The bot war is over and the bot farmers have won :-(

[Alazarin Mondrian]

Maybe this is old news but I recall that all the talk a while back was about the Bonniebots and similar ilk swarming the grid and how everyone was busily banning them and making a whack-a-mole sport of it. While there was some discussion as to what these bots are used for, one fact was seldom discussed: The capped size of the land ban list [300 avatars max].

 

I bring this up because as a small landholder on the mainland whose land parcel straddles the 128,128 midpoint of the sim, our parcel gets regular visits from all manner of bots and our ban list is expanding at a rate of knots. At the rate it's growing, it will have reached its maximum size by mid-summer at which point I'll be unable to hold back the flood of bots. I suspect that was their plan all along: to flood the grid with throwaway account bots until everyone's ban lists were full giving them free rein to field their bots wherever and whenever they want. The only question that remains being how many of those bots are fielded by data-scrapers and how many are fielded by security-orb sellers eager to generate more business?

 

Raising the ban list cap to 500 avatars only puts off the saturation point by a small amount of time but does Linden Lab have the resources to implement unlimited size ban lists?

[Love Zhaoying]

In case you missed it:  There is a new land management option on the way for Estate owners to "prevent entry" for "Scripted Agents" (registered so-called "Bots").  So, if that new function is used, there is no need to "ban" the "bots"/"scripted agents" because they will not be allowed entry in the first place. Because of this, if used as intended, preventing entry will not add to the "ban list". (Apparently, this new function will not be available to "parcel owners" as "parcels" do not qualify as "Estates".)

[Sid Nagy]

But..... weeks have past and everything is only still ........ just on its way.
Or is it somewhere on the bottom of the to do list from someone overworked already?
Will any of it arrive in a fashionable time? 2023-2024-2025 -....- 2049 - ... end of times for SL?

I still don't hold my breath until this eventually happens. LL is still trying to simply wait until the storm is over IMHO.

<--------------------------------

Edited March 25, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[AmeliaJ08]

I remain confused as to why anyone cared but have new insight on just how paranoid SL'ers can be. 

[CarlaWetter]

And for that reason it's of no use for anything resembling mainland. Not to mention that it kinda requires honesty and cooperation by the bot herders by setting the "scripted agent" flag. So that solution may accomodate estate owners, but it does absolutely nothing for renters and us mainlanders.

At the current state of affairs with about 150 active bots seen per month and between 5 and 20 cycled out of duty every month, running them through a parcel banlist is indeed entirely futile and has been futile for a couple of years already.

(My numbers come from a homegrown  blacklist & eject system running on four or five mainland regions and parcels.)

[Sid Nagy]

.

Edited March 25, 2023 by Sid Nagy
I don't want a pointless post. so: .

[Qie Niangao]

2 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I remain confused as to why anyone cared but have new insight on just how paranoid SL'ers can be. 

Do you have land at 128,128 on a Mainland sim?

If they extend the ban to parcel scope, at least the legit bots will make an attempt to find a parcel where they're not pissing off the landowner—such as protected Linden land, for example.

(It does nothing one way or another about data collection on Mainland, but Mainland regions have always been open to data collection. Don't like it? don't own Mainland. But a constant stream of the damned things landing at the same damned spot can get pretty annoying.

[AmeliaJ08]

I still don't see why anyone cares.  If you don't want anyone visiting (bot or human) your parcel then why would it be open to visitors?

 

 

[CarlaWetter]

3 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

If you don't want anyone visiting (bot or human) your parcel then why would it be open to visitors?

May be because bot visitors and human visitors are not the same? Human visitors may actually contribute to the theme of the place while roaming bots never do any of that.

[EliseAnne85]

12 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I remain confused as to why anyone cared 

Privacy issues.  For one, information on SL business' weekly sales were being published, supposedly erroneously.  For two, you don't opt in to their website, you have to opt out.  I asked someone who said they worked for this bot company if they were going to keep the usernames of the residents who opt out and they answered "yes".  This means the bots could en masse contact a whole slew of SL residents and who is to know if doing that could be spam or something more malicious?   There are other issues, but we were told we aren't allowed to speak about the bots or make threads on the SL forums which left many in confusion.  Your confusion is not other residents confusion who could not collect information about the bots.  There was no fair play since all the while they were given carte blanche to collect our information.  If this is meaningless to you, it's meaningless to you, and you are free to remain an "I don't care" resident.   

