griefing, vigilantes, and hactivism. Ms. Mistral began writing for the Herald sports desk in 2006 and became managing editor late that year.

Pixeleen's real life typist has been involved in developing Internet technologies for over 20 years, including early e-mail clients, Internet Gopher - one of the first popular Internet information systems, the IETF standard for URLs, and Croquet - an open-source peer-to-peer virtual world.
   

snip snip snip - someone had to cut page 25/26 out of each copy of the printed program

an unbound replacement page was inserted into the program for the missing pages 25 and 26

Has the JLU's game leveled up to more RL harassment?

Normally, I'd let this sort Internet ankle-biter harassment slide, but after the latest series of leaks from Kalel Venkman's JLU wiki, I'm starting to think the role-play super hero group is having an increasingly difficult time restraining their child-like excitement and are unable to keep the gameplay - or is it harassment? - inside Second Life. 

If we can believe the leaks the have emerged from the Justice League Unlimited's wiki over the last few weeks, it seems Kalel and the gang have been trolling Linden Lab's PR honcho Pete Linden with off-the-record chats, hoping to build a case that the Herald is a menace to Second Life society. To date, my attempts to solicit comment from Pete Linden on the matter have been met with silence - even after I sweetened the pot and offered Pete the opportunity to pose for the Herald's Post-6 feature. I assume Pete is still skin shopping and will let me know when he is ready.

Is JLU grooming Linden Lab public relations lead Pete Linden?

Second Life - where self-described "psychotic superhero bullies" ponder stalking your real life

Even stranger is news that Venkman's online militia was discussing contacting my workplace back in April with claims that I violated copyright laws in the Herald coverage of the JLU activities. As far as I know, the role play superheros never followed up on that discussion, or if they did the claims were greeted with a swift and well-deserved trip to the trash bin. 

This is just as well. The cognitive dissonance in the JLU players faux-copyright complaints are overwhelming. Last year - apparently ignorant of the copyright law fair use doctrine - JLU leader Kalel Venkman launched a Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown against the Herald, but then failed to followup and file an actual copyright infringement complaint after he was given my real life contact information. In light of this I'm a bit surprised that Kalel's group wants to even discuss playing the copyright card again. Kalel Venkman has refused to respond to repeated attempts to contact him for an on-the-record conversation about these matters. The un-censored copy of the alleged leak I was provided with is a real eye-opener.

[17:35] Samantha Lowell: I can have a draft of a polite, oh so sweet letter of
concern to Duke as soon as possible
[17:36] GreenLantern Excelsior: Duke?
[17:36] Melanippe Karas: I thought we'd settled the idea of writing to Duke weeks
ago.
[17:36] Samantha Lowell: I thought we could write the adjunct in question,
explain that Alphavillle Hertald is using his name and asking if this is true
[17:36] Samantha Lowell: "Thank you so much for your time," etc etc
[17:36] Samantha Lowell: Very poite, brief and genteel
[17:37] Jeremiah Pintens: TD here is lower than I am used to
[17:37] Kalel Venkman: It would settle the issue - or give us ammunition, one of
the two.
[17:37] Samantha Lowell: Amen
[17:37] Kara Timtam: Or he could lie through his teeth
[17:37] Samantha Lowell: And , if it's NOT true, it would set him against Ludlow
[17:37] Kalel Venkman: If he lies, then we can take that letter and post it.
[17:37] BilliAnn Bravin: Either way sounds useful, though there is that.
[17:37] Samantha Lowell: Believe me, nobody does childish cat fighting like
academics
[17:37] Jeremiah Pintens: *laughs*
[17:37] Kalel Venkman: If it's the truth, then we can escalate to his employers.
[17:37] BilliAnn Bravin: Hee hee
[17:37] BilliAnn Bravin: They are terrible.
[17:38] Samantha Lowell: Amen, billi
[17:38] Kara Timtam: But busting a whopper like that could be important,
certainly if that guy has indeed been spoofed
[17:38] Kalel Venkman: One way or the other, it's ammunition.
[17:38] Melanippe Karas: Yes.
[17:38] Kalel Venkman: And we can use it.
[17:38] Kalel Venkman: No matter what he says.
[17:38] Samantha Lowell: I finished the textures for the poster vendor. I'd like
to set up my mini photo studio on the top floor of the adventurer's club, if it's
okay
[17:38] Kalel Venkman: And telling us nothing is nearly as useful, especially if
we send it registered mail.
[17:39] Samantha Lowell: Return receipt
[17:39] Kalel Venkman: Exactly.
[17:39] Melanippe Karas: Good idea.
[17:39] Kalel Venkman: We could actually get some mileage out of this.
[17:39] BilliAnn Bravin: Yes.
[17:39] Samantha Lowell: I need you to email me the full name, I believe I have
the correct address
[17:39] Jeremiah Pintens: I've a question actually - not related to the
discussion at hand
[17:39] Samantha Lowell: Send a copy to his dean , mayhap?
[17:40] Kalel Venkman: Michael P. McCahill. It should be send to the IT
department at Duke, which is where he works as a contracting consultant.
[17:40] Kalel Venkman: Sorry - that's Mark P. McCahill.
[17:40] Kalel Venkman: Sending a copy to the head of Duke University IT would
probably be a good idea too.
[17:40] Samantha Lowell: Yes indeed
[17:41] BilliAnn Bravin: Oh yes.
[17:41] Kara Timtam: Include full documentation of the URL's where the claim of
identity is made.
[17:41] Kalel Venkman: He's left a thread dangling in easy reach. Let's pull on
it and see what unravels.
[17:41] Kara Timtam: Herald and Wikipeda
[17:41] Samantha Lowell: "I thought you should be apprised of this, given the
fact that the staff and contributors of the Herald have violated the DMCA and
copyright laws of the US on several occasions, etc etc..."
[17:41] Melanippe Karas: Psychotic superhero bullies for the win!
[17:41] Melanippe KarasMelanippe Karas grins ironically
 

