Scripted bots

[BrookeRanger]

I get visits in my parcel regularly by accounts that arrive at the landing point, do not stay for a second and poof off. Some describe "scripted bot" in their profiles. Others have no information at all, but reviews have described them as bots. Most are accounts over 10 years old.

What is up with that? What is their purpose? Can those accounts be reported or is it pointless?

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, BrookeRanger said:

I get visits in my parcel regularly by accounts that arrive at the landing point, do not stay for a second and poof off. Some describe "scripted bot" in their profiles. Others have no information at all, but reviews have described them as bots. Most are accounts over 10 years old.

What is up with that? What is their purpose? Can those accounts be reported or is it pointless?

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

[BrookeRanger]

So... This is allowed or against TOS?
 

[Mollymews]

38 minutes ago, BrookeRanger said:

So... This is allowed or against TOS?
 

accounts acting as bots are allowed by the TOS

the land owner has a TOS right to ban any account from their land, and the TOS does not require the land owner to give a reason for the ban

 

Edited May 24, 2021 by Mollymews
typs

[BrookeRanger]

Good to know, thanks

[Claireschen Hesten]

If the bots are operated by Tyche Shepherd their gridsurvey.com website will tell you which account last surveyed your region and how frequently they visit regions

[Ardy Lay]

Tyche's bots are not zooming around the grid making lists of who is in each region to sell to stalkers.

[Rowan Amore]

28 minutes ago, Ardy Lay said:

Tyche's bots are not zooming around the grid making lists of who is in each region to sell to stalkers.

That's what microchips are for!

[BrookeRanger]

10 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Tyche's bots are not zooming around the grid making lists of who is in each region to sell to stalkers.

This is flabbergasting now. But I don't see the use since, to throw someone off, many use alters.

It cracks me up when I read that SL claims to have millions of users. Some role players alone have hundreds and thousands of alters. Perhaps the number of individual memberships is closest to hundreds of thousands, with the rest being alters. My question is then, what does anyone gain with stalking on others? You can ban an account from a parcel and in they sneak back in an alter. Try to check on a partner and out they go partnering to someone else in an alt... What is the purpose of stalking on someone like that?

 

[Alwin Alcott]

2 hours ago, BrookeRanger said:

This is flabbergasting now. But I don't see the use since, to throw someone off, many use alters.

It cracks me up when I read that SL claims to have millions of users. Some role players alone have hundreds and thousands of alters. Perhaps the number of individual memberships is closest to hundreds of thousands, with the rest being alters. My question is then, what does anyone gain with stalking on others? You can ban an account from a parcel and in they sneak back in an alter. Try to check on a partner and out they go partnering to someone else in an alt... What is the purpose of stalking on someone like that?

 

as long you keep throwing all names for accounts on one pile or nastiness you'll never take a explanation as quite some people tried.

a alt is a normal account
a bot is a normal account, in this case collecting data about regions, nót camming around, he sees nothing, only registers available programmed info sources
a stalker is a normal account with a nasty intention who cán use alts in his crusade, but not linked to bots or normal alts. (99.9% of alts have a perfect good reason, i'm in strict meaning also one)


 

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, BrookeRanger said:

This is flabbergasting now. But I don't see the use since, to throw someone off, many use alters.

It cracks me up when I read that SL claims to have millions of users. Some role players alone have hundreds and thousands of alters. Perhaps the number of individual memberships is closest to hundreds of thousands, with the rest being alters. My question is then, what does anyone gain with stalking on others? You can ban an account from a parcel and in they sneak back in an alter. Try to check on a partner and out they go partnering to someone else in an alt... What is the purpose of stalking on someone like that?

 

It's had millions of accounts created since it began.  That is all that particular stat means.  SL is almost 20 yrs.old.  

How did we change from bots to stalkers?

[BrookeRanger]

1 hour ago, Alwin Alcott said:

as long you keep throwing all names for accounts on one pile or nastiness you'll never take a explanation as quite some people tried.
 

How about if you lead by example and not express yourself in reference to me in such derogatory way? I intended to create no pile of nastiness, even if my words did not fit your self proclaimed, correct terminology.

Nasty can be nasty while intrusive, if it is an alt, a bot or a stalker anyway. The degree of insolence is not associated to the definitions you want players to use

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

How did we change from bots to stalkers?

It's Ardy's fault:

14 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

Tyche's bots are not zooming around the grid making lists of who is in each region to sell to stalkers.

which I assume was "jus' funnin'" with the OP, unless there are really spy-for-hire bot services on offer. That tends to be the explanation folks desperately want to believe about stalking, because it's so much easier to blame the mythical bot army than to shun everybody on one's friend list, never visit any landmarks, and replace all attachments.

[BrookeRanger]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

It's had millions of accounts created since it began.  That is all that particular stat means.  SL is almost 20 yrs.old. 

I just get a kick out of anyone "stalking" other accounts when each user can create unlimited accounts and hide anywhere.

And I see what you mean in terms of the number of users but rather than say that SL has millions of users perhaps it is clearer to state that SL has millions of accounts instead.

