mmook using IM now

[Aethelwine]

---

Lunar Core wrote:

---

Anya Ristow wrote:

It's also possible that one of those name-to-key datanases, or the alt-detection database that was all the rage a while ago, is available through back channels. It's possible that mmook was handed, or just asked for, or stole, their list.

Of course those databases were aquired using bots. If you doubt it can be done, witness the completeness of the name-to-key databases, back when people actually went places in SL. Judging which alts have been spammed, though, I'm guessing the name-to-key databases aren't the source.

Most likely, they're getting their list using bots. I'm getting spam to accounts that have been in-world in the time mmook has been operating.

 

---

I have yet to get any sort of spam from them, ditto many of my friends, one of which is in SL regularly, DJs every Tuesday (at a fur club mind you) and has been known to explore on occasion.

No spam there either.

Either their bots are not too bright or there is something those who have been getting spammed are doing wrong.

---

I remember reading the hypothesis the mmook spammers were going through the database of SL names alphabetically so maybe that is why those with names beginning with A are the ones complaining whilst those later in the alphabet are oblivious? I suspect the bots are none too bright. I can only speak for myself but my SL usage is nothing particularly unusual, shops, events, the blake sea and other places for vehicles like Simbaz, 2Raw etc.

[Phil Deakins]

Anya's specific problem is the IMs going to email. That can be easily and quickly dealt with by creating a filter in the email client, to put everything that mentions the spam site into the Trash. That's the solution that was suggested to her in the previous thread but it seemed to be too much trouble for her, whereas taking lots of time to write all the posts about it wasn't too much trouble.

There is no way that I know of to prevent yourself from seeing spam IMs when you are logged in or from seeing the ones that were sent to email when you next log in. Having said that, closing the IMs isn't difficult or time-consuming. It's not like they are being sent in such quantities that doubt is cast as to whether or not there will be a tomorrow.

[Aethelwine]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Anya's specific problem is the IMs going to email. That can be easily and quickly dealt with by creating a filter in the email client, to put everything that mentions the spam site into the Trash. That's the solution that was suggested to her in the previous thread but it seemed to be too much trouble for her, whereas taking lots of time to write all the posts about it wasn't too much trouble.

There is no way that I know of to prevent yourself from seeing spam IMs when you are logged in or from seeing the ones that were sent to email when you next log in. Having said that, closing the IMs isn't difficult or time-consuming. It's not like they are being sent in such quantities that doubt is cast as to whether or not there will be a tomorrow.

---

I gave up on worrying about spam in my email years ago.

 

The problem of inworld spam that Anya raises however affects everyone. Hopefully, as you say, it won't develop beyond a trifling inconvenience. But I think, especially considering the Linden Lab's lack of success dealing with spam on profiles and the forum, brushing the issue aside with the hope it doesn't get worse is not so easy

[Perrie Juran]

---

Aethelwine wrote:

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Anya's specific problem is the IMs going to email. That can be easily and quickly dealt with by creating a filter in the email client, to put everything that mentions the spam site into the Trash. That's the solution that was suggested to her in the previous thread but it seemed to be too much trouble for her, whereas taking lots of time to write all the posts about it wasn't too much trouble.

There is no way that I know of to prevent yourself from seeing spam IMs when you are logged in or from seeing the ones that were sent to email when you next log in. Having said that, closing the IMs isn't difficult or time-consuming. It's not like they are being sent in such quantities that doubt is cast as to whether or not there will be a tomorrow.

---

I gave up on worrying about spam in my email years ago.

 

The problem of inworld spam that Anya raises however affects everyone. Hopefully, as you say, it won't develop beyond a trifling inconvenience. But I think, especially considering the Linden Lab's lack of success dealing with spam on profiles and the forum, brushing the issue aside with the hope it doesn't get worse is not so easy

---

When Linden Lab first introduced Web Based profiles many of us voiced the concern that we did not want our Profiles open to the whole World Wide Web for viewing.  We considered that a breach of our privacy in SL.

