Why Do The Lindens Tolerate This Kind of Griefing?

[Phil Deakins]

4 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There's nothing "stupid" about trusting an old public figure in business with a reputation to uphold

I missed this until ChinRey quoted it.

1. I second ChinRey's comment that you are no more a public figure than any of the regulars in this and the other forum. Of course, we are 'public figures' in our own tiny environments, as is everyone else in those environments, but that's all.

2. The ONLY reputation that I'm aware of about you is very negative indeed. If that's what you want to uphold, go for it lol.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[Phil Deakins]

17 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

You draw an analogy with people who are negligent in securing their houses and then complain about being burgled.   I can think of far better analogies, though -- someone who gets involved in a political argument (or one about computer games) on Twitter or Facebook, for example, and then finds herself harassed by armies of online trolls.   I've often seen comments to the effect that people in those circumstances should simply stay off Twitter and Facebook, or avoid attracting the attention of trolls by avoiding contentious topics, but I've never thought that excuses either the trolls' misbehaviour or Twitter and Facebook not doing more to stop it, if it's within their power so to.   

I agree with you, Innula, and I have agreed with your point all through this thread. Unintentionally setting onesself up as a suitable target does not mean that it's ok to fire at him/her. It isn't. I've said that all along. The other thing is that, in this case, the target can do something about it, but prefers not to because it's not her "preferred method".

 

4 hours ago, AmandaKeen said:

I work within "what remains possible"

That was Amanda's conclusion to her problems, and that's what all of us have to do in SL if we become targets. But that's what Prokofy is reluctant to do because it's not her preferred method.

Edited July 14, 2017 by Phil Deakins

[ChinRey]

41 minutes ago, Phil Deakins said:

2. The ONLY reputation that I'm aware about you is very negative indeed. If that's what you want to uphold, go for it lol.

I have to tell you otherwise then. Prokofy is fiercly loyal of his tenants, a patreon of many talented SL artists, protector of several classic SL builds who may have been lost if it wasn't for him and as far as I know, always willing to honor any agreements. That's why I still like him.

But good or bad reputation, it's still only among a very small part of the entire SL population. Second Life is a huge, varied and fractured community. Everyone may be a star in their own little corner of it but nobody is big enough to be noticeable in SL as a whole.

[Qie Niangao]

23 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

some of her presuppositions about what steps LL may easily take are, simply, mistaken.

Or at least unrealistically optimistic. There are steps LL could take more often that would reduce casual griefing. They're nothing like the hoped-for magic bullets, but they're not nothing, either.

There are even data forensics and surveillance measures that defeat honest to god, determined and tech-savvy cyber criminals -- but these involve extreme cooperation among multiple carriers and agencies and investment of millions of dollars per instance, so this happens a few dozen times a year, almost always to thwart major ongoing fraud that threatens global financial institutions. (That's distinct from what the spy agencies do routinely and keep to themselves.)

I'm not confident that elevating the level of anti-griefer effort by LL within practical limits would actually improve Prok's situation. Those are some pretty committed basement-dwellers. Maybe it could help -- that's why I ranted before about the need to take partial measures when they're all that's available -- but I can imagine an argument that there might be dire unintended consequences of these particular griefers upping their game in response to heightened LL security. That's not to say Prok's current situation is acceptable, but some care in devising a response may be warranted, lest the situation become even more intractable.

It seems impossible to communicate a positive suggestion about what partial measures Prok, too, might take. I'm gonna just assume they've all been tried and rejected. That said, the vile antisemitic rumor that was described in the blog post: I'd find it difficult not to overreact to that, myself -- and yet, the reaction to that prospective tenant wasn't productive. Admittedly, I'm promoting here an amoral, "realpolitik" communications approach: There's no way to know whether this "tenant" was a real "tenant" or just a confederate of the rumor-monger. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog. But the same applies to one's response: even if the "tenant" is suspected, there's no point revealing that or otherwise reacting negatively, regardless how much the situation may seem to call for it. They don't know you're not a lovable puppy, and there's no cost in playing that role through to curtain.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Yes. There. Is.

Prims are created by the viewer. It can't stop creating them. That's what it's designed to do. That's what it has to do. And if you're in a hurry and the viewer has the appropriate code you can use an XML file (which is stored completely offline) to tell it to create a certain combination of prims instantly and once those prims are created somewhere that allows the creation of prims, everyone else can see them too.

What you said is the exact equivalent of saying, "But there isn't an infinite number of words in a language." If the word "banana" somehow became so repellent that you struck every existing instance of it from the world lexicon someone could still string a combination of b's, a's and n's together to make new ones instantly. If you went to the extent of breaking your alphabet to remove those letters, people could still use their mouths and lungs to produce "buhs," "aaaas" and "nnnns" because as humans we're physically able to do that.

NO. THERE. ISN'T

Because your notion of infinity is a POTENTIAL; the ACTUAL on the server at any given time is FINITE.

Once again, as I pointed out before, the Lindens remove objects from the asset server all the time -- copybotted items, items that cause sim crashes, etc. And you are notified of this. So it's not "impossible" due to "infinity".

