REDZONE IS DYING? Merchants Running RZ - Remove or else (from LL)

[Argus Collingwood]

 

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Lenfaer Luckstone wrote:

I agree that it doesn't matter whether it's votes or views. But I think this success was more down to residents riding this thing hard, ARing and sending screenshots and generally staying on top of it like crazy, and I'm proud. *sniffs*

Now...last time I posted, I didn't see my badge background. Why? *pokes it*

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There is a checkbox in the same area right above that needs ticking by you.;-)

 

[Dillon Levenque]

It's a good day to be alive in SL. I've done my Host file stuff and have my Media settings right so it was not a huge problem for me in terms of existence, but the sheer vileness of the whole operation was/is a drag on everyone.  There's still one thing I'd like to know. If I could learn who the crackerjack (whose only organ(s) smaller than his brain appear to be his gonads) is I'd be pleased. I'm not saying it would move me enough to switch to boy mode just long enough to smack him (be tempting, though) but I'd really like to know whose place not to get close to.

[Kalyrra Heart]

The creator of the Redzone is now selling stolen sculpt maps of various estate owners sims.  These can be easily converted into RAW files or used for various other purposes.  I was tipped off to this today and teleported to the location http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vsevolod/174/17/114 to find it completely true.  He is selling a sculpt map from one of my sims and I saw what appeared to be hundreds of other stolen sculpt maps owned by others. 

[Azure Twine]

what is a sim sculpt map?

[Steve Noland]

Good job people. This is a very good and honorable victory. The battle is not over though. zFire continues to try and get his product in line with LL's TOS and MAY mean he is still collecting our IP/username info and if even just he has access to alt information in this way, its intolerable. Other systems may also still emloy such practices.

Really good job people.

I feel there will still be a need for groups like Green Zone Users to continue to educate people as to privacy concerns as these products that track us are not likely to just go away and alt detection is popular with many SL residents. So lets not just call this a win and move on to other things. Stay vigillant use all TOS compliant methods to ensure our privacy is not at risk and know that with some work, patience and diligence we can keep SL privacy safe.

Ok again, really great job folks.

Now had zFire been fully transparent in his efforts to stop one of the biggest issues that LL has always been failing at (copybotting) much of this could of been avoided and instead of a villain zFire could have been closer to a hero. He would of had much advice about how his system was flawed and many would offer suggestions and other help to make his system not such a fail and violation of privacy that it was. I mention this because...

Copybotting is still a major issue in SL and still needs to be addressed. Perhaps this community (greenies) and others can work together and look for real solutions to this issue and find some of the same success we are finding in fighting for our privacy. I personally dont have any skills to lend to this (that I know of) but would still show all support I can (afford to with respects to time and funds) to any group opperating with full transparency that seeks a real solution to fighting this great evil.

So how about it? Good job people on fighting for privacy but what more can we do now?

[Denver Ghost]

"What more can we do now" you ask? Keep ARing the people still using this, keep ARIng the other products that do the same things or a derivative thereof..geo-locate IP trackers, CDS, etc. It's ALL disclosure violations.  

I fear greatly that people will let down their guard and stop caring now that the lindens have come out with this. It is NOT over by any means. You are still not safe and my music is still off...Unless you want to be tracked and your private information disclosed, I suggest you do the same. I'll feel much better when I see LL remove these things from the grid and from inventories (under any name and any functionality including geo-locate and CDS) using their magic poofer button.

[Yoshi Zhangsun]

Would rather see LL actually take a stand over copybot viewers, scamming alts and trouble makers instantly able to grab a new account and grief you than to be playing politics over this product and similar....

[Mocksoup Graves]

I don't think it's 'playing politics'. It's a true grievance over privacy violation. It isn't the fault of ALL of your customers that LL hasn't made something that suits you for your banning needs. 

If you have a problem with the 'throwaway alts' there is a setting on your about land to disallow residents who do not have payment on file onto your land. You don't need to datascrape all of SL to achieve that goal.

[Vick Forcella]

 

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Toysoldier Thor wrote:

AWESOME LL!  You done good!

 

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RZ was the pointer to the hole. For that I am sad to see it gone.

 

[Rene Erlanger]

I wonder if the Redzone owners will ask for a refund -lol How much did it cost? ......4000 L or something?