Who could have imagined that Second Life would morph into a long-running real life augmented reality game so easily? How large is the market for cartoon stalkers playing dirty tricks on those they dislike in the name of justice unlimited? Linden Lab might want to carefully consider what sort of picture this paints to the general public if they hope to grow their online community.

by Robble Rubble

[In Robble Rubble's exclusive interview with Artemis Fate, Ms. Fate - a respected class-of-2003 resident - points out that the Justice League Unlimited and similar anti-griefer vigilante groups are superfluous and attract exactly the sort of behaviors they claim to fight. She goes on to ask Linden Lab for a statement on exactly what is fair game for the vigilante groups and what should be off limits. - the Editrix]

Artemis Fate

Robble Rubble: So you've been on the grid a long time, can I ask what brought you to Second Life?
Artemis Fate: I used to be on Active worlds a little bit, I had came across it in the summer of 2003, but it was pretty rough then and I looked over it. Decided to try it in October of the same year and ended up getting really into it. Been around ever since.

Robble Rubble: Very nice, that's a long history on the grid. Can you give some insight into it? What sort of things do you spend time doing? What projects do you work on? What's your biggest accomplishments or even failures? Do you like long walks on the beach?
Artemis Fate: Insight into the history of the grid? It's changed rapidly while at the same time staying much the same. I used to be a builder, but I haven't done much in a while, due to moving from college into the 9-5 work world. My main project has been Nexus Prime, which has been on hold for a while, but there's some stuff in the works now that mesh is around. And sure, why not.

Robble Rubble: So it's safe to assume you are familiar with the recent controversy about the Justice League Unlimited?
Artemis Fate: And the two before that.

Artemis Fate believes the JLU has violated the spirit of the ToS

Robble Rubble: Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, can you tell me about your first awareness of the JLU? How did you hear about these people?
Artemis Fate: One of them came into Nexus Prime on a call, I'm not sure if someone had a communicator or if they were just patrolling. Nikola Shirakawa, who was a Green Lantern at the time.

Robble Rubble: Was this a positive or negative experience for you?
Artemis Fate: Largely negative, I didn't need an outside group using shields and other scripted tools to handle attacks when I could use sim tools. I ended up having to force her out of the sim since she was surprised that I wouldn't want their help. Afterwards Kalel Venkman IMed me saying much of the same and pointing out rather absurdly that the sim would be unprotected without their help. I asked them to not come around here, and apparently they did add Nexus Prime to their list of sims "not to patrol".