But it now appears that was just the tip of the Iceburg as far as the Web Profiles are concerned.

Overall, at least for me, my In World spam is way down from a year ago.  I think many Merchants have figured out it is counter productive, that unsolicited messages drive more customers away than it attracts.  In my circle of Friends we will NOT shop a spammer.

Still, as long as there are idiots who will respond to Spam, the problem will continue.

MMOOK is very aggressive and what LL can do to stop them I don't know.  I can only hope that LL is even more agresive in banning their accounts.

[Phil Deakins]

I suppose that, if lots of people AR every mmook IM they receive, then LL may decide to do something about it, such as discarding all IMs with 'mmook' in them. But it would need lots of people to AR every one they receive to cause LL to act, imo. In the meantime, it's just an occasional itch that needs an occasional scratch.

[Freya Mokusei]

This might be the funniest thread I've ever seen on spam.

It's great that people seem to now completely absolve LL of any responsibility, maybe eventually they won't need to deal with ARs at all. By then I imagine there'll be maybe thirty or fifty companies doing this, rather than half a dozen. But that's okay I guess, we'll all have bunkered down on private sims, fleeing from green dots on the mini-map Aliens/Screamers-style (in case they get within 96m, those pesky sensors!). Unsolicited IMing will be cause for immediate muting, and we'll all run third party CAPTCHA and Turing Tests in our IM windows (Hey TPV devs!).

This kinda gives me an idea for an apocalypse film...

These kind of operations work on the same principle as the dudes from Mumbai - they're praying on an out of date (as in, no capacity to control or detect distributed attack operations) platform that has a reasonably large userbase. We're easy pickin's - we have assets that we want to maintain access to (or services we're terrified of losing), we have disposable income, and a majority of us are from places where our identity information is valuable. They can operate with impunity, since users will continue to do what Lunar calls having a lack of 'common sense' - teleporting around, maybe accidentally turning up at a Safe Hub or - gasp - even daring to visit popular sims, including fairs and events that LL endorses.

It will only get worse without structural changes. I am glad PMs were removed, it's a tiny step in the right direction (though presently, it's lip service). Spam's already gotten steadily worse over the past year (not for me, but from observation of the forums/other places), with substantially more outside threats squeezing and exploiting SL users. Historically most of the spam was self-generated, mostly SL users advertising their work through dumb marketing - this hasn't been the case for most of the high profile attacks for a long time. You're kidding yourselves (maybe you're even trying to kid us) if you think you're going to be safe forever in furry clubs and private sandboxes.

[Lunar Core]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

This might be the funniest thread I've ever seen on spam.

It's great that people seem to now completely absolve LL of any responsibility, maybe eventually they won't need to deal with ARs at all. By then I imagine there'll be maybe thirty or fifty companies doing this, rather than half a dozen. But that's okay I guess, we'll all have bunkered down on private sims, fleeing from green dots on the mini-map Aliens/Screamers-style (in case they get within 96m, those pesky sensors!). Unsolicited IMing will be cause for immediate muting, and we'll all run third party CAPTCHA and Turing Tests in our IM windows (Hey TPV devs!).

This kinda gives me an idea for an apocalypse film...

These kind of operations work on the same principle as the dudes from Mumbai - they're praying on an out of date (as in, no capacity to control or detect distributed attack operations) platform that has a reasonably large userbase. We're easy pickin's - we have assets that we want to maintain access to (or services we're terrified of losing), we have disposable income, and a majority of us are from places where our identity information is valuable. They can operate with impunity, since users will continue to do what Lunar calls having a lack of 'common sense' - teleporting around, maybe accidentally turning up at a Safe Hub or - gasp - even daring to visit popular sims, including fairs and events that LL

endorses

.

