Is it possible for someone to hack your IM’s?

[Beardypops]

4 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

That's just it, the ToS never allowed such a thing.

It may have been clarified but even as far back as 2806, IMs were considered/treated as private by Linden Lab and their ToS, making any method of sharing them using their service or any part of their software "illegal". That includes the client software, among other things. 

Well, I guess I did make an assumption then about the ToS. I just remember that in 2007 & 2008 when I was first on SL, you could have IM’s readable by a collar owner via RLV permissions. I dinstinctly remember asking someone about it, who has used collars longer than I have if that were still possible, in 2010 because I remember it being the case from my 1st 2 yrs on SL and being told that they had stopped allowing it.

[Qie Niangao]

6 minutes ago, Beardypops said:

Is it possible that back then, some hud or script might have been created that is still in people’s inventories that would still be able to do that regardless of it being against ToS or not.

You keep returning to scripts and HUDs. Again, the scripting language cannot get anywhere near IMs. There might be a scripted HUD that offers a handy user interface to some arbitrarily evil external program that tracks avatars and records IMs (and mines bitcoin and sells nukes to pedophiles) -- SL users prefer to clutter their screens rather than visiting the dark web -- but it's not the old script in inventory that would perform the ToS-breaking functions.

As we were exploring before, one way this arbitrary evil could do its dark deeds is with a griefer viewer, but to be sure we're clear: to use that to track an avatar's location in real time means that avatar's viewer must be the griefer viewer (meaning the "victim" ain't so innocent or is implausibly naive). For IMs, either party's viewer could be the griefer viewer that relays messages, so still one of them had to install such a viewer.

Tangentially: I do think it would be practical to collect enough data about who owns objects rezzed on bot-visited sims to have a useful hit rate at finding their "home" and some other locations they're likely to visit. This obviously wouldn't work for avatars that don't leave things rezzed in-world at publicly (bot) accessible locations. I'm guessing such non-rezzers represent a disproportionately large share of stalker targets, compared to the general population, so this data may not be all that marketable, but it seems a lot more practical to find some home locations than to dispatch enough bots to track avatar location in real time, even though access to such data was sold for a time. (I.e., I bet its hit rate was abysmal.)

[Solar Legion]

You'd have to directly ask either Kitty Barnett or Marine Kelly directly to see if what you were told is at all accurate. 

From all other accounts (including Kitty herself in the earlier linked 2009 era thread) such a thing simply never existed, not in the official code for RLV or its derivative anyway. 

[Beardypops]

14 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

You keep returning to scripts and HUDs. Again, the scripting language cannot get anywhere near IMs. There might be a scripted HUD that offers a handy user interface to some arbitrarily evil external program that tracks avatars and records IMs (and mines bitcoin and sells nukes to pedophiles) -- SL users prefer to clutter their screens rather than visiting the dark web -- but it's not the old script in inventory that would perform the ToS-breaking functions.

As we were exploring before, one way this arbitrary evil could do its dark deeds is with a griefer viewer, but to be sure we're clear: to use that to track an avatar's location in real time means that avatar's viewer must be the griefer viewer (meaning the "victim" ain't so innocent or is implausibly naive). For IMs, either party's viewer could be the griefer viewer that relays messages, so still one of them had to install such a viewer.

Tangentially: I do think it would be practical to collect enough data about who owns objects rezzed on bot-visited sims to have a useful hit rate at finding their "home" and some other locations they're likely to visit. This obviously wouldn't work for avatars that don't leave things rezzed in-world at publicly (bot) accessible locations. I'm guessing such non-rezzers represent a disproportionately large share of stalker targets, compared to the general population, so this data may not be all that marketable, but it seems a lot more practical to find some home locations than to dispatch enough bots to track avatar location in real time, even though access to such data was sold for a time. (I.e., I bet its hit rate was abysmal.)

You’re right, I did keep coming back to HUDS and scripts, because a “griefer viewer” never even crossed my mind as existing. But you are saying even the victim would have to have that installed? That is definitely not the case in this situation. So, that eases my mind that it’s not possible in this situation.

Regarding the home being found, this individual has NOTHING in their profile that would lead anyone to their home. So, I am completely gobstopped at how it was found without the use of some kind of tracking device, thus my thinking of a HUD or script. Which then led me to wonder if there might also be something still in existence that would allow someone to sort of hack into another user’s IM’s. 

Edited March 14, 2019 by Beardypops

[Beardypops]

12 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

You'd have to directly ask either Kitty Barnett or Marine Kelly directly to see if what you were told is at all accurate. 

From all other accounts (including Kitty herself in the earlier linked 2009 era thread) such a thing simply never existed, not in the official code for RLV or its derivative anyway. 

I actually just asked a friend of mine who has also been on SL since 2007, and they comfirmed that it was allowed back then, but LL ran into so many problems with it, that they finally disallowed it, which was what I was told when I asked about it in 2010 time frame. They also reminded me of how difficult it was to actually remove an rlv enabled collar back then.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Beardypops

[Solar Legion]

Sorry, no. It wasn't ever allowed. At no time did Linden Lab ever allow you to share IMs with anyone over their service/systems. They banned users for doing this even before my time (2006) if it was reported. 

