Problem with Bots on my Parcel

[Unity SecretSpy]

Hi,

 

I do live on my parcel in Bellisseria since mid of April. I don't wanna change my place atm, even if it is not my "dream place" but I want to wait a few months until the great rumors are gone and maybe we can change parcels without constantly clicking on "refresh".

Two months ago I did recognice a strange traffic in my kitchen. It was one same avatar popping up in the kitchen every day. Had a strange name and a blank profile, 3 months old, did not say "Hello" or anything to me, just popping up in my kitchen everyday, staying there for less then a minute, then teleporting away.  Because I'm a very easily scared person and every time this avatar was popping up beside me I nearly got heart attack, I did ban that avatar.

But that did not help me.

Next day, another avi, same age, same blank profile, another weird name, was popping up in exactly the same place in my kitchen. And then another avi, all the same features and age in their profile. All there for less than a minute, then porting away. I banned them too.

It did not end. It seems that the person who is running their bots or land-bots has got a loooooot of those accounts, because everytime I banned, even more new of those accounts popped up. I placed a visitor counter in the kitchen to get their names to put them on the banlist.

At the end I was that stressed, that I blocked the teleports to my parcel, so now they are landing BESIDE my home.  But the bad thing is: Me and my friends/alts also do land beside my home. I don't want that. At the end this parcel is useless for me and all the others who eventually will claim that place after me, because of this stupid bot traffic on that place.

I hope to get rid of that parcel in future, just wanted to inform, what is going on and... Still I asking myself what sense does make a land bot on linden home places? What are they searching for?

Excuse my bad english please! Best regards

Uni

Edited September 5, 2019 by Unity SecretSpy

[Resi Pfeffer]

Recently someone posted a very similar topic in the german section of the forum. Because of the way she articulated herself i wasnt completely understanding what was the cause and how she solved it.
But for a fact, she somehow found out, who was behind that avatars and asked that guy to stop.

What i would recommend you, is to set up a scripted object to store visitor names. Let the bots come, and when your list has 10 names on it, file a ticket and and attach that list.
If the creator of the "bots" used the same email address for all of them, the Linden might be able to locate his main account and ask/force him/her to stop.

Maybe something like this could help you to get the account names. The script is mod, making you able to adjust the scan area, it seems.
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Rug-Welcome-With-Visitor-List/5322411

[Unity SecretSpy]

Yes I already did that  and will handle the list with the names to the lab. 

It's not only annoying for me, it will annoy every person who will claim that place after me in future -  so this clearly has to stop.

Thanks for the reply, searching for that german post now 😀

Edited September 5, 2019 by Unity SecretSpy

[Raspberry Crystal]

How horrible, it's awful that you felt you had to put up with this for two months. I hope you get it sorted soon.

[Resi Pfeffer]

1 hour ago, Unity SecretSpy said:

Thanks for the reply, searching for that german post now 😀

 

[BJoyful]

There are completely harmless bots which are used to do important tasks in SL such as gather information for helpful statistics like how many people are online, grid status, taking pictures for the World Map (the ones which appear, spin slowly, and disappear), etc.  They are much more benign than most people fear and many members of SL rely on them to do jobs which do need to be done in world but would be far too monotonous and inaccurate if done by an actual live person behind that avatar.  If they are human sized and attributed they are probably created that way to be less obtrusive and represent an average Resident.  🙂

 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

Harmless, possibly, but who wants a load of them in their kitchen?

I'd be setting up the Linden security orb with a white list to allow only my friends and alts to enter the parcel, while I wait for LL to track down the person causing the problem. 

[TerezaBaptista]

4 hours ago, Unity SecretSpy said:

Hi,

 

I do live on my parcel in Bellisseria since mid of April. I don't wanna change my place atm, even if it is not my "dream place" but I want to wait a few months until the great rumors are gone and maybe we can change parcels without constantly clicking on "refresh".

Two months ago I did recognice a strange traffic in my kitchen. It was one same avatar popping up in the kitchen every day. Had a strange name and a blank profile, 3 months old, did not say "Hello" or anything to me, just popping up in my kitchen everyday, staying there for less then a minute, then teleporting away.  Because I'm a very easily scared person and every time this avatar was popping up beside me I nearly got heart attack, I did ban that avatar.

But that did not help me.

Next day, another avi, same age, same blank profile, another weird name, was popping up in exactly the same place in my kitchen. And then another avi, all the same features and age in their profile. All there for less than a minute, then porting away. I banned them too.

It did not end. It seems that the person who is running their bots or land-bots has got a loooooot of those accounts, because everytime I banned, even more new of those accounts popped up. I placed a visitor counter in the kitchen to get their names to put them on the banlist.