Robble Rubble: What sort of words would you use to describe the Justice League Unlimited and their practices?
Artemis Fate: I'd describe the Justice League itself as unnecessary, and their practices as overzealous.

Robble Rubble: That's a lot less four letter words than I would use.

Robble Rubble: Were there any other interactions with the JLU in Nexis Prime?
Artemis Fate: I'm sure they're generally good people on their own, and that they have good intentions, but together they're going overboard.
Artemis Fate: After that first one I never heard about them in Nexus Prime again, so I'm assuming they kept to their word.

Robble Rubble: What is it that caused you to to get involved in the recent discussions about the Justice League Unlimited on the SLUniverse and Second Citizen MKII boards?
Artemis Fate: The presence of a wiki had been something that was rumored about them the first I heard about them, it was interesting to see proof of it after the first leak, and how it evolved after every leak after that.

Robble Rubble: Have you ever felt you were a target of the JLU? Have you been contacted in world by any of the JLU members since the recent public backlash over the latest round of brainiac wiki leaks?
Artemis Fate: If I ever was, I was never aware of it. They don't have an article for me as far as I know, only a few mentions here and there.

Robble Rubble: What do you think will be accomplished by bringing this issue to the public?
Artemis Fate: I simply would want LL to make an official statement regarding the operation of anti-griefer groups in SL, what they can do, what they can't do.

Robble Rubble: I see that you have Greenlantern Excelsior to task on numerous occasions, what is your opinion on GLE's quality of damage control?
Artemis Fate: Poor.

Robble Rubble: heh

Robble Rubble: Do you think GLE's apologies are credible or are nothing more than that of an apology due to being caught, similar to what happened when Zenmondo was caught in the thread?
Artemis Fate: I don't think I've seen GLE apologize for anything.

Robble Rubble: He does seem adept at wiggling out of that.
Artemis Fate: At most, I've seen him say he regretted the comment regarding sending Nebula a threatening e-mail. [:0]

Robble Rubble: Do you have any questions you have or would have asked the JLU that remain unanswered, and if so would you care to share them with me? Any thoughts on why Kalel has refused to respond to most accusations himself?
Artemis Fate: The most obvious one would be why some of this information is necessary, and why measures haven't been taken to review and verify information put in the wiki for accuracy and necessity.
Artemis Fate: As for Kalel, I don't know. I haven't talked to him much outside of that one contact so many years ago, he seems paranoid and used to being in control now. I imagine it's a bit like Joseph McCarthy, who GLE seems to like so much, who was afraid to bring Charlie Chaplin to stand, knowing he'd lampoon him, so he revoked his right to re-enter the US when he was out of the country.
Artemis Fate: And if there's one thing serious men like that can't stand, it's being made fun of.

Robble Rubble: He does get his tights in a bunch over the smallest things.
Artemis Fate: That does seem to be the case.

Robble Rubble: So do you think the Justice League Unlimited have done anything to violate the Second Life terms of service or the community standards? Because at the end of the day, while people are screaming about ethical dilemnas, legal threats, letters to daytime television hosts and FBI investigations, do you think there is even a chance of making Linden Lab take action?
Artemis Fate: In terms of the letter of the ToS? I'm not sure. In terms of the spirit? Definitely. As per whether Linden Lab would take action, keep in mind that alt-detection and IP grabbing were not necessarily against the ToS until they were made so due to the community outrage.

Robble Rubble: Do you think that JLU members linking to their KryptonRadio blog while simultaniously ARing and getting people removed from search for posting links to blogs critical of them demonstrates any sort of bias that the Lab has in their favor?
Artemis Fate: No, I don't think so. From the evidence I've seen, they once were able to sway more than a few lindens to their cause, but that day seems to have passed, now they talk about in their meetings that none of the Lindens will pay attention to them.

Robble Rubble: In the SLU thread you were talking about an experiment with an alt, Night Sun, could you tell me about that?
Artemis Fate: That was around the same time as the last leak. People were claiming that the JLU was ARing them for being critical of the group. I decided to test out the theory myself using an old alt I had made but never used. I made a sign that was critical of the JLU but not violating any part of the ToS. I actually had a discussion with GLE through the alt and he agreed that it wasn't against the ToS (this didn't stop him from ARing it however). Then I basically sat around and waited to see what would happen.