Looks likes the SL civil war is nearing an end........now if only the Libyans can manage to topple Gaddafi! :mansad:

 

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[Porky Gorky]

Although I do not agree with the privacy infringement that RZ presented, Linden Labs allowed RZ to be distributed and used and Linden have now banned RZ. If anyone is responsible for refunding RZ customers their money then it is LL. 

[Chelsea Malibu]

WHOOOOOOOOHOOOOOO! Is all I can say! I am so glad to see this happen, as anyone who reads this forum knows.  Now they should make this punk kid return the money to everyone who bought one under his fraudulent claim that it stopped copy botting.:smileyvery-happy:  

dances on his wet soggy grave in her stilletos

 

 

 

[Paladin Pinion]

 

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Steve Noland wrote:

Copybotting is still a major issue in SL and still needs to be addressed. Perhaps this community (greenies) and others can work together and look for real solutions to this issue and find some of the same success we are finding in fighting for our privacy. I personally dont have any skills to lend to this (that I know of) but would still show all support I can (afford to with respects to time and funds) to any group opperating with full transparency that seeks a real solution to fighting this great evil.

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I agree 100% about the need for a solution and the seriousness of the crime. I had my main product stolen and resold.

But from a programming perspective, it is difficult if not impossible to prevent copybotting. LL has already done the most obvious thing -- forbidding all known offending viewers. But I don't think there is much more that can be done. If your viewer claims to be the official LL viewer, and passes all the login checks, then it has to be admitted to the grid. There is no way to detect copybotting as it actually is happening either. Every viewer must download the data about all the objects around it. If that data gets saved to someone's hard drive, how is the server or LL to know?

From a technical perspective I think it is impossible to detect or stop copybotting. The main recourse we have is to report every incident we know about. But even that won't stop offenders from coming back in a different alt and doing it all over again.

Sorry to be so negative, but I can't see what more LL can do about  something that is impossible to detect when it happens.

[Pamela Galli]

They can do a better job of takedowns, though. Like leaving the grand Christmas haul of items made free and full perm up over an entire weekend because no one was around to do takedowns. Same thing happened with the dances and several other big thefts. Put them up on the MP on the weekend and you have a free ride.

[Courtney Sinister]

This is the greatest news yet!

I have NO sympathy for anyone who paid 4000 lindens for that spy product. Let them eat it. Most of them knew product was only good for one thing--identifying alts.

[Vocaloid1488303100]

Good riddance to this hideous hud-ware.

[Mac Giano]

My Partner and I own a urban roleplay sim, we are both PROUD OWNERS OF THE RED ZONE SYSTEM. I have been in the game for pushing three years and ran this sim for a year and a half. We heavily relied on Redzone NOT to find out personal information, but to defend our sim from all the dim people who find enjoyment of making peoples Second Lives miserable. SL is supposed to be fun, but people like to grief and cause havok. RedZone prevented that. Thanks to the creator, he has stopped made everyone aware of peoples hidden alternate accounts. According to Second Life Linden Lab TOS, there is a limit on alternate avatars. We pay so much to be on SL, we feel we need protection from any griefers. People who are afraid of the RedZone system, means they have alternate accounts to hide. And if they have alternate accounts to hide, normally that means that they are doing stuff inworld of questionable legality. If Linden Lab would prevent and uphold the Alternate avatar TOS, and keep a limit on alts, then RedZone would not be needed, But since people feel they need to hide, people complain. RedZone is NOT by any means an invasion of privacy, as it does not give out any type of information to the owner of the system. The only thing is your alternate avatar names, thats it.

Please take this seriously to protect our land from anyone who likes to threaten people out of the game, and threaten people in the game.

[Summer Burt]

