Invisable Avatars Spying

[Michaell Aragon]

I have heard that it is possible for someone to follow you around Sl, as you travel from sim to sim. Also, that is possible for them to be not only invisable,but to not show on the mini-map or radar. Is this true? And is it something anyone can do, or only special powers granted to Linden avis?I know there is no real privacy in SL, and that even your chat and IMs are accesible to the Lindens, except those encrypted by the Emerald viewer, but  can anyone spy on somebody this way? The question arises from a conversation I had with someone who was being followed around and harrassed, and did not know what to do about it.

[Monderas Bristol]

Yes it is true that an AV can do this.

I was alone in the club where I work and someone started talking to me,they could see me,knew where I was and what I was wearing,but I couldn't see them there or on my radar which can scan the whole sim region.

They were also able to contact me the next time I logged on even though I hadn't friended them.

On that occasion they weren't a particular nuiscance but there is always the mute option of course.

 

huggz and kisses

 

Mondy

[Wren Lawksley]

I experienced this just today as a matter of fact. I was browsing at a freebie mall and I got a bite request popup,  I immediately turned it down and was telling a friend who started looking for the guy. She shouted out asking him why he was invisible, I did not realize at the time that he was. This particular avi though was still visible on the Emerald radar so I started watching his distance rating as I moved towards him. When I got near him, he was indeed invisible yet still had his tag showing, floating around above him...not very stealthy. lol  Anyhoo, I reported him to the owner for abusing the "no bite request rules" on top of being a male avi in a womens freebie area (also in the no no's of the posted rules.

[Zen Martinek]

Closest I know is the radar function of emerald that can scan across sims, allows the camera to follow the AV and to IM. Also I think there is a script that will tell you when a named AV comes online or again in emerald the search dyamically tells when someone is online

[DaQbet Kish]

No, there is no way to make your avatar completely invisible because the nametag will always show even through an invisaprim. I know of no way to hide on the mini map or from radar as well unless they are in another sim. Those god like powers are only available to Lindens or staff of Linden Lab. There used to be a device that do to a break in the viewer code would let you know where some one had teleported to but that I believe has been fixed and such a device would no longer work. One can Map another individual who has set such permission on their Friends List, so you friend might want to check that.

Most often a stalker simply follows their target’s known routine and works from there. Knowing their prey’s home location, clubs, shops or friends they visit. And it’s easy to know any ones online status either by script or viewers such as Emerald.

Depending on the level of abuse, your friend can file Abuse Reports but unless they can document it as truly being abusive or harassment I wouldn’t expect much. The best way to handle these types of situations is to Mute and Ignore. Usually in time the person will get board and move on.

[Ellla McMahon]

The official advice is SL Wiki KB Linden Lab Official:Someone in Second Life who I don't like keeps Instant Messaging me and following me around. What can I do?

First, you should let them know their behavior is unwelcome and should stop.

If making your intentions clear doesn't work:

Note:If you IM with; Pay L$ to; or Give inventory to someone you've muted,they'll be unmuted, and chat history will inform you what's happened.

If they continue to track you, check to see if they're on your Friends list:

1. Click the Friends button at the bottom of the screen.
2. If you find their name on the list, select it and click Remove.

If trouble continues, file an abuse report by selecting Help > Report Abuse. Include sufficient details about what's going on. It will be investigated and your identity will be kept anonymous.

[Monderas Bristol]

Sorry Daqbet but you are wrong. It is possible as myself and other posters have discovered from PERSONAL experience.

Try searching on the net and there is plenty of info about it.

The trick about being semi invisible is available with certain AO's which just rez your AV under the ground, the Bright AO for example, which is why the tag is still visible.

This other trick of hiding from radar is also possible,and is an obvious griefing tool. I have heard of at least two 3rd party viewers having this feature (one a hacked emerald clone although I stress emerald is not one of them)

 

huggs and kisses

 

Mondy

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Making the avatar invisible is definitely possible, even easy. The nametag will still float around, though to some degree it can be hidden too.

Hiding from radar - even looking at the viewer source, I don't see any obvious way of doing so. I could blink my avi around so it would show in the wrong place on radar, but not entirely remove it.