Robble Rubble: What ended up happening?
Artemis Fate: I got suspended for disclosure. I decided to try again, this time changing the sign from a link to the leaked wiki to a Herald article chosen for no disclosing material. I got suspended again for Disclosure after that. So I removed links to anything in general, and left just the sign. I was suspended for defamation at that point.

Artemis Fate: "Linden Lab has been a mystery in their actions"

Robble Rubble: So what are your thoughts on JLU members linking their KryptonRadio blog in world, a blog that often discloses the RL names of their critics and is full of articles that seem to be written with the intention of grandstanding and defaming their critics?
Artemis Fate: Well, the disclosure suspensions were referenced to linking to the wiki. I think if LL is doing suspensions for material hosted outside of SL, that's a pretty grey area. I don't think people should be suspended for what they say outside of SL, but at the same time I can understand the problems with having a link to a site in world that's full of readily available disclosing information. All in all, I think that the Linden who suspended for it was wrong, not that it was wrong to link that site in world.

Robble Rubble: Do you think that the recent calls of people to contact outside intervention (FBI, Scotland Yard, Ellen lol) will have any effect without Linden Lab taking direct action?
Artemis Fate: I think any outside authority besides Linden Lab would and should disregard it entirely. On the scale of utter travesties of justice that require their attention, this is extremely low ranking (Even for Ellen).

Robble Rubble: Do you have any recomendations on how people can get Linden Lab to take action?
Artemis Fate: I really don't, in all this time Linden Lab has been a mystery in their actions. Sometimes they let things slide, and other times they crack down hard. I do think, however, that they are very aware of this, and have probably already thought out what actions they might or might not take and how it would effect the community and their ToS.

Robble Rubble: What do you think about the fact that a common red herring to many of the criticisms that are posed to the JLU are that they come from people they consider to be "griefers"? And in that light if the fact that many former members of Woodbury, W-hat or members of The Wrong Hands, openly admit to many of the wrongs they have done in the past, do you think that those people's criticisms of the behavior of the Justice League Unlimited should be discarded simply because they were or are admitted griefers?
Artemis Fate: I think no one's point should be disregarded because of their background, if they can make a good point.

Robble Rubble: Some argue that the behavior of the JLU actually creates more griefers on the grid than they prevent due to the collateral damage of innocents being considered guilty by association, getting banned, then returning to the grid as griefers when they previously would not have done so had it not been for the JLU action. What do you think of this theory?
Artemis Fate: I think the JLU make for amusing targets for griefers, which in itself keeps ones around who would otherwise get bored. I know that a lot of the people in Woodbury and otherwise didn't really grief either, but just were involved in a group that was known for it, and they got caught up in a ban for that too. I have no idea if that kind of collateral damage theory is true, but it sounds reasonable.

Robble Rubble: Artemis, I thank you for your time, but before you go. What are your predictions about how this will ultimately end?
Artemis Fate: I honestly couldn't say, during the Emerald fiasco, I was thinking LL would let it slide again, like they had so many times before. Instead they cracked down on the viewer hard and took it apart in a matter of a week or two. For this, I don't know. I'm hoping at the very least they'll make a statement regarding it.

I've known Cheergirl Allen for years, but never thought of her as particularly active in the Second Life political scene. However, that changed recently - a development that cannot be good news for Kalel Venkman and his Justice League Unlimited faction. Cheergirl's organizational skills and connections have never been in question. She leads the Bimbo Cheerleaders, a very successful 2000 member community, sells an extensive line of cheerleader uniforms, and is representative of the SL-is-for-fun contingent of Second Life players. 

Kalel Venkman, on the other hand, leads the Justice League Unlimited, a 40-odd member group that since 2006 has been dedicated to compiling a secret database of dossiers on Second Life players his group believes are troublemakers and subjecting these players to various forms of harassment. Unfortunately, the JLU is congenitally unable to secure their wiki, and yet another security breach led to more damaging revelations of the JLU group's actions over the last few weeks.

