Protecting your SL account form Asset Loss.

[GothGirl Demonia]

I know Linden Lab does not like me saying this here, and I got a warning on the forum yesterday for Raging, I will now post it without raging.

As of November, 27,2012, some Griefer managed to get hold my account password, and login to my account. They deleted every item on my account which was like 50 thousand objects including BackUp objects. What however was most shocking is that Linden Lab keeps no Backup's of your inventory, if your account gets compromised for any reason, and you are on your own if your inventory gets deleted, even if you spent thousands of dollars should a merchant no longer exist in Second Life, or should they just say I do not give replacements you are at loss, and there is nothing you can do. This is something Linden Lab doesn't really tell everyone, I am sure its in their TOS  if you read it all but some people skip over reading TOS on many services.

I do not understand why they can't keep a backup, but that is me it seems like they would keep some sort of backup on everyones account, or provide users this option at an extra charge or something, I know if I had of known I would have paid to make sure my data was safe.

For the record, I did file a complaint with the police, will anything be done I am not sure, if they are in the U.S then chances are they are under U.S Law they could be. The reason I was able to do such is because while my actual financial information was not compromised, assets which are unrecoverable were compromised, I can never get them again, and given the fact I paid Real Money for this and that money is lost even if it was just $0.01 cent technically I can still file a case in a court, go through the police, or the FBI for this matter due to loss of real money.

With this said, I am thankful to the merchants in world who have been helpful in recovering some of the lost items, it is not all replaceable, but it does help as honestly with Tier and everything I do not have $300 to go buy back everything I lost because of this.

However to talk about the solution.

What I failed to do because I never knew anything this being the first account was keep an asset box, for those who don't know what an asset box is, basically its a cube, everytime you buy something from a merchant, you make a copy of it, you take that box stick it in a box, drop it in another box, and leave it on your land or somewhere where it will not be returned and only you know where it is. In the event your account in compromised, you simply notify Linden Lab of course, Change your password, run virus scans, and then you can go recover your back of your items. This is actually something everyone should do, something I knew others did but never knew why until now. The best option is to have a friend's land to stick your box on a 16SQM plot will work, and possibly keep 2 of them in Second Life so even if someone returns all your objects yours is still on your friends land and you are safe that $300 or whatever you purchased of goods wont be lost.

While I have quit Second Life, and will not be logging in for much anymore I hope this will help some people avoid the same problem I have had to face when your account gets hijacked should something ever happen like this.

There have been threats in the past to hijack my account, and honestly there was one time when my SL password was like 64 digits long, thats no joke, however when LL Updated the market place it wouldn't accept my so long password.

There are however Security Measures Linden Lab can take, will they do such I don't know.

1. IP Lock by accounts, everytime a new IP accesses an account you basically have to confirm through an email that this is actually your account. This would prevent any type of viewer based hack, or basic keyloggers if just your SL password gets compromised. The thing similar to the Emerald Situation or worse.

When I think about security I think about the worst, about what if thosuands of SL accounts had their entire inventories deleted right now because they were using a third party viewer on the list while they are approved by LL, LL still has made it clear they can never be certain if its secure or not. I know that Phoenix, or FireStorm are good viewers, people who work for them will claim no security problems, I know people who knew devs of these viewers they are good, but think about what if there was a compromise and the viewer got updated, it could put lots at risk or anyone on any viewer using anything other than Linden Lab provides. This is why this protection I feel is necessary.
Steam, Blizzard, NcSoft, GuildWars2, Nexon, these are all companies with better login Security than Linden Lab has currently.

2. Market Place would also be IP locked when logging into the site, basically this would prevent fraud even more you would again have to confrim it is you logging it by email as well. Take for isntance accidently logging in through a phishing link you might not have time to even change your password before it is hijacked, and Linden Lab might not be open at that time. Another reason this email security is a great thing when done by IP address because it add's additional layers of protection jsut incase the unthinkable happens.

IP doesn't mean much when it comes to griefing getting a new IP is easy, but I think it means a lot more for security unless someone physically or hijacks your IP address which I really don't think happens much, or unless you auhroize a proxy.

I can see that the Linden Lab, website has changed a lot, and I wish that important changes like many things I have suggested in the past would be implimented by Linden Lab. Believe it or not even if Linden Lab doesn't keep backup of inventory these simple security features would have protected my account, and many other peoples accounts who I have done a search on google and found to have claimed to have been compromised as well. I don't know about many, but I know that quite a few of the people I know have said Second Life is dead Linden Lab is just trying to make what money they can out of it they are working on new projects. I don't know this being true or not more of an opinion, but I believe that SL could be made more Anti Grief, and Better Security for protection on accounts so in the future this can't happen to someone.

Although I can say that a lot of places I once knew of that were great in Second Life are gone, they no longer exist, and I have yet to find more like them, even some Popular Merchants I know of are gone from SL because of Griefers, I know because I tried to contact them to see if they could help me get my items back incase I should ever return to SL to actually play again, and their profiles blank, or they say they quit Second Life.

As for the claims my password was simple it was not a simple password and it was changed multiple times within the year of 2012.

[IvanTwin Rogers]

I am Sad hear about that, I was play for long time, and thats is the first time i hear about the inventory system well me I play other MMO, and is true, Champions online,Word of Warcraft, Guid of Wars and others send me a email if somebody try to enter with other IP. how is possible second life dont have this system? I know the accounts are responsability of the players, but in the others MMOS if some people try to use my account the system send to me a warning email very fast to my celular phone for any change in my games accounts.