At the end I was that stressed, that I blocked the teleports to my parcel, so now they are landing BESIDE my home.  But the bad thing is: Me and my friends/alts also do land beside my home. I don't want that. At the end this parcel is useless for me and all the others who eventually will claim that place after me, because of this stupid bot traffic on that place.

I hope to get rid of that parcel in future, just wanted to inform, what is going on and... Still I asking myself what sense does make a land bot on linden home places? What are they searching for?

Excuse my bad english please! Best regards

Uni

The same started to happen in my house! 😱

[TerezaBaptista]

2 hours ago, Sylvia Tamalyn said:

I'd be setting up the Linden security orb with a white list to allow only my friends and alts to enter the parcel, while I wait for LL to track down the person causing the problem. 

I use the LL security orb at my house, but the bots keep falling there, despite being ejected they return with other names.

Edited September 5, 2019 by TerezaBaptista

[Brat Spicy]

Totally not helpful, but this is really a weird thing 😮 It would seriously annoy me to find a person/bot in my kitchen every day...

[Nova Convair]

What would I do?

Since I live in a spaceship I can park it 100m higher, but that's no option for most others 😎

Plan B: I place an invisible volume detect prim at that spot and add a script that will tp home+ban temporary on contact. Avatars will still appear but only for a fraction of a second. Maybe add a whitelist in case some friend or me walks over that spot.

But:

someone circumvents privacy and security settings by using an army of alts. LL should ban that whole army in a single strike.

Since there is a possibility of an error the owner of that army should get 1-2 warnings. But after that - kill 'em all!

[Kylie Remsen]

I too, had these three month (mostly cloud) bots show up at my club. I've banned a few of them (i have a visitor logger). I think a  good way of getting rid of them is to enable "have payment on file" for access - perfect for residential and private places. But for me sadly I cant. I'm tired of these bots though and I think its time for the labs to look into problematic bots who go around invading peoples space and privacy.

[TerezaBaptista]

4 minutes ago, Kylie Remsen said:

I think a  good way of getting rid of them is to enable "have payment on file" for access - perfect for residential and private places.

unfortunately in the new linden homes this option has been withdrawn

[Unity SecretSpy]

3 hours ago, BJoyful said:

There are completely harmless bots which are used to do important tasks in SL such as gather information for helpful statistics like how many people are online, grid status, taking pictures for the World Map (the ones which appear, spin slowly, and disappear), etc.  They are much more benign than most people fear and many members of SL rely on them to do jobs which do need to be done in world but would be far too monotonous and inaccurate if done by an actual live person behind that avatar.  If they are human sized and attributed they are probably created that way to be less obtrusive and represent an average Resident.  🙂

 

They can do that, but please not in my kitchen or generally house , as I'm a very jumpy person and every time such a bot is popping into it - right beside me - I nearly get a heart attack 🤣

Nova's "Plan B" sounds also good too!

At the end, as a premium user, I'm paying a lot (incl. taxes)  to have that private space, I don't want those intruders in my home. I wouldn't care that much, if I would still have my skybox above there, but two weeks ago I started decorating with all of my lifeblood, I do love my home, I don't want to go back in the air.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Unity SecretSpy

[Kylie Remsen]

8 minutes ago, TerezaBaptista said:

unfortunately in the new linden homes this option has been withdrawn

Gah! I'm guessing they didn't want owners to unintentionally block out people who may be flying in aircraft or something. It's a shame. I wish there was available things to detect bots and boot em on sight automatically. I've had a look for such things, but I don't think it's a thing?

[Unity SecretSpy]

58 minutes ago, Kylie Remsen said:

Gah! I'm guessing they didn't want owners to unintentionally block out people who may be flying in aircraft or something. It's a shame. I wish there was available things to detect bots and boot em on sight automatically. I've had a look for such things, but I don't think it's a thing?

They wanted to get rid of the "yellow banlines" in a community - which I find ugly too - but those restricted possibilities now cause other problems as we can see.

Btw.: It is very interesting to hear of other persons with similar problems. Let's see how this thread will develop.

Edit: I was offline for 2 hours and already two new names on my kitchens visitors list 🙄

Edited September 5, 2019 by Unity SecretSpy

[Rolig Loon]

Bots doing land surveys provide a valuable service by building a statistical record of land use patterns.  Tyche Sheperd has been doing this for years with http://www.gridsurvey.com/ .  Typically, a bot arrives and leaves within a couple of seconds.   There's no reason at all why those bots need to be at ground level, though ( and I don't think Tyche's are).  They certainly shouldn't be entering homes.  If you can determine who is running them, ask them to please survey from a non-obtrusive height, like 300m.

[Brilynn Roussel]

My ban list currently has 16 bots on it. Also my parcel is no where near the middle of the region but they seem to always choose mine.

 

[Morena Tully]

Seems a report to LL on this would be acted on quickly, hopefully. I get the bots on my homestead, daily, for years, it doesn't bother me, but it sure would if they were popping into my home! Also the bots are always floating up a ways.

