Sims tracking your IP adress and with it no longer allowing alts. Is this legal?

[Solar Legion]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

They can't get your IP If you have media disabled.  

The ban type mentioned does not require media access - this is not the first time something like this has come up and I recall (vaguely) that at one point it was revealed that Estate/Region level bans (not the ones on the Parcel lists) do factor in IP for a time after via LL's own systems (meaning the server side, within LL's own systems).

[Rowan Amore]

5 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

The ban type mentioned does not require media access - this is not the first time something like this has come up and I recall (vaguely) that at one point it was revealed that Estate/Region level bans (not the ones on the Parcel lists) do factor in IP for a time after via LL's own systems (meaning the server side, within LL's own systems).

Thanks Solar.  I hadn't heard that specific information before so I dug for a minute and found this...

On 5/9/2017 at 2:21 PM, Whirly Fizzle said:

If you region ban Avatar A, alts of Avatar A will not be able to enter that region for a limited time.  That's oversimplifying it a bit but that's basically how it works.
If I remember right, if a region is set to group only access and the region banned avatar is a member of the land group, their alts will still be able to access if also in the land group but the avatar explicitly banned will not be able to access.
Not 100% sure about that though & I can't test it atm.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

17 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If he cant enter the sim at all, then its not media stream related - that connection happens after a teleport completes. I'm not prepared to speculate further than I have.

He can speak for himself, but it appears he went there once, then was banned.

And you don't always show up on the banned list on islands, there is often a malfunction of the land menu on islands and homesteads in particular.

 

[Solar Legion]

Not a problem Rowan. It should be (importantly) noted that the IP address is in no way exposed to the Estate/Region owner by this.

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

Not a problem Rowan. It should be (importantly) noted that the IP address is in no way exposed to the Estate/Region owner by this.

Kind of like that security system that starts with a V.and ends with a O.  They use the IP to ban alts but no one who owns the systems has access to those IP addresses.  That's what I thought might have been being used in this case.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Bold Burner said:

so... does this mean they tracked my IP address

Maybe..?

1 hour ago, Bold Burner said:

and is that even legal? 

Probably so!

[belindacarson]

While getting estate banned from that place is hardly an issue as there are far better venues to go to:

 

When you are estate banned, you are Mac banned too, for one hour , to prevent you going back with griefing alts.  This has been in years

 

Just wait a few hours and your alts will be able to get in unless they're specifically banned too.

 

As for IP Bans LL don't ban via IP address, this was told by them at the governance meeting.

 

None o the the security systems ban by IP address.  The one hinted at uses IP address to confirm alts aren't in use but the player gets a prompt telling them this before they enter that game so the choice is theirs so gdpr compliant

Edited January 25, 2023 by belindacarson
removal of venue "just in case" 🙂

[Bold Burner]

I tested it and my alts are able to get back to LC...

So I guess it was a one hour 'Mac' ban..... Not that I will return again to their sim though... 

thank you all for the replies It's been helpful... 

🙏

[belindacarson]

30 minutes ago, Bold Burner said:

I tested it and my alts are able to get back to LC...

So I guess it was a one hour 'Mac' ban..... Not that I will return again to their sim though... 

thank you all for the replies It's been helpful... 

🙏

There are FAR better places to go than that place.

 

Just an idea "just in case" you might want to remove venue name from the thready.

Edited January 25, 2023 by belindacarson

[Bold Burner]

13 minutes ago, belindacarson said:

Just an idea "just in case" you might want to remove venue name from the thready.

I didn't think of that. Thank you... I removed the venue name from thread
However I can't remove the venue name from the quotes people made from original thread post

Edited January 25, 2023 by Bold Burner
additional info

[Alwin Alcott]

9 hours ago, Bold Burner said:

 does this mean they tracked my IP address 

i think they don't

As far i know this is the normal behaviour from the bansystem from LL since years, nót from the regionowner.

Your alts will be released to enter again after some time ( very short max a day or so i thought)

There is also that often talked about managing system. Also in this case the regionowners don't see your IP. But system they rent does.

Just a note.. your ip is public for every system on the internet, there's no privacy in that matter.

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Alwin Alcott

[Dorientje Woller]

5 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

i think they don't

As far i know this is the normal behaviour from the bansystem from LL since years, nót from the regionowner.

Your alts will be released to enter again after some time ( very short max a day or so i thought)

There is also that often talked about managing system. Also in this case the regionowners don't see your IP. But system they rent does.

Just a note.. your ip is public for every system on the internet, there's no privacy in that matter.

 

Again the misconception of private and public. In this case, the IP address that your provider has assigned to you, is public. Every device connected to your router has its own IP address, which is private.: https://vpnoverview.com/privacy/anonymous-browsing/public-vs-private-ip/

Edited January 25, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Rick Nightingale]

...and the MAC address most certainly is private, since it is supposedly known only on your local subnetwork and is not, indeed cannot, be transmitted past your router by normal network protocols. However, it can be read by software and is reported back to LL by the viewer so they can use it as a metric to identify your PC.

Something I consider an invasion of privacy, but one we have no choice but to accept if we want to play in their sandpit.

It's also a pointless way to try to ban someone if that someone knows what they are doing, but fortunately most idiots don't.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Rick Daylight

[Casper Warden]

If you attempt to teleport to a region and it refuses you due to an estate-level ban, it will refuse any subsequent attempts from your IP address until the region is restarted.

I don't think this is documented, just something which I've observed during my time in SL.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Casper Warden

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Casper Warden said:

If you attempt to teleport to a region and it refuses you due to a estate-level ban, it will refuse any subsequent attempts from your IP address until the region is restarted.

I don't think this is documented, just something which I've observed during my time in SL.

That's very interesting, thank you for sharing the information! (I had no idea that was a "normal" banning feature, not requiring special banning websites, etc.)

[XemmaN]

15 hours ago, Bold Burner said:

I am avoiding it all together now... but I went there on some of my alts and all got the message I was banned. so that means something in the script or whatever seems to make a connection between alts, is banning all alts .... so they must have an IP address or something alike... I find it puzzling. 

faced similar bans for me and my family RL. there were suggestions that this is a ban on hardware or MAC (if its not IP)

[Prokofy Neva]

7 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Again the misconception of private and public. In this case, the IP address that your provider has assigned to you, is public. Every device connected to your router has its own IP address, which is private.: https://vpnoverview.com/privacy/anonymous-browsing/public-vs-private-ip/

There is a lot of tech knowier-than-thou stuff around the issue of the IP address.

For years, techies claimed that the IP address is "dyanamic" and therefore "couldn't" be used for bans. But often they are NOT dynamic, which is why you can use services to more or less geolocate servers. 

They might be "dynamic" in the sense that they are in a list of addresses used for that area by, say, Verizon, and they shuffle. But sometimes there isn't even any shuffle.

This information isn't "public" in the way techs imagine merely because they access it. You have to go a free or paid web site with the service to plug in a domain or site name that is in words, and then extract the numerical address.

You would have to have a post from someone on a blog which captures IP addresses to enable you to ban that griefer to see their IP address. It is not tattooed on their forhead; like the avatar key, which is also "public", it is not in search or on their profile. You need a script or a device to get it. It's public merely in the sense that it is not encrypted, but to say that it is "public" like a phone book or a street sign is misleading. It is not.

With a Shoutcast server, you see the listeners' IP addresses unadorned.

The Lindens would make a great fuss about how they "couldn't" ban anonymizer sites or by IP address because "whatabout" things like dorm rooms or public libraries or large apartment buildings that may all use the same address.

Except since I've done things like geolocate the IP address of someone constantly leaving death threats on my blog to farmland in Michigan, I know that this isn't "a dorm room" but "Mom's basement". 

Lots of tech lore has sprung up around this issue, true and false, and there are always techsplainers to "set us straight" and tell us that we are morons for believing public information is private.

But the reality is, the question isn't about public or private. For one, it's not so public -- when people with bad intentions want it, they get it because it *is* public in a sense, but mainly it's NOT visible and not exploited.

It's about whether information is aggregated and amplified and weaponized. And in our context in SL, all three of those pernicious forces are always at play.

The Lindens went to the trouble to cloak the MOAP address now with an option on your land for *that*. What they have not done is enable you to cloak your IP from Shoutcast servers, RZ, or any other product. Because they are under pressure from top merchants in particular to be able to get rid of all the jerks and thieves who hang around their stores. Understand. Code-as-law. It's not always the best solution for persistent social problems.

 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Prokofy Neva

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 hour ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There is a lot of tech knowier-than-thou stuff around the issue of the IP address.

 

The Lindens went to the trouble to cloak the MOAP address now with an option on your land for *that*. What they have not done is enable you to cloak your IP from Shoutcast servers, RZ, or any other product. Because they are under pressure from top merchants in particular to be able to get rid of all the jerks and thieves who hang around their stores. Understand. Code-as-law. It's not always the best solution for persistent social problems.

I remember long ago a PM from a shop owner asking how the weather in the town I live.  Her PM was like "Thanks for buying the blah-blah dress, how's the weather in (town-name)?" How did she know? I use a VPN and she knew the actual location I was at. I asked and got no reply --- but chatting with some others both in world and in RL, I was asked if the item from her used a HUD. 

The dress did have a HUD and doing some sleuthing I discovered it was calling home.  I contacted the seller again and bought that up with her, she sounded angry said "leave me alone, please delete the product, I'm refunding you." Then a 2nd PM came saying "I'm going to do an AR on you for harassment, just leave me the **** alone."

[Dorientje Woller]

Of the record and still touching the matter. How can they collect the IP addresses from from shoutcast, when you rent your own stream and use it as club stream (which happens more and more that DJ's require to have their own stream) and the listeners are tuning in on that stream? So, the only IP they will get is the IP from the shoutcast server of which you are renting the stream, you as user of the stream are the only one that can see the listeners IP's. How, in this case can certain clubs, landowners where events are being held able to ban somebody on IP when using so called "Shoutcast" in the mix (no pun intented). 

Edited January 25, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

1 minute ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Of the record and still touching the matter. How can they collect the IP addresses from from shoutcast, when you rent your own stream and use it as club stream (which happens more and more that DJ's require to have their own stream) and the listeners are tuning in on that stream? So, the only IP they will get is the IP from the shoutcast server of which you are renting the stream, you as user of the stream are the only one that can see the listeners IP's. How, in this case can certain clubs, landowners where events are being held to ban somebody on IP when using so called "Shoutcast" in the mix (no pun intented). 

Most streams you rent --- you can go to the server's admin and view the IPs of those listening in.

[Ezbeharra]

13 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Of the record and still touching the matter. How can they collect the IP addresses from from shoutcast, when you rent your own stream and use it as club stream (which happens more and more that DJ's require to have their own stream) and the listeners are tuning in on that stream? So, the only IP they will get is the IP from the shoutcast server of which you are renting the stream, you as user of the stream are the only one that can see the listeners IP's. How, in this case can certain clubs, landowners where events are being held able to ban somebody on IP when using so called "Shoutcast" in the mix (no pun intented). 

Streaming media services like Shoutcast do not stream to you through your connection to SL. Your viewer makes a separate connection directly to the streaming media service. Otherwise LL would have to carry the additional data over its own network connections, for no benefit of their own. So when you connect to any system on the internet directly, such as the streaming media service, your public IP address (usually your home router if you're like most people) is visible to that system, and someone managing the service will be able to see it.

Now, they can't map this directly to your SL account, but what they do is notice the time you arrived on the parcel, and look at the times the connections started for the various IP addresses connected to the stream, and they match those times up to figure out your IP address. This is a good reason to leave your media/music off in your viewer until you want to turn it on. If you're at a place with lots of coming and going, it becomes a lot harder to match IP to avatar in this case.

There's really nothing mysterious or obfuscated here, it's just a little complicated.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Ezbeharra
clarification & grammar

[Dorientje Woller]

20 minutes ago, Kimmi Zehetbauer said:

Most streams you rent --- you can go to the server's admin and view the IPs of those listening in.

Forwarded that question, assumption, opinion towards the owner of the stream server. But I can assume that when a stream renter is giving only his/her stream link/info (basic website address with an extra port) to a land stream, shoutcast board or management of a place, that nobody else but the renter of the stream is able to view this IP info, as it requires a login and password to access that data). In this case I am not talking about a stream a club, event owner, or land owner has rented.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Dorientje Woller
Louzy phrase construction

[Ezbeharra]

16 minutes ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Forwarded that question, assumption, opinion towards the owner of the stream server. But I can assume that when a stream renter is giving only his/her stream link/info (basic website address with an extra port) to a land stream, shoutcast board or management of a place, that nobody else but the renter of the stream is able to view this IP info, as it requires a login and password to access that data). In this case I am not talking about a stream a club, event owner, or land owner has rented.

It's typically the case that the connection information needed for the stream connection is not sufficient to also get a list of connected IPs, but once you're connecting to some external service it's their system, their rules, and if they want to have a public list of currently connected IPs there's nothing stopping them from doing that.

[Dorientje Woller]

20 minutes ago, Ezbeharra said:

and if they want to have a public list of currently connected IPs there's nothing stopping them from doing that.

That's the issue, the IP's of the listeners that are tuned in to a rented stream are not public, only the renter can see them as you need login and password to gain access to that information. I am currently testing what you're saying, booted up my dj software, activated the stream, entered the stream link into VLC mediaplayer and only I and you will get is the track info. No IP addresses of listeners are shown. You as user, whether it's as listener, owner of land that is using my stream in it's media tools (land stream/shoutcast board) has no access to IP info of the listeners, that is behind my login and password wall.

Edited January 25, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Coffee Pancake]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There is a lot of tech knowier-than-thou stuff around the issue of the IP address.

Many customers can share a single IPV4 address, it's not just collages and dorm rooms. it could easily be entire city blocks as ISPs share a limited number of IPV4 addresses between many customers each with there own unique IPV6.

This is called CGN (Carrier-Grade NAT)