Has anyone seen a number of 'mystery visitors' to their region recently?

[Myles Capalini]

I own a private region, that is pretty much off the 'beaten path', not connected to any other regions. We have about seven rental tenants, who each own their own parcel, and for the most part the region is very quiet.

I do watch who comes and goes, with visitor trackers, but normally I see nothing odd.

Since late June, I have been seeing some very odd 'visitors', who all enter at around 2045 meters high, at seemingly random coordinates, stay less than a minute, and then leave. I have not seen any evidence of foul play, and feel fairly protected from any griefing, as I have asked all residents to disallow 'public' Build or Object Entry. What caught my eye as odd is the names of the visitors, many of which end in AAA or ZZZ or SSS, but with a few other variations, none of which look like real names, but rather like some sort of pattern meant to confuse. Almost all that I have checked profiles on have basically empty profiles, and were created about 3 months ago. I have IM's a few to ask if I can help them find something but they never answer, which may suggest they are some sort of Bots? I also have not seen the same name twice, which is particularly odd it seems.

I am more curious than concerned, but this just does not make any sense, so I thought to ask if anyone else has noticed such a thing.

Would appreciate any feedback, even just theories of what this may be about?

[Rowan Amore]

32 minutes ago, Myles Capalini said:

I own a private region, that is pretty much off the 'beaten path', not connected to any other regions. We have about seven rental tenants, who each own their own parcel, and for the most part the region is very quiet.

I do watch who comes and goes, with visitor trackers, but normally I see nothing odd.

Since late June, I have been seeing some very odd 'visitors', who all enter at around 2045 meters high, at seemingly random coordinates, stay less than a minute, and then leave. I have not seen any evidence of foul play, and feel fairly protected from any griefing, as I have asked all residents to disallow 'public' Build or Object Entry. What caught my eye as odd is the names of the visitors, many of which end in AAA or ZZZ or SSS, but with a few other variations, none of which look like real names, but rather like some sort of pattern meant to confuse. Almost all that I have checked profiles on have basically empty profiles, and were created about 3 months ago. I have IM's a few to ask if I can help them find something but they never answer, which may suggest they are some sort of Bots? I also have not seen the same name twice, which is particularly odd it seems.

I am more curious than concerned, but this just does not make any sense, so I thought to ask if anyone else has noticed such a thing.

Would appreciate any feedback, even just theories of what this may be about?

They are survey bots more than likely.

http://gridsurvey.com

[Lillith Hapmouche]

Oh, your visitors stay in the sky? Mine are usually on the ground and stay between 3 seconds and up to a minute or so.

Usually, I'm now turning access to group access, especially during the weekends starting on Fridays, as they seem to increase their frequency drastically.

There are some folks here who believe you must welcome those intruders, since you are so blunt and allow open access for all. Well. Since those accounts don't provide me with info on why they are visiting and don't even react to any input towards them, I don't see them contributing to my setting. So honestly, f*** o**, bots.

I usually freeze them and... try... things...

Edited July 2, 2021 by Lillith Hapmouche

[Myles Capalini]

17 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

They are survey bots more than likely.

http://gridsurvey.com

Thanks Rowan, that is my hope, because at least if they are survey bots they probably mean no harm. The thing that still bothers me is the meaningless names, and that every visitor has a different name (no repeat visits), and that they arrive at such a high level. But who knows, maybe that is just to avoid any possible security issues on the ground.

[CarlaWetter]

I think it does Gridsurvey quite a disservice to get associated with these hordes of roaming bots that are travelling SL day for day. On a coastal mainland region we see between 20 to 30 of those bots every day. Whatever they "survey" has to be a truly badly organized venture.

And I take care to exclude roaming bots with a documented purpose in their profile. Just those who keep their profile carefully devoid of any indication of their activities and purpose. Over the years one could assemble a list of 240 or more names and of those about 110 showed up just in the last month at the places I have an eye on. If they are of such a benign disposition, why can't their herders indicate so in their profile?

[Myles Capalini]

2 hours ago, CarlaWetter said:

I think it does Gridsurvey quite a disservice to get associated with these hordes of roaming bots that are travelling SL day for day. On a coastal mainland region we see between 20 to 30 of those bots every day. Whatever they "survey" has to be a truly badly organized venture.

And I take care to exclude roaming bots with a documented purpose in their profile. Just those who keep their profile carefully devoid of any indication of their activities and purpose. Over the years one could assemble a list of 240 or more names and of those about 110 showed up just in the last month at the places I have an eye on. If they are of such a benign disposition, why can't their herders indicate so in their profile?

Thanks Carla, you put it better than I did, and that is exactly what I am seeing, and how I feel about it. The only way I can think of to stop this 'invasion' would to restrict access to the entire region, and that would be a nightmare for the people who are paying me to have a free and open place to enjoy their second life. I am quite sure I could try reporting every one of these mystery names to SL, but also quite sure they would do nothing about it, since no harm has been done - - - yet.