[Sid Nagy]

12 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I still don't see why anyone cares.  If you don't want anyone visiting (bot or human) your parcel then why would it be open to visitors?

 

 

Look at my current signature:

Quote

- I want to meet people in SL, not bots.

 

Edited March 25, 2023 by Sid Nagy

[xDancingStarx]

Nothing but naive to think that the scripted agent option is going to solve anything. Instead of "why can't we have the option to keep out bots" the threads will be "why is Linden not enforcing scripted agent status." If you think otherwise you just haven't played any mmorpg in the past 20 years.

[Ceka Cianci]

If you go to the about page of the bonnie site, they have all their bots listed under the map where they show the bots combing the grid.. Anyone can go there and get all 12 names and add their names to their ban list..

As far as scripted agents and estate bans.. That really is only going to work on those honest users running bots that register their bots as scripted agents..It's really just making a rule for those that have been following the rules.. Throwing a bone to those that have concerns about it, hoping they'll chew on that for awhile instead of chewing on them or until they can find a better way.

 

 

 

[Rowan Amore]

I just set my access to anyone, payment info on file and allow unrestricted access to anyone in my group.  Have yet to have a bot on my parcel or even near it when I've been at home.

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

In case you missed it:  There is a new land management option on the way for Estate owners to "prevent entry" for "Scripted Agents" (registered so-called "Bots").  So, if that new function is used, there is no need to "ban" the "bots"/"scripted agents" because they will not be allowed entry in the first place. Because of this, if used as intended, preventing entry will not add to the "ban list". (Apparently, this new function will not be available to "parcel owners" as "parcels" do not qualify as "Estates".)

Alazarin is talking about *Mainland*. Where many of us live and work. Not private islands and homesteads. There is no "estate" function on Mainland even if you own the entire sim, and it doesn't work by parcel.

And like many venue owners, she doesn't want to put ban lines all around her property and make life miserable for neighbours. I don't allow group/blanket bans in my rentals, either. So it has to be by individual name, not a blanket ban. And there are a lot of "scripted agents" these days doing various things, including Linden-owned.

As for the "all 12 names" -- they can always add more and likely do for "special" people. Why do I see these same normally "faster-than-the-eye-can-see" bots staying for two minutes on my land?

I personally don't put bot names or any names of anyone except actual documented serial griefers and harassers (and there I will put a bot *company execs'* names into the list. 

Qie has suggested inadvertently perhaps a solution to all this. Every sim has Linden land on it, right? Or maybe not, in some of the later continents without roads and water bodies in the interiors. But there is plenty of abandoned land and LL could take just 16 m2 out of every sim and allow bots only on that "bot landing point". That would get rid of the 128/128 problem and siphon off to one area. Surely that could be required and coded into scripted agents.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

7 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

As for the "all 12 names" -- they can always add more and likely do for "special" people. Why do I see these same normally "faster-than-the-eye-can-see" bots staying for two minutes on my land?

There is an easy way to find out by looking at the site over time and see if they do change or if they stop showing up where they were.. What they could do, might not be what they do do.

[Love Zhaoying]

18 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Alazarin is talking about *Mainland*. Where many of us live and work. Not private islands and homesteads. There is no "estate" function on Mainland even if you own the entire sim, and it doesn't work by parcel.

Nobody says LL won't give similar abilities to parcel owners, as the new "exclude scripted agent" function. That was my entire point.

[Love Zhaoying]

24 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Qie has suggested inadvertently perhaps a solution to all this. Every sim has Linden land on it, right? Or maybe not, in some of the later continents without roads and water bodies in the interiors.

I am 99% sure that I owned entire Mainland regions before - what I can only assume you mean by the colloquial use of the word "sim".

[Prokofy Neva]

46 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

I am 99% sure that I owned entire Mainland regions before - what I can only assume you mean by the colloquial use of the word "sim".

The Lindens are quite capable of exercising virtual "eminent domain" and taking 16 m2 for which they can compensate you with 16L.

 

[Prokofy Neva]

1 hour ago, xDancingStarx said:

Nothing but naive to think that the scripted agent option is going to solve anything. Instead of "why can't we have the option to keep out bots" the threads will be "why is Linden not enforcing scripted agent status." If you think otherwise you just haven't played any mmorpg in the past 20 years.

One doesn't preclude the other. They can enforce their policy AND have a solution on land tools.

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, EliseAnne85 said:

Privacy issues. 

On Mainland, though, there's not much to be done about bots gathering whatever information they want, unless the whole region were to disallow access by scripted agents. Parcel-scope access can't prevent those agents landing elsewhere on the region and gathering everything they could if they were on the forbidden parcel.

But there's still a valid reason for Mainlanders to want bots off their parcel: they can be quite pesky, without the bot-runner having any ill intent at all. This would encourage them (the law-biding, well-intentioned among them) to find other parcels to use instead, maybe spreading landing points around the region a bit.

A Mainland-owner who owns the entire region might prevent a registered bot from landing anywhere on the region, and thereby reduce the data collected on that region by properly registered bots—as well as Estates could, anyway, although that data privacy motive seems futile to me, even on Estates, because the bad actors aren't going to self-designate their bots as scripted agents unless the Lab has enforcement tools beyond my expectations.

But to be clear, all this Mainland / parcel-scope / region-scope talk is hypothetical, and would depend on the Lab implementing something like the jira I submitted a few days ago. I mentioned it in at least one other thread already so I don't want to belabor the point here.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

1 hour ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Nobody says LL won't give similar abilities to parcel owners, as the new "exclude scripted agent" function. That was my entire point.

They haven't indicated anywhere that I've seen any inclination to extend this function to mainland, or to parcel owners.

They haven't said "no" either, it's true. But there's no positive suggestion that they plan to extend this, nor do I think it very likely. With the exception of Belli, of course, LL seems quite happy with letting mainland continue as the Wild West, neglected, somewhat forgotten, and without the kinds of tools and constraints that empower landowners and renters elsewhere.

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I still don't see why anyone cares.  If you don't want anyone visiting (bot or human) your parcel then why would it be open to visitors?

 

 

Where has anyone said they didn't want anyone visiting? Do you have an issue with people being able to choose who is allowed to visit their land in SL the same as they choose who is allowed to visit them in their own home in RL?

Over the years I have learned that there are people on the grid who I absolutely do not want any contact with so I do make certain they can't enter my land. If that is an issue for you then perhaps you should speak with a professional.

 

[Silent Mistwalker]

2 hours ago, xDancingStarx said:

Nothing but naive to think that the scripted agent option is going to solve anything. Instead of "why can't we have the option to keep out bots" the threads will be "why is Linden not enforcing scripted agent status." If you think otherwise you just haven't played any mmorpg in the past 20 years.

I've been asking that question for years. Where have you been?

[Scylla Rhiadra]

2 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I remain confused as to why anyone cared but have new insight on just how paranoid SL'ers can be. 

Respectfully, I think you're conflating two different issues regarding bots.

The first (and to my mind, most important) relates to data harvesting, which is after all the primary function of a pretty large class of bots. That's where privacy issues come in. Although there are outward signs that there has been some quiet behind-the-scenes constraints imposed upon at least one bot operation, I have seen no indication that LL is going to do anything to curtail the activity itself. What they might do (and maybe have been doing, again, quietly) is restrict how and where that data can be made public.

I don't think concerns about data scraping represent "paranoia." Gather enough data about anyone, and you can do some pretty invasive things, ranging from alt-detection and extortion or threats, to targeted advertising. Aggregate that personal data with the equally invasive and comprehensive data about other people, and you can do even more. That's why data is such a hot commodity in social media, no?

The second, which may actually be bugging some people far more, is simply the annoyance of having bots intrusively popping up on one's own land like weeds. This doesn't necessarily relate to data collection, which can happen from anywhere within a region -- its really just more about being annoyed by someone randomly materializing in your living room without invitation. That's not about "paranoia," then -- it's more a matter of just wanting to be left alone. And the sense I'm getting is that there is a LOT more of that happening recently, and not just from the one group we've all been talking about. In fact, the spokesperson from that group even said as much themselves to me on Twitter recently -- although they think the activity is dying down again. I'm not so sure.

We're big on the "my land, my rules" mantra here. By that token, if you're annoyed by the constant appearance of bots on yours, you shouldn't need to justify your desire to keep them out. And you really shouldn't be labeled "paranoid" merely because you do.