What is however possible is camming across multiple sims. My av may be a few sims over from where my camera is. That feature is called "FlyCam" and only requires a reasonably good joystick, dual analog gamepad or the SpaceNavigator, which is even specifically supported by SL.

[Claireschen Hesten]

you can buy stalking huds that send out drones to follow you across the grid for the hud owner to do that they need rezzing rights and to be in the same sim during the initial stalk process then they can control the drone from the hud to talk to you until they stop the stalk or you log off i believe they stop working on re-log can't be certain as i haven't used one but seen them listed on xstreet

[Eternus Soulstar]

Monderas.Bristol wrote:

 

Yes it is true that an AV can do this.

I was alone in the club where I work and someone started talking to me,they could see me,knew where I was and what I was wearing,but I couldn't see them there or on my radar which can scan the whole sim region.

They were also able to contact me the next time I logged on even though I hadn't friended them.

On that occasion they weren't a particular nuiscance but there is always the mute option of course.

 

huggz and kisses

 

Mondy

 

the first time, if this isn't just an alt of someone you know, could be what i will call 'opportunistic stalking'.  bring up the map, zoom out a bit and look for single dots, and go check them out.  when one looks likely or interesting, start talking.

as to knowing when you are online, that in itself is a separate thing from being able to know where you are.  there are a few HUDs on the commerce sites that make use of a script command that can tell whether any avatar the script knows a name or a key for is online, but not where they are.  and they can do this without the friends list being involved at all.  a couple of viewers can tell it too but unlike the HUD, the viewers have no feature to alert when someone not on a friends list logs on.

 

oh and a person in an adjacent sim can see into that sim yet not show up on a scripted radar hud.  some of those can't scan adjacent sims and some that can sometimes glitch.  as far as i am aware however no it is not possible to hide from the mini-map or the map, though yes i believe there are some tricks to distort the actual location by a short distance.

[Ann Otoole]

In a busy sim with more than 35 avatars someone is going to be "invisible" since by default the viewer is set to render only 35 avatars. There is a debug setting for this number. When I used to go around taking pictures of bot farms I used to set that value to 100 to make sure all the avatars rendered.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

I may be mistaken here, but IIRC all avatars render regardless of that setting. It's just that only up to 35 (or whatever you set that to) actually get rendered 3d. All others get rendered as flat "cardboard cutouts". I often set this value to 1 because it gives me better (client-side) FPS in busy venues and I couldn't care less about anyone else nearby anyway.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

These things stop working as soon as you TP out of their sensor range.

[Ann Otoole]

I've had different results. Especially in places with 90 bots in the same location. Literally all in a pile jostling around as more autorez on top of the pile. I could see around 35 or so and when the value was boosted the rest became visible and FPS dropped to zilch lol.

But "invisible avatars" is something that I have seen happening as long as I have been in SL. Sometimes they simply don't render. It isn't intentional. Relogging usually fixes it.

When LL releases the alpha skin capability (is in the code but not turned on) then sure the avatars will really be capable of being invisible but the name tags would still be there. As it is today you would have to use an invisiprim and probably some other techniques as mentioned to simulate cloaking.

The permanent ever lasting rule of privacy in Second Life is simple. There is only privacy from other residents on isolated private access islands. There is no privacy on open access regions. There is never privacy from Lindens. They don't even need to log in to conduct surveillance against you. So if you are worried about privacy then you have a problem. You don't even have privacy in real life lol.

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Very true about the privacy warning

I wonder if there's a hardcoded minimum cap about avatar impostors... to me, the only thing the avi limit switches is between impostors and "true" avis. Curious, curious. Also, I use Emerald primarily, who knows what they changed in that code segment

[Dragomir Minotaur]

Can you hide your presence from devices that scan the entire grid?  My concern is that such devices are an invasion of privacy.  Is muting the only way to keep your presence on the grid from being detected by others?

[Honey Moon]

When i was noob, i was always searching for desert places to change clothing, try skins, edit my appearence... I was stalked at that time (long story) and someone was always appearing on my freebie radar. He was totally invisible (no dot on the map too). When he was on my chat range, i was saying something to let him know that i knew he was there and he was immediatly going away. Yes it's possible to be spyied. My freebie radar was better that the one i own now. I don't know why it doesn't always detect avatars who are near.

[Temporal Mitra]

Michaell.Aragon wrote:

 

I have heard that it is possible for someone to follow you around Sl, as you travel from sim to sim. Also, that is possible for them to be not only invisable,but to not show on the mini-map or radar. Is this true? And is it something anyone can do, or only special powers granted to Linden avis?I know there is no real privacy in SL, and that even your chat and IMs are accesible to the Lindens, except those encrypted by the Emerald viewer, but  can anyone spy on somebody this way? The question arises from a conversation I had with someone who was being followed around and harrassed, and did not know what to do about it.

 

What you describe is quite possible, and fairly simple for a scripter to do...it is simple to be invisible...just create a sit target that offsets the sitter 200M into the air...or underground, this moves them off your radar...then use that same sit target, which can be named with their name, which is still near you...to relay their chat to you...and your chat to them...so it appears as if they are right there beside you, chatting...if you dont notice that the text is green, you wont know where they are, or how they are doing it.

Camming is simple...they can set their cam to the same sit target...so their pov is wherever the sit target remains...better yet...make the sit target a vehicle...so they can move it around...to follow you in a sim...or across sim borders...

Lastly, it is also simple to create a script that checks on a timer for the online status of anyone, if you know their key...or name...both of which are available to anyone in SL...even with the standard client...you can just look in the "all" search...to find anyone's key.

[Temporal Mitra]

you dont have to be truly invisible, by using an invisiprim...just use a sit target that offsets your actual avi's position more than 96m, which puts you outside of radar range...over as sim border....and you are outside of minimap range too...and your tag goes with your avi...

[Temporal Mitra]

you dont have to be truly invisible, by using an invisiprim...just use a sit target that offsets your actual avi's position more than 96m, which puts you outside of radar range...over as sim border....and you are outside of minimap range too...and your tag goes with your avi...

[Jenni Darkwatch]

Send them 1L and look at the transaction log. Gives the sim the "target" is in.

[Pussycat Catnap]

Radars are not always accurate.

I've been seeing a lot of people on my adult sim that the radar says are near me by the number, but are out of range for camming to. When I've ever finally found someone, they were nowhere near where the radar had put them...

This seems to be a recent issue for me though. Since the last server update, Emerald seems to have trouble tracking some of the time.

[Elijah Jumanya]

Daqbet.kish wrote:

 

No, there is no way to make your avatar completely invisible because the nametag will always show even through an invisaprim.

 

 

 

I know I will get flammed for this but here goes; What is an invisiprim?

[Unklebob Hotaling]

flamed, for asking a question?   i'm more than likely to pour you a drink 

Invisiprim

Avatar behind an invisiprim

An Invisiprim is a prim with a special texture. This texture is transparent and has the effect to hide all items with an alpha layer, located behind the object with the invisi-texture. This includes water, clouds, particles and the whole default avatar parts. Prims with an invisitexture are not highlighted through the Highlight Transparent feature of the viewer (located in the View menu).

Invisiprims are often used by creators of furry or other non-human avatars, to hide parts of the human default avatar.

The texture can only be set via script (see llSetTexture) and its key is 38b86f85-2575-52a9-a531-23108d8da837

Critic on Invisiprims

Since the texture not only hides the human bodyparts, but also parts of the surrounding (unwanted x-ray effect), the ability to add alpha layers to the default avatar was requested in VWR-812, to replace invisiprims. A design proposal for this feature can be viewed here.

[Irene Muni]

A related "Torley's story" (lol) here: https://blogs.secondlife.com/community/community/tnt/blog/tags/invisiprim

[Twisted Pharaoh]

A few years ago, someone posted on the official forums (RIP) about being stalked from sim to sim. Apparently the stalker was using an exploit that would tell you where the victim was teleporting at. If I remember correctly you could defeat them by teleporting twice in a row. It's been a while so I thought this exploit was fixed long time ago but now you make me wonder.