[Nika Talaj]

27 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Bots doing land surveys provide a valuable service by building a statistical record of land use patterns.  Tyche Sheperd has been doing this for years with http://www.gridsurvey.com/ .  Typically, a bot arrives and leaves within a couple of seconds.   There's no reason at all why those bots need to be at ground level, though ( and I don't think Tyche's are).  They certainly shouldn't be entering homes.  If you can determine who is running them, ask them to please survey from a non-obtrusive height, like 300m.

Rolig, it's happening daily on one parcel.  I saw one of Tyche's bots once, it was at ground level but it was costumed as a gridsurvey bot.  I owned the sim, we had a landing spot set, and I and never saw one again.  Certainly she doesn't send them daily to a fixed route.  Really, I'm having trouble thinking of any legitimate data gathering that would require daily checks at ground level. 

And there's more than one parcel where this is happening.  I'm kind of wondering if there used to be something else at these grid coordinates, some business that involved a lot of bots, who are automatically coming in, checking to see if the business needs them, & leaving.

 

33 minutes ago, Brilynn Roussel said:

My ban list currently has 16 bots on it. Also my parcel is no where near the middle of the region but they seem to always choose mine.

 

If a ticket doesn't get rid of them, maybe we should use this thread to begin to document all the parcels that are polluted with bots. 

[Sister Nova]

I've been having these too... they appear under my staircase. I have an orb that deals with them, and as I always check my orb's log, I enter their names (after checking that they are the 'bots': nonsensical names; 1 of the 3 birth dates I've noticed they all seem to have; empty profile; no pymt info on file) I then add them to my parcel ban list, so they can't even appear there now to trigger the orb. I have a mainland parcel too, and some have been appearing over there. Needless to say, I do the same there.

[Rolig Loon]

43 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Rolig, it's happening daily on one parcel.  I saw one of Tyche's bots once, it was at ground level but it was costumed as a gridsurvey bot.  I owned the sim, we had a landing spot set, and I and never saw one again.  Certainly she doesn't send them daily to a fixed route.  Really, I'm having trouble thinking of any legitimate data gathering that would require daily checks at ground level. 

I agree.  These are not like Tyche's bots. I can't see a legitimate reason for visiting the same parcel day after day, other than to annoy people.  This sounds like a good case for an AR on the ground of misuse of region resources AND harrassment.

45 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

I'm kind of wondering if there used to be something else at these grid coordinates, some business that involved a lot of bots, who are automatically coming in, checking to see if the business needs them, & leaving.

These are parcels in Bellisseria, where all regions were created from thin air only months ago.  There were no prior business on them.  Even if you argue that the bots are targeting universal coordinates, this particular area was open water before Bellisseria.   No, these bots are new to the game, new to the regions, and probably not looking for something that was ever around before.

[Unity SecretSpy]

33 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

I agree.  These are not like Tyche's bots. I can't see a legitimate reason for visiting the same parcel day after day, other than to annoy people.  This sounds like a good case for an AR on the ground of misuse of region resources AND harrassment.

These are parcels in Bellisseria, where all regions were created from thin air only months ago.  There were no prior business on them.  Even if you argue that the bots are targeting universal coordinates, this particular area was open water before Bellisseria.   No, these bots are new to the game, new to the regions, and probably not looking for something that was ever around before.

 

My theory would be, that those bots might be from users looking for new homes in Bellisseria. Because they all are 116 days or 133 days old (Made shortly after the first sims were released) and look like starter avatars.  Maybe to annoy others to give up on their land, idk. But that's only a theory.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Unity SecretSpy

[TerezaBaptista]

2 minutes ago, Unity SecretSpy said:

My theory would be, that those bots might be from users looking for new homes in Bellisseria. Because they all are 116 days or 133 days old (Made shortly after the first sims were released) and look like starter avatars.  Maybe to annoy others to give up on their land, idk. But that's only a theory.

it's a good theory! 🤔

Edited September 5, 2019 by TerezaBaptista

[Rolig Loon]

7 minutes ago, Unity SecretSpy said:

My theory would be, that those bots might be from users looking for new homes in Bellisseria.

Something like that is probably true.  It says something about how well (or poorly) some residents understand the process of getting a home.  There's no way that you can use a spy bot to tell you that someone is getting ready to abandon a home -- certainly not reliably enough to predict exactly when you have to be ready to click the button to claim their abandoned parcel.  The time between release and the next ownership is measured in seconds.  Bots are no help there.  Therefore, intentionally or not,

7 minutes ago, Unity SecretSpy said:

Maybe to annoy others to give up their land, idk. But that's only a theory.

this sinister theory could be the real motive.  If so, all the more reason to submit ARs when you can.

Edited September 5, 2019 by Rolig Loon