Bots?

[WereBeast Alpha]

This is what I found this morning from my orb. Very creepy how this bot came onto my 1/4 RP sim and decided to stay for 8 seconds which isn't long.

 

[Yuumo Ichibara]

Before I only witness those creepy bot hauntings on the mainland, but recently I have been seeing more and more of them closer to our homes in Bellisseria. It gives me George Romero vibes!

 

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

On 4/5/2021 at 2:39 PM, Tommy Linden said:

Hey @Adamburp Adamczyk

We don't have a Governance meeting tomorrow, as I mentioned in the last meeting, the next one isn't until the 20th.

Also, I will be up front with you, in that I am afraid I do not see what the violation is here that would warrant the Governance team stepping in. There is nothing saying that someone, person or bot (as long as the bot is set to be a self identified scripted agent), can't temporarily visit a land. If all they are doing is visiting and then leaving, aside from it being an annoyance, I am not sure what the actual harm is.

If there is more going on than just a visit, please feel free to file an Abuse Report and it will be looked at.

Otherwise I would encourage land owners to utilize the features that we provide in restricting access to their land if they do not wish to have visitors arrive at it.

-Tommy Linden

Yeah I just keep filling up my list with the bots.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Adamburp Adamczyk
wording, never type a long post after a 15 hour shift

[Theresa Tennyson]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:43 AM, xxVi3perxx said:

This is what I found this morning from my orb. Very creepy how this bot came onto my 1/4 RP sim and decided to stay for 8 seconds which isn't long.

 

Your threshold of creepiness is remarkably low.

[WereBeast Alpha]

8 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Your threshold of creepiness is remarkably low.

I don't understand what you mean on that but I rarely get visitors to my place is what is creepy to me that these bots pop up mostly between 3am and 6am USA time central. 

[Adamburp Adamczyk]

11 minutes ago, xxVi3perxx said:

I don't understand what you mean on that but I rarely get visitors to my place is what is creepy to me that these bots pop up mostly between 3am and 6am USA time central. 

That's the beauty of the mute button

Edited April 23, 2021 by Adamburp Adamczyk

[Evah Baxton]

2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Your threshold of creepiness is remarkably low.

 

"This is fine."  

[Red2Blaze]

I seen one of them pop on my sim, and as IM them they vanished then seen him on a sim I normally visit

Glad to know its just a bot.. just wish there makers will mark them as such and not just leave them with no info on the profile that make it impossible to know why they show and vanish

[Marcus Bremser]

On 4/4/2021 at 6:52 PM, Peter Stindberg said:

There's definitely enough of them. My tracker counts about 3-7 visits a day. A bit less during the weekend.

Agree, I have the same issue.  

I imagine one could write a script which would be able to block the bots, based on key words in the profile.  I notice that almost all the bots on my regions have a comment in the web tab identifying them as bots....

It would be easier if Linden Labs moderated this phenomenon... otherwise its getting really out of hand and more than annoying.

[Marcus Bremser]

On 4/23/2021 at 11:52 PM, Adamburp Adamczyk said:

Yeah I just keep filling up my list with the bots.

Thanks for raising this matter with LL.  The response from Linden is disappointing. 

In actual practice, the options suggested for controlling bot access is rather limited:

1. Block all traffic - not an option

2. Restrict to group - also not an option for those wishing to keep our regions open to "normal" visitors

3. Ban identified bots from owned land - this would be a very tedious daily task - we dont want to spend our limited available time doing this. 

4. Implement a script which would identify bots and ban this automatically.  As this piece of software doesn't seem to exist, maybe this is an opportunity/challenge?

 

[Rowan Amore]

5 hours ago, Marcus Bremser said:

Thanks for raising this matter with LL.  The response from Linden is disappointing. 

In actual practice, the options suggested for controlling bot access is rather limited:

1. Block all traffic - not an option

2. Restrict to group - also not an option for those wishing to keep our regions open to "normal" visitors

3. Ban identified bots from owned land - this would be a very tedious daily task - we dont want to spend our limited available time doing this. 

4. Implement a script which would identify bots and ban this automatically.  As this piece of software doesn't seem to exist, maybe this is an opportunity/challenge?