It will only get worse without structural changes. I am glad PMs were removed, it's a tiny step in the right direction (though presently, it's lip service). Spam's already gotten steadily worse over the past year (not for me, but from observation of the forums/other places), with substantially more outside threats squeezing and exploiting SL users. Historically most of the spam was self-generated, mostly SL users advertising their work through dumb marketing - this hasn't been the case for most of the high profile attacks for a long time. You're kidding yourselves (maybe you're even trying to kid us) if you think you're going to be safe forever in furry clubs and private sandboxes.

---

Oh look, another whiner.

No one has absolved Linden Lab of anything here. You however seem to think they need to take care of each and every single little nuisiance that comes you way - grow up and take a bit of responsibility for your actions.

You are quite delusional if you think that contrlling who can and cannot IM you is any of Linden Lab's concern beyond acting on any abuse report you may or may not send in. No other messaging service will proactively block an instant message for you nor will they act on spam IMs until you - the user- notify them.

Second Life is not special, Linden Lab should not be held to any higher "standard (not that such realy exists mind you).

A user that decides to hop around without a thought in the world will get an IM from someone they may or may not wish to converse with. They may get a bit of spam - just as if they had been hopping from web site to web site and/or plugging their information into web forms or up for public viewing.

The only way to stop such a thing is to cancel your web service and live as a hermit.

Linden Lab has used the nuclear option twice now in response to you whiners. There is no reason to push them to do so a third time.

Now enough with your theatrics.

[Freya Mokusei]

Hahaha.

These aren't isolated cases, the issues are systemic, large scale and invariably affect peoples' view of the service as a whole. They seem to be affecting hundreds or perhaps even thousands of users at a time - not exactly the same as 'wandering around, occaisional IM I don't like' - reducing the issue here is silly, and it makes you look silly.

That you equate exploring and wandering SL with 'entering data in webforms, giving out information' is surprising. Turning everyone into a hermit isn't going to resolve that issue, even if that's how you choose to spend your SL. LL creates and furnishes the destination guide, and it actively encourages shopping via Marketplace - if either of these activities lead to the mass exploitation of user's money or personal information (as we've seen with badguys setting up multiple phishing and theft projects within the last 18 months in SL) then LL should definitely start changing things.

 

• People come to the forums, see the Mumbai spam. (as one of the multiple examples of systematic spam)
• People spend on Marketplace, recieve plywood cube.

LL has a requirement to resolve both issues so that users aren't exploited and decieved. I'm not sure why you would disagree with this, but I highly encourage you to explain your reasoning. LL caused this issue whether you can see that or not - these systems' exploitation on a large scale was only a matter of time and environment. User data and security is more important than fancy functions and half-thought-out applications.

I'm glad LL see this as an issue enough to disable compromised systems, I don't think I'm going to waste much time trying to justify the importance of this issue to you, however.

The theatrics will continue until morale improves.

 

[Lunar Core]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

Hahaha.

These aren't isolated cases, the issues are systemic, large scale and invariably affect peoples' view of the service as a whole. They seem to be affecting hundreds or perhaps even thousands of users at a time - not exactly the same as 'wandering around, occaisional IM I don't like' - reducing the issue here is silly, and it makes you look silly.

That you equate exploring and wandering SL with 'entering data in webforms, giving out information' is surprising. Turning everyone into a hermit isn't going to resolve that issue, even if that's how you choose to spend your SL. LL creates and furnishes the destination guide, and it actively encourages shopping via Marketplace - if either of these activities lead to the mass exploitation of user's money or personal information (as we've seen with badguys setting up multiple phishing and theft projects within the last 18 months in SL) then LL should definitely start changing things.

 

• People come to the forums, see the Mumbai spam. (as one of the multiple examples of systematic spam)
• People spend on Marketplace, recieve plywood cube.

LL has a requirement to resolve both issues so that users aren't exploited and decieved. I'm not sure why you would disagree with this, but I highly encourage you to explain your reasoning. LL caused this issue whether you can see that or not - these systems' exploitation on a large scale was only a matter of time and environment. User data and security is more important than fancy functions and half-thought-out applications.

The theatrics will continue until morale improves.