Second Life is the most and expensive game, or mmo, or virtual world that Exist in all world. not other game or plataform is more expensive than this, to much people dont pay 15 dollars montly, here the people pay over 300 dollars montly for pleasure and dont have a busisness here.

 

second life should therefore have the best security system and let know if someone is trying to steal your account.

 

A simple game as Champions online alerts you by email any change in your account, seems incredible that Linden Labs dont alert anything to a custumer.

The problem with second life is that they are trying to make player responsible for absolutely everything and likes to wash their hands of the issue.

In second life is to much bla bla bla and they dont make nothing about the most important issue,, is the Report system, Inventory system, and now the account warning protection system, sorry and apologize with the comunity,

in all these years in second life I've been silent in honor and respect to second life and its employees, but this time I will denounce the mistreatment and poor service which have in this last time, this time not silent, though is that this is Ivantwin Rogers vs Linden Labs and is that I can lose and be banned and eliminated by complain about the bad service of the last time.

I am a risk for my positions.

 

[IvanTwin Rogers]

Is important, never acept objects from strange people, never never, and i know some times the criminals enter in yourlife, and speak with yours for earn your complete trust.

There are criminals who earn your trust, they are passed by your friends for long months to trust them and then they pass contaminated objects so steal until your soul. You also have to see than your you use on your computer by this rare that have stolen you the password several times,

 

I recommend as a measure of protection scan your computer regularly with this program that is one of the best for detecting stealing password hidden programs  and not does not require installation.

It is one of the best programs to detect viruses that steal accounts emails and games.

http://www.surfright.nl/en/downloads/ its free for 30 days, and you can scan and delete free completly

 

So never acept objects from peoples im second life, and just buy object only serius and respetable stores.

 

sorry for my english is poor,

 

[Slayora DeSantis]

I forgot about the asset box thingy. I remembered a few years back, that some of my sl friends made boxes of all of their things. So, I suppose that's the equivalent of an asset box.

I think that I will try that , especially for my textures. I'd hate to lose them all, then have to go all over SL to acquire them again.

Thanks for the info. It makes no sense to me why SL isn't more secure. ::shrugs:: I mean, if you own a sim, and you lose things related to that purchase, SL seems to have a backup to that, so why not accounts? SL is ran by a bunch of servers, apparently, and all servers usually are backed up periodically...at least...there has to be more than just one server...LOL.

So sorry about your unfortunate circumstances! That really sucks!

[Czari Zenovka]

I am so very sorry to hear all this.

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Slayora DeSantis wrote:

I forgot about the asset box thingy. I remembered a few years back, that some of my sl friends made boxes of all of their things. So, I suppose that's the equivalent of an asset box.

I think that I will try that

, especially for my textures. I'd hate to lose them all, then have to go all over SL to acquire them again.

 

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Shortly after I began SL my then-partner introduced me to the marvel of THinC boxes for keeping copies of important inventory items.  Now there are multitudes of storage systems but at the time I thought these were amazing.  I rezzed one and began storing copies.  As time went on and my inventory grew, more storage boxes were rezzed.  Then I got the bright idea to put no copy items that I didn't use all the time, such as seasonal outfits, costumes, etc. in them to keep my inventory neater.  (Back then more clothes seemed to have transfer permissions than copy permissions.)

This system was working well. When I moved to a new location, the boxes were among the first items I set out.  When I purchased my first parcel of land I did the same.  I had a land group and rezzed the boxes under that group, as I did everything else on the land.  Since I had a habit back then of accidentally deleting rezzed items :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: I also locked the boxes.

Much to my surprise one day the boxes poofed.  Rezzed, locked-down boxes were gone.  I have no earthly idea how that could happen.  The only people in my land group were me and my partner and I did not check the option in the friends list for him to have access to my items.  Contacted customer support and was told since the items were rezzed they could not do anything; however, if they had been in my inventory and poofed they could have replaced them.  I was trying to protect my items FROM an inventory failure!!!  I have been fortunate with inventory not eating many of my items but over the years I have lost some and each time, after jumping through all the hoops LL customer services requires (which I already did prior to contacting them) I have never had vanishing inventory restored by LL.  One time I *was* granted a "one time linden amount" to go toward replacing the lost inventory.

Keeping archived boxes on another parcel could help, but after my experience, which was quirky for sure, I don't keep rezzed boxes out anymore.  Not saying it's not a good idea - I'm for anything that can help.

A lot of people used the product Second Inventory to back up their builds to their hard drives.  The items had to be full perm but this was great for content creators to not lose their purchased components.  Then about three years ago the ability to do that was changed by LL at the same time a TPV had to be approved by SL to be used.  I recall many merchant friends frantically backing up all their builds prior to the deadline.  This was also what prompted many to set up secondary business locations in InWorldz.  IW's population quadrupled in about one week.  Now items that can be backed up to HD have to be 100% created by the person.  I had never heard of Second Inventory (now called Stored Inventory due to the LL policy changes) and had never thought of backing up inventory to my HD.  Not saying if this was a good or bad policy; just recalling some of the methods I have heard used to try and not lose inventory assets.

[Slayora DeSantis]

I currently use a standalone version of OpenSim (which I just started using) and create in that, so that I'm not disturbed as when I'm building in SL. I save my creations directly to my computer, and then when I want to rez them in Second Life, I just import them. So essentially, I don't lose my created stuff .

The alphas for all of my created clothing (though I've not created them in a while) are on my comp as well, and I periodically back all of this stuff up.

I've been fortunate (knock on wood) to not have an inventory loss yet, or anything so traumatic!