Several players have been redacting personal information from the leaked wiki and publishing excerpts at http://trollmanual.com/wiki/2011_JLU_Leak and http://thelistsl.blogspot.com/. It is not pretty reading.

It seems the JLU delights in thwarting their enemies with group abuse report parties, black ops, faked chat logs, wildly inaccurate characterizations of players, and other questionable behavior such as the ghoulish stalking of a dieing AIDS patient, gloating over an ex-JLU member's suicide, and hiding behind a pseudonym while contacting real life schools/workplaces in attempts to stir up trouble for JLU enemies.

If you were designing a game called Dystopian Surveillance Life, including the JLU would be at the top of the list of game features.

TJ Linden, Cheergirl Allen, and other players inspect JLU leader Venkman's hidden spy prims

Understandably, as word of the JLU's actions spread it seems most SL players would prefer to see the JLU gone and wonder why Linden Lab continues to tolerate them. This is the genesis of an unlikely coalition formed to expose and remove the JLU from Second Life. The anti-JLU coalition includes self-confessed griefers, respected long time players such as Artemis Fate, and now Cheergirl Allen. 

Those following the conflict agree the JLU has suffered several damaging blows from the pink-clad pom-pom pep squad leader - and the JLU has characteristically responded in kind.

The first blow came when Cheergirl discovered a well-hidden unauthorized spy-prim owned by Kalel Venkman on her land, filed an abuse report against Kalel Venkman, and then watched as TJ Linden investigated and removed Venkman's surveillance device.

News of the spy prim incident sent the incredible virtual man - Prokofy Neva - into overdrive on the SLUniverse forums as Neva's self-replicating impenetrable walls of text formed a sort of profane gray goo leading forum participants to complain that Prokofy was "shitting up the thread".

almost undetectable spy probes owned by Kalel Venkman

Many believed that Neva was acting on behalf of the JLU faction and working to derail any sort of rational discussion after JLU member GreenLantern Excelsior had been suspended from the forums. Ultimately the SLUniverse forum moderator kicked Neva from the forum as well, and the discussion moved forward in a new thread.

We can assume that Prokofy will add this to his list of accomplishments. Like most griefers, Neva is known for bragging about the number of bans he has pulled down.

But the drama was far from over. As Artemis Fate has observed, the JLU love to create enemies so that they have something to do. 

"...both groups (JLU/Various griefers) feed off each other. The griefers find the JLU a far too amusing target to grief, and the JLU need griefers to validate their need for power. You can tell that people like GLE, if they didn't have this, they'd have nothing, he's in like 3 different anti-griefing groups and is a volunteer cop, that is his life, and therefore he's invested in keeping griefing happening. Probably why their definition of "griefer" is so loose to include anyone who criticizes their group, so that they never run out of targets..."

- Artemis Fate in the SLUniverse forums

Criticizing the thin-skinned superhero group is enough to be named a griefer, which I discovered when I looked up Herald founder Urizenus Sklar's JLU profile page. Those interested in seeing JLU incident profile pages can look them up at http://bizarro.nexisonline.net/profile/ 

By not only criticizing the JLU, but also abuse reporting Kalel Venkman for his spy prims, Cheergirl was the obvious next target for the JLU.

JLU claims Cheergirl is responsible for security breach

The JLU response to Cheergirl came in the form of an update to their KryptonRadio blog that claimed Cheergirl was responsible for the latest leak of their secret wiki. 

Was the information actually leaked by a disgruntled JLU member as they claim?

We had originally thought that the information was stolen from our systems by a hacker, who managed to compromise the account of a (now former) JLU member , which was then used to steal the connection credentials necessary to breach our database. Linden Lab notified us that a member account was breached, and that they had detected spyware placed by that account in our in-world headquarters. The chat spy devices (there were two) were active between August 3, 2011, when they was placed, and August 18, when they were removed (about fifteen days).

We now know that an alt of Cheergirl Allen, a Wrong Hands sympathizer, had managed to sneak a mole account into the League and had ready access to the BrainiacWiki over the span of about three month’s time. Our records indicate that this account was shared with others who had no legitimate right of access – once again, the content was not “liberated”, or “reported”, but simply stolen. Much of the information being “leaked” has been heavily modified from the original, and much has been simply fabricated from whole cloth. Enough of it matches what we have, though, to show us that a major break-in and theft has occurred.

