Sorry. This is not OK. B bots profile scraping.

[Garnet Psaltery]

My info is public so I don't mind that but how do they know that I have a Premium account?

[Edit] Oh, I just saw a possible answer in the locked thread on the bots - it was so long I hadn't been reading it.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Garnet Psaltery
Added text.

[Ceka Cianci]

2 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

My info is public so I don't mind that but how do they know that I have a Premium account?

Ya, good question since I don't see the information on my online profile or inworld profile.. Are they getting into our dashboard to?

[Jessicatz Fairymeadow]

Every script knows if you're premium.
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetObjectDetails

Even simpler, you understand that a bot has the same kind of information that a regular viewer has about you once it sees you, right?
There doesn't need to be web scraping involved necessarily.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Jessicatz Fairymeadow

[Ceka Cianci]

4 minutes ago, Jessicatz Fairymeadow said:

Every script knows if you're premium.
https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetObjectDetails

Oh ok, thank you

I'm not really sure how them knowing that is useful anyways.. it's good to know how they got it though.

 

[Sid Nagy]

31 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Ya, good question since I don't see the information on my online profile or inworld profile.. Are they getting into our dashboard to?

Next question, how save is our personal information given through the dashboard like credit card information, e-mail, password ..... 
It seems LL lets others pretty much harvest everything about us without bothering very much.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Next question, how save is our personal information given through the dashboard like credit card information, e-mail, password ..... 

That's private information not personal information.. They better hope they have that secured and tied up tight..  I think they do though.. hehehe

Edited January 21, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[Sid Nagy]

Did you read Count's posts in that other now locked thread how easy private info is linked with the info provided at B's website?
Seems LL doesn't protect essential information enough on their websites/in world. This should not be possible if one takes its business serious and even tries to become a bank of some sort.
 

[belindacarson]

Like Keira Linden said in the closed thread, none of it's personally identifying information.

 

Coffee most of your points don't make sense.  How many venues allow group members to set home there? So are 1509 group members of "mega super shopping mall" all going to be identified as alts?

[Sid Nagy]

Keira's reaction was like if a bank advertises "If you don't want to get robbed of your money, withdraw your money you want to keep. We don't secure our bank".
LL chooses the for them easy way by simply doing nothing.

How would the lab react if it were possible to link every Linden with their real name and every cent they make at the Lab by using information on their website?
Bad luck, don't work for us?

LL has an obligation to secure essential data about their customers on their websites/in world. How much money a resident makes as a merchant is one of them.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[Ceka Cianci]

6 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Did you read Count's posts in that other now locked thread how easy private info is linked with the info provided at B's website?
Seems LL doesn't protect essential information enough on their websites/in world. This should not be possible if one takes its business serious and even tries to become a bank of some sort.
 

I didn't really get involved in that thread.. I'll have to go give a look.. I just know that I haven't had really any problems as of yet and am pretty security conscious.. My information is constantly being monitored by a service, so if it ever shows up where it's not supposed to I'll know about it.

[belindacarson]

1 minute ago, Sid Nagy said:

Keira's reaction was like if a bank advertises "If you don't want to get robbed of your money, withdraw your money you want to keep".
LL chooses the for them easy way by simply doing nothing.

How would the lab react if it were possible to link every Linden with their real name and every cent they make at the Lab by using information on their website?
Bad luck, don't work for us?

LL has an obligation to secure essential data about their customers on their websites/in world. How much money a resident makes as a merchant is one of them.

I'd actually agree 100% with you Sid, BUT using Burks example that merchant has their RL website on their profile? So of course they can be looked BUT they chose to put that information out there, well, it's their choice.

 

[Randy Pole]

I have always worked on the basis that there should be nothing in my profile that I do not want a complete stranger to know about me. I also make sure not to have any personal (i.e. relating to the real life human being not the pretend avatar) in the profile.

Profiles for fictional avatars are not deemed to be personal information as they do not contain information clearly relatable to a living human being. Unless of course you have decided to add such information to your profile and if so then you need to take responsibility for throwing around your own personal information.

[Sid Nagy]

12 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

I'd actually agree 100% with you Sid, BUT using Burks example that merchant has their RL website on their profile? So of course they can be looked BUT they chose to put that information out there, well, it's their choice.

 

Now a days a lot of bigger merchants and land barons have a web presence outside SL but SL related.
LL can protect them a bit more, simply by taking out a few harvesting commands out of of the script language and a few changes in the ToS.
And, maybe a bit more data security on the marketplace?

[Dorientje Woller]

23 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

Keira's reaction was like if a bank advertises "If you don't want to get robbed of your money, withdraw your money you want to keep. We don't secure our bank".
LL chooses the for them easy way by simply doing nothing.

How would the lab react if it were possible to link every Linden with their real name and every cent they make at the Lab by using information on their website?
Bad luck, don't work for us?

LL has an obligation to secure essential data about their customers on their websites/in world. How much money a resident makes as a merchant is one of them.

Plus, Keira's reaction raised a few eyebrows and questions with me. As I am having my virtual residence on a plot where the landowner has given me as only one access to (as security measurement), I wonder why one of these bots pop up each day into my house/on my plot:

1. Is she admitting that Linden Labs doesn't care that a script is overruling their own security tools, given to the landowners.

2. Or is she admitting that the system of script checking isn't flawless.

3. Or is she admitting that it's ok to drop on somebodies land, plot, in house and start to collect whatever data possible. Without knowing what other data these bots are collecting. And god knows what kind of other data is been collected, beside what these B.bots are claiming to collect from the mentioned account balance to chat logs, inventory to maybe which kind of viewer you are using to access Second Life.

4. To be blunt, nobody is entitled, even when it's so called anomynous, to know when I take my virtual teeth out of the virtual glass of water to put it in my virtual mouth of my virtual head. That's not their concern or business.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[belindacarson]

I think we've all forgotten one important factor.

 

At least the folks behind bonnie bell identified themselves.

 

Unlike most of the other folks who run bots.

[Ceka Cianci]

9 minutes ago, Randy Pole said:

I have always worked on the basis that there should be nothing in my profile that I do not want a complete stranger to know about me. I also make sure not to have any personal (i.e. relating to the real life human being not the pretend avatar) in the profile.

Profiles for fictional avatars are not deemed to be personal information as they do not contain information clearly relatable to a living human being. Unless of course you have decided to add such information to your profile and if so then you need to take responsibility for throwing around your own personal information.

That's pretty much why we have a 1st life tab on the profiles.. In case someone feels like putting 1st life information in their profile..

The only way I can really see RL information being linked to someones second life is, if they leave a place where they have linked the two somewhere in world or out..

If you end up using the same email as your second life they can link you, leading something from SL to a website that you own can link them.. if there is no link, I can't see a link being made and I would believe it would have to be made by the actual user somewhere in that chain..  That or there would have to be a leak  of information somewhere making it's own linking of the two, I would imagine..

[Dorientje Woller]

10 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

I think we've all forgotten one important factor.

 

At least the folks behind bonnie bell identified themselves.

 

Unlike most of the other folks who run bots.

Doesn't matter, they violate the TOS, by posting the profiles outside the confinement of the viewer/linden labs webpages: as shown my profile I found on their website.

 

[belindacarson]

6 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Doesn't matter, they violate the TOS, by posting the profiles outside the confinement of the viewer/linden labs webpages: as shown my profile I found on their website.

 

How? Have you ever stopped to read the TOS?

[Ceka Cianci]

8 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Doesn't matter, they violate the TOS, by posting the profiles outside the confinement of the viewer/linden labs webpages: as shown my profile I found on their website.

 

Can you link that from the TOS for me? I'd like to read it and see what all they say..  I'm kind of curious about that section now.

 

ETA: Just in case people are thinking I'm jumping on any sides, I'm just really security conscious and more in it for information and finding out  if there are holes or if I might be missing some spots to cover for myself.. Because if I can put finger in the hole of a leak I'm gonna do it.. hehehe

Edited January 21, 2023 by Ceka Cianci

[belindacarson]

Let's also remember Keira Linden pointed out it's all data publically viewable.

[Theresa Tennyson]

36 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

I think we've all forgotten one important factor.

 

At least the folks behind bonnie bell identified themselves.

 

Unlike most of the other folks who run bots.

So, you're saying that they've given us all the information we need to have a lawyer contact them?

[Sid Nagy]

59 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

Let's also remember Keira Linden pointed out it's all data publically viewable.

The problem IMHO is, that LL lets it be harvested by script language they provide themselves. Maintain a ToS that is not really protective for their customers at this point.
If someone would have to harvest all this viewable information with a pencil and some sheets of paper manually, I don't think this would be happening.

The harvesting and then linking, storing, combining and publishing information outside of Second Life, that is the problem, not that it is viewable in world. 

LL should have mechanisms in place to prevent it or at least discourage it and make it hard to do.
We should be their respected customers who's data (given in their environment) they protect. But no, LL opened their platform (and website) so everybody can grab it.

They choose the easy way: close uncomfortable threads, remove uncomfortable posts and give advice to don't put money in their bank if you expect them to protect it.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Sid Nagy
Some additions

[Dorientje Woller]

2 minutes ago, Sid Nagy said:

The problem IMHO is, that LL lets it be harvested by script language they provide themselves. Maintain a ToS that is not really protective for their customers at this point.
If someone would have to do harvest all this viewable information with a pencil and some sheets of paper manually, I don't think this would be happening.

The harvesting and then linking, storing, combining and publishing information outside of Second Life, that is the problem, not that it is viewable in world.

TBH, I consider this practice as harassment and grieving, even as in my case overruling all security settings of the plot where I am located. So next time that bot shows up in my house I'll report it.

[Lewis Luminos]

This is disturbing.  However... maybe not quite as alt-revealing as feared.

The Bs have found one of my alts, whose profile appears when you search for mine. I'm guessing because that alt lists me by name in one of his pics as a contact person for Club Noir. As a supporting example, when I search for Madison, she doesn't appear at all (because she's not active enough, I presume) but my profile appears instead, because she mentions me in a pick. She doesn't appear on a search for me though, because I refer to her in my picks as "Madison", not "Madison Talon'. This shows that the Bs seem to be looking at Picks only, and not the Partner field.  My profile doesn't appear on a search of my alt, in fact his profile doesn't appear in search at all, presumably because he also isn't active enough; he only gets logged in once every couple of weeks for a minute or so, to steal his stipend.

Further confirmation of this was when I searched the B site for my tenant's profile, who is also mentioned by name on my alt's picks. And yes, my alt also appeared on my tenant's search too. So it looks like it won't find your alts unless you have already named them in your profile.

Annnyway - to test this, and find out how quickly the Bs website gets updated, I've edited the picks out of my alt's profile and I'm now gonna send him all over the grid for a day or two to see if he gets picked up by a B bot.  I've tried using the B's map to TP to where the bots are currently located but they only stay in one region for about 10 seconds and I can't manage to get to them that quickly, so I'm just going to park up somewhere in Bellisseria and do some fishing. Good excuse to get on that leaderboard...

[EliseAnne85]

2 minutes ago, Lewis Luminos said:

This shows that the Bs seem to be looking at Picks only,

Bots usually collect data in order to sell us more stuff.  That is probably why it's interested in our PICKS.  Bots have no purpose but to sell us stuff.  Still, it's a bit unnerving as I did not read the other thread.  It was a tldr.