Security Orbs for group only

[Navy1 Coba]

Asking for a friend, so here goes:

A club on a parcel sectioned off of a sim, full permission for that parcel for whatever does NOT affect the rest of the sim in land rights.

If they buy a security orb that restricts access to that parcel, they can set it to GROUP ONLY and require people entering to be a MEMBER of their group (eg: MY CLUB).

They were TOLD (or think) everyone entering needs to wear an ACTIVE TAG (eg: MY CLUB) to not get booted.

I had always thought a security orb set to YOUR group ejected people regardless of the tag they wore, but based on IF they were listed in the group.

[Mollymews]

31 minutes ago, Navy1 Coba said:

They were TOLD (or think) everyone entering needs to wear an ACTIVE TAG (eg: MY CLUB) to not get booted.

I had always thought a security orb set to YOUR group ejected people regardless of the tag they wore, but based on IF they were listed in the group.

the script has to know if the person is a member of the group, and the only way a script can know this is when the person is wearing the tag of the group that the object containing the script is set too

the LSL code is:

if (llSameGroup(persons_uuid))
  person is wearing the group tag of the group the object is set too
else
  person is not wearing the group tag of the group the object is set too

 

more here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlSameGroup

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Mollymews
[]

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Navy1 Coba said:

Asking for a friend, so here goes:

A club on a parcel sectioned off of a sim, full permission for that parcel for whatever does NOT affect the rest of the sim in land rights.

If they buy a security orb that restricts access to that parcel, they can set it to GROUP ONLY and require people entering to be a MEMBER of their group (eg: MY CLUB).

They were TOLD (or think) everyone entering needs to wear an ACTIVE TAG (eg: MY CLUB) to not get booted.

I had always thought a security orb set to YOUR group ejected people regardless of the tag they wore, but based on IF they were listed in the group.

If access is restricted to group only, then anyone else would not be able to access the club so a security orb like the one you describe would be sort of redundant.  Who would it be securing against?  Just wondering.

Edited November 28, 2020 by RowanMinx

[Mollymews]

24 minutes ago, RowanMinx said:

If access is restricted to group only, then anyone else who not be able to access the club so a security orb like the one you describe would be sort of redundant.  Who would it be securing against?  Just wondering.

good point

[Navy1 Coba]

apparently from my testing, please correct me, but land group restrictions only work from 145m to ground, so if the club is at say 500m, the settings on the ground do not restrict it. I am only guessing but this allows the land owner to set security for his home while not affecting say a rental sky box. There are probably other reasons but that is the only one coming to mind. Once above that 145m, GROUP ONLY ACCESS would have to be controlled by a security orb and as I understand them, one would HAVE to wear the GROUP TAG assigned to the orb if it was set to group only access.

 The issue is the person wants to have a club above ground and not restrict the visitors to wear a specific group tag, but still manage entry without a white list of members.

Edited November 28, 2020 by Navy1 Coba

[Nova Convair]

What Navy1 says.

I can always enter access restricted places without wearing the group tag. That's handled by the sim/viewer and my groups are known it seems.

A script on the other hand knows absolutely nothing about my groups. It can only see the group tag I wear at this moment. If you need a script you need to wear the tag.

[Rowan Amore]

3 hours ago, Navy1 Coba said:

apparently from my testing, please correct me, but land group restrictions only work from 145m to ground, so if the club is at say 500m, the settings on the ground do not restrict it. I am only guessing but this allows the land owner to set security for his home while not affecting say a rental sky box. There are probably other reasons but that is the only one coming to mind. Once above that 145m, GROUP ONLY ACCESS would have to be controlled by a security orb and as I understand them, one would HAVE to wear the GROUP TAG assigned to the orb if it was set to group only access.

 The issue is the person wants to have a club above ground and not restrict the visitors to wear a specific group tag, but still manage entry without a white list of members.

Ah ok.  You didn't explain all that originally.  I did find this interesting.

Ban line height for "no entry" or "pay to access" (in other words, "allow public access" is turned off, or "allow group access" is turned on, in the parcel options) is the parcel's ground elevation plus 50 meters (except, if the region has been set to "Block Parcel Fly Over" in which case the access controls extend to at least 4096 meters). If a user is explicitly banned by name, the height is the parcel's ground elevation plus 5000 meters. On current viewers this is visible to the full extent.

[Qie Niangao]

I think a group member with the right Ability can teleport anywhere on a parcel directly, not limited to a set landing point. So, say the parcel is set with "allow group access" and has a landing point on the ground-level, I *think* only group members, regardless of active tag, should be able to teleport directly to a sky location in the parcel.*

Unfortunately I think non-group members could fly in from neighboring parcels, though, so that gets back to needing scripted security, and yeah, scripts can't really know about non-active group membership. I mean, there are certainly bots that could scrape the group member list (if it is small enough to load into the bot's "viewer"), and probably populate a database or Experience persistent store or something, to be queried by a hypothetical security script. Sounds dreadful, but I'm guessing it's been done.