Nor was it all that difficult to remove an RLV enabled collar: Log in using Linden Lab's client, remove. If that didn't work, use the runaway function or safe word. 

We could continue on this for some time but as said a moment ago, the only users that have actual authority concerning their information are... Kitty Barnett and Marine Kelly. 

Outside of those two, you're going to get responses from users that either never encountered those functions or users that are inflating the actual functionality back then for some reason. 

I DO remember that back then, many collar makers simply did not include safeguards or tried questionable methods in their efforts to appeal to sections of BDSM users. 

[Whirly Fizzle]

2 hours ago, Beardypops said:

Regarding the home being found, this individual has NOTHING in their profile that would lead anyone to their home. So, I am completely gobstopped at how it was found without the use of some kind of tracking device, thus my thinking of a HUD or script. Which then led me to wonder if there might also be something still in existence that would allow someone to sort of hack into another user’s IM’s. 

They may have exposed their home location elsewhere.
For example images posted to their profile feed or Flickr etc taken at their home location or a JIRA issue that gave their home location or a forum thread.
For curiosity, google the users name & see what turns up.

Also possible that a mutual "friend" who knew the home location told them.

Also if the person that located their home location was a griffy type, they may have used a griffy viewer to locate the users locations via a voice hack. Or the "stalker" has access to data from a bot network that logs all avatars on the regions it visits.

Another thought, if your friend was known to have a Linden home, it wouldn't take that long to scrape all the parcel owners on Linden home regions to find their parcel.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Whirly Fizzle

[Beardypops]

Thanknyou for those thoughts, Whirly. 

[Beardypops]

3 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

Sorry, no. It wasn't ever allowed. At no time did Linden Lab ever allow you to share IMs with anyone over their service/systems. They banned users for doing this even before my time (2006) if it was reported. 

Nor was it all that difficult to remove an RLV enabled collar: Log in using Linden Lab's client, remove. If that didn't work, use the runaway function or safe word. 

We could continue on this for some time but as said a moment ago, the only users that have actual authority concerning their information are... Kitty Barnett and Marine Kelly. 

Outside of those two, you're going to get responses from users that either never encountered those functions or users that are inflating the actual functionality back then for some reason. 

I DO remember that back then, many collar makers simply did not include safeguards or tried questionable methods in their efforts to appeal to sections of BDSM users. 

I guess we have had 2 different experiences in this area then, and will have to agree to disagree. Thanks for your help.

[Shudo]

4 hours ago, Beardypops said:

I just remember that in 2007 & 2008 when I was first on SL, you could have IM’s readable by a collar owner via RLV permissions.

I have been in SL since mid-2006 on an alt. From January 2007 until 2010 I wore collars (that alt still has the original collar he wore then too).

Inside the collar menu from the unupdated 2007 object there is nothing in the menus or commands to do with reading IMs. There is nothing in the notecard of instructions to do with reading IMs. Based on the actual collar from 2007 existing in my inventory, I am not sure your memory is correct. A decade is a long time and some of my memories are definately bad.

It could be possible that someone was stretching the truth to make their control of someone else seem more god-like. This wouldn't be the first time that someone has claimed impossible things can be done with RLV to a submissive, or a friend, to improve their standing.

One more thing to disprove it, the TOS restriction on sharing IMs has always existed. this is trivially checked on archive.org, which has copies. Any TPV developer who allowed RLV to expose IMs to the collar would have been disciplined by the lab faster then they could compile the source.

A hacked viewer can do this if YOU run one, but then, if you are running a hacked viewer that's an opt in thing and it's well known by you that it's there. It's not something that is hidden and exposed by a script without you knowing.

Edit: One further point in this... the source code largely exists in GIT and other such repositories. It *is* possible to examine the viewer and RLV patches from a decade ago. We could put the argument to bed with such an examination, but I don't think it's so necessary, as the collar I have in my hands doesn't mention this feature.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Shudo

[Coffee Pancake]

8 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

From all other accounts (including Kitty herself in the earlier linked 2009 era thread) such a thing simply never existed, not in the official code for RLV or its derivative anyway. 

RLV by @Marine Kelley & RLVa by @Kitty Barnett have never, at any point, ever, intentionally or otherwise provided the ability to read IMs. The required functionality to do this was never and will never be added. EVER.

 

 

[Solar Legion]

5 minutes ago, CoffeeDujour said:

RLV by @Marine Kelley & RLVa by @Kitty Barnett have never, at any point, ever, intentionally or otherwise provided the ability to read IMs. The required functionality to do this was never and will never be added. EVER.

 

 

Do note the language used before responding in the future.

Quote

You'd have to directly ask either Kitty Barnett or Marine Kelly directly to see if what you were told is at all accurate. 

From all other accounts (including Kitty herself in the earlier linked 2009 era thread) such a thing simply never existed, not in the official code for RLV or its derivative anyway. 

Point blank: Nowhere in there is it even implied that either had or would add in such functionality.

Settle down.