THERE IS MANY REASON TO KEEP REDZONE ALIVE FOR ONE TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF PEOPLE IF LINDEN LAB WOULD STOP LETTING PEOPLE MAKE ALT'S  AND FOR THEM PEOPLE THAT DON'T LIKE  IT IS CUZZ THEY HAVE ALTS AND ARE HIDING SOMETHING SO IF LINDENS LABS STARTED TO ANSWER AR'S  AND DEALING WITH PEOPLE FOR THREATS COPY BOOT GRIEFRS THEN WE WOULDN'T HAVE TO USE REDZONE SO IF YOUR TAKING REDZONE AWAY HOW CAN YOU ENSURE OUR SIM AND PEOPLE SAFETY WHEN YOU TOOK THE TEENS GRID AWAY SO WE CAN PUT UP WITH MORE *edited out for masked vulgarity* FROM KIDS AND THERE ALTS WHEN WE PAY SO MUCH TO BE  ON SECOND LIFE AND TO USE REDZONE WHEN YOU OWN YOUR OWN LAND YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE WHAT YOU WANT IF THEY DONT LIKE REDZONE THEN SHOOULDNT  ENTER IN REDZONE AREA I BELIEVE IT IS EVERYONE SECONDLIFE FOR ME I WISH YOU WOULD TAKE THIS ENERGY FROM STOPPING SOMETHING THAT ENSURE THE SAFETY OF PEOPLE AND START BY FIXING THE PROBLEM OF KEEPING THESE PEOPLE OUT OF THE GAME GRIEFERS COPYBOTTER CYBERBULLYING  DMCA TOS CUZZ IT TAKES ABOUT 100AR'S TO GET SOMEONE OUT OF THE GAME BUT YET THERE SO FAST TO TAKE SOMETHING THET HELPS THEM AND EVERYONE THAT OWNS A SIM

THANK YOU

 

[Beautifull Skytower]

I for one, as a creator do not find this "great". RZ stopped copyboters from stealing my shapes that I worked very hard on, as well as other creators in SL.

[eighthdwarf Checchinato]

 

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Mac Giano wrote:

My Partner and I own a urban roleplay sim, we are both PROUD OWNERS OF THE RED ZONE SYSTEM. I have been in the game for pushing three years and ran this sim for a year and a half. We heavily relied on Redzone NOT to find out personal information, but to defend our sim from all the dim people who find enjoyment of making peoples Second Lives miserable. SL is supposed to be fun, but people like to grief and cause havok. RedZone prevented that. Thanks to the creator, he has stopped made everyone aware of peoples hidden alternate accounts. According to Second Life Linden Lab TOS, there is a limit on alternate avatars. We pay so much to be on SL, we feel we need protection from any griefers. People who are afraid of the RedZone system, means they have alternate accounts to hide. And if they have alternate accounts to hide, normally that means that they are doing stuff inworld of questionable legality. If Linden Lab would prevent and uphold the Alternate avatar TOS, and keep a limit on alts, then RedZone would not be needed, But since people feel they need to hide, people complain. RedZone is NOT by any means an invasion of privacy, as it does not give out any type of information to the owner of the system. The only thing is your alternate avatar names, thats it.

Please take this seriously to protect our land from anyone who likes to threaten people out of the game, and threaten people in the game.

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First off: SL is NOT a game. After three years you should know that already. It's a platform where you can play games, yes, but in and of itself, SL is not a game. Or is the Internet a game? Or RL?

 

Second: The assumption "people like to grief and cause havoc" is a very paranoid generalization. I've been in SL since a bit more than three years as well, even spent months on roleplay sims  - and the ONLY handful of real "griefers" I've ever experienced were some teenage newbies confusing SL with a game and playing with freebie weapons on a sandbox trying to get some attention, and a few wannabe cops playing with the attack functions of their multifunctional HUD toy. The first were cured by elect and mute, the latter by setting the rezzing permissions on group only. No grief actually happened. And how often does it happen that a newbie opens a box and instead of a gift there coms a bunch of self-replicating stuff? es, I also saw that already, on a sim that already was lagging as hell because it was full of avatars.

 

Third: I have also spent time on RP sims during the last two years - with an alt. And I know some so use alts there to create other characters, to play more than one role. Is that so bad? And about the griefing: I've never seen griefing on any RP sim I have been, not even on Gorean RP sims. BUT: I have seen admins who treated visitors who were wearing the OOC Visitor Tag but were not dressed likeif they were "in character", or had an avatar not fitting to the RP, as griefers and ejected and banned them - while some calm words would have been enough. 

 

Fourth: "And if they have alternate accounts to hide, normally that means that they are doing stuff inworld of questionable legality." WRONG and insulting. But typical for most pro-RZ arguments. If someone has a business related to a RL business, would they use their main account to go - let's say - play Gor? If someone wants to explore the other gender but has a main account with a name matching their RL gender would they just wear a female shape? No they would create an alt with a name matching the other gender to do it. Would someone who wants to flee from drama rather leave SL than remaining searchable for those who caused the drama? no. They would create an alt and let that be their new main. ETC ETC.please also read up the wiki: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Alt_Account_FAQ

There, they write: "Alternate accounts... multiple identities... We all have them in some way or another. Perhaps in real life you're an entrepreneur in the morning, soccer mom in the afternoon, and vegetarian chef in the evening. In Second Life, you get to externalize these roles in customized, uniquely identifiable personas — otherwise known as alt accounts. How cool is that?