Linden Lab did not violate anyone’s privacy in notifying us of this. The spyware detected was transmitting chat and other information to a server that LL has been monitoring relative to activity by previously banned griefers who were using alts to bypass their bans.

- http://kryptonradio.com/2011/08/31/truth-and-lies-the-league-response/#more-3091

As is traditional with the JLU, evidence-based assertions are hard to come by, and Cheergirl filed a support ticket with Linden Lab:

__________________________________________________ ___________________
Date Created 2011-09-09 16:19:47
Case Type Other Inworld Issues
Case Status Closed
Dear Linden,

It was brought to my attention today that an Avatar named Kalel Venkman has publicly stated on his website Krypton Radio that Linden Lab had informed him my SL account (CheerGirl Allen) was compromised by some other person in his group and used for mallicious Hacking Activities. As you can see for yourself here:
Truth and Lies – the League Response | KRYPTON RADIO
Also please see attached Photos and URL's supplied by various SL residents.

I would like to know if there is any truth to his claims that someone at Linden Lab told him my account had been used by someone else for hacking the website mentioned above. If so can you please tell me who it was that told Kalel Venkman this, as well who is the avatar that Hijacked my accout.

It goes with out saying I have no part in Internet hacking into websites and rumors that Linden Lab is passing this person personal and private information about my account is very troubbling to me, my SL friends, groups and Business.
TYVM for your time

CG

The Lindens eventually responded, saying there was no sign of trouble on Cheergirl's account, that the Lab does not  disclose account status to other players, and suggested contacting the KryptonRadio site's hosting company might be in order. 

2011-09-11 03:26:02

***** Linden
Hello CheerGirl Allen,
I don't see any signs of any governance activity on your account this year at all, and we never provide any personal information to other users, even the status of governance actions (in other words, even if someone puts in an abuse report on you, we will not comment on the status of the report). Since we cannot affect any websites not under our control, you may want to contact the hosting company for this site to ask them to take action on it.
Regards,
***** Linden, Concierge Support
 

Meanwhile, further leaks show that the JLU was apparently planning an abuse report party in advance of an in-world player meeting last week. Apparently freedom of assembly is not something that the JLU believes in - but guilt by association is a concept the JLU is fine with.

No wonder Second Life concurrency keeps dropping.

JLU preparing in advance for an AR party?

What about Linden Lab?

The JLU's claims on the KryptonRadio site that Cheergirl is behind the compromise of their less-than secure wiki might be fabrications on the part of the JLU - if we can believe Linden Concierge support's response to Cheergirl.

Another possibility is that one or more Linden Lab staff are passing information on the the JLU - perhaps without the knowledge of Concierge support. This sort of situation - Lab staff getting very cozy with the JLU - is believed to have occurred in the past based on a previous set of JLU wiki leaks.

The most recent leaks include claims that Kalel Venkman has insider connections - a family friend who is a Linden staff member. Would this account for the Lab's inaction on the JLU issue - or is Kalel spinning fictions to enhance his position within the group?

It is hard to see how anything good for Linden Lab can come from this situation.

The anti-JLU faction is unlikely to go away anytime soon, and the image of the JLU as a creepy cult-like group that escalates harassment of Second Life players far beyond the game will be impossible to overcome. The JLU's PR nightmare has already cost the JLU several members who quit once the wiki leaks became public. How long until Linden inaction turns this into a Linden Lab PR nightmare?

This evening I chatted with JLU spokesman Green Lantern Excelsior hoping to discover why Kalel Venkman has been unwilling to discuss the JLU's Brainiac wiki leak situation in anything other than heavily moderated forums. While Green Lantern could only speculate on Kalel's motivations, he did tell me that all "private information" has been removed from the Brainiac wiki - although it will apparently be impossible to verify this - and there are those who would take issue with the JLU's definition of "private".

At this point, Green Lantern seems resigned to an ongoing conflict and told me "There's nothing we could do to convince people that the group has changed. Some folks would never believe that, no matter what evidence was presented. They just want us gone."