 

You might also want to take a look at this blog post about grid status bots.  LL is aware of them.  

https://modemworld.me/2021/01/04/second-life-land-and-users-in-2020-via-tyche-shepherd/

[Vesca Starlight]

This is actually becoming a major issue in a couple sims I help run, because our ban lists are being filled up by bot accounts and we get hit with a new one I'd estimate every 20 minutes or so, all day long. At which point does it become a public nuisance to the same degree as someone intentionally spamming sounds or partaking in other obnoxious behaviors?

looking at the link with charts posted earlier showing how many bots all these different groups have that will far exceed the number of available ban slots on the estate if they continue to multiply at the rates I'm seeing, and that is only for the bots which completely excludes people I've had to ban for other very serious reasons such as copybotting.

I'd script something to just boot them but as far as I'm aware there is no function to see whether or not something is a scripted agent status, and even so that runs into the issue of the limited estate ban slots being filled up by them. Can we please have something done about this?

Edit: A function in the land panel maybe to disallow scripted agents from being on sim might be helpful, or at the very least scripted agents *not* on the access list so sims that utilize them such as RP sims can still function as normal without the constant bot spam.

Edited May 29, 2021 by RyokoTensaki
clarification and adding a suggestion

[Coffee Pancake]

Don't ban them - You might never see the same one twice and your ban list will end up useless (also wont remember which of the bans are people and which aren't)

There isn't any movement from LL as there isn't really anything they can do. 

If they add the option to disallow scripted agents entering a region then only honest operators will affected (and we loose a lot of grid stats). Plenty of survey bots will just not get registered as such. Any bot you might need for your own purposes would also get caught in the net. Enforcing bot registration by proactively monitoring all accounts for bot like behavior (and booting those that don't pass as human) will just escalate and the bots will get harder to spot (there are already plenty that go to the effort of looking like regular users)

There are many packs of bots operating in SL, not just those associated with the indispensable grid survey.

Best suggestion, if you have a region or public location, is to put your landing point away from your main welcome area (skybox, etc) and only worry about avatars that make it out.

[WereBeast Alpha]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Don't ban them - You might never see the same one twice and your ban list will end up useless (also wont remember which of the bans are people and which aren't)

There isn't any movement from LL as there isn't really anything they can do. 

If they add the option to disallow scripted agents entering a region then only honest operators will affected (and we loose a lot of grid stats). Plenty of survey bots will just not get registered as such. Any bot you might need for your own purposes would also get caught in the net. Enforcing bot registration by proactively monitoring all accounts for bot like behavior (and booting those that don't pass as human) will just escalate and the bots will get harder to spot (there are already plenty that go to the effort of looking like regular users)

There are many packs of bots operating in SL, not just those associated with the indispensable grid survey.

Best suggestion, if you have a region or public location, is to put your landing point away from your main welcome area (skybox, etc) and only worry about avatars that make it out.

What I've done is put payment info on file it has helped reduce the amount of bots coming onto my parcel and also my security orb has helped as well kicking them off when under 60 days at most which is one thing I have done but I understand bots are needed for various things to keep SL going in a sense.

[Peter Stindberg]

@RyokoTensaki Can I place one of my trackers somewhere on your sim? For the past couple of months I am doing some research on the issue and have trackers on 5 sims already, in order to spot movement from Sim to Sim. Right now, I have a list of 297 confirmed roaming bots already - about 20 new ones in the past 4 weeks.

[Nova Convair]

This thread is entertaining. 😁

Summary: some people wish to ban all bots, LL has no interest

I agree with LL btw. there is no need for them to support paranoid tendencies. 🎃

[Love Zhaoying]

On 4/16/2021 at 10:43 AM, xxVi3perxx said:

This is what I found this morning from my orb. Very creepy how this bot came onto my 1/4 RP sim and decided to stay for 8 seconds which isn't long.

 

Misspellings are supposed to be a trigger for scams, right?

[Rowan Amore]

15 hours ago, RyokoTensaki said:

This is actually becoming a major issue

Why?

[Vesca Starlight]

On 5/29/2021 at 11:19 PM, Peter Stindberg said:

@RyokoTensaki Can I place one of my trackers somewhere on your sim? For the past couple of months I am doing some research on the issue and have trackers on 5 sims already, in order to spot movement from Sim to Sim. Right now, I have a list of 297 confirmed roaming bots already - about 20 new ones in the past 4 weeks.