 

---

More thatrical nonsense and a blatant failure to comprehend what I wrote as well.

Sorry, outside of the forum, thousands of users are not being affected. Not a single poster here can prove otherwise as not a single poster here can speak for thousands of users. You may only speak for yourself, so enough with that load of bull.

Outside of this forum, you cannot present any evidence that these cases are not isolated incidents being overblown by pathological whiners, yourself ncluded.

Marketplace Fraud? Hmm, just like in real life, Linden Lab is under no obligation to do a single thing until it is reported to them. They have rules and other, rather flimsy (just like in real life) safeguards put into place that can be abused and circumvented. welcome to life, report the fraud and move on.

The Destination Guide? Anyone that uses that piece of paid for, overblown and fluffed up trash to decide where to visit deserves the crap they get. Use some common sense, a few search terms and think for yourself instead of listeing to a glorified Classifieds page.

Newsflash for you, Phishing attempts are only as good as the fools that fall for them.

Linden Lab has some responsibility here, no one has denied this. Their responsibility ends at a certain point and your responsibility begins. Quit expecting them to do vverything for you, they do not need to hold your hand.

Could they do a bit more against the forum spam? Possibly. Expecting them to decide who can and cannot IM you however is going to far. You are aware that Linden Lab does not have the only sign up portal for Second Life, right? They have not closed down the third party portals they allowed others to create. Try going after them instead of Linden Lab first, hmm?

Those theatrics and exxagerations of yours make you look silly and foolish.

[Lunar Core]

By your logic, they should simply shut Second Life itself down. Why?

 

The entire thing is a "compromised system" - wake up, grow up and take some responsibility for your own actions.

[Phil Deakins]

I just want to dispel a myth here. Avatars don't come to the attention of the mmook spammer by going to places where a bot records the names. I know this because some of my alts have been targetted and they haven't logged into anywhere for years. And even when they logged in, they never went anywhere. So the spammer acquires avatar names by another means.

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Lunar Core wrote:

More thatrical nonsense and a blatant failure

pathological whiners

Anyone that uses that piece of paid for, overblown and fluffed up trash to decide where to visit deserves the crap they get. Use some common sense, a few search terms and think for yourself instead of listeing to a glorified Classifieds page.

Phishing attempts are only as good as the fools that fall for them.

Those theatrics and exxagerations of yours make you look silly and foolish.

---

You're welcome to disagree, but you're only one more opinion here. Extracts above indicate to me that yours is particularly more noxious and less useful than most. Moving to discard your posts.

You don't get to decide how much responsibility LL has towards me or any other user. You also don't get to define the purposes of SL or which functions are or aren't important. As I've said above, LL clearly feels differently, and I'm glad for that. I'm also pretty glad that LL has demonstrated more sense and better understanding of the problems than you seem to be able to manage. 

Bye.

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I just want to dispel a myth here. Avatars don't come to the attention of the mmook spammer by going to places where a bot records the names. I know this because some of my alts have been targetted and they haven't logged into anywhere for years. And even when they logged in, they never went anywhere. So the spammer acquires avatar names by another means.

---

Noted. I would imagine a sensor is one of the poorest ways to collect names, since avatars are distributed so widely across the grid. It is however a method that has been used - in general - by spam attacks of this same type. Anya is correct in her earlier posts that it can be used to gather names of active accounts (rather than inactive ones) as they visit busy sims or move around - but only in small quantities (compared with lookup, group, oracle or directory harvesting)

My over-arching point is that people aren't 'safe' just because their behaviour is non-'mainstream', reclusive or 'fringe'. The importance of this issue is not diminished simply by telling people to 'look away' from it.

 

[Lunar Core]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Lunar Core wrote:

More thatrical nonsense and a blatant failure

pathological whiners

Anyone that uses that piece of paid for, overblown and fluffed up trash to decide where to visit deserves the crap they get. Use some common sense, a few search terms and think for yourself instead of listeing to a glorified Classifieds page.