Once again, it's about common sense and the *actual,* not the potential.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Qie Niangao said:

Or at least unrealistically optimistic. There are steps LL could take more often that would reduce casual griefing. They're nothing like the hoped-for magic bullets, but they're not nothing, either.

There are even data forensics and surveillance measures that defeat honest to god, determined and tech-savvy cyber criminals -- but these involve extreme cooperation among multiple carriers and agencies and investment of millions of dollars per instance, so this happens a few dozen times a year, almost always to thwart major ongoing fraud that threatens global financial institutions. (That's distinct from what the spy agencies do routinely and keep to themselves.)

I'm not confident that elevating the level of anti-griefer effort by LL within practical limits would actually improve Prok's situation. Those are some pretty committed basement-dwellers. Maybe it could help -- that's why I ranted before about the need to take partial measures when they're all that's available -- but I can imagine an argument that there might be dire unintended consequences of these particular griefers upping their game in response to heightened LL security. That's not to say Prok's current situation is acceptable, but some care in devising a response may be warranted, lest the situation become even more intractable.

It seems impossible to communicate a positive suggestion about what partial measures Prok, too, might take. I'm gonna just assume they've all been tried and rejected. That said, the vile antisemitic rumor that was described in the blog post: I'd find it difficult not to overreact to that, myself -- and yet, the reaction to that prospective tenant wasn't productive. Admittedly, I'm promoting here an amoral, "realpolitik" communications approach: There's no way to know whether this "tenant" was a real "tenant" or just a confederate of the rumor-monger. On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog. But the same applies to one's response: even if the "tenant" is suspected, there's no point revealing that or otherwise reacting negatively, regardless how much the situation may seem to call for it. They don't know you're not a lovable puppy, and there's no cost in playing that role through to curtain.

I'm happy to discuss this freely on my blog.

Again, the Lindens remove accounts completely, that's a great solution. They do it often, but not always.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

4 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

NO. THERE. ISN'T

Because your notion of infinity is a POTENTIAL; the ACTUAL on the server at any given time is FINITE.

Once again, as I pointed out before, the Lindens remove objects from the asset server all the time -- copybotted items, items that cause sim crashes, etc. And you are notified of this. So it's not "impossible" due to "infinity".

Once again, it's about common sense and the *actual,* not the potential.

Banana!

[arton Rotaru]

 

[Tari Landar]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I have to tell you otherwise then. Prokofy is fiercly loyal of his tenants, a patreon of many talented SL artists, protector of several classic SL builds who may have been lost if it wasn't for him and as far as I know, always willing to honor any agreements. That's why I still like him.

But good or bad reputation, it's still only among a very small part of the entire SL population. Second Life is a huge, varied and fractured community. Everyone may be a star in their own little corner of it but nobody is big enough to be noticeable in SL as a whole.

 I can tell you, with absolute certainty, you are a very tiny minority in this. I have *heard all of these things of Prok...however the negative reputation precedes, and withstands, regardless of one's chosen acts of kindness here and there, when one intends to remain uber negative at every single turn.  Do you know how I know who Prok is? It is *entirely due to the negative nature of the reputation achieved years ago, which has only gotten worse. The bad has outweighed the good for a veyr long time. Whether it's simply because Prok got fed up years ago and hit the proverbial brick wall too many times, so now has proverbial brain damage...or what...I do not know, but I do know that even among folks who know who Prok is, even among those that agree Prok gets griefed way more often than most other folks....Prok is still a negative nancy and always will be. But despite this, Prok is still, like most other residents, very much unknown to the vast majority of the sl world. 

That said...I don't think anyone necessarily *deserves to be grief, regardless of the negative reputation he or she may have had. I do think some folks fan the flames of their own fire, and I do believe that Prok does that, constantly, and repeatedly. I believe Prok has been vehemently against LL for a very long time, after believing something done was an intentional slight against, and anything they do, or do not do, will never be enough. Even IF they managed to find a way to stop the griefing, it would simply be something else that sets Prok off. Some folks thrive on negativity and attention and Prok *seems to be* one of them, or rather, comes across that way, and it doens't take more than a few minutes of reading Prok's words to see that. I have watched it for years play out on these forums, blogs, other forums, in sl itself....rarely ever, ok never until now, chimed in on it..but I read far more than I participate. I've had a front row seat watching this ***** play out for years. I still feel bad for Prok, because, like I said, most folks don't deserve to be griefed on this level. But I would be lying if I didn't say that *more can be done on the user side AND the LL side, and that Prok fans the flames of this fire as often as possible, in order to stay relevant(Prok pops up here and there, and it won't be long before we stop hearing about it..then the cycle will repeat, as it has for years).

Yes LL should do all that they can to prevent as much griefing as they can. Do I think they currently are? No. Do I think they ever will? My guess is a hard no. Do I think residents, users if you'd prefer, do enough to help themselves? In most cases, absolutely not. Do I think residents should rely solely on LL for "protection"? Absolutely not, even IF they offered the absolute max amount of protection possible. People have to be willing to take steps themselves AND rely on LL. When one of those options is gone, or not enough...one would reasonably assume he or she has to take a bit more caution to use the other option to the best of his or her ability. You can't do the bare minimum of protecting yourself and expect that to be enough simply because..."it's not right" for people to grief you. n no part of the world, virtual or otherwise does "not right" become a deterrent to the level some folks seem to desire. It never has...it never will. 