There are great reasons for having more than one account in Second Life, and we like to facilitate these uses."

So why would you be against alts at all if LL condones and supports them?

 

Fifth: Please look up the Community Standards:

"4.        Disclosure

Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Life experience. Sharing personal information about your fellow Residents without their consent -- including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, alternate account names, and real-world location beyond what is provided by them in their Resident profile -- is not allowed. Remotely monitoring conversations in Second Life, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without the participants' consent are all prohibited."

or the TOS:

8.3 You agree that you will not post or transmit Content or code that may be harmful, impede other users' functionality, invade other users' privacy, or surreptitiously or negatively impact any system or network.

(i) Post or transmit viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer programming routines that may harm the Service or interests or rights of other users, or that may harvest or collect any data or personal information about other users without their consent;

RZ is just that: it invades other user's privacy. It collects data, and it has an negative impact on the SL 

NO-ONE has the right to sniff in my data. Especially not someone who isn't even authorized by LL to collect data about the avatars. You want to know whether X is an alt of Y? Become a Linden and look into the registration / payment info/age verificaion files. As a Linden you would also have to right to do IP bans or other hardware ban - as a Non-Linden you don't have the right and have to just use ONLY the tools you  get with the viewer                                                                                

[Toysoldier Thor]

I still shake my head and some of the arguments that the RZers use on their justification on their reasons why it was ok for them to violate the privacy and anonymity of the vast majority of SL customers that had Alts for whatever valid reasons they had them.

Some of the bogus reasons were just posted above...

 

• So you RZers are all ticked off at a extremely small % of the total SLpopulation that everyone would agree with you are the scumbags of the earth (i.e. the copybotters & griefers), but you believe with a passion that to address a problem with such a small target - it warrents you the God Given right to violate the privacy that the vast majority of SL customers deserve and have the right to.  To individuals like you - THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS.
• Other than the legit arguments of ALTS being used for CopyBotting & Griefing that you believe you have the right to use RZ to expose a RL person's Alt, regardless of what ever other reasons why a person wants to hide behind an alt (EVEN IF YOU HAVE MORAL STANDARDS THAT FIND IT UNACCEPTABLE - like a cheating partner or a BDSM role player etc) it is none of your business nor is it your responsibility to expose it.  This has happened countless times - I even know one clear example where a club owner felt it was in her rights to notify a person in SL that her partner was a cheating alt.
  
  
• Related to the last point - the lame shallow thinking and argument of "I would never use RZ to expose alts - I only used it to expose and deal with copybotters and griefers". So, you are saupposed to tell me that the 99.9% of SL residents who have zero clue who you are - you or your many alts - is suppose to instill all our trusts in ensuring you will use your knowledge wisely??  You have already proven to me that you cant be trusted since you have secretly for over a year been scanning all your customers / visitors.  You could not be upfront about you collecting my private info.  So, your logic is that since you have openly stated that I should trust you - that all RZ scanners should be trusted?  This is a legit argument to use RZ?
  
  
• You say - anyone has a concern with RZ then they simply should not enter a RZ sim.  OK - so this is the dumbest statement of all... why... so let me ask you ... did you put a sign up at your sim's TP landing spot clearly informing ALL VISITORS that you are a RZ customer and if you do not leave now tou will be scanned by our redzone and your private information will be stored in a 3rd party DB where your ALTS can be identified by you and the 1000's of other RZ useers?  I can tell you a fact - of all the RZ lands I have entered (safely with protection so I cannot be scanned), NOT ONE USER WARNED ME IN ANY WAY THAT THIS LAND IS RZ PROTECTED.  So... how am I able to have a choice to leave your privacy violating sim if you didnt even tell me you were doing it??
  
  
• The utterly failed logic that RZ has stopped copybotters and griefers.  Although you might be right that while zfire's product and all the users quietly implemented and used this privacy violating solution, you were catching these true scumbags of SL, the RZ solution's effectiveness has become a lame duck.  All you are protecting yourselves from now are the stupid uninformed scumbags... the smart copybotters and griefers all now know how RZ has hacked a security weakness in the viewer's media player.  They can grief you or copybot you - with or without RZ.  So now you are blindly clinging on to the memories of a tool that was only effective while it was a dirty little secret among RZ using merchants, club owners, RP sims owners, or anyone willing to pay to get access to this ALT EXPOSING DB.
  
  
• So you are so concerned about griefers?  Or concerned about copybotters?  Did you enable your land's restriction that only users with PIOF can enter your lands?  Funny how so many RZ users are passionately concerned about stopping copybotters and griefers and are willing to violate the privacy rights of 99% of good innocent SL citizens - but they are the first to refuse to block non-PIOF avatars from entering their lands because "heaven forbid it might impact the popularity of their sim and lose sales or guests to their club".  Such Hipocryts!

I could go on and on regarding the lame excuses and reasons that RZ users use to justify why they have a right to violate 99% of the SL community's privacy with their inaccurate vigilante justice effort using a tool that has as much effectiveness as a screendoor on a sub, but it has become clear that RZ land users do not care about their fellow SL citizen.  They are selfish "as long as I am ok" residents of SL.

If RZ users have issues with copybotters and griefers - take it up with LL.  Start up a lobby group and go after Mr. Humble.  Or better yet... leave SL and go to a competing grid that currently doesnt have these issues.  YOU have the freedom to not do business or participate in SL if you have such anger and frustration with SL.  YOU DO NOT have the freedom to violate other innocent ppl's rights to privacy.

If you dont like SL - LEAVE!

[Chelsea Malibu]

Thanks eightdwarf, you nailed it!  The notions and claims of what redzone did are preposterous. If you look into the fact, you would clearly understand but if you drink the zRedZone cool aid, you too will find soon be embarrassed about your naivety.

[Theia Magic]

There is no reasons to keep Redzone alive.  None.  It's the epic failure of copybot detection being as only .025% of banned avatars are banned for copybotting.  Then, take into consideration the number of those avatars banned because they were incorrectly linked as an alt to copybotter, the success rate gets even more dismal.  

As for griefers?  Again, do you have any idea how many innocent people have been banned because of bad avatar links?  Thousands of them.

Thanks to LL's action to make revealing alts against TOS, at least it can't be used to violate privacy anymore.

However, it's very important that everyone realizes it's still out there, it's still active, and it's still collecting IP addresses.  It's crucial that you leave media and cookies disabled unless you're 100% sure you're in a Redzone free area.  Considering the fact zFire has threatened to make the alt list viewable on a website separate from Linden Lab, for payment via Paypal instead of L$, it's all the more reason to keep your IP out of his corrupt database.

[Casey Pelous]

I think, Steven, there are two key areas for us to focus. 1) Consent to scan. The alt detectors are still scanning invisibly and I believe the vast majority of users are oblivious. So far as I know, the viewers as delivered default to a less-than-fully secure state -- that includes the media patch already in the Cool viewer and the coming update of Phoenix being defaulted to "off". 2) Nevertheless, "they always find the blue dress" as I heard a public relations consultant say recently. Awareness will spread. Those of us who are aware and who care about the future of our little pixel world are called, I believe, to share the needed information with those who don't know and to share it in a way that fully informs yet welcomes them to continue being residents. The helpers at at least one of the resident help sims are already mastering this by working it in casually to their chats with new residents who come to them for help. We can do this in a way that is world building, not world destroying. Unfortunately, at this point, the only fully safe method is to switch voice, music, media and cookies off permanently. This breaks significant amounts of content, including Search in viewer 2.5. So -- we educate them about TPV's based in viewer 1, too. While the media patch and full disclosure of media URL's is a great tool, it really has nothing to say about which URL's are suspicious and which aren't. We had quite a lengthy discussion in another forum today on this topic and the very knowledgeable folks there were, thus far, unable to come up with any method of reliably detecting suspicious URL's -- and certainly no simple method that would work for the average user. I won't blather on about the technical details -- trust me, we worked this one over in some depth. Until the exploit is patched -- not a trivial exercise -- that's the best we can do. This doesn't need to be the boogieman that killed SL -- it can be a nuisance we dealt with while LL developed more powerful technologically and policy based methods.

[Denver Ghost]

Redzone is NOT dead and it's NOT banned, but thanks to your headline, most of the SL grid now thinks they're safe. Great piece of misinfo to make people think it's over and stop fighting. RZ is still there, still scanning (as is CDS) without asking consent, and it's not banned or it would have been removed from the grid by Linden Labs.