Second Life in the News

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I see a possibility that the suit is not “frivolous”

Possibly, though I will say that the way she phrased this part of her twitter post does not tell me that the lawsuit was filed for totally all of the right reasons:

[Selene Gregoire]

It's that word "retaliation" that is the problem. She has blatantly admitted to filing the lawsuit just to "get back at" LL.

Quote

 

 

 

re·tal·i·a·tion

/rəˌtalēˈāSH(ə)n/

Learn to pronounce

noun

 

1. the action of returning a military attack; counterattack.

   "the bombings are believed to be in retaliation for the trial of 15 suspects"

   synonyms:

   revenge, vengeance, reprisal, retribution, requital, recrimination, an eye for an eye (and a tooth for a tooth), getting even, redress, repayment, payback; More

   • the action of harming someone because they have harmed oneself; revenge.

     "protectionism invites retaliation"

 

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

55 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Possibly, though I will say that the way she phrased this part of her twitter post does not tell me that the lawsuit was filed for totally all of the right reasons:

Silicon Valley company? Isn't LL in San Francisco, way north of the "Valley?" Maybe they might have some servers down there --- but that don't count.

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

3 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

I'm surprised this didn't hit the forums before the Wired article. Maybe it did & the mods swiftly removed the thread/s.

Seeing as this thread hasn't been removed yet, I guess it's ok to discuss it.y minority group at all.

I have a feeling the mod squad is keeping close watch of the thread. If it derails or heads south fast, I could see it being turfed or locked. If that happens, I can understand their decision since it deals with a litigation matter.

[animats]

1 hour ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Silicon Valley company? Isn't LL in San Francisco, way north of the "Valley?" Maybe they might have some servers down there --- but that don't count.

Somehow, about five years ago, San Francisco became part of "Silicon Valley".

I live about 30 miles south of San Francisco, about 10 miles north of Stanford. Where I live wasn't considered part of Silicon Valley a decade ago.

[Love Zhaoying]

All it takes is for someone to AR a post in the thread.

[Lyssa Greymoon]

2 hours ago, Selene Gregoire said:

It's that word "retaliation" that is the problem. She has blatantly admitted to filing the lawsuit just to "get back at" LL.

 

That's not what retaliation lawsuit means. It's a suit over retaliation by the employer over complaints of harassment or discrimination.

[ChinRey]

5 hours ago, Whirly Fizzle said:

Not really sure what to make of the whole shebang to be honest.

It may be a little bit easier to sort out if we remember that there is no logical connection whatsoever between the security breach allegation and the discrimination allegations. It's quite possible one is true and the other false.

[Selene Gregoire]

2 hours ago, Lyssa Greymoon said:

That's not what retaliation lawsuit means. It's a suit over retaliation by the employer over complaints of harassment or discrimination.

Then she needs to change her wording to make it clear that is her intent. As it stands, ti doesn't read that way. Especially to people who have no knowledge of these types of court cases.

Retaliation goes both ways. It is not a one way street. 

[Mollymews]

for anyone interested the case number is:

CGC 19-578028 Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco

initial complaint filed 07/30/2019. Amended complaint filed: 08/01/2019  

pdf document names respectively:  06925762.pdf and 06921284.pdf

[Sassy Kenin]

8 hours ago, Beth Macbain said:

 I trust gmail's security more than I do most other companies, if that part of the lawsuit is true. 

 

I trust gmails parent company to continue to try to fix another election

 

And as for gmail (GOOGLE) they sell your email data after 6 months thats allowed by law ..almost anyone can get your old email under US law after a certain amount of time. protonmail is a better alternative .

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kateoflahertyuk/2019/06/27/new-warning-reveals-gmails-major-privacy-problem/#5123c71d7d34

Edited August 19, 2019 by Shansi Kenin

[Sassy Kenin]

10 hours ago, FashionEye said:

Let me just say that majority of the world supports gay pride now

If you say so. maybe visit Americas great ally & bff, according to our government 'Saudi Arabia' ....I'm sure they would have some kind of parade for you.

[Chrissy Pratchett]

1 minute ago, Shansi Kenin said:

If you say so. maybe visit Americas great ally & bff, according to our government 'Saudi Arabia' ....I'm sure they would have some kind of parade for you.

Never said everyone supports it, I said majority. I strongly believe there's a larger amount of people in the world who now support than those who are against. I could possibly be wrong.

[SpiritSparrow Skydancer]

I see a lot of people making judgments. If for whatever reason this is true may of you are showing exactly why women (and men) do not come forward when things like this really do happen. (not saying it did or did not - I have only read up on what people are saying here) shameful.

 

[Sassy Kenin]

Just now, FashionEye said:

Never said everyone supports it, I said majority. I strongly believe there's a larger amount of people in the world who now support than those who are against. I could possibly be wrong.

I think you might be over optimistic, half the world struggles every day to just find water/food and has no time to think about us privileged people in the west. I've been to over 100 countries that's over half the world, speaking from experience.