I do hope LL resolves as much as they can, and they take steps to mitigate these issues, though prevention whenever possible would be best. But I can't help but laugh at the staunch nature of Prok's firing back with a resounding...:"but I don't WANT to", anytime someone suggests some kind of self protection method.

I don't like owning a gun for self protection either...but I do. I will use it when, or if, necessary. I won't rely solely on the fact that police in my area have guns too, and can therefore protect me and my family. But I will sleep soundly, when I do, knowing that I implement as many safety measures as I can reasonably implement, so should something bad happen...I will have had no hand in it. But that is just MY approach, one that loads of others don't take...because it is reasonable to them not to, and reasonable for them to rely nearly entirely on someone else to protect them. I've never been keen on that approach, but..to each their own. 

TLDR; Prok, you are not as well known as you think, but what many do know about you, is not positive, and it is not their fault, but rather past incidents that have lead to this. I feel terribly for you that some have griefed you at this level, regardless of what you have done or said,  you do not deserve that. Please take whatever measures are possible, regardless of how much you "don't want to", to protect yourself, at the very least your tenants. At that point, then you can, reasonably, suggest that LL take even better measures. Until you're willing to put in some effort, LL isn't likely to listen. Oh, and stop being a negative nancy to anyone that does not wholeheartedly agree with every single thing you say. it is that very act that has caused so many to think "welp, Prok deserve(d)(s) it"..whether they are right or wrong in their thinking...your actions and inactions are what lead to that line of thinking. I don't agree with them, but I DO understand how they got to that place after watching all of this play out for years now. 

[Phil Deakins]

2 hours ago, ChinRey said:

I have to tell you otherwise then. Prokofy is fiercly loyal of his tenants, a patreon of many talented SL artists, protector of several classic SL builds who may have been lost if it wasn't for him and as far as I know, always willing to honor any agreements. That's why I still like him.

Fair enough. I've never heard of that side of her. I only know about her bad practises.

[ForrestChild]

On 11/07/2017 at 9:53 PM, ChinRey said:

There have been several Green Lantern avis in Second Life, but if it's the one I think it is, he certainly gave as much as he took. One of the crazy old soldiers refusing to accept that the Griefer Was ended ten years ago, he used to recruit newcomers at Barbarossa to his Justice League spinoff group. Part of the initiation rite his recruits had to go through, was to find some poorly protected sim and launch a massive noise-and-particle attack. If you somehow managed to do that without getting AR'ed and perma-banned, you were in. I'm sure many people who were here two or three years ago remember the occasional Hal Jordan griefer attacks. That was him.

To be fair, his attacks were always time limited and scripted to end by themselves after an hour or so and he seems to have stopped now. Last time I heard of him in a griefer context was at the Balance attack a year or two ago and he definitely wasn't responsible for that one - he jsut happened to be there to watch the show.

I saw Hal Jordan a couple weeks ago at the London Hyde Park sim. He was wearing the Green Lantern uniform and holding up a sign, declaring Trump as an honorary member of the Green Lantern Corps

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I'm happy to discuss this freely on my blog.

What's your blog?

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

What's your blog?

3dblogger.typepad.com/second_thoughts

[ChinRey]

kk

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

o remove griefing alts more promptly from the people list

Interestingly Linden Lab seems to share your view on the relation between thrustworthiness and account age. A newcomer caught griefing is likely to have their account closed right away while an oldtimer has a good chance of getting away with it.

I once had the pleasure of catching a griefer red-handed, trying to rez some rather nasty objects on my land (this was before I had learned how to protect myself properly from such silliness). It turned out she was a genuine newcomer who had been tricked into joining a griefer ring by and old-timer. There's is absolutely no doubt who the person behind that attack was. He was the creator of the script and objects, he was the last owner and the newcomer had even been kind and naive enough to post a quite detailed "photo blog" of the recruiting ceremony in her profile. I logged on an alt to do some undercover research to double check a few details and then filed what must have been one of the best documented abuse reports LL has ever seen. The next day the newcomer's alt was closed. The old-timer who was behind it all, is still here. It is possible he got some sort of stern warning (as far as I know that was the last time that particular griefer gang ever attempted an attack anywhere) but he certainly got away much easier than the newcomer.

 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

o remove griefing objects (yes, this is doable like any malicious object)

It is but they are also very easy to make. All you really need is a script and a prim to contain it. You just have to wave a magic wand in the air to make a brand new prim appear and you can store a script in a text document on your own computer well out of LL's reach. Next time you need it, jsut copy and paste. It only takes a minute.