But I don't work in their PR department anyhow...

[Rowan Amore]

SL really doen't say that it has millions of users online every day.  I was going by the grid survey mentioned in this thread.  That's what the grid status bots do.  

Total Residents:64,687,961 | Residents online:37,928 | Last update:2021-05-25 08:15:52 SLT

I don't think I've ever seen SL claim any amount for their user base.  At least, not recently.

 

[BrookeRanger]

WOW! over 64 million accounts!
So correct my math if wrong but can we infer that at the time you checked those numbers, less than 1% were online?
🙄😬

Anyhow, thanks for the information....  Be well everyone.

[Rowan Amore]

64 million accounts created since SL began.  In comparison:

World of Warcraft players have created more than 100 million different accounts since the game's debut in November 2004.

Do they have 100 million ACTIVE players?  Of course not and neither does SL have 64 million active accounts.  People come and go just like any online world.

[Paul Hexem]

To reiterate; 99% of bots are harmless, even the ones that show up on your property. They're grid survey bots, group management bots, land bots, models, etc. Just automating mundane tasks or helping creators work.

Funny story, I had a group management bot set up. Region restarts happened, and the bot got sent to a hub. Other bots were there. A bunch got into invite loops, greeting and inviting each other. Since the relay scripts for mine were on the parcel and not on the avatar, it didn't get to join in on the fun.

[Maitimo]

Bots are:

• allowed
• not the same thing as alts
• not the same thing as stalkers
• 99.9% harmless

The majority of those 64 million accounts that have signed up for SL are not bots or alts. The majority will be;

• people who tried it once, didn't like it and never came back
• people who registered but found their computer couldn't run it
• people who created an account solely to post (spam) on the forum, with no intention of going in-world

I used to mod a forum with around two thousand active users. For every genuine new sign-up that actually participated, we had around a thousand fakes, spammers and no-shows (people who register but never attempt to post anything).

[Ardy Lay]

What are the bots doing?

I already know about Tyche Shepherd's grid survey site and their bot is welcome.  But, using Tyche Shepherd's grid survey as the answer to all questions about the flood of bots plaguing Second Life is stupid.

I would like to know what the 

2 hours ago, Maitimo said:

99.9% harmless

bots are doing teleporting around Second Life.

Nope, they are not customer support bots.  Those have a place.

Nope, they are not clothing models.  Those have a place.

Nope, they are not land management bots.  Those have a place.

I am asking about the continuous stream of other bots that come to my land, and apparently other people's land, sit for a minute or two, then leave.

I have been logging them for a while now.  They stay longer when:

• there are many agents in the region
• the region consists of many parcels
• the region contains more content

There are no parcels for sale in the regions I monitor.

There are no Linden telehubs in the regions I monitor.

I believe bots have purpose.  We have a couple of them on our own land.  They only end up in other locations when our regions are unreachable.  This is when they find themselves in a Linden Telehub.  From there they attempt to return home.

[Ardy Lay]

On 5/25/2021 at 9:52 AM, Qie Niangao said:

there are really spy-for-hire bot services on offer

yes

[Rowan Amore]

On 5/25/2021 at 10:52 AM, Qie Niangao said:

unless there are really spy-for hire bot services on offer

No

[Qie Niangao]

11 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

[…] They stay longer when:

• there are many agents in the region
• the region consists of many parcels
• the region contains more content

There are no parcels for sale in the regions I monitor. […]

Okay, so maybe my "spy for hire" question was a little too cute because I'm very willing to believe that commercial "espionage" puts some spies on the grid. My hunch, in fact, is that most of them are scouting for IP infractions. (Of course we know that some used to scan details of Mainland parcels for sale, and probably some still do, but they won't visit Ardy's "no parcels for sale" regions.)

My expressed skepticism about "spies for hire" though, was regarding personal espionage of the stalker sort, and if those exist how do they find customers? So far, no shady characters have sidled up to me in a dark Zindra bar and asked "Youse wanna watch boyfreend? Mebbe he steppeenk-out!"

Stalkers may be motivated by their obsessions, sure, and might try to enlist some bots to their dark ends—and it would work—but it would be a big job to do on a one-time basis (hence the "for hire" speculation). So I remain skeptical, until somebody can show a credible offer to do this, or better evidence than "jealous ex magically finds me when I wear his jewelry to all our favorite old haunts." 

[arabellajones]

On 5/25/2021 at 2:43 PM, Rowan Amore said:

It's had millions of accounts created since it began.  That is all that particular stat means.  SL is almost 20 yrs.old.  

How did we change from bots to stalkers?

They stopped updating that stat sometime in 2020.

I know of some very old, unused, accounts that have come back. The players are somewhat bewildered by the changes, not just all the new tech such as Mesh, but the whole UI thing. They're old enough accounts that they may only have seen the Viewer 1 UI.

I also know of a bot farm which seems to have vanished recently, a skybox which contained a large group of perpetually logged-in accounts. It was mainland, with a Linden road passing through, and those region crossings were bad.

There does seem to be a limit on how many accounts can use the same email address.