sl key shown in emerald viewer

[reac Feden]

I was told today inworld by someone using the Emerald Viewer that part of the Key that identifies my avatar can be used to identify the approximate rl geograhic zone in which i log in.

"something in there relates to the zones you connect in
they know that you connect to say kent, so if you have someone who's pretending to be usa and they connect in kent"

Is this true ?   I know nothing of the Emerald Viewer.   I would appreciate any comments.

[Ansariel Hiller]

No that's not true and sounds like a fairy tale. True is that Emerald shows the UUID of every avatar in their profile, but the generation of that UUID has nothing to do with geographical location. See also UUID in the Knowledge Base for further information.

[Irene Muni]

I don't know. But I think that hasn't sense. But I'm not technical.

In any case, the avatar UUID can be found without problems with SL official viewer in profiles: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/What_is_a_UUID%3F

I have compared my UUID and the UUID of my alt and are absolutely differents .

[Nuclear Foton]

Your key, or UUID, is generated by the database when you join SL - it has nothing to do with your location or any other personal information. Everything in SL has a UUID - this is how each individual item is identified. Knowing the UUID of an object or an avatar is no need for concern. There is nothing anyone can do with it, in fact UUIDs are easily and routinely read by scripts used in obects within SL.

[Daria Afterthought]

It is completely true. Emerald also rapes your mother and burns your dog alive too.

 

God why do people believe such retarded rumours?

 

Snopes....Google....Wikipedia...hell even the dictionary can clear up a few of these net rumors.

[Irene Muni]

Daria.Afterthought escribió:

 

God why do people believe such retarded rumours?

Probably the reason is that many of us know almost nothing about technical issues. So we ask .

[reac Feden]

Perhaps, Daria, because people have less experience than you, and should be answered factually and not dismissed so uncaringly.

Thanks to the others for their helpful comments.   I hope I would be as supportive as them in future, and not as dismissive as you.

[Irene Muni]

Your welcome.

[Daria Afterthought]

I WILL BE AN ELITIST FANGIRL IF I GOD DAMN WANT TO BE.

 

The reason I am dismissive is its so god damned annoying to see the 17th "Will Emerald viewer steal my credit card?" type questions. And if any of you regulars think I'm just being heartless, need I remind you how rabid all of you got by your 3rd "am I pregnant" post. Some of us are tired. USE GOOGLE FIRST, ASK QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN ASKED 10 MILLION TIMES SECOND!

[Irene Muni]

I understand your point of view. I do not agree, but I respect it .

[Daria Afterthought]

Oh you jumped all over the "how do i abort my pregnicy" girls too. :3

[Kathrine Jansma]

No, its untrue.

The rumour might be because some forms of UUIDs (Type 1 GUIDs) could be used to track the unique serial number of your network card, the MAC, because it was used to create the GUID number. (Microsoft had some troubles with that with their Office products, which embedded GUIDs..).

Even in that case you cannot find out any geographical information or much useful other info.

A totally different thing is an IP address. Those can be tracked to your general area of residence pretty easily. But the viewer does not propagate that information and it is not related to your Avatar Key.

Kath

[Bunyip Fanshaw]

Is there any way of muting someone who keeps derailing these threads with insulting and obnoxious comments? I think y'all know who I'm referring to

[ZenWarrior Fuosing]

However, you might wish to keep in mind that just three pieces of seemingly innocuous demographic information are shared by only 13% of the U.S. population:  gender, ZIP code, and birth date.  To reverse that statement so you might better understand it:  "If you live in the United States, there's an 87% chance that you don't share all three of these attributes with any other U.S. resident." (See citation #1 below.)  And although 13% may have you feel safely anonymous still being 32.5 million people, it would only take one or two more pieces of also seemingly innocuous information to have someone well-trained in a field like marketing research (e.g., me) to figure out exactly who you are.  (See citation #2 below.)

So be careful what you reveal and to whom.  Many firms are now owned by other firms so privacy statements regarding information given them being shared with seemingly third parties is in fact not being "shared" at all, but instead each piece of that information is owned by a single parent corporation so they are not "sharing" it when it's given to each entity.

1)  What Information is "Personally Identifiable?"