However, even in the worst case - a permaban for the JLU members - it seems that there could be a home from Mr. Lantern should he decide to return on an alt account and he volunteered that his first choice in land rentals would be Prokofy Neva's Ravensglass properties.

Somehow, I was not surprised.

Pixeleen Mistral: So Green Lantern - it seems like the JLU continues to be a target on SLUniverse
GreenLantern Excelsior: Yeah it's kind of obsessive over there

Pixeleen Mistral: but you guys are not backing down from what I can see
GreenLantern Excelsior: All of the private information was removed from the wiki. I suppose you could call that "backing down."

Pixeleen Mistral: Some of the SL residents might not believe that the private information has been removed though - is there any way to satisfy them?
GreenLantern Excelsior: Not that I know of. Maybe one of the master hackers can find it again and break in.

Pixeleen Mistral: it might work if there was a disinterested third party that was given complete access - but I am not sure who would be a disinterested third party
Pixeleen Mistral: so why did you guys remove the private information? did LL tell you to?
GreenLantern Excelsior: I can't really talk about that.

Pixeleen Mistral: ok
GreenLantern Excelsior: Different members had different ideas about whether it should be stored or not. I know some of us are happy that it's gone.

Pixeleen Mistral: my impression - and this is based on reading some of the leaks and watching the JLU membership fall - is that there has been some spirited discussion about keeping private information in your wiki
Pixeleen Mistral: at the same time I wonder if you can salvage your group's image
GreenLantern Excelsior: Some special interest groups are making a fuss over this. But SL Universe is not everyone on the grid.

Pixeleen Mistral: the factions you guys have been fighting for the last few years have pretty much nothing to lose at this point, so I would not expect them to be easily mollified
GreenLantern Excelsior: There's nothing we could do to convince people that the group has changed. Some folks would never believe that, no matter what evidence was presented. They just want us gone.

Pixeleen Mistral: well - if you get banned you could always come back on alts - I've seen that done before
GreenLantern Excelsior: Yeah! I could go live at Ravenglass maybe.

Pixeleen Mistral: I wouldn't recommend it
Pixeleen Mistral: I hear the landlord there is a real pain
GreenLantern Excelsior: From some of the posts I'm seeing on SLU, I'm thinking the landlord might be friendly
Pixeleen Mistral: good point

Pixeleen Mistral: are you concerned that this SLUniverse controversy might affect your relationship with Linden Lab?
GreenLantern Excelsior: That does worry me a little. They are making a lot of noise on Facebook and Twitter, hoping that LL will notice. Luckily it takes more than noise.
GreenLantern Excelsior: They are looking for any place to input their complaints. Unfortunately the only evidence they have was obtained by illegal methods so they will be in big trouble if they present it.

Pixeleen Mistral: you guys have not done anything illegal though?
GreenLantern Excelsior: I wouldn't say so. We saved the results of Google searches on a private website. I've always thought we should have had links to where we found the information, just to assure everyone that it wasn't obtained by going through people's garbage can or something.

Pixeleen Mistral: ok - so not illegal - but what about moral? I think a lot of the outrage I am seeing at SLUniverse is centered on things that offend people
GreenLantern Excelsior: Many of those people are offended that we patrol sandboxes without having a Linden Lab employee ID card.

Pixeleen Mistral: for instance - the thing about contacting C0d3c's family when he was in the final stages of AIDS - Deadly C0d3c had made arrangements well in advance for his friends to be contacted by his family - I know this because he told me about it
Pixeleen Mistral: I don't think you appreciate the level of outrage that you guys created with that stunt
GreenLantern Excelsior: I didn't know that. I looked at his sister's Facebook page, and contacting her was basically a spur of the moment thought on my part. I didn't do it on behalf of JLU and I didn't tell her my relationship to Deadly other than he was a friend. People who want to make that into an evil JLU revenge stunt are sick puppies IMHO.

Pixeleen Mistral: well - all I can tell you is that C0d3c made prior arrangements so that those he considered his friends would be notified
GreenLantern Excelsior: Okay. His sister did let me know via Facebook when he passed away. I expressed my regret and that's the last time I spoke to her.

