I've discovered a neighbors invisible prim following me or attaching to me is this against TOS?

[lilvirtualvixen]

I was completely shocked and disturbed to discover a micro sized invisible prim attached to my inner thigh following me. By sheer coincidence did i find it. I almost brushed it off as being a glitch but something told me something wasn't right.

Here's what happened... I was looking in land details as i do sometimes and nothing showed in others prims but when i was about to auto-return some items to a resident in my group on my parcel I saw 1 prim being from a completely different person who is not in my group and doesn't have permission to build. But what was strange in land details if you did not open up the list of people who have things rezzed it was not showing. This is not the first time either so I know this prim has been attached to me before.

First i thought ok maybe its a rogue prim it happens from time to time but then i have object return on. then i thought no maybe its a ghost object or something that's happened before too. So i got out my handy dandy Bright finder and did a search and the prim came up exactly where i was standing so i looked and looked nothing. So for whatever reason i thought ok let me move and try again maybe it messed up. Low and behold again where i was. I said ok something isn't right here. I go to a completely different parcel on the same sim. Yep again!! So i knew at this point it was attaching to me.

Finally, I had to do a very fine search on my avi but found it. It wouldn't let me select it. i kept trying but finally i was able to for a few seconds before it deselected. Luckily I found the maker of the object but not what the object is called so I have no idea what it was doing. I returned the object and immediately another popped back up. I did this about 10 times. Same thing every time. So being very annoyed at this point. I IM my neighbor she acts like she has no clue why its happening and seems oddly inquisitive as to how i found it grilling me for answers.

Then once i explained all this and who made it she immediately started deflecting by responding strangely to say that shes been trying to get rid of this thing and its a hud and shes getting errors. She said nothing that made any sense what so ever or what it was for. I dont believe she even said sorry just thanks for telling her almost seemingly defiant even though i said very little other than she had a object following me. But anyhow...

My question is... is this against TOS? I would surely think so. I've searched everywhere and cant find anything specifically related to something like this. I would think it would need to ask permission or something to attach or follow me. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Freya Mokusei]

It's... probably not against the TOS to own objects that follow people around. Scripts can do this very easily, and for many innocent reasons.

It IS against Community Standards to cause "harassment", but it's probably hard to argue intent and tiny invisible prims probably aren't very harassing.

What you can do, on your own land, is prevent Object Entry and set-up Auto-Return using World > About Land > Options. It's far more effective to protect yourself against this type of attack, than expect someone to step-in and solve it for you.

 

[Lindal Kidd]

First of all, it's not attached to you...it's following you.  You have to accept an object and wear it in order for it to be attached to you, but an object does not need your permission to follow you.  "Follower" objects can be shaken off by teleporting to another region, but they will remain in the region where they are, and start following you again when you return to that region.

If the object "comes back" after you Return it, there are two possibilities.

1. There is another object owned by that person in your region which is generating the follower objects, or
2. The person has put the follower object back in your region, and now it's following you again.

In either case, I would ban the object's owner from your land, and Mute them.  Then, as Freya suggests, turn off Object Entry (and limit the ability to rez objects to yourself or your group.)  If you are sure it will not inadvertently return objects, you can also set a short auto-return time on your land.

Follower objects are not against TOS, per se.  However, one likely use of such an object is as a spy on your local chat.  The object can relay local chat it hears to its owner.  This IS against TOS, unless of course you have given your permission.

It sounds as if your neighbor has a "tracker HUD".  These devices are often advertised as a way to track and monitor someone in SL.  They are limited, however.  As I stated earlier, they cannot track you from region to region, only within one region.  And, through a different scripting function, they can show whether you are on line or not.

[Rolig Loon]

Lindal's right.  It's a follower, not an attachment.  It's either a single object that senses when you have returned to the region and homes in on you or it's an object that is spawned new each time that you come back.  In either case, it could be directed at you personally or it could be a generic tracker that is meant to keep track of anyone in the region.  It's also possible that your neighbor is telling you the truth -- that it's a device she picked up somwehere and lost control of.  I have stopped being surprised by the number of people who buy scripted tools and don't have a clue how to use them.  They end up being annoying booby traps.  In any case, it's not necessarily against the TOS, unless it is monitoring your chat.  Trackers are very common in RP regions and, of course, your own viewer has a tracker in the mini-map that shows where you are. If you take reasonable precautions to block object entry, as Lindal and Freya suggest, you should be free of it on your own parcel.

[Innula Zenovka]

In addition to preventing object entry, you might also want to consider turning off scripts, or at least  setting them to group members only.   That setting is in the same section as the one to turn off object entry.

This won't affect people's AO s (attachments, if they are properly configured, will continue to run) but will disable the scripts inside these mysterious followers and thus stop them following you and doing whatever else it is they're supposed to do.