Should Any Second Life User Be Allowed To Continue To See Another User's Camera Beacon Location - Privacy Issue?

[Rowan Amore]

36 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

 

I posted that link pages ago. Were you the only one that actually looked at the page? 😐

The OP doesn't like to click links that aren't https.

[Tama Suki]

The look at does not indicate where you are looking or the position of your camera, especially it does not indicate the position of your camera.
It just indicates that you are anchored to something that can be an object, an avatar or just the ground.
You can anchor yourself to anything and then move your camera to any place.
So what are we talking about?

On this account I make visible where I am looking because Tama, being one of the most important artists in Second Life, is also pleased to make people understand where she is looking. On my kombat account no.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Tama Suki

[Odaks]

6 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

The look at does not indicate where you are looking or the position of your camera, especially it does not indicate the position of your camera.

Where on earth did you learn that from? The look-at target shows exactly where your camera is focussed. I agree it doesn't guarantee that you are actually looking there with your RL eyes.

[Tama Suki]

3 minutes ago, Odaks said:

Where on earth did you learn that from? The look-at target shows exactly where your camera is focussed. I agree it doesn't guarantee that you are actually looking there with your RL eyes.

Again, The look-at only indicates where you are anchored and not what you are looking at. It seems simple to me to understand how to understand that water is wet.

[Qie Niangao]

37 minutes ago, Odaks said:

45 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

The look at does not indicate where you are looking or the position of your camera, especially it does not indicate the position of your camera.

Where on earth did you learn that from? The look-at target shows exactly where your camera is focussed. I agree it doesn't guarantee that you are actually looking there with your RL eyes.

Maybe I understand this, because coincidentally I'd just launched Firestorm with "Render lines to lookat target" to check something out. Those lines do go to the camera focus ("target"), but the origin of the lines is a totally fake cam position approximating where the camming avatar's eyes might be in its head, regardless of how that viewer has swung around the cam position.

This discards data that would be useful for debugging in favor of making the feature even more efficient at creating drama.

(As discussed much earlier in this thread, the cam focus also isn't necessarily where the human user is actually looking; in my case, it's usually just an arbitrary, handy grab point for alt-camming around.)

[Tama Suki]

I have a solution guys!
Maybe LL should call it "user eyes pivot" and not "look at".
So people would be less bothered by a function that has nothing wrong and all problems would be solved.
However, I did not understand why from the topic of the look at you have moved on to talking about hakers that could steal all your privacy. I don't think there is a relationship between things.

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

20 minutes ago, Tama Suki said:

I have a solution guys!
Maybe LL should call it "user eyes pivot" and not "look at".
So people would be less bothered by a function that has nothing wrong and all problems would be solved.
However, I did not understand why from the topic of the look at you have moved on to talking about hakers that could steal all your privacy. I don't think there is a relationship between things.

The context of the conversation broadened after a pattern of posts made it clear that there was more going on than just having your lookats seen.  This post actually involves info from several other posts as well.

In a way it does have a flow that makes sense if you know about the other posts.

[Rowan Amore]

And again from the wiki...

Look at the alt-zoom target. This crosshair does not necessarily follow your camera, it is only the starting point or object from before you began to zoom around. If you focus on yourself, or use Alt+arrow keys to move the camera around, an arbitrary focus point several meters in front of you, not pointing at anything in particular, is used.

[NiranV Dean]

9 hours ago, Paulsian said:

Holy, I would have never thought of that. So say im at an info hub with a lot of people and no scripts are allowed. If I have my cam cam'd out a bit away from the back of my avatar could another person attach a transparent cube to their avatar and move it between my avatar and camera to make it move? 

I have not specifically tried it but as far as i know avatars are excluded from collision, so i'd say 99% no.

[Paulsian]

10 hours ago, NiranV Dean said:

Your camera can start moving if it needs to be pushed due to collision with terrain or objects. Not sure about Firestorm but by default your camera gets shoved around alpha objects if they are not set phantom, even if they are completely invisible (you can create invisible camera barriers). It's really annoying and i've had my camera repeatedly zoom in and out again to its default position because something invisible was moving between my avatar and my camera.

Second thought, I usually have my (I can't remember if it was under advanced menu or develop menu) under camera constraints unchecked that way if my camera is zoomed out vs cam'd out object between avatar and zoomed out camera detected camera will not force move infront of object. 

[LittleMe Jewell]

5 hours ago, Odaks said:

The look-at target shows exactly where your camera is focussed. I agree it doesn't guarantee that you are actually looking there with your RL eyes.

It actually shows the last place that you clicked your camera/focus on.  However, if you are camming around, that location may not even be on your screen anymore and thus your camera is also no longer looking at that spot.

If you think the camera is still focused there, even if you are camming around, just take a picture -- that will always show what the camera is focused on (which will be whatever you are seeing on your screen).