Pixeleen Mistral: One thing I don't understand is why Kalel is not speaking up about all this
Pixeleen Mistral: I mean the JLU is taking a beating in at least some forums and Kalel is not speaking out. What is Kalel afraid of?
GreenLantern Excelsior: I don't know the exact motivation there. I suppose one idea is that people will lose interest sooner or later. I tried reasoning with the SLU folks and you saw where it got me. Nothing any of us could say will convince them that we aren't an evil menace to Second Life.
GreenLantern Excelsior: Maybe convincing them isn't high on some people's priority list.

Pixeleen Mistral: that could be a big part of the JLU's PR problem - Kalel is giving the impression that he is better than the rank and file SL players
Pixeleen Mistral: so he doesn't really care what they think - because he feels he is one of the best and brightest or something - that is not going to go over well
GreenLantern Excelsior: I wouldn't put it that way

Pixeleen Mistral: I'm just telling you how it appears
GreenLantern Excelsior: Maybe he doesn't feel like saying "Here I am, a giant easy to hit target, and I'm here so all the SLU members can throw knives at me." I felt like that for a while. That's another reason I'm not going back there, because it's impossible to reason with unreasonable people, and those are some of the most unreasonable I've met.
GreenLantern Excelsior: For example, I was suspended for showing real life details for someone who doesn't have a real life any more. Now we have Fred Rookstown revealing RL information but that's just fine. Also, someone linked to a blog where one of the pro-JLU folks says he may soon be homeless in RL.

Pixeleen Mistral: Maybe the problem is that when someone like Cheergirl Allen finds Kalel's spy prims hidden undergound on a sim where they were not authorized to be - and Kalel doesn't respond - it comes off like arrogance
Pixeleen Mistral: I never though I would see the day when a cheerleader would take on the super heroes - and the leader of the super heroes would not be brave enough to step up and explain himself
GreenLantern Excelsior: Cheergirl found a remote probe for a Thomas Conover sim radar that we were using to monitor that sim for problems as authorized by the Antiquity leadership. The probe hides itself underground by design. Obviously at the time it was rezzed, Kalel had build permissions there. They're trying as hard as they can to make that into something underhanded but they are failing at it.

Pixeleen Mistral: this just makes the JLU look weak and sneaky - you guys ought to rethink your approach - and Kalel ought to stop hiding behind you
Pixeleen Mistral: from what I am told Kalel was not authorized to put that probe in that sim
GreenLantern Excelsior: I heard different

Pixeleen Mistral: maybe Kalel should step up and explain why it was actually OK
Pixeleen Mistral: seriously GLE - this Kalel in the shadows thing makes you guys look even more creepy
GreenLantern Excelsior: He did talk about it, just not on SLU or the Herald: http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts///spy-vs-spy-kalel-venkman-replies-to-query-about-cheergirls-allegations.html

Pixeleen Mistral: perhaps he should talk about it somewhere that does not moderate the comments so heavily so there could be a dialog - or is Kalel afraid of dialog?
GreenLantern Excelsior: Some people enjoy Arguing On The Internet. Others think their time is better spent elsewhere. There's no fear involved.

Pixeleen Mistral: great - then when can I have an interview with Kalel?
GreenLantern Excelsior: I don't know his schedule. Drop him a notecard and maybe he will respond.

Pixeleen Mistral: oh good - I must be off his mute list then
GreenLantern Excelsior: I didn't know he had you muted

Pixeleen Mistral: my advice - you guys need to get your leader out in public answering questions - and not on heavily moderated forums like Krypton Radio and Second Thoughts
Pixeleen Mistral: you also need to get a third party that is above reproach looking over your wiki to verify that the private information is completely gone - and does not come back. that might be the only way you can turn this mess around
GreenLantern Excelsior: That's one thing that's nice about the Herald, that comments are unmoderated. I think it's pretty clear that it's also a hostile venue, so maybe that's part of the reason you haven't been offered an interview. You could always ask questions on the Krypton Radio topic and get your answers that way. I don't know how that third party thing would ever work although maybe some of the Mentor folks would be good choices.

Pixeleen Mistral: you guys need to stop doing secret things - because there is a large group that does not trust you at all now and that groups seems unlikely to give up anytime soon
GreenLantern Excelsior: They will never give up as long as JLU exists.