Yeah if you are able to send me something I can plop it down in one of the sims to track them, Its a bit of a headache for me but each sim has its own landgroup which might otherwise be problematic. My name in world is as shown here, Ryokotensaki Resident.

On 5/30/2021 at 5:39 AM, Nova Convair said:

This thread is entertaining. 😁

Summary: some people wish to ban all bots, LL has no interest

I agree with LL btw. there is no need for them to support paranoid tendencies. 🎃

I don't have an issue with bots being used so much as bots being disguised as regular residents popping all over the place and into sims or locations (such as someone's living room) that they shouldn't have any reason popping into. I'll also add that if you've ever been stalked by a troll/griefer group or just really determined individual maybe you'll understand why some people are hesitant about a ton of info-less accounts popping into every sim they go to when you have the very real threat of hardware damage from a GPU crash, its not some silly unjustified paranoia just because you've never had to go through that so don't belittle others who might have.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

On 5/30/2021 at 5:24 PM, Rowan Amore said:

Why?

Bot hopping for the sake sim statistics does not justify that my private, non-of-your-business sim gets visited by at least 7 bots within an hour on my Friday night. N00b avatar, the youngest 5 to 7 years old, a blank profile with zip information spawning at random spots on the ground. I'm waiting for one of them to spawn in the firepit, actually, since you can freeze them for a little while. 

But no problem, I'll just make an allow list, if that's what social Second Life wants me to do. 🙄

[Noelle Delaunay]

What I find funny about this thread is that the main concern expressed about bots is "I own my precious land and how dare bots assuming the right to tp here for 8 seconds and annoy me." It's funny because like THIS IS YOUR MAIN CONCERN?!?! Seriously? In 2021? It's not about the fact that bots could gather lots and lots of data about you and everyone on SL? When are you online? Do you have a job IRL? What sims do you visit? Who do you hang out with? Etc.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Noelle Delaunay

[Lillith Hapmouche]

And what grants you the authority to be so much holier and belittle those pesky landowners?

1 hour ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

What I find funny about this thread is that the main concern expressed about bots is "I own my precious land and how dare bots assuming the right to tp here for 8 seconds and annoy me." It's funny because like THIS IS YOUR MAIN CONCERN?!?! Seriously? In 2021? It's not about the fact that bots could gather lots and lots of data about you and everyone on SL? When are you online? Do you have a job IRL? What sims do you visit? Who do you hang out with? Etc.

 

[Noelle Delaunay]

5 minutes ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

And what grants you the authority to be so much holier and belittle those pesky landowners?

 

You have several instruments to limit the presence of residents on your land, so if bots are really this big of an issue to you then there you go. If you don't use these instruments out of convenience then the personal impact of being annoyed by a bot can't be really this huge. I don't claim any authority but this thread is open for discussion, and in my humble opinion the individually felt annoyance brought to you by any resident spending 8 seconds on your land, while you could prevent this by your land's privacy rules, is NOTHING compared to the big picture here. I'm calling this out, and if you're blaming me for this then please do.

[Alwin Alcott]

11 minutes ago, Noelle Delaunay said:

You have several instruments to limit the presence of residents on your land, so if bots are really this big of an issue to you then there you go. If you don't use these instruments out of convenience then the personal impact of being annoyed by a bot can't be really this huge. I don't claim any authority but this thread is open for discussion, and in my humble opinion the individually felt annoyance brought to you by any resident spending 8 seconds on your land, while you could prevent this by your land's privacy rules, is NOTHING compared to the big picture here. I'm calling this out, and if you're blaming me for this then please do.

we might be past this already a bit...lot .. you'r mainly talking to experienced users in this tail of the thread.
Don't try to lecture like your first post please, and all will be a lot more relaxed.
[ did i really say this?...o.o ]

Edited June 5, 2021 by Alwin Alcott

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Didn't get around to limit entry to an access list only, but will do ... all cool, I planned a place with the spirit of a resort, a Mediterranean island, where friends might chill and get away from crap. But ok, I'll hand out "keys".

And just had another one appear on one of the terraces today. No info, no reply. No reason to be on my island.