_____________
* Group members could also hang out at the ground level, unless you take other measures to keep them up in the sky.

[Odaks]

22 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

a group member with the right Ability can teleport anywhere on a parcel directly, not limited to a set landing point.

If a Landing Point has been set, and you attempt to teleport into a personal landmark from outside of the parcel, even with the correctly permissioned group tag active, you will still get scooped up by the Landing Point. Once you have arrived in the parcel, however, then you will be free to teleport anywhere else in the parcel.

Any attempt to teleport elsewhere on the parcel, by someone with incorrect permissions, will result in them getting scooped up by the Landing Point again.

You are spot on about the way avatars who walk/fly etc into the parcel from an adjoining parcel get treated. They will avoid the clutches of the Landing Point altogether. If you are relying on a Landing Point to make sure people get to see the rules, or read the info., or whatever, it won't work for this type of entry and a scripted security orb is the only way to catch them.

 

Edit:

Just tested this again. I'm right. Despite being in the correct group, with the correct permissions, I did get scooped up by the Landing Point in the first instance when teleporting in from outside using a personal Landmark.

Edited November 29, 2020 by Odaks
More info

[Qie Niangao]

Hmmm. Well, FWIW, the Group Ability I had in mind is "Ignore landing point" about which is claimed: "Members in a Role with this Ability can direct teleport to a group-owned parcel, even if a landing point is set in About Land > Options tab." So I just tested this with an alt and as far as I can tell, when his Role includes that Ability, he can teleport wherever he likes on a group-owned parcel with a Landing Point set (and with Teleport Routing set to "Landing Point"), but when his Role lacks that Ability, he teleports to the set Landing Point.

Now this may all be wrong, it's just what I'm seeing in testing now. I know this has come up a few times in the past and it's certainly possible I'm still overlooking something... so, I dunno, maybe another tester will get even different results?

(The ability for intruders to just fly in from a neighboring parcel makes this kinda academic in this case, but in some other application a private region may have that "Block Parcel Fly Over" or may fill the whole region, for which it may be germane.)

[Navy1 Coba]

On 11/28/2020 at 9:48 AM, RowanMinx said:

 

Ban line height for "no entry" or "pay to access" (in other words, "allow public access" is turned off, or "allow group access" is turned on, in the parcel options) is the parcel's ground elevation plus 50 meters (except, if the region has been set to "Block Parcel Fly Over" in which case the access controls extend to at least 4096 meters). If a user is explicitly banned by name, the height is the parcel's ground elevation plus 5000 meters. On current viewers this is visible to the full extent.

Thanks Rowan, you win the question of the day award (trophy is in the mail). The club was located ABOVE that 50-100m range that is controlled by the ABOUT LAND group settings and thus not restricted and limited to use of a security orb which rudely bounded people not wearing their tag. Since it is a mainland club, even though they "own" the land, they CAN NOT change the estate/regional settings to BLOCK PARCEL FLY OVER, they moved the club to ground level and thus were able to restrict access by the ABOUT LAND controls and restrict access to "group only" without everyone wearing the tag (group charged a modest fee that was being ignored and people dropping in without paying).

I was privately told that Linden did this so aircraft could fly without bumping into ban lines everywhere and also rental sky boxes could have their own security controls set (orb) without being affected by a home or business at ground level.

[Odaks]

On 11/29/2020 at 9:32 PM, Qie Niangao said:

he can teleport wherever he likes on a group-owned parcel with a Landing Point set

Qie, just to be clear, did you mean onto a group-owned parcel from outside of it? Or just within it? If the latter, we're probably seeing the same. If the former, there's a difference. From outside of the parcel, with the correct group and permissions, the Landing Point always gets me. Only once I'm on the parcel can I freely teleport anywhere else on the parcel. If there is a difference, I really like to investigate as to why!

Edited November 30, 2020 by Odaks

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Odaks said:

Qie, just to be clear, did you mean onto a group-owned parcel from outside of it? Or just within it? If the latter, we're probably seeing the same. If the former, there's a difference. From outside of the parcel, with the correct group and permissions, the Landing Point always gets me. Only once I'm on the parcel can I freely teleport anywhere else on the parcel. If there is a difference, I really like to investigate as to why!

Yeah, I did mean teleporting from outside the group-owned parcel onto it. I'm trying to think of what could account for the difference in our experience. Would be nice if somebody else could explain how they do it.

