What The Scam Is Going On?

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

I think in V2 it would have appeared in local chat, and you could have clicked the object name to see its details and a slurl.  I can't be sure, but I'm pretty certain that's how it used to work.

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That was the PROBLEM.  Clicking the notices as they appeared in my OP gave me no further options.

(need to TP to RL now but will check tomorrow for more comments)

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's the standard way V3 displays IMs from objects when you're online.   I just made this:

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The accompanying message is in local chat. 

[Phil Deakins]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's the standard way V3 displays IMs from objects when you're online.   I just made this:

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The accompanying message is in local chat. 

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I do like the way the pic keeps being reposted - and the advertising hasn't cost me a penny

[Innula Zenovka]

I've just checked this with the latest Beta Viewer, Second Life 3.3.1 (252229) Mar 28 2012 07:39:41 (Second Life Beta Viewer).   Instant messages from prims behave normally -- that is, the message appears in Local Chat -- unless you name the prim "Second Life".  Then it appears as a notificiation.

I've just opened a jira about it: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-28743

 

[Phil Deakins]

That's amazing. I don't suppose you've tested it with a V1 viewer?

ETA: I've tested it in Phoenix (a V1 viewer) and the behaviour is as expected - messge in chat and not a notification. So it's just the later V2 and/or V3 viewers that are bad.

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

I've just checked this with the latest Beta Viewer, Second Life 3.3.1 (252229) Mar 28 2012 07:39:41 (Second Life Beta Viewer).   Instant messages from prims behave normally -- that is, the message appears in Local Chat -- unless you name the prim "Second Life".  Then it appears as a notificiation.

I've just opened a jira about it: 

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-28743

 

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Thank you for starting the JIRA.  I have added my comments and have both voted and am watching.

[Millyonaire]

I got the same message but it appeared in local chat!

[Luc Starsider]

Grrrr.... I'm always late discovering these threads...

Yupp. Had the message. Notification only. Nothing in local chat.

Didn't fall for it.

- Luc -

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

It's the standard way V3 displays IMs from objects when you're online.   I just made this:

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The accompanying message is in local chat. 

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Ok, I just tested it. There is no accompanying message in local chat if the object is named Second Life. 

[Phil Deakins]

Whether or not it shows in local chat is down to the viewer. V1s behave as normal - it's in local chat - but V2/3s behave abnormally - it appears as a notice, as in the pic. They are all just IMs from objects though, and it's quite safe to go to the url - it's not phishing, and nothing nasty happens. There's no point in going to the url though.

[Luc Starsider]

The behaviour in V2/3 is still wrong, and should be corrected. IMs from objects should show in local chat regardles of the name of the object. If this one is not, the next one could easily be a phishing attempt.

- Luc -

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

Whether or not it shows in local chat is down to the viewer. V1s behave as normal - it's in local chat - but V2/3s behave abnormally - it appears as a notice, as in the pic. They are all just IMs from objects though, and it's quite safe to go to the url - it's not phishing, and nothing nasty happens. There's no point in going to the url though.

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Ok, I tested it in Exodus, a V3 based viewer. 

Can a link be sent from an object named Second Life? If so, wouldn't that make me think it is from Second Life?

If the link was to a bad place, like a scam or whatever, isn't this a major deal?

[Innula Zenovka]

I can't get it to send a clickable link with this, but you can copy/paste it easily enough (takes you to the BBC news site):

string url = "http://bbc.in/ICNbjH";default{    state_entry()    {       llSetObjectName("Second Life");    }    touch_start(integer total_number)    {       key k = llDetectedKey(0);       llInstantMessage(k,"Copy paste this into your browser: "+url);                  }}

 

[Charolotte Caxton]

There must me a way to send clickable links, aren't there? 

The reason I ask is because I think I have been sent clickable links before, like to blogs and stuff.

Also, if an object can send email, and the object is named Second Life, will that look like it is an email from Second Life?

[Innula Zenovka]

I've certainly seen clickable links on the log-in screen, and you can, of course, send them in chat or llRegionSayTo or llInstantMessage when that appears in chat.   But I am not sure I've seen them in notifications like that -- I may have done, but I can't remember one way or another.

As to the email question, I've just sent myself an email with this:

string email_address= "my email address";default{	state_entry()	{		llSetObjectName("Second Life");	}	touch_start(integer total_number)	{		llEmail(email_address,"Test Message","This is an email from "+llGetObjectName());	}}

 and received this:

Object-Name: Second LifeRegion: Freedonia (237312, 295936)Local-Position: (21, 238, 73)This is an email from Second Life

 

[Perrie Juran]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

I've just checked this with the latest Beta Viewer, Second Life 3.3.1 (252229) Mar 28 2012 07:39:41 (Second Life Beta Viewer).   Instant messages from prims behave normally -- that is, the message appears in Local Chat -- unless you name the prim "Second Life".  Then it appears as a notificiation.

I've just opened a jira about it: 

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-28743

 

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The JIRA has been acknowledged and assigned now. 

Very nice.

The last time I started a JIRA it was almost three weeks before it was reviewed and assigned.  Big Improvement!

[Phil Deakins]

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Luc Starsider wrote:

The behaviour in V2/3 is still wrong, and should be corrected. IMs from objects should show in local chat regardles of the name of the object. If this one is not, the next one could easily be a phishing attempt.

- Luc -

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I agree. It's wrong and it needs to be fixed.

[Phil Deakins]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Also, if an object can send email, and the object is named Second Life, will that look like it is an email from Second Life?

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No. The email makes it clear that an object sent it and both the object name and the owner's name are included, as is an slurl to the location of the object.

