Can anyone mess with your avatar?

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

I had a disturbing experience today, when my avatar rezzed with an awful bondage-type mask on that I'd never seen before, and I had a different skin and clothes too. I couldn't get the avatar straightened out, so I logged off. When I logged back on the mask was gone, but my skin was all black, chin to toes, later waist to toes. I seem to have recovered now, using copies of things that I fortunately found elsewhere in my inventory, but the idea that someone could have done this to me intentionally is still pretty scary. Is this possible, if you're not wearing an open collar, don't have RLV activated or similar? I'm now more open to this possibility if you are or do, so I'll probably be warier about that kind of stuff regardless. Thanks.

[Kat Messioptra]

Maybe you were hacked?

[Tempest Lefevre]

The black skin thing is a bug with some video cards. Sometimes you can clear it by rebake. Sometimes it takes changing your skin to a different skin and then changing back. I can remember one about a year ago that it looked like your skin had gotten too big or was melting putting your lips on your chin, your nose on your mouth, etc.

 

As for the other..check your transactions, being sure to check for 0L transactions as well to see if anything was received or sent by your avi. I would suggest changing your password and be sure you use something random and be sure that you don't have your remember password checked if others in your household have access to your computer. If someone in your household does have accesss, sound like they were playing. If not, and nothing was missing, change your password and report it to LL.

 

Good luck.

[Unklebob Hotaling]

Nobody can mess with you're avatar unless they have access to your account, chances of someone logging into your account from your own home the result of you saving your password is a possibility you can best answer - chances of someone from any other location accessing your account is extremely remote.

Secondlife is full of surprises that defy explanation; people have logged wearing items they hadn't worn and at a place they've not been to in weeks like sl deja-vu; back in the day if you weren't rezzed property your av would visibly be an 'ugly woman' called Ruth and after a bad tp you're hair and shoes would be up your a** - quite the disturbing visual indeed.  SL just does bizarre stuff sometimes and that's whayt i'm thinking happened to you.

Time will tell and will be your answer - if it was a one time glitch you have a story to tell your prim kids someday, if it's a reoccuring issue then you'll know something is amiss.  Change your password to a real tough one and just take the usual safeguarding of your account; if premium submit a ticket under Technical advising you are concerned you account was compromised.

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[Sugarlips Shackleton]

Well, that was the question - whether that was possible, etc.

[Ansariel Hiller]

Unless you have a clear proof in terms of missing inventory, Linden Dollars or deleted friends it's all speculations based on hints, but there is no clear sign to detect that.

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

The black skin thing is a bug with some video cards.

Glad to hear that!

Sometimes you can clear it by rebake.

What's rebake? I can guess that it's something like applying a totally different avatar, but I'm not sure.

Sometimes it takes changing your skin to a different skin and then changing back.

I got the avi more or less back in shape by doing this, changing avatars etc., but there's still a problem in that I have something on me I can't get off - namely, something that may have been named "Girl Next Door - Eyebrowshaper" (that's what's in Description in Properties now), but was renamed to "New Outfit Hair" or something like that when I made the mistake of saving an outfit (supposably my original default Girl Next Door avi or a variant of that one) with the name-change thing checked. I may want to keep the eyebrowshaper as part of my usual avi, but I'd also like to *be able* to get rid of it and not have the feeling that something's wrong.

As for the other..check your transactions, being sure to check for 0L transactions

Zero linden, online?

as well to see if anything was received or sent by your avi.

I do have a box or two of cheesy bondage stuff I've never opened or looked at, and it could be that the disturbing mask I saw somehow came out of one of these. Or wherever. Who knows?

I would suggest changing your password and be sure you use something random and be sure that you don't have your remember password checked if others in your household have access to your computer. If someone in your household does have accesss, sound like they were playing. If not, and nothing was missing, change your password and report it to LL.

I'll do this if it happens again, thanks. But I'm now thinking - particularly since you tell me the black skin is a known issue - that this was either a random glitch, or (as seems likely) that it was caused by my shrinking my SL window and resizing it a couple of times in the middle of a session. The weird change happened after I did this, maybe immediately after though I'm not sure now.

Thanks!

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

Nobody can mess with you're avatar unless they have access to your account

I was going to mark this reply only as helpful because both yours and Tempest's seemed kind of equally so, but this is such a direct and clear answer that I have to credit it as such. Thanks, also for the helpful info on past glitches and tech support for Premium accounts.

[Ansariel Hiller]

You're welcome!

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

You're welcome!

Clicking on Helpful being taken as a way of saying thanks, I suppose. Sorry if I perhaps should have been more verbal, and yes, thank you.

[Ansariel Hiller]

Oh it's okay. Don't worry.

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

Oh, I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about those weird, possibly technically proficient sadists I taunted about not being able to do anything to me in SL, lol.

[Faubio Alter]

Did you click a blue menu sometime, somewhere? If you did then that's the problem avoid those menus if you do not trust or know the people providing them. Be especially careful on Linden Sandboxes where these can be a continual problem. Never accept a chain or leash from anyone. I did that once not knowing what it was and ended up with a slave.   I let her go after awhile. That's really not my thing.

[Unklebob Hotaling]

I'm pretty sure it's safe to continue taunting.

[Tempest Lefevre]

"I got the avi more or less back in shape by doing this, changing avatars  etc., but there's still a problem in that I have something on me I  can't get off - namely, something that may have been named "Girl Next  Door - Eyebrowshaper" (that's what's in Description in Properties now),  but was renamed to "New Outfit Hair" or something like that when I made  the mistake of saving an outfit (supposably my original default Girl  Next Door avi or a variant of that one) with the name-change thing  checked. I may want to keep the eyebrowshaper as part of my usual avi,  but I'd also like to *be able* to get rid of it and not have the feeling  that something's wrong."

What you are looking at is a hairbase. There are 2 different types of hair in SL. Once upon a time, you avi came with system hair that looked painted on. In order to cover this up, you had to wear a hairbase, basically a bald cap. Because of the placement, they also can have different eyebrow shapes and colors on them. Many skin designers use them for that. Once you put one on, however, they are like your skin. It can only be replaced, not taken off. That's why when you take the prim hair off, you are bald.

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

Yeah, they can't even get a... oops, maybe I'd better not say that here, this presumably being a family forum lol.

[Sugarlips Shackleton]

Yes, I understand some nasty things can happen with those blue menus. I'll be careful not to get stuck with any slaves, thanks - though the "pet" I'm hanging out with now is a pretty hot item lol.

[Unklebob Hotaling]

"Yes, I understand some nasty things can happen with those blue menus."

undoubtedly.