Phishing attempts are only as good as the fools that fall for them.

Those theatrics and exxagerations of yours make you look silly and foolish.

---

You're welcome to disagree, but you're only one more opinion here. Extracts above indicate to me that yours is particularly more noxious and less useful than most. Moving to discard your posts.

You don't get to decide how much responsibility LL has towards me or any other user. You also don't get to define the purposes of SL or which functions are or aren't important. As I've said above, LL clearly feels differently, and I'm glad for that. I'm also pretty glad that LL has demonstrated more sense and better understanding of the problems than you seem to be able to manage. 

Bye.

---

Sorry, you don't get to decide either cupcake.

Discard all you'd like, next time do it silently instead of proving how much of a drama monger you really are.

[Lunar Core]

Your point has been to whine and cry and have Linden Lab hold your hand.

[Lunar Core]

Oh yes, and Private Messages here in the Forum are still active. You can compose them from the same section you go to to view them.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

I suppose that, if lots of people AR every mmook IM they receive, then LL may decide to do something about it, such as discarding all IMs with 'mmook' in them. But it would need lots of people to AR every one they receive to cause LL to act, imo. In the meantime, it's just an occasional itch that needs an occasional scratch.

---

I agree with you that right now it is just an occasional itch.  And while I hate dealing with hypothetical issues, Freya does raise a good point,

"It's great that people seem to now completely absolve LL of any responsibility, maybe eventually they won't need to deal with ARs at all. By then I imagine there'll be maybe thirty or fifty companies doing this, rather than half a dozen."

What, if anything, Linden Lab could do pre-emptively to stop this from happening I don't know.

What I do know they can and should do is act swiftly and decisively on the AR's.

[Freya Mokusei]

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

And while I hate dealing with hypothetical issues...

---

I try to be careful here too, especially being aware of slippery slope arguments and other such devices. I tried to keep my opening paragraph that you've partially quoted above as a little satirical (I hope that was demonstrated).

I think I can reasonably prove that occurances like this have increased in the last 12-18 months, with phishing sites (fake Marketplaces especially), gold scams (such as subject of this thread). Even the SL Forums - Lithium had been here quite a while before someone figured out how to consistantly and mechanically abuse this forum, and now it happens multiple times daily without any mechanism in place to prevent it. The forums here (and the other pages of Secondlife.com) have had malicious advertisements displayed, viewers spring up every so often that are designed to (increasingly sneakily) steal and compromise a user's PC or account. I imagine we've all seen a dozen examples. These aren't entirely new, but as I said in my first post, it's quite new that they're not being conducted by people working within SL - users preying on other users. Most of the recent larger issues have been about only using SL as an exchange or traffic medium, and that's significantly more serious.

I really wish it didn't feel like it was a matter of time until it gets worse (or someone finds a larger loophole), but the reality is that there are a lot of companies seeking Second Life's marketshare, audience, visibility and investment. As SL continues to decline economically, it is obviously at an increased risk of being looted - as administrative and development attention shifts from SL to LL's new projects, the users become vulnerable (technology ages, holes don't get patched, staff members stop looking for threats or risks above user level)..

Part of me wishes I could accept some of the more laissez faire approaches to these problems, but I've not seen this work before. I don't think there's a pathology behind those coming here to understand these spam messages - a large number of the comments on this subject have been by people with no history here (across threads, forums). There is a pretty high technical barrier to understanding how SL works and how to stay safe here already, I think we should aim higher than living in a decaying, predatory world where we're told not to teleport around, not to shop or talk to people we don't know just to stay safe. LL is still at the wheel of the ship, they are far better equipped to influence these systemic problems (because we, as users, can only ever react to them).

If things in SL are ever going to get better than this (not a slippery slope, but as things currently are), it's going to be on their shoulders. Ultimately, yes, I can't affect LL's attention one iota - the most anyone here can do is inform others and file ARs as necessary - and wish for something better in their Second Life.