[Mollymews]

31 minutes ago, FashionEye said:

Never said everyone supports it, I said majority. I strongly believe there's a larger amount of people in the world who now support than those who are against. I could possibly be wrong.

you are not wrong.  There is a significant majority of jurisdictions in the world where homosexuality as an act in itself is not illegal.  General equality (non-discrimination) rights still have some way to go, but as time goes on the world as a whole is also getting there on equality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory

[Chrissy Pratchett]

14 hours ago, Shansi Kenin said:

I think you might be over optimistic, half the world struggles every day to just find water/food and has no time to think about us privileged people in the west. I've been to over 100 countries that's over half the world, speaking from experience.

Understood.

[Chaser Zaks]

Please note anything I say in this is ONLY SPECULATION and isn't confirmed. I have a pretty good understanding of how LL works internally, but do not take my word as fact as I may be wrong in some portions as I am not a Linden Lab employee and have no actual knowledge of how they work internally aside from what I have researched.

As someone who understands how SL works inside and out(or at least mostly), I can say the following: Are there security flaws? Technically yes, but everything (Everything as in EVERYTHING, eg facebook, your computer, your bank, etc) has security flaws, it is nearly impossible to fix them all. That is what SEC is for on the Jira. Any flaws that are known get fixed, I would know because I have reported several security flaws myself and they have all been fixed within a reasonable time frame.

Let's take a look at one of the "security flaws" mentioned. Allegedly, "User information" isn't secure. They mention that it is accessible to "contractors". What I am assuming is by the usage of Contractor, this is either Moles or ProductEngines. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this may be half true with the following:

• Can Moles access user information? Perhaps. My assumption is conditionally high ranking Moles who have signed NDAs are able to access the CSR tools(which happen to contain user information) for moderation purposes.
• Can ProductEngines access user information? I'm doubting it but I could see it as a plausible case if a ProductEngine is working on the CSR tools and any information they access would almost certainly be protected by a NDA.
• In either case, all actions are logged. LL loves logs, if someone did something they were not supposed to, they'll know. Regardless, any information access will most certainly be protected by a NDA.

There is also concerns that LL is not complying with anti-money-laundering laws. I highly doubt this, considering the recent switch to their Tilia subsidiary to handle payments. Tilia is going to provide much more security regarding money transfers as they works solely with money. Additionally, LL's anti-fraud team is no joke, they take their job extremely seriously and will see any suspicious transactions. Although there are no public statistics, they can easily find out where money comes in and where it goes out.

Another concern raised is "LL is collecting data on minors". This is a load of phooy. Terms of Service says you must be at least 16(or might be 17, I think 16 IIRC) years of age to play which is well above the age limit for COPPA and GDPR's children's data protection acts. The only case where LL would be collecting this data is if someone had lied about their Date of Birth, which is out of Linden Lab's control. As soon as they find out about this however, the account is terminated and any personal information if needed is removed.

Additionally, they say in the lawsuit "(Word I cannot use about simulated adult content involving children)" could be seen as "simulated child molestation". Yeah, water is wet, your point? Legally this has no grounds and will be thrown out as "irrelevant", U.S. law has no laws against this type of simulated content provided that any parties involved are at least 18 years of age in real life. I understand some people may see this as gross but that's how it is legally, so please do no turn this thread into a debate about whether or not this should be legal, this is talking about what is legal at this very moment in time.

 

In conclusion, what I can say about this: I'm almost certain it is a bunch of "buzzwords", "half told truths", and "I don't know what I am talking about"(possibly why she was let go). I'm very strict when it comes to internal security even if I may be revealing about my personal life details(EG: my name and address are all accessible publicly on my website as my whois proudly waves this about for compliance with ICANN rules). I would trust LL over facebook, twitter, or any other major social media site with my data any time.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Chaser Zaks
Thanks word filter

[Beth Macbain]

5 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

In conclusion, what I can say about this: I'm almost certain it is a bunch of "buzzwords", "half told truths", and "I don't know what I am talking about"(possibly why she was let go). I'm very strict when it comes to internal security even if I may be revealing about my personal life details(EG: my name and address are all accessible publicly on my website as my whois proudly waves this about for compliance with ICANN rules). I would trust LL over facebook, twitter, or any other major social media site with my data any time.

[Coffee Pancake]

With the stated objective being retaliation (a rather deliberate word if you ask me). We are all painfully aware the only way any case involving Second Life will get any media traction these days is with some illicit or smutty angle. This has everything.

Wired do like to stir the pot, even when they know better. Sadly their online publishing can't serve double duty when read on the toilet.

I'm fully expecting this to be the first and last time this story gets any air. My own reading of the associated article and quotes contain therein left me entirely unsurprised this person had been let go. Buzzwords and half truths seems overly kind, IMO this is money motivated mud slinging, plain and simple. 

My confidence in Linden Lab, both in terms of their reputation as good employer, and the security of my data, is entirely unshaken.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

On 8/18/2019 at 1:01 PM, Love Zhaoying said:

I didn’t mean I literally believe her, but I have no reason to disbelieve her either.

I'm not sure that this is what Love meant by saying that he doesn't "literally believe her," but it seems to me that, intentionally or not, he's stumbled across a really important point here.