The only thing that comes to mind is that I think my testing was from within the same region, Linden-owned land next to the parcel to which I was teleporting. The Landing Point was enforced except when that "Ignore landing point" Ability was enabled, so I figured it was testing what it should.

Oh, one other thing: for changes to take effect, such as enabling that Ability, the avatar must change active group out and back in to the affected group. Now that I think about it, I may have left that group active then when I did the test, which shouldn't have mattered, but that's another thing I'd test now.

[ETA: To be clear, I did change active group "out and back in" between setting Abilities and doing the tests, but I think the testing was done with the land group as the active group, which might be a difference.]

Edited December 1, 2020 by Qie Niangao

[Qie Niangao]

I hate stuff like this.

Starting with an alt who's in a role that has the "ignore landing point" ability, without the group active, the first time he tries to teleport into the parcel from outside the region he gets caught by the landing point, as @Odaks observed. If he teleports back outside the region and tries again, he successfully ignored the landing point. I got the same result with a different alt who started out with the group active: he too got caught by the landing point on his first visit to the region but could ignore the landing point on subsequent arrivals. These attempts were within a couple minutes of each other, so I guess the sim "remembered" the ability between attempts.

I tried a quick relog, and that reverted to the landing point catching the first attempt again (and again being ignored on subsequent attempts). Same thing if I waited maybe twenty minutes outside the region. I haven't tried to get any more precise, if the remember/forget interval is even repeatable.

So then I tried logging into the region where the parcel is located (but on a different parcel), and could ignore the landing point on the first attempt. So logging into the region seems to be enough to "remind" it of the ability, without needing to first get caught by the landing point.

I guess it wouldn't be the end of the world if group members were instructed to simply re-try the same teleport destination when arriving from outside the region, if that's reliable.

I can sorta make up a just-so story for how this might happen, but it's weird enough that it could all be some as yet undiscovered artifact of my testing conditions (again). In any case, I keep wondering if this is documented somewhere already. Seems unlikely this is the first time it came up.

[Odaks]

@Qie Niangao- thanks for all that!

It seems tp prove what a totally useless tool the Landing Point really is, when considering its role in Group-only access. Or much else.

[Gwyneth Llewelyn]

Bumping this just in case someone from LL is watching this thread:

The Knowledge Base article with the instructions regarding how to set up teleporting in Estates/Regions is dated from February 2011.

It seems to have been updated in mid-2021, but I have no idea what was changed. The truth is that things are way more complex (and fickle!) than what this KB article describes, even though @Jeremy Linden was candid in saying that some things may break...

I've been having real trouble in setting a whole estate with a central telehub (works) which doesn't affect the teleport ability of group members (doesn't work). Although the KB article claims that Estate Owners, Estate Managers and members of the group the land is deeded to are not affected, this is not true. Only the Estate Owner & Manager have that ability. The role ability that allows them 'unlimited teleport' simply doesn't work (actually, the same happens to the 'fly anywhere' ability — it's simply ignores — but that's another story, for another thread). Whatever is set at the Estate/Region level overrides everything.

However, when the Estate/Region telehub is active, but no landing points have been set, then group members can teleport Home, if they have set it to someplace else (i.e. not the telehub) and they have the 'unlimited teleport' ability granted through their group role. That's the silver lining... meaning that, at the very least, you can safely teleport home, you don't need to walk for that.

I have only experimented with settings at the ground level (it's a no-fly region...), so things might be different up in the sky.

Note: I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't possible to teleport 'anywhere' — there was no other option but to teleport from telehub to telehub, and walk the rest of the way. Linden Lab imagined that this would be a nice way to have 'gathering places' and some order in the region, as the telehub becomes the 'most important' spot in a region; residents wishing for a bit of peace of mind would rent places further away, while shops would gather around the telehub in the hope of catching prospective customers. This was before private land existed, of course. Eventually the fierce competition around the highly-priced land around telehubs became such a source of complaints that Linden Lab was pushed to allow people to teleport anywhere (in the mainland, which was all that existed). When private regions became available, LL gave region owners the ability to choose how they wished their land to be accessible. I can very well believe that most of the code dealing with the complexities of teleport routing come from that time in the remote past, and have not evolved much over the years (decades...). It also means that eventual bugs that have crept in might be hard to find, and, worse, because the original developer might have been gone from LL for years, it might be too tough to figure out how to fix that code — like so many other projects that LL abandoned because they lost the relevant programmer who was working on those features. Anyway, I'm ranting and digressing; I'll shut up for now.

[Odaks]

@Gwyneth Llewelyn - yes, absolutely true. When a Landing Point has been set, and your group role allows you to "Set Home to Here", you can set your Home location to any point on the parcel, remote from the Landing Point, and "Teleport Home" to that from outside of the parcel (or log in to it) under any circumstances, even if the Group Tag is not active.