 

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

o follow the connections of alts to mains and grief objects to stashes to more thoroughly remove griefing networks

I do actually assume that LL has tried tracking the accounts in your case. I they haven't, they really haven't done their job properly. But it doesn't always work. I addition to the masking methods already mentioend, how do you know those new accounts are alts at all? The griefer gang I mentioned used genuine newcomers with no vibile connections (or so they thought) to themselves at all. Those are not the same people you have trouble with - it's their opponents who are attacking you - but they may well sue the same strategy.

A griefer has to be terminally stupid to keep an incriminating stash of griefer objects inworld or in their inventory. They are so easy to make on the spot.

That being said...

 

On 11.7.2017 at 11:52 PM, Tommy Linden said:

Correct, all reports are handled by real life Lindens who take each report seriously and review every single one of them.

I have no doubt that Tommy is telling the truth. But exactly how seriously are the reports taken and how thoroughly are they reviewed? It's easy enough to find out who the griefer got their objects from, even a regular user with a third party viewer can see that, and I do epxect LL to be able to track an item's history even further. I get the impression that Linden Lab doesn't do that. They seem to think that griefers are always loners operating on their own and don't realize there are often fairly organized gangs behind it. So they catch the henchmen and henchwomen and believe the job is done-

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

5 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

 

@Theresa Tennyson I notice you're still studiously avoiding an explanation of how the Lindens are able to remove from all inventories, and presumably from their asset server, copybotted objects and objects that crash sims -- which I've seen them do, and with notices to this effect, either automatically in the system, or in a ticket if you have sought their help with log-in or inventory problems and they've removed problem items. Obviously, despite the "infinity" of objects and the fact that "each new object has a new UUID", somehow, the Lindens identify things other ways.

And that's because there are other identifiers. For example, Philip Linden's party hat has Philip Linden as the maker, it has the name party hat (which could be changed as he made it full perms) and it has the party hat texture and shape. So all these features of the thing combine to make its unique set of properties. After all there is "that certain something" that enables me to rez out copies of Philip's party hat each time I drag it out of inventory -- and not a Ryan Linden's window tinter, for example. They are discrete objects with properties.

 

And you're non-studiously ignoring the fact that Linden Lab can remove anything but that doesn't mean that they can stop the exact functional equivalent of that object being created again in a matter of seconds. Removing things isn't as clear-cut as you seem to think, either. There have been several cases where an animator has asked for illegal copies of animations to be removed from the system and the result was also the removal of the legitimate copies.. Then there was the time that someone was griefing with megaprims so they removed all the megaprims from the creator of those megaprims -- i.e. every legitimate megaprim used in legitimate builds all over Second Life in addition to the handful that the griefer was using. That was fun for a bit...

There are ways to stop certain sim-crashing objects, but that involves re-writing the simulator code to make it impossible for that object to do what it did before. However, there's no way to re-write the simulator code to make it impossible for an object to "look like Prokofy Neva's typist."

Let's go back to the "banana" example. If you remove all the existing instances of the word "banana" from the world, someone can just type in a new example of it.

Here's where you say, "But they can filter so that when someone types 'banana', it automatically disappears."

Then the miscreants will type B A N A N A.

Of course, then you can write code that will parse typing and block all instances of the letters of the Accursed Word appearing in that order. (Ask people listing on the Marketplace who have descriptions blocked for no predictable reason how practical that is, by the way.) In fact, you could automatically ban anyone using those letters in that order.

Now suppose one day a scofflaw named Ana runs around shouting, "ANANAB! ANANAB! READ IT BACKWARDS, BOURGEOIS SCUM!"

As a good citizen you then shout, "Ana is trying to circumvent the rules! You need to ban Ana!"

 

Oh, wait...

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2017 by Theresa Tennyson

[Prokofy Neva]

3 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And you're non-studiously ignoring the fact that Linden Lab can remove anything but that doesn't mean that they can stop the exact functional equivalent of that object being created again in a matter of seconds. Removing things isn't as clear-cut as you seem to think, either. There have been several cases where an animator has asked for illegal copies of animations to be removed from the system and the result was also the removal of the legitimate copies.. Then there was the time that someone was griefing with megaprims so they removed all the megaprims from the creator of those megaprims -- i.e. every legitimate megaprim used in legitimate builds all over Second Life in addition to the handful that the griefer was using. That was fun for a bit...

There are ways to stop certain sim-crashing objects, but that involves re-writing the simulator code to make it impossible for that object to do what it did before. However, there's no way to re-write the simulator code to make it impossible for an object to "look like Prokofy Neva's typist."

Let's go back to the "banana" example. If you remove all the existing instances of the word "banana" from the world, someone can just type in a new example of it.

Here's where you say, "But they can filter so that when someone types 'banana', it automatically disappears."

Then the miscreants will type B A N A N A.

Of course, then you can write code that will parse typing and block all instances of the letters of the Accursed Word appearing in that order. (Ask people listing on the Marketplace who have descriptions blocked for no predictable reason how practical that is, by the way.) In fact, you could automatically ban anyone using those letters in that order.

Now suppose one day a scofflaw named Ana runs around shouting, "ANANAB! ANANAB! READ IT BACKWARDS, BOURGEOIS SCUM!"