2)  A Primer on Information Theory and Privacy

Edit:  As you will see should you follow the citation links, you should be far more concerned about your browser and the information it transmits to web sites you visit on the net while inworld, and especially if you use your avatar's name at them, than someone knowing your SL UUID.

 

Message was edited by: ZenWarrior Fuosing

[Daria Afterthought]

I will not tolerate such libel and defamation.

[Monderas Bristol]

My dog is quite safe, I put her in the kitchen whenver I use Emerald.

 

huggs

 

Mondy

[Baeric Constantine]

Its like asking how to deal with the ghosting avatar issue too....

[Baeric Constantine]

And who would that be? Remember you have only posted the first time today...

[Void Singer]

there MIGHT be a tiny hair of truth to the rumor, but I doubt it...

that tiny hair would be in the fact that some last names are only available through some sites, making those sites unique sources, some of which lie in different countries and/or are language specific. LL MIGHT handle those sites/sources differently (but I seriously doubt it without some real evidence).

it is possible to guess where someone might have signed up for a few names (IIRC Gossipgirl is one of the exclusives as an example). and I think there are a few that are unique to non-english portals.

as a longtime scripter in SL I've done a lot of avatar key comparisons to test unique was to store only partial keys to save space, and never seen any trends like that.

---

[Irene Muni]

Void.Singer escribió:

 

... and I think there are a few that are unique to non-english portals.

 

---

Yes, it's true, at least in Spanish .

[Larryk Dagger]

*laughing* Don't you wish more people would be like me and take your replies/comments in a humorous tone? Some people are just too bloody sensitive nowadays.

[Eternus Soulstar]

Bunyip.Fanshaw wrote:

 

Is there any way of muting someone who keeps derailing these threads with insulting and obnoxious comments? I think y'all know who I'm referring to

 

short answer: No.

 

long answer: No. and if YOU had done the same searching the OP should have done you would have seen that muting has been discussed several times in this blogmonster too, though not to the extent that various emerald features have.

 

even longer answer: No. and, derailing? not.  insulting? granted.  obnoxious?  also granted.  but anyone who can't tell from the post "we all know you are referring to" that the answer is indeed No to the question that was asked needs to get off the internet before they break it or it breaks them.

[reac Feden]

How odd ... Daria suggests i should have looked on "Snopes, Google, Wikipedia" .... and Eternus says in response to a reply that someome should have done "the same searching the OP should have done."

and here's me ... with a question relating to sl ... asking it in sl blogs ...  in the section where it says "Ask a Question."  OOPS !   How silly am I ?

I, again, thank those who responded with the information I needed.

[Eternus Soulstar]

reac.Feden wrote:

 

How odd ... Daria suggests i should have looked on "Snopes, Google, Wikipedia" .... and Eternus says in response to a reply that someome should have done "the same searching the OP should have done."

and here's me ... with a question relating to sl ... asking it in sl blogs ...  in the section where it says "Ask a Question."  OOPS !   How silly am I ?

I, again, thank those who responded with the information I needed.

 

on any forum/blog/wiki/whatever that has information you need and has a search function, 'information you need' is that using that function should be your first stop, and if it is a publicly indexable site Google et al count as search functions.  not only are the odds extreme almost to infinity that your question has been asked before in most cases, chances are also high that you will learn more useful stuff that way, and if your question does not get answered that way chances are still high that you will learn something that may help you tune your question to get the best answer.  it also promotes a cleaner, easier to search site if the same question is not appearing in a dozen permutations of itself, and that is especially true of this blogmonster thing that doesn't as of yet have 'stickies' implemented.  'Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.' is a cliche for a reason.  some of us will be caustic or blunt with replies to questions that have been asked a lot before; welcome to the internet.

to quote a friend of mine from another forum: Use the search, Luke!

[Zena Zemlja]

This Blog needs a FAQ.

In the FAQ should be the answers and links to:

-pregnancy

-emerald

-clouds

-etc

Some Linden need help us make it, before we go insane on same questions twenty times a month over again.

[Prokofy Neva]

Keep asking questions about the Emerald viewer, and do not be dissuaded by the propaganda.

The issue of scraping the avatar key needs a lot more debate than it gets from the cheerleaders here.

http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/second_thoughts/2009/12/the-key-to-avatar-keys.html