 

ETA:  This was mostly stated in other posts that I hadn't read yet.

Edited January 12, 2022 by LittleMe Jewell

[Quistess Alpha]

5 hours ago, Tama Suki said:

it is impossible to really know where the camera (the real gaze) of an account is looking

perhaps I'm only adding fuel to the fire, but it is ~possible for a script to know where your camera is and where it's looking if it has permission:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetCameraPos

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetCameraRot

ETA: things that you are sitting on or that are attached to you can get this permission without asking you directly.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Quistess Alpha

[Madelaine McMasters]

5 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

How do you know that your anti malware product is "reputable"?

I have had only two significant data losses in my four decade computing career, both of them caused by anti-virus software. The first was a complete HD mangle caused by Norton Antivirus, about 20 years ago. During a virus scan, Norton corrupted the directories of every HD on my computer, including my backup drive. I was able to recover almost everything by sending my drives to a company in Colorado who had some experience unraveling the damage Norton had done to others.

The second data loss was caused by McAfee software, in much the same way. My Norton experience taught me to keep my backup drives unpowered except when they're needed, so I was able to recover everything by mounting the backups on another computer. I called the data recovery company to ask if they'd been getting business from McAfee screwups and was told "Anti-virus software is the biggest driver of our data recovery business."

The company making MacKeeper anti-malware software settled a class action lawsuit over data mining its users. My cousin, an FBI agent, is not allowed to install Kaspersky software on any of her computers, work or personal. At the time the ban was instated, it seemed to me that the allegations might have been overdone, but it's been years and the ban is, I think, still in place.

I had to help my neighbor freeze all his credit reports after his personal information was leaked by LifeLock, the company that brags about it's ability to protect people's financial welfare.

I have no reason to think that anti-malware companies are any more capable of producing quality code than other "reputable" purveyors of software. I might even doubt them just a little more because their business models are based on customer fear.

Now and then, when I'm feeling curious, I'll fire up WireShark and see who my computer is talking to. My emergency backup son has a firewall PC under his staircase that does similar tracing. He's filed several reports with vendors of software he uses, informing them of curious traffic he's scanned. So far, he's either been thanked for finding something the vendors also find curious, or received credible explanations for the activity.

I run no malware detection software these days. I practice what I hope is reasonable online data hygiene with the occasional look out the back door (Wireshark) for interesting behavior.

I don't see much to be concerned about with regard to data mining my behavior in SL. My total SL annual spend is well under 0.1% of my total annual RL spend and I don't maintain PIOF for Maddy. What monetary incentive is there for anyone to mine my SL activity?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Madelaine McMasters

[Tama Suki]

8 minutes ago, Quistess Alpha said:

perhaps I'm only adding fuel to the fire, but it is ~possible for a script to know where your camera is and where it's looking if it has permission:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetCameraPos

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetCameraRot

In fact I wrote "Probably someone can easily prove me wrong" and I'm very happy to have you hooked and pulled you into my inworld project (believe it or not but I'm serious).

[Rowan Amore]

7 minutes ago, Arielle Popstar said:

There are griefing tools and viewers which are not condoned by LL but they are out there. It does not however have to do with the visibility of the "look at" target.

There a few things you can do also to.avoid them.  Turning down maxattachmentcomplexity and/or Avatar complexity will limit any effect.

[Tama Suki]

On this matter I think I can say that @Sam1 Bellisserian always has the best answer.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

This thread is simply beyond bizarre. I'm astonished it hasn't been locked yet.

It's a shame, because it contains real information about "LookAt" and security (although nothing that relates these two to each other). And that's all stuff that is lost because it's been buried in a morass of condescension, insults, and juvenile pseudo-memes and pointless video clips. No one is going to go slugging through this text and image vomit to find the useful information.

I'd suggest new untainted threads on these two subjects, but I'm sure that would be pointless.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Quartz Mole]

24 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

This thread is simply beyond bizarre. I'm astonished it hasn't been locked yet.

It's a shame, because it contains real information about "LookAt" and security (although nothing that relates these two to each other). And that's all stuff that is lost because it's been buried in a morass of condescension, insults, and juvenile pseudo-memes and pointless video clips. No one is going to go slugging through this text and image vomit to find the useful information.

I'd suggest new untainted threads on these two subjects, but I'm sure that would be pointless.

With regret, I have to agree with you.   I wanted to keep the thread open because there were some interesting and useful discussions going on, but then things went a bit crazy.

I've tried to remove the off-topic posts, which has meant removing replies to them, too, since they would make no sense without context, and the sheer number I've had to take out doesn''t give me much hope for the future of the thread.

If anyone wants to continue serious discussions about look at or other viewer features in new threads, please feel free.  

But please refrain from personal attacks, no matter how justified they may be, because this isn't the place for them.