[Lunar Core]

I think you should learn the difference between being told to use common sense and taking responsibility for your own actions and being told not to try and enjoy Second Life.

 

But hey, from what I have seen of some of the users in this forum during the time I remained silent, I do not wonder why some users have lost their patience with others or have simply moved on to places where they can post exactly how they feel without fear of being censored by a bunch of Disney rejects.

 

It amazes me that users here willfully misinterpret what others type or are so stuck up that the slightest bit of impatience or annoyance in a post ends up reported.

 

THIS crap is why I remained silent for as long as I did. Everyone here is so coddled and thin skinned that it's a fraking joke.

 

The DJ I mentioned in an earlier post? Most he can do thanks to some overly zealous user is look at the forum without ever logging in.

 

As for myself, I am likely to go back to being silent until I cannot tolerate the foolishness anymore. Otherwise I'll end up the same way.

[Perrie Juran]

---

Freya Mokusei wrote:

---

Perrie Juran wrote:

And while I hate dealing with hypothetical issues...

---

I try to be careful here too, especially being aware of slippery slope arguments and other such devices.

I think I can reasonably prove that occurances like this have increased in the last 12-18 months, with phishing sites (fake Marketplaces especially), gold scams (such as subject of this thread). Even the SL Forums - Lithium had been here quite a while before someone figured out how to consistantly and mechanically abuse this forum, and now it happens daily without any mechanism in place to prevent it. The forums here (and the other pages of Secondlife.com) have had malicious advertisements displayed, viewers spring up every so often that are designed to (increasingly sneakily) steal and compromise a user's PC or account. I imagine we've all seen a dozen examples.

I really wish it didn't feel like it was a matter of time until it gets worse (or someone finds a larger loophole), but the reality is that there are a

lot

of companies seeking Second Life's marketshare, audience, visibility and investment. As SL continues to decline economically, it is obviously at an increased risk of being looted - as administrative attention shifts from SL to LL's new projects, the users become vulnerable.

Part of me wishes I could accept some of the more laissez faire approaches to these problems, but I've not seen this work before. I don't think there's a pathology behind those coming here to understand these spam messages - a large number of the comments on this subject have been by people with no history here (across threads, forums). There is a pretty high technical barrier to understanding how SL works and how to stay safe here already, I think we should aim higher than living in a decaying, predatory world where we're told not to teleport around, not to shop or talk to people we don't know just to stay safe. LL is still at the wheel of the ship, they are far better equipped to influence these systemic problems (because we, as users, can only ever react to them).

If things in SL are ever going to get better than this (not a slippery slope, but as things currently are), it's going to be on their shoulders. Ultimately, yes, I can't affect LL's attention one iota - the most anyone here can do is hope, inform others and file ARs as necessary.

---

"There is a pretty high technical barrier to understanding how SL works and how to stay safe here already,"

No doubt that SL has a learning curve and that some people find it very steep.

But as far as staying safe, I don't think the curve is as high.  While Phishing pages can be tricky, things like MMOOK and other "sounds too good to be true" offers should automatically raise red flags for people.  But on the Internet it seems people abandon the good sense they use in RL.  When a guy on the street in NYC stops and offers me a Rolex for the price of a Timex I know better.  But on the Internet people lose their good sense.

In World can be a little trickier for a new person because they don't know what a griefing object is or that there are even Griefers in SL.  It would be interesting to do a pole of how many people have actually ever been offered a griefing object.  Even when Ex-Apart was "rampant," I can't remember ever being offered a copy of it.

Recently I have again been seeing some very negative comments in the Forum about streaming music and video and MoaP (Media on a Prim).  Maybe these are the most exploitable functions in SL.  I really don't know.  I use them and I enjoy them.  Maybe one day I might get burned by them.  But I am not going to live in fear of them.  Sometimes I feel like the "OMG" you might get hacked" gets carried too far.

