How to protect your home from a troll using an animation to get in?

[Kytteh Wytchwood]

I had a pick set to my home location. I knew it would be okay to do this, as my home is set to group access only. This troll tells me he is in my home. Shares the radio stream link from my home in parcel details to me and tells me the name of the objects in my home. I don't believe him and refuse to go to my home to check. He obviously was baiting me, wanting me to go home. I open another viewer and login with my alt that I haven't set a home to yet and see if I can get in from my pick. I was unable to. He was still in nearby and I told him it was me. I pestered him on how he got in and he at first showed me the workaround on how to get my parcel info. He said to fly slowly up until you don't see the banned lines anymore. It took me a few tries and then I scooted forward slowly to where he was. I check parcel details and I am able to see my house name, the description box, prim allowance and my radio stream url. 

Then he pops into my house on the first floor. I pull up my main window in my main acct and invite my alt into my group so I can get inside my house to see where he is in my house. I didn't see him but then he popped in again.

After pestering him a lot, since he kept vaguely saying, "offset", he finally told me that this offset animation pushes your avatar forward. He told me to stand against the wall of my house and then sent me the animation. It shoved me in and I was able to strafe left to right a little bit but unable to see my avatar while moving.

Thankfully he left my home. I now have him banned. I'm thinking of moving to another region so he won't pop up again with another alt.

How do we protect our homes from these troll/ griefers?

Even if you don't show your home in your profile picks, a lot of trolls travel by map. They could land and just shove their avatar inside with this animation and annoy you with their presence, invading your privacy.

 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Kytteh Wytchwood
corrected a word, forgot to say I got scared when he linked my radio stream url to me. I didn't want to believe he got inside my home but started to believe he had somehow.

[Rolig Loon]

As you have discovered, complete privacy is essentially impossible in SL.  The only way you can achieve it is to buy a private estate and then set permissions to prevent anyone from teleporting in.  Anywhere else, there's always some way that people can see in or get in if they are clever enough.  You really have two choices.  One is to engage in an arms race against potential visitors, investing in as many security systems as you can, putting up ban lines (if they are allowed by the region owner), and being hypervigilant.  The other choice is to relax and forget about the occasional visitor.  If you have set parcel perms to prevent rezzing and bringing foreign objects in, visitors can't trash your place or reset your music stream. You can set a simple security orb to prevent people from teleporting or walking in, and you can always eject or ban any clever person who manages to beat the system while you are there. There's no point in worrying about people who wander in while you're away.  

[Mollymews]

with a person who is doing this to us constantly then best to Abuse Report them under Harassment.  With each Abuse Report (alts or otherwise) reference the previous report. Create a paper trail for Linden to look into

 

for myself tho I like to troll these people back.  Like with this kind of animation offset trolling I disrupt them by sticking a scripted follower that on a fast timer temp rezzes a box to surround their animation offset position. Because temp-rez then they can't derender the surround. Have fun playing with a box filling up your screen my trolly not friend

[Waiomao]

Wow Kytteh, I absolutely understand this frustration after dealing with a similar episode myself. I like to leave my homes open and welcome visitors, but do expect them to be respectful. When they start getting predatory I report and ban them, but they can still cam in or use other devices as you describe. IN SL it seems the best policy is to expect no privacy as Rolig said, and to be prepared to move from place to place. I have a Linden houseboat that became a target, so I moved to a new one... then that one became a target too. Crap. As a reasonable solution I bought a pretty house on SLMP, and some land to rez it on. I still leave the doors open, but have learned to love the house not the land it's on. That way I can move again when the need arises.

[Kytteh Wytchwood]

I've decided to move regions again. I do have build, object entry and scripts already set to group. I'll do the same to the new Linden home and get a security orb. Thank you @Rolig Loon

[Rabid Cheetah]

I'd suggest using the Linden Home Security System to ensure your ban settings are in-line with the LH Covenant.

As to finding out your parcel info, which includes the music stream, it's not that hard to see even if you've parcel-banned the person:  They won't be able to enter your parcel at a height above 50 meters, as the person you encountered did, but they can easily click on any bare land on your parcel and select "About Land".  It's got nothing to do with your profile picks.

I'm not sure what this off-set stuff is, but it sounds like they weren't actually on your land.  I've yet to try the "wheeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!" animation, or whatever word triggers it, to see if it temporarily makes my avi slide beyond ban lines -- I've got more important things to do with my time, unlike whomever your visitor was.  Kinda sounds like they were trying to show you how to do things, rather than troll, but yeah, it can be annoying.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

What I find endlessly fascinating is how someone can spend the better part of a decade doing something and not knowing pretty simple things about it.

• Banlines don't extend all the way into the sky. They're actually very low.
• Animations are purely visual, they don't actually move your avatar's location in the world.
  • Banning an avatar from the parcel (or using your security orb) doesn't protect you from this.

Bonus:

• You can hold Alt while clicking on a point, to focus (and orbit) your camera around it.
• You can sit on objects through walls and across the entire sim.
   

Assuming your home is at ground-level, within banlines, you can also enable "parcel privacy" to hide avatars from others while you're inside and they're outside. Animation offsetting into the parcel won't allow them to see the avatars inside (because remember, animations don't change the avatar's location in the world). You won't be able to see them either. They will still be able to see your name/profile and exact location in the Nearby window, but they can't see your avatar.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator