by Cummere Mayo
I don't post here often. When I do, I know I make several people groan. But sometimes that can be a good thing.
For a while I have stated that SL and RL can be very dangerously brought together with very little information and that Linden Lab needs to take a stand, close some major exploits, and get their heads out of their asses about Facebook and web profiles.
It seems someone might be listening. I've noticed Facebook "like" buttons have become much more scarce and have even disappeared from some places. Thank you, whoever made that call.
The trouble is, LL is continuing to react to privacy matters, too slowly, and far too late. Remember how I said like a broken record in past posts that it doesn't take much to link SL to your RL no matter how careful you are?
Well various groups around SL have taken that to heart. One even has a wiki that has been leaked at least once a year that proves that not only can this be done, but it has been done, and in fact continues to be done. In fact despite apparently being told they could no longer use this wiki, this group is continuing to grow it.
What is worse is that there is proof that Linden Lab is a willing accomplice. At least two previous Lindens were given access to the wiki according to wiki entries this group added themselves. Plexus and Teagen. I have not asked Teagen if these accusations are true. I honestly don't wish to know.
What information about users is included in the wiki?
Well according to the wiki's creator, something like 1/10th of the users of SL are in the wiki. Each entry varies greatly. For some its really small and bland. A couple of sentences such as "so-and-so met this person at Ahern and they seem okay."
others are not so benign.
Entries on at least one real life couple include not only information about their main second life accounts, but information about their real life names, occupations, the companies they work for, schools they attended, geographic location, possible medical conditions, alternate accounts, even their children.
Another entry included information on another woman who found out her partner used fake information to bypass the age verification system. In it despite that she immediately cut off contact with that person, they accused her of illegal sex acts with minors, and then went on to list real life information on her, and her employer, even documenting trips she and her boss took. To my reading it stopped just short of accusing her of having an affair with her boss.
Other users had private emails, private conversations, blogs both private and public, facebook and/or linked in accounts, and even photos of themselves and their houses. Some of these entries are even on people this group thinks are or might possibly be minors.
Multiple people now have uncovered tracking systems that this group used to track avatars and someone even found a chat recorder hidden on their lands by way of well known exploits. These systems recorded the locations and/or conversations of the users and was compared to facebook searches, google searches, and ip addresses to attempt to id a person.
Even accounts that were not tracked had information gathered from innocuous bits of data compared with Google searches, Linked In, Facebook, blogspot, wordpress, and other sources.
Before you say this is all a game, you should know this group admitted to calling and emailing employers and universities in attempts to get people fired or expelled; bragged about tailing people around the SLCC conventions recording, doccumenting, and possibly photographing every move; admitted to filing homeland security complaints for "cyberterrorism;" and, my personal favorite, contacted the family of a user pretending to be friends of that user to both confirm that user was dead and to add more information about his family to their wiki.
A former linden has confirmed that Linden Lab has known about this group AND OTHERS LIKE IT for years and has done nothing for fear that stepping in might cost them financially or hurt their image. Worse LL has pretty much given these groups free reign knowing full well what they were doing under the advice of their legal department.
Rodvik: It is time to step up. Fire all the Lindens that colluded with these groups, fire all the lindens that colluded with these groups, find new legal council for Linden Lab, reverse the bans that came about because of these groups AR parties, and make a policy where deliberate attacks on other users privacy get swift bans and possibly legal action.
A huge 10,000 post discussion thread which has many relevant links, screenshots, and so forth can be found at http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/general-sl-discussion/63339-jlu-harvesting-ip-addresses.html but many other sources have carried this including the herald and other blogs. There is now an online petition to have this group shut down and several comments and replies to comments posted on Rodvik Linden's profile page.
The FTC seems to have been brought in as well with complaint reference numbers being 32191970 and 32301189.
Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Privacy. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Another win vs. Redzone
By cummere mayo.
Posted by Soft Linden on the jira at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24746?focusedCommentId=245943#comment-245943
"Hey, all. I got the go-ahead to give an update on zF Red Zone specifically. Again, thank you for the ARs with specific info about violations. These have been very helpful for letting Lindens know what's going on.
Tuesday morning, we removed zF Red Zone from the Marketplace for a second time. We removed the in-world vendor distributing the item as well. We determined that zF Red Zone was still in violation of our Terms of Service and Community Standards.
We asked for removal by no later than today of all zF Red Zone functionality that discloses any alternate account names. That is, even if consent is asked, the service may not act on the consent. In addition, we asked for removal by no later than Friday of the interface for and any remaining implementation of the zF Red Zone consent mechanism because it does not comply with our policies. If these updates are not made, we will take appropriate steps to remedy the violations.
As before, we appreciate your help in keeping an eye on content. If you find that any merchant's product is not in compliance with our TOS or our Community Standards, please file an abuse report about the product. Do this even if you filed against a previous version. Include a specific explanation of what you believe is a violation, and ideally select and report the in-world object at issue in case it behaves differently than what's in the Marketplace. Before reporting, make sure you have first-hand knowledge of the issue. Support can best react if you explain specific steps to reproduce or confirm a violation."
must suck to be zfire and see all the promises and lies go up in smoke.
Posted by Soft Linden on the jira at https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-24746?focusedCommentId=245943#comment-245943
"Hey, all. I got the go-ahead to give an update on zF Red Zone specifically. Again, thank you for the ARs with specific info about violations. These have been very helpful for letting Lindens know what's going on.