To me a lot comes down to personal responsibility.  I use the tools I have at my disposal.  That does not mean I don't think Linden Lab could not do a better job.  I do think They could do a better job and I am vocal about it.  But that does not absolve me from personal responsibility.  When someone appears to not be taking personal responsibility I will speak up on that also.

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Lunar Core wrote:

I think you should learn the difference between being told to use common sense and taking responsibility for your own actions and being told not to try and enjoy Second Life.

 

But hey, from what I have seen of some of the users in this forum during the time I remained silent, I do not wonder why some users have lost their patience with others or have simply moved on to places where they can post exactly how they feel without fear of being censored by a bunch of Disney rejects.

 

It amazes me that users here willfully misinterpret what others type or are so stuck up that the slightest bit of impatience or annoyance in a post ends up reported.

 

THIS crap is why I remained silent for as long as I did. Everyone here is so coddled and thin skinned that it's a fraking joke.

 

The DJ I mentioned in an earlier post? Most he can do thanks to some overly zealous user is look at the forum without ever logging in.

 

As for myself, I am likely to go back to being silent until I cannot tolerate the foolishness anymore. Otherwise I'll end up the same way.

---

  Who's the whiner now?

 

And it's not that I disagree with most of your assessment of this forum, but I've been around long enough to know that this forum is exactly how LL wants it to be and that there is little anyone can do about it except accept it or leave.  Complaining about it does you nor anyone else any good... unless, of course, you just wanted to get that off your chest, in which case, I do hope you feel better.  I know I was rather amused.

...Dres

[Anya Ristow]

---

Phil Deakins wrote:

Anya's specific problem is the IMs going to email. That can be easily and quickly dealt with by creating a filter in the email client, to put everything that mentions the spam site into the Trash.

---

One-step thinking.

[Lunar Core]

Wrong. Personal Responsibility: Learn some, use it, stop the whining.

 

Welcome to life.

[Dresden Ceriano]

---

Lunar Core wrote:

Wrong. Personal Responsibility: Learn some, use it, stop the whining.

 

Welcome to life.

---

You say this as if LL bares no responsibility to try to protect their customers from unwanted solicitations made possible through a platform which they control... they most certainly do.  Just because LL seems to be woefully incompetent in doing so, doesn't change that.

While we, LL's customers, can mitigate the effect of this type of spam for ourselves (and we should), nothing that we can do will stop or even slow down the frequency at which it occurs.  It's LL's fault if they use a nuclear option, such as doing away with profile PMs altogether, because they're too stupid to think of any less draconian way of dealing with it... not the people that complain about it.

As opposed to the many people who come to this forum to whine and complain about utterly ridiculous things, it's rather refreshing to see someone complaining about something that happens to be quite a legitimate issue... regardless of whether or not their complaints here do any good whatsoever.

...Dres

[Lunar Core]

I say this as if people need to learn and use personal responsibility and quit looking to someone else to solve all of their problems, nothing more and nothing less.

 

Nowhere have I said a single thing about Linden Lab not bearing any responsibility. That is you making an assumption Dresden.

 

The ONLY thing Linden Lab needs to do in this case is add in the option to block all IMs from anyone that is not in your friend's list. That's it. Same as any other IM system.

 

Barring that, all other methods are on the user.

 

I have seen no one here make such a suggestion. This entire thread has been nothing more than "WAAAAAH! I'S GETTIN SPAMMEDEDED! FIX IT!"

 

Someone comes along to tell a user how to fix it on THEIR END (and they'll have to follow those instructions anyway, eventually) these same users that want Linden Lab to do everything for them disregard it.

 

As I said, I remained silent for so long for a reason: I have no tolerance for this sort of crap.

 

You can preach what you've been preaching until the cows come home and it will not change the fact that people here need to learn to take a bit of responsibility for their actions and a bit of control over their own things (like their e-mail) instead of making generalized "FIXITFIXITFIXIT" complaints.

 

If they'd been suggesting the standard "Ignore IMs from everyone not on my friend's list" function, there'd be no reason to tell them off.