The #MeToo movement, and the associated assertion "I believe her," can be easily misread, if taken too reductively or literally. When we say "I believe her" with reference to a woman who has claimed to be the recipient of harassment, assault, rape, or just plain discrimination, we aren't literally saying that no woman would ever lie about these things. Of course there are women who lie about being victimized. More often, I think, because these are incredibly complicated issues, cases where the "truth" is not clear represent a genuine and sincere disagreement about what transpired, and the motivations and context of it. A woman may believe herself to have been discriminated against in a case where more objective evaluation suggests otherwise. (And similarly, an employer may believe it is behaving in a gender-neutral way, and be wrong about that.)

What "I believe her" attempts to do is redress an historic cultural imbalance in which the tendency has, more often than not, been to assume that the accuser is "guilty" -- guilty of mendaciousness, or over-emotionalism, or whatever. "I believe her" doesn't mean that we don't need court cases, and proof, and careful analysis before determining what may have actually transpired (which is often in truth going to be difficult to establish with absolute certainty): rather, it means that we are responding to an environment in which such accusations are almost invariably met with hostility or scepticism. We want a woman's claims to be accepted seriously, and not prejudged on the basis either of our gendered preconceptions, or an incomplete knowledge of what went down.

The analogy here -- an imperfect but nonetheless useful one -- is with the concept "Innocent until proven guilty." Obviously, this does not literally mean that we hold fast, regardless of what we know about the case, to the notion that someone who has been accused but not convicted cannot possibly have done what they are accused of doing -- and that they magically become guilty upon conviction, as though someone went back and meddled with the timeline. The point of the principle of "Innocent until proven guilty" is that the accused is to be treated as innocent, whether they are in fact guilty or not -- until they have been convicted.

In the same way, "I believe her" is an assertion that, whatever the actual truth of the accusation, the accuser must be treated seriously and without prejudgement or prejudice. I have my own thoughts about the merits of her claims, on the basis of what little I (or anyone here) knows, but I have no intention of sharing them because they are not relevant.

SO . . . in this case, as in others, I believe her.

That's not an assertion that I am certain that what she says happened actually happened, or that her analysis of why it happened is correct.

It is instead an insistence that she be treated fairly and her claim taken seriously, and without prejudgement.

 

[Love Zhaoying]

7 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

SO . . . in this case, as in others, I believe her.

That's not an assertion that I am certain that what she says happened actually happened, or that her analysis of why it happened is correct.

It is instead an insistence that she be treated fairly and her claim taken seriously, and without prejudgement.

I hope your statements are treated with more respect than mine originally were! I like your well-thought-out argument.

[Love Zhaoying]

9 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

he's stumbled across a really important point here.

Perhaps I stumbled on purpose, I am just not very articulate lol.

[Arielle Popstar]

17 hours ago, Chaser Zaks said:

 

• Can Moles access user information? Perhaps. My assumption is conditionally high ranking Moles who have signed NDAs are able to access the CSR tools(which happen to contain user information) for moderation purposes.
• Can ProductEngines access user information? I'm doubting it but I could see it as a plausible case if a ProductEngine is working on the CSR tools and any information they access would almost certainly be protected by a NDA.
• In either case, all actions are logged. LL loves logs, if someone did something they were not supposed to, they'll know. Regardless, any information access will most certainly be protected by a NDA.

 

That to me looks like you countering her "buzzwords" with a new one called NDA's! that you and several other posters have trotted out in this thread, as if NDA's are an answer to all potential data security threats. That seems to me to ignore the fact that many of the data breaches other companies, banks and governments have suffered in the last few years, had NDA's in place. It certainly didn't stop a disgruntled employee of my bank of forwarding the data of several million of its clients to an interested criminal party. NDA's do nothing to prevent intrusion methods that come through hacking an employee's account or social engineering access through other methods which account for a fair percentage of data breaches.

Nor do I believe extensive log files are much of a deterrent and are only a hindsight remedy at best. I much rather LL have sufficient safeguards to prevent a large data breach in the first place rather than focusing on who to blame after the fact. The more people who have access to our personally identifiable information, the more risk that it is a matter of when there is a data breach, not if. 

Lets go with the ounce of prevention rather than the pound of cure.

Edited August 20, 2019 by Arielle Popstar

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

10 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

SO . . . in this case, as in others, I believe her.

That's not an assertion that I am certain that what she says happened actually happened, or that her analysis of why it happened is correct.

It is instead an insistence that she be treated fairly and her claim taken seriously, and without prejudgement.

I hope your statements are treated with more respect than mine originally were! I like your well-thought-out argument.

I steer away from threads like this, because they induce people to form opinions based on remarkably little knowledge. I am often asked what I think about things breaking in the news. I'll often respond with "Ask me in a year or two". And that often elicits frustration expressed as "Oh, come on Maddy, you must have an opinion!"

Why must I have an opinion? Is there some hidden benefit to judging from ignorance? Scylla explained why I try (emphasis on "try") not to judge prematurely. Society has been doing that forever. It's easy and it's destructive.

Love, would it help to reframe any disrespect you've felt over neither believing nor disbelieving as "Oh, come on Love, you must have an opinion!" 

...sets you both on fire for withholding judgment.