The Subject is "Message from Second Life" and the From field is "Second Life", so they give the impression that it's from SL, but the content is clear about where it's from. Here's an email from one of the objects:-

The object 'Second Life' has sent you a message from Second Life: Hi Everyone! Get 1000L right now by signing up here and confirming your email --> <clickable url>

 = Second Life is owned by <owner's name>  = <clickable slurl>

[Charolotte Caxton]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Also, if an object can send email, and the object is named Second Life, will that look like it is an email from Second Life?

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No. The email makes it clear that an object sent it and both the object name and the owner's name are included, as is an slurl to the location of the object.

The Subject is "Message from Second Life" and the From field is "Second Life", so they give the impression that it's from SL, but the content is clear about where it's from. Here's an email from one of the objects:-

The object 'Second Life' has sent you a message from Second Life: Hi Everyone! Get 1000L right now by signing up here and confirming your email --> <clickable url>

 = Second Life is owned by <owner's name>  = <clickable slurl>

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I see, but what if one doesn't know better? I see a lot of Second Life in there.

[Innula Zenovka]

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Perrie Juran wrote:

The JIRA has been acknowledged and assigned now. 

Very nice.

The last time I started a JIRA it was almost three weeks before it was reviewed and assigned.  Big Improvement!

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It was the prospect of everyone getting spammed by messages from Second Life telling them buy Phil's furniture that did it, I bet!

Seriously, I guess it was a nice simple repro and they've just had a demonstration of what a nuisance it can be. The fix seems pretty simple -- Firestorm cloned it to their jira, I see, and Zi Ree had a fix done within hours.   

Many thanks, Whirly and Zi.

[Phil Deakins]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

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Phil Deakins wrote:

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Also, if an object can send email, and the object is named Second Life, will that look like it is an email from Second Life?

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No. The email makes it clear that an object sent it and both the object name and the owner's name are included, as is an slurl to the location of the object.

The Subject is "Message from Second Life" and the From field is "Second Life", so they give the impression that it's from SL, but the content is clear about where it's from. Here's an email from one of the objects:-

The object 'Second Life' has sent you a message from Second Life: Hi Everyone! Get 1000L right now by signing up here and confirming your email --> <clickable url>

 = Second Life is owned by <owner's name>  = <clickable slurl>

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I see, but what if one doesn't know better? I see a lot of Second Life in there.

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If one doesn't know any better, then one might go to the website and fill in the form. One of these threads was started by someone who did just that, and wanted to know when s/he will get the 1000L. But the website appears to be genuine, so leaving your email address there won't be asking for trouble.

[Charolotte Caxton]

Did she get her 1000L?

Also, did you know that it is not a good idea to give random persons your email address?

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Email-Account-Compromised/td-p/1478969

[Luc Starsider]

Yes! Excactly!

- Luc -

[Irene Muni]

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Innula Zenovka wrote:

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Perrie Juran wrote:

The JIRA has been acknowledged and assigned now. 

Very nice.

The last time I started a JIRA it was almost three weeks before it was reviewed and assigned.  Big Improvement!

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Seriously, I guess it was a nice simple repro and they've just had a demonstration of what a nuisance it can be. The fix seems pretty simple -- Firestorm cloned it to

their jira

, I see, and Zi Ree had a fix done within hours.   

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Of course she did. Zi is not LL

Apologies for evil, Linden Lab

[Phil Deakins]

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Charolotte Caxton wrote:

Did she get her 1000L?

Also, did you know that it is not a good idea to give random persons your email address?

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Email-Account-Compromised/td-p/1478969

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If my understanding is correct, she didn't get 1000L, because there was no money in it. Briefly, it's like this...

The website pays a small amount of money to affiliates, usually through an affiliate centre like DoubleClick, when the affliliate sends someone to the site and the someone signs up to the site. Sometimes it's just for sending people there and sometimes, as in this case, it's when a person signs up. The affiliate is nothing to do with the site, and the site is genuine. A great many top sites - top brands, etc. - use affiliate centres for that purpose. Affiliates are people with their own sites, from where they are supposed to send people via a link the affiliate puts on his site.

The perpetrator of the IMs is an affiliate. He would have become an affiliate through a centre. Check out DoubleClick to see how affiliate systems work. But he's being sneaky by promising 1000L to get SL users to go to the site and sign up, but there is no money for sign-ups. It's false traffic as far as the site is concerned and, if they knew that this affiliate was doing it, they'd probably stop paying for his sign ups.

People try to scam the affiliate system in all sorts of ways. I was doing seo for a website some years ago. The site joined an affiliate system in the UK. One lad with a small website became an affiliate for it, and he spent the weekend clicking on the affiliate link on his own site, thinking that he was making loads of money. But he got nothing. I spotted his activity (IP address in the site's logs) and told the affiliate centre, but they were already onto it. These affiliate systems are well aware of fraudulent activities. This one won't be spotted though - unless someone tells them.

 

I'd already read your "email account" thread, but this one isn't giving email addresses to random people. If you want to buy or sell on eBay, for instance, you need to provide an email address. eBay uses an affiliate centre to get sign-ups too. eBay is well-known and you wouldn't have a problem with that, but there are many thousand of lesser known sites that are just as reputable but we haven't heard of them. The destination site in this case appears to be just such a reputable one to me. If we want to sign up anywhere, we usually need to provide an email address.

 

ETA: The destination website uses the ThinkAction affiliate centre. The IMer is an affiliate. I've informed the site that's being cheated. What they do about it is their business. They may not mind it happening to them.