As a good citizen you then shout, "Ana is trying to circumvent the rules! You need to ban Ana!"

 

Oh, wait...

 

 

 

Um, no, I'm quite aware that you can keep rezzing out copies of copyable items with new UUIDs until the heat-death of the sun.

But there's the original somewhere, or some sets of originals in a few finite places, like stashes on certain people's sandbox lots or rentals or club hangouts, and the Lindens can eliminate *those* and while not preventing some stray copy somewhere from still doing damage, can put a dent in the process. And they do this with copybotted items, despite the fact that there could be thousands of them.

Yes, megaprims is a good example because they did cause havoc especially when griefers put them all over sims to block them. Yes, the Lindens removed them. Eventually they made them part of the viewer themselves. 

So again, if the Lindens can trace through chat and teleporters that Old Landord A is knowingly providing land to griefer-enabler B who himself doesn't grief but keeps a box of Prokofy effigies in his backyard, and newly-spawned alts C, D, E etc. continually go to B on A's land to get the objects the Lindens can finally disclipline Landlord A (and have done so on some occasions); they can finally ban griefer-enabler B (and have done so) AND remove his stashes, and they can remove C,D,E from the People List -- and they do that. 

You're not at all speaking from the experience of seeing your sims griefed for years and watching how the patterns work. I am.

It's not about typing banana, it's about finding the bananas that are findable.

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, ChinRey said:

kk

Interestingly Linden Lab seems to share your view on the relation between thrustworthiness and account age. A newcomer caught griefing is likely to have their account closed right away while an oldtimer has a good chance of getting away with it.

I once had the pleasure of catching a griefer red-handed, trying to rez some rather nasty objects on my land (this was before I had learned how to protect myself properly from such silliness). It turned out she was a genuine newcomer who had been tricked into joining a griefer ring by and old-timer. There's is absolutely no doubt who the person behind that attack was. He was the creator of the script and objects, he was the last owner and the newcomer had even been kind and naive enough to post a quite detailed "photo blog" of the recruiting ceremony in her profile. I logged on an alt to do some undercover research to double check a few details and then filed what must have been one of the best documented abuse reports LL has ever seen. The next day the newcomer's alt was closed. The old-timer who was behind it all, is still here. It is possible he got some sort of stern warning (as far as I know that was the last time that particular griefer gang ever attempted an attack anywhere) but he certainly got away much easier than the newcomer.

 

It is but they are also very easy to make. All you really need is a script and a prim to contain it. You just have to wave a magic wand in the air to make a brand new prim appear and you can store a script in a text document on your own computer well out of LL's reach. Next time you need it, jsut copy and paste. It only takes a minute.

 

I do actually assume that LL has tried tracking the accounts in your case. I they haven't, they really haven't done their job properly. But it doesn't always work. I addition to the masking methods already mentioend, how do you know those new accounts are alts at all? The griefer gang I mentioned used genuine newcomers with no vibile connections (or so they thought) to themselves at all. Those are not the same people you have trouble with - it's their opponents who are attacking you - but they may well sue the same strategy.

A griefer has to be terminally stupid to keep an incriminating stash of griefer objects inworld or in their inventory. They are so easy to make on the spot.

That being said...

 

I have no doubt that Tommy is telling the truth. But exactly how seriously are the reports taken and how thoroughly are they reviewed? It's easy enough to find out who the griefer got their objects from, even a regular user with a third party viewer can see that, and I do epxect LL to be able to track an item's history even further. I get the impression that Linden Lab doesn't do that. They seem to think that griefers are always loners operating on their own and don't realize there are often fairly organized gangs behind it. So they catch the henchmen and henchwomen and believe the job is done-

 

@ChinRey Of course they "accept my view" (not mine alone) because they have the documented proof that day-olds grief more than old accounts with PIOF.

I wouldn't accept that tale of woe of the innocent newbie "caught in griefing" -- this is an old ruse of theirs. They love making up twisted tales. Sure, they might be such people but people able to wield scripts aren't that stupid.

Some of these oldbies who harboured the griefers for years on end were beloved by the Lindens because they had cool sims or builds that attracted visitors, or they were tied to RL institutions, or they were originally in the beta, or some other sentimental factor, and so they waited a VERY VERY long time before banning some of them, but they finally have. In some cases, the long-time secret-sharers slipped up and went on griefing expeditions themselves, or they were caught with objects that violated privacy or copybotted from which they themselves profited. 

It's understandable why Lindens eradicate new accounts faster than old; it's because there are more of them and they are used to obviously grief more. There are numerous accounts they seem just to cull, perhaps without finding facts, if they link to a newish account found griefing (most alt-makers don't make just one alt). The Lindens have a harder time "finding cause" to shut down older accounts especially if they pay tier. That's the way life is in the big city.

I really do get how easy it is to make copies of things in SL. Truly I do. A script can be stored outside SL and so can textures. But so what? I've already explained that policing with common sense and logic means you can deter griefing and put a dent in it. They don't endlessly keep making alts as they get tired after awhile -- and bored. There are finite caches of stuff they can eliminate. Once I found such a cache myself that they even had on my own land. 