Tuesday morning, we removed zF Red Zone from the Marketplace for a second time. We removed the in-world vendor distributing the item as well. We determined that zF Red Zone was still in violation of our Terms of Service and Community Standards.
We asked for removal by no later than today of all zF Red Zone functionality that discloses any alternate account names. That is, even if consent is asked, the service may not act on the consent. In addition, we asked for removal by no later than Friday of the interface for and any remaining implementation of the zF Red Zone consent mechanism because it does not comply with our policies. If these updates are not made, we will take appropriate steps to remedy the violations.
As before, we appreciate your help in keeping an eye on content. If you find that any merchant's product is not in compliance with our TOS or our Community Standards, please file an abuse report about the product. Do this even if you filed against a previous version. Include a specific explanation of what you believe is a violation, and ideally select and report the in-world object at issue in case it behaves differently than what's in the Marketplace. Before reporting, make sure you have first-hand knowledge of the issue. Support can best react if you explain specific steps to reproduce or confirm a violation."
must suck to be zfire and see all the promises and lies go up in smoke.
Monday, February 7, 2011
Hey LL, Can I have my Privacy Back?
by Cummere Mayo
In the past few weeks a trend is sweeping though the forums, the jira, the blogs, and through office hours. That trend is Second Life users demanding their privacy back.
First came the rebellion against the new version of web profiles as people objected to their real life tabs being displayed and with the mandatory widgets, particularly the infamous spyware tool known as the Facebook Like button. People grew more upset when they realize their OLD profiles had also had widgets and tools to trade them and that LL had never really disclosed the fact that for over two years we have had unprotected profiles.
The reaction was swift and furious with residents demanding that widgets be made opt-out, opt-in, or removed all together; profiles get more security or be moved back to in-world only; and majorly slammed LL for the breaches of privacy.
Sadly several people went on a mission to like and link SL profiles to Facebook and now the very people that pointed out the risks are seeing them firsthand. People are facing divorces or, like me, job loss because of these massive breaches of security.
Next came a revival of the push to get the LSL online exploit fixed for once and for all, this brief push was overshadowed by users finally having enough with a more invasive, if often inaccurate, system that brags about breaking the TOS by collecting Ip addresses, installing cookies, and then attempting to link avatars as alts. This system marketed as a supposed anticopybot system (and yet by thier own stats has identified less then .002% of the alts to be actual copybotters), includes a hud that has complete access to an off-world database that people use to find and stalk the alts of people. This system is known as Redzone, and people want it and others like it banned. Especially since it has proven itself to be a great stalking tool. In fact on thier own forums Redzone specifies the hud version was made especially for people that wanted to trace and find alts of people on land they didn't own.
The opposition to privacy has been kind of haphazard and very accusatory and led by some well known stalkers and the owners of Redzone and seems to be pretty much variations of "I should have the right to know who your alt is," "You must be doing something wrong if you don't want people to know who you are/what you're doing," and my personal favorite, "If you want Privacy you shouldn't log on the Internet." None of these arguments has any real merit and only seem to come from people that are unhealthily obsessed with knowing what other people are doing.
Already, other grids are looking at the opportunity to cash in. Inworldz and Opensim have much more stringent privacy policies with better enforcement. If there is one thing that can be learned, the majority of LL users still want thier privacy!
In the past few weeks a trend is sweeping though the forums, the jira, the blogs, and through office hours. That trend is Second Life users demanding their privacy back.
First came the rebellion against the new version of web profiles as people objected to their real life tabs being displayed and with the mandatory widgets, particularly the infamous spyware tool known as the Facebook Like button. People grew more upset when they realize their OLD profiles had also had widgets and tools to trade them and that LL had never really disclosed the fact that for over two years we have had unprotected profiles.
The reaction was swift and furious with residents demanding that widgets be made opt-out, opt-in, or removed all together; profiles get more security or be moved back to in-world only; and majorly slammed LL for the breaches of privacy.
Sadly several people went on a mission to like and link SL profiles to Facebook and now the very people that pointed out the risks are seeing them firsthand. People are facing divorces or, like me, job loss because of these massive breaches of security.
Next came a revival of the push to get the LSL online exploit fixed for once and for all, this brief push was overshadowed by users finally having enough with a more invasive, if often inaccurate, system that brags about breaking the TOS by collecting Ip addresses, installing cookies, and then attempting to link avatars as alts. This system marketed as a supposed anticopybot system (and yet by thier own stats has identified less then .002% of the alts to be actual copybotters), includes a hud that has complete access to an off-world database that people use to find and stalk the alts of people. This system is known as Redzone, and people want it and others like it banned. Especially since it has proven itself to be a great stalking tool. In fact on thier own forums Redzone specifies the hud version was made especially for people that wanted to trace and find alts of people on land they didn't own.
The opposition to privacy has been kind of haphazard and very accusatory and led by some well known stalkers and the owners of Redzone and seems to be pretty much variations of "I should have the right to know who your alt is," "You must be doing something wrong if you don't want people to know who you are/what you're doing," and my personal favorite, "If you want Privacy you shouldn't log on the Internet." None of these arguments has any real merit and only seem to come from people that are unhealthily obsessed with knowing what other people are doing.
Already, other grids are looking at the opportunity to cash in. Inworldz and Opensim have much more stringent privacy policies with better enforcement. If there is one thing that can be learned, the majority of LL users still want thier privacy!
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