[Rowan Amore]

41 minutes ago, Myles Capalini said:

Thanks Carla, you put it better than I did, and that is exactly what I am seeing, and how I feel about it. The only way I can think of to stop this 'invasion' would to restrict access to the entire region, and that would be a nightmare for the people who are paying me to have a free and open place to enjoy their second life. I am quite sure I could try reporting every one of these mystery names to SL, but also quite sure they would do nothing about it, since no harm has been done - - - yet.

You could set to group only, have an SL age restriction or payment info on file restriction.  I had the same issue on my homestead.  I finally set it to group for a few months and after that, they never returned.

[Myles Capalini]

On 7/2/2021 at 5:53 PM, Rowan Amore said:

You could set to group only, have an SL age restriction or payment info on file restriction.  I had the same issue on my homestead.  I finally set it to group for a few months and after that, they never returned.

Thanks Rowan, the problem is this is a nice quiet residential sim, and each resident owns their own parcel, and so controls their own access. On top of that, we do not allow ban lines, which would show up with those restrictions. For now, I am just monitoring who pops in, and the time and exact location where they appear. If I see the same name more than once, I may region ban them, but so far every occurrence has been a unique name.

Edited July 12, 2021 by Myles Capalini
Correct typo

[Lillith Hapmouche]

The number of visits seems to have decreased recently.

Or them naughty bots only come out to TP when I'm not around. 🤔

[Mally McGinnis]

A month or so ago, I got a new script and only then noticed the same things as you described.  Those mystery visitors seem to be coming with greater frequency now even than then.  I don't really mind, because as you say, there's never been any harm done, and their visits would boost my traffic, I'd think.  You still getting  your visitors?

[Mally McGinnis]

On 7/2/2021 at 3:09 AM, Lillith Hapmouche said:

Well. Since those accounts don't provide me with info on why they are visiting and don't even react to any input towards them, I don't see them contributing to my setting. So honestly, f*** o**, bots.

I usually freeze them and... try... things...

1. They aren't hurting anything. 
2. They may improve your traffic. 
 

Edited September 19, 2021 by Mally McGinnis

[Lillith Hapmouche]

1 hour ago, Mally McGinnis said:

1. They aren't hurting anything. 
2. They may improve your traffic. 

I don't give a damn about traffic. It's my home sim.

Are you telling me what I must tolerate in my home?

[Kathlen Onyx]

It's always funny to see what level of toleration someone has that does no harm to them whatsoever. I just set my land to "no payment info" to not be allowed and they stopped. If it's your home sim then I assume you are not open to the public and most people you would know that were coming to your land. Just put them on the allowed always list and forget about it.  No need to get so bent out of shape it has you swearing. LOL

[Mally McGinnis]

3 hours ago, Lillith Hapmouche said:

Are you telling me what I must tolerate in my home?

No.  I'm telling you that you're behaving like a spoiled child and to grow up.  Enjoy your treehouse.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Mally McGinnis

[Alwin Alcott]

8 hours ago, Mally McGinnis said:

 
2. They may improve your traffic. 
 

 for traffic they have to stay for a few minutes, and bots don't, ánd they should be registered as scripted agents and those don't do anthing for traffic.

[Lillith Hapmouche]

15 hours ago, Mally McGinnis said:

No.  I'm telling you that you're behaving like a spoiled child and to grow up.  Enjoy your treehouse.

In case you misunderstood me: don't you, random nobody, dare to tell me how I'm keeping my homestead and on top of all, have the guts to call me childish.

I have friends living on the sim, I have guests... but there is no obviously valid reason why those "bots" should happily be popping in and annoy us.

Should I perhaps move my entire ground layout, so they don't spawn in front of the houses?

Oh, the irony... in Belli, they cry blood and murder when somebody dares to step outside the boundaries. Got your cosy place on your own standalone homestead? "You must let in each and every bot on the grid or only allow access to a few handpicked ones!" 🙄

Edited September 20, 2021 by Lillith Hapmouche

[Maximillon Lefavre]

On 7/12/2021 at 2:05 PM, Myles Capalini said:

Thanks Rowan, the problem is this is a nice quiet residential sim, and each resident owns their own parcel, and so controls their own access. On top of that, we do not allow ban lines, which would show up with those restrictions. For now, I am just monitoring who pops in, and the time and exact location where they appear. If I see the same name more than once, I may region ban them, but so far every occurrence has been a unique name.

I believe Rowan is referring to setting the access at the Region level rather than the Parcel level. If you do it at the Region level these bots can never TP into/Access the region unless they meet the requirements. Parcel level restrictions will add ban lines that only go up to about 800m and can be circumvented above that unless all Parcels in the region have the same access settings checked at which point it makes more sense for you as the Region owner to just make those settings on the Region level to get rid of the ban lines altogether.