ChinRey, when alts use the exact same language, the exact same memes, the exact same MOs, you don't have doubts they belong to the same network. It's the same person or members of the same club. If you need more details I can explain it to you inworld. 

I believe Tommy Linden and I don't have any evidence to the contrary. They have Concierge sort of stuff put off to outsourced people not even always with Linden names. But Governance they handle in-house as it concerns their biggest problems like financial fraud or copyright theft or child abuse.

There's an issue mitigating against their tracking. And that is their religious belief from the dawn of time that each new alt must be treated as a unique and special snowflake. So even though I might have an obvious alt, who is described openly as an alt, who holds tier on my groups, who has the same RL name on the payment form, Lindens will respectfully keep referring to that alt by his name and treat him as if he is a unique individual, not me. After all, I could have another person in my household using the same computer who is a separate person with an SL account, as I do. And so on. The Lindens err on the side of caution treating each new alt as a fresh individual born with no history (except when they don't, but I think this is a founding myth that they have to follow).

So they can argue that if all a day-old did was object litter on a sim where there is autoreturn on anyway or he can be banned from even an open group and not do that, that he can be free to be "creative" and mend his ways. The Lindens are like Quakers. And they believe in human redemption. It's not that they "think" each alt is really "a lone operator," it's that their protocol insists that they behave as if they were.

There's also the issue as I noted that if they go after organized gangs, at the top is always a land-owner pretending to be uninvolved or a group owner pretending his group is only about magic unicorns, and they have to take this at face value. They don't have the time and staff to go back through chat.

Except when they do. There is a limit to Linden patience and I've seen them perform the kind of thorough investigations needed and take actions. But they are overwhelmed and triage, I imagine.

[ChinRey]

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I wouldn't accept that tale of woe of the innocent newbie "caught in griefing" -- this is an old ruse of theirs.

Oh, I know for a fact that the one I caught was a genuine newcomer. I don't think it's necessary with a detailed explanation, you know just as well as me how easy it is to tell the difference.

But I'm not suggesting that's how it's always done or even that's how it's usually done. I just put it forward as one more possible explanation why some griefers can be so ahrd to pin down.

 

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There are finite caches of stuff they can eliminate. Once I found such a cache myself that they even had on my own land.

Really? Some griefers are actually terminally stupid then. Not all of them though.

 

57 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Some of these oldbies who harboured the griefers for years on end were beloved by the Lindens

That raises another very interesting question: where should we draw the line? Somebody who actually goes out and does the dirty deed is of course definitely a griefer. I think we all agree that  somebody who provides these active griefers with their tools and sends them out shuold count as griefers themselves too.

But somebody who opens a sandbox where they let people go wild, who watches it happen, allows it to happen but doesn't actively participate themselves .. we're entering a grayzone there. And how about people who write posts supporting various griefer gangs on their blogs? That's not nice at all of course but we do have freedom of speech after all.

Edited July 15, 2017 by ChinRey

[Theresa Tennyson]

45 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Um, no, I'm quite aware that you can keep rezzing out copies of copyable items with new UUIDs until the heat-death of the sun.

But there's the original somewhere, or some sets of originals in a few finite places, like stashes on certain people's sandbox lots or rentals or club hangouts, and the Lindens can eliminate *those* and while not preventing some stray copy somewhere from still doing damage, can put a dent in the process. And they do this with copybotted items, despite the fact that there could be thousands of them.

 

Listen to what several people who know more about this than you do are telling you...

There doesn't have to be an "original" anywhere on the Second Life servers.

Anything made out of prims can be re-created by the viewer because everything made out of prims is actually an illusion created by the viewer from a very simple set of instructions - "Make a cube. Make it this big. Make a sphere and stick it on top of the cube. Paint the cube blue. Paint the sphere red and make it semi-transparent."

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAS TO BE ON THE SERVERS FOR IT TO DO THIS. The viewer knows what a cube is, knows what "blue" is, etc. It's exactly the same way that a human knows that the symbol "B" stands for a "buh" sound. And with the way Second Life works, you can write or save instructions telling the viewer to do this quickly and these instructions don't ever have to be saved on the servers - they can be stored on a computer elsewhere as a completely non-related file that Linden Lab can't touch. Then the viewer spits out the appropriate prims and they're in world for everyone to see.

[Innula Zenovka]

9 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I notice you're still studiously avoiding an explanation of how the Lindens are able to remove from all inventories, and presumably from their asset server, copybotted objects and objects that crash sims

Someone writes a script to crash a region, by getting the simulator to try to perform an operation that will generate an error from which it can't recover (as I understand it, way back when this used to be as simple as asking it to divide a number by 0, but I think things are a bit more complex now).   Anyway, they've written this script, and saved it not only as a script in-world but also as a text file on their PC.

They create a region-crasher by rezzing a prim and putting this script in it.    They make it full perms and their friends make alt accounts that take copies and go off and crash your regions.   LL eventually ban all the alt accounts concerned and also remove all copies of object and script from the grid.

That doesn't solve the problem, though, since the text file is still on the guy's PC.  If he can evade LL's attempts to machine and IP ban him (which isn't too difficult, as I understand it, for someone who is reasonably determined and also prepared to do a bit of research, or who has a friend to explain to him how to do it) he can come back under a new identity, rez a prim, copy-paste the crasher script from his pc to the new prim, and things start over.

Ditto with enormous effigies of Prok.  You'll be familiar, I think, with the general method a ripper viewer uses -- that is, it grabs the relevant data to record and reproduce the appearance of an object (in this case an effigy of you) and stores it as a .dae file on the ripper's computer.   The user can then log in using an alt and then import that file to recreate a brand new object.   He can also share the file with his friends or stick it on a website, and then anyone who has access to it can copy it and use it to create their own original objects.    

Look at it this way.    If I create a mesh in Blender, import it in world, and then make copies of the object, LL know that they are all copies of a particular mesh imported by me.    If I make my mesh full perms and give it you, LL know that any copies you make originated from my original.

However, if I email you a copy of the Blender file I've made and you import your own copy, the mesh thus created will be identical to the one I've created (since they're both copies of the same file) but will, as far as LL's records are concerned, be a completely different original mesh from mine, created and imported by you, not by me.

 

[Theresa Tennyson]

50 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I really do get how easy it is to make copies of things in SL. Truly I do. A script can be stored outside SL and so can textures. But so what? I've already explained that policing with common sense and logic means you can deter griefing and put a dent in it. They don't endlessly keep making alts as they get tired after awhile -- and bored. There are finite caches of stuff they can eliminate. Once I found such a cache myself that they even had on my own land. 

I thought your whole point is that they do endlessly keep making alts. You say your enemies have powers to bypass the land controls you can use, and I don't doubt that they do. But the "solutions" you come up with can be bypassed using the same powers that you say they already have. It's like listening to an eight-year-old make up a superhero story. You want to make other people do 200% more work to make your enemies' lives 10% harder.

[Tari Landar]

13 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

So in fact, what Tari and others seem to be saying goes like this: "Don't be a controversial public figure, don't criticize things publicly, be a conformist, that's the way not to be griefed." And that's of course ridiculous. I've observed over the years that there are completely innocent people with absolutely no public personas, no forums posts, no nothing. They might literally be little old ladies who log on to SL only on Sundays for Bible studies. And they will be griefed, regardless. 

 

Apparently you're too hard headed to actually read anything anyone says, and I'm guessing it;s simply because you're fed up with this issue..I get that, but this doens't make your twisting of words any better. I didn't say ANY of what you stated...NONE of it. You read words I didn't even put on the screen, so they couldn't possibly simply be misconstrued. 

I answered someone else about your reputation, yes, because it does precede you, whether good, or bad, it does. I never said you *shouldn't be like this, I simply said, that is what *I* have found, experienced, read, etc...and you're simply making it worse here by twisting words people didn't even say.

I even specifically said you don't deserve to be griefed like this, more than once.But, god forbid someone point something out.

I didn't say you weren't doing all that you can on your end(though you have answered more than one person with "why should I have to" and other such responses). What I said is PLEASE do all that you can, and that I do hope LL manages to help you with this issue.

This is precisely why you can't get help...you bite the damn hand that's trying to feed you. If you have approached the lindens in the same manner(and I know you have, I have seen it) when offered suggestions, instead of simply saying "I have tried that", "I do that", but actually verbally fight back...you're going to get nowhere. No one is going to look kindly on someone that approaches everything negatively. That's just not how the world, virtual or otherwise, works. Yes the squeaky wheel gets the grease(usually), but that doesn't mean the squeaky wheel has to be mean about it. I'll tell you the same thing I tell my children....if you have a problem with something, let me know, in a normal voice, in a normal tone, and I'll do my best to help you. If you come at me, screaming, yelling, carrying on and flailing your arms...I'm going to sit back and wait for you to calm the heck down before I do squat. (unless you're in fire, or in some serious imminent danger, then, of course, flail your arms and carry on). I have no qualms saying that I think the griefing you're getting, have gotten, etc.. is beyond ridiculous and should have been stopped now. But I also have no qualms saying that you make the problem worse when you attack everyone, rather than those that SHOULD be attacked.

Catch more flies with honey..and all that...regardless of how frustrating it is(and it is, I get that, dealt with my fair share of griefers for almost three years before they finally went away and it was pure hell, so I probably understand that bit a little more than some who have only seen them in passing). I didn't go off half cocked at everyone who made a suggestion, even if it was one I'd already heard, already tried, already doing...Maybe that's just me though. 

[JessiSweeney]

Five pages and it's still being argued. I can only offer this, believing the OP question has been asked and answered.

[Prokofy Neva]

19 hours ago, Tari Landar said:

Apparently you're too hard headed to actually read anything anyone says, and I'm guessing it;s simply because you're fed up with this issue..I get that, but this doens't make your twisting of words any better. I didn't say ANY of what you stated...NONE of it. You read words I didn't even put on the screen, so they couldn't possibly simply be misconstrued. 

I answered someone else about your reputation, yes, because it does precede you, whether good, or bad, it does. I never said you *shouldn't be like this, I simply said, that is what *I* have found, experienced, read, etc...and you're simply making it worse here by twisting words people didn't even say.

I even specifically said you don't deserve to be griefed like this, more than once.But, god forbid someone point something out.

I didn't say you weren't doing all that you can on your end(though you have answered more than one person with "why should I have to" and other such responses). What I said is PLEASE do all that you can, and that I do hope LL manages to help you with this issue.

This is precisely why you can't get help...you bite the damn hand that's trying to feed you. If you have approached the lindens in the same manner(and I know you have, I have seen it) when offered suggestions, instead of simply saying "I have tried that", "I do that", but actually verbally fight back...you're going to get nowhere. No one is going to look kindly on someone that approaches everything negatively. That's just not how the world, virtual or otherwise, works. Yes the squeaky wheel gets the grease(usually), but that doesn't mean the squeaky wheel has to be mean about it. I'll tell you the same thing I tell my children....if you have a problem with something, let me know, in a normal voice, in a normal tone, and I'll do my best to help you. If you come at me, screaming, yelling, carrying on and flailing your arms...I'm going to sit back and wait for you to calm the heck down before I do squat. (unless you're in fire, or in some serious imminent danger, then, of course, flail your arms and carry on). I have no qualms saying that I think the griefing you're getting, have gotten, etc.. is beyond ridiculous and should have been stopped now. But I also have no qualms saying that you make the problem worse when you attack everyone, rather than those that SHOULD be attacked.

Catch more flies with honey..and all that...regardless of how frustrating it is(and it is, I get that, dealt with my fair share of griefers for almost three years before they finally went away and it was pure hell, so I probably understand that bit a little more than some who have only seen them in passing). I didn't go off half cocked at everyone who made a suggestion, even if it was one I'd already heard, already tried, already doing...Maybe that's just me though. 

Evidently you're unable to realize that people fully understand your points, but they aren't relevant. You keep hammering on the idea that objects in SL have endless -- infinite -- ID numbers each time they are rezzed out. Um, I get that. It's like any infinite number situation. But that's not relevant to my request, which makes two points YOU fail to acknowledge:

o when the Lindens want to, they get rid of objects from the asset servers AND people's inventories such that they can't rez out that infinite number. They do this with both copyrighted items that were illegally copied and griefer-type objects that crash sims, not just the script, but let's say an object on physics, etc. So it's is totally reasonable to suggest they do this with RL effigies with me

o There aren't infinite copies, only the POTENTIAL for the same. And as with many techie debates (one thinks of Snowden's false claims that the NSA spies on "everyone"), the issue is NOT POTENTIAL but ACTUAL. There are known caches at known locations. The Lindens can slow down griefers by deleting these as they do any griefer objects. Sure, there might be that one set still "out there" and the Lindens don't find it easy to do a global search (except when they do, i.e. to get rid of all the copies of copybotted items, especially of famous name brands that might sue them). But this, too is doable.

Your inability to acknowledge these two points may be a function of the binary approach, i.e. 100/0 instead of accepting that 87/100 is good enough.

Once again, you've provided no valid reason why an open group should be closed, given that the Lindens do not say "The TOS does not apply if your group is open". Surely the literalist approach would help you to accept this proposition. And that is the ONLY point that I haven't accepted from "advice".

The rest of the advice is the obvious type like "turn on autoreturn" or "log off not to give them attention" which I already do. Advice like "don't be controversial" or "don't criticize" aren't relevant as the TOS doesn't say "the TOS doesn't apply in cases where you have a critical blog".

As for the rest of this "catch flies with honey," the real question here is why anyone would accept the word of a day-old alt making a claim not backed up by anything at all, versus the protest of a 12-year-old avatar. Again, this is common sense most people accept.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

22 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

I thought your whole point is that they do endlessly keep making alts. You say your enemies have powers to bypass the land controls you can use, and I don't doubt that they do. But the "solutions" you come up with can be bypassed using the same powers that you say they already have. It's like listening to an eight-year-old make up a superhero story. You want to make other people do 200% more work to make your enemies' lives 10% harder.

None of this makes sense, and I'll note it's the kind of insult that remains opaque to Dakota Linden.

Sure, these griefers (it's not about being "my enemies" or anything of the sort; violators of the TOS are everyone's enemies) can endlessly make alts. But even they get tired. And the hash ban/MAC ban isn't the impossibility some imagine, and may be deployed. Rogue TPVs are also blocked at times, imagine. 

Just because they can make endless alts doesn't mean they do.

The solutions are partial, and obviously don't work if they have rogue viewers. But outside the binary world of coders, people have solutions that are partial but "good enough". They don't use rogue viewers ALL the time -- perhaps the Lindens block them? Perhaps they don't wish to get ALL their alts banned? Sometimes a land ban works. And so on.

As with a colicky baby, no solution works twice and you revolve them and try to innovate. Obviously you've never had to deal with this sort of issue or you would concede that something that works SOMETIMES is GOOD ENOUGH.