New Feature: Scripted Agent Estate Access Discussion

[Scylla Rhiadra]

6 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I think it's important to note that in 20 years, SL itself has not been hacked.

Very true and, as you say, also pretty impressive. Which is of course why I said "SL-related."

There has been some misunderstanding, or misrepresentation, of the issues from a few on both sides of this discussion with regard to the security of RL identities. It is very important to remember that the dating scraping by bots, using mostly tools made available by LL itself, has never posed a real threat to that -- except possibly in a few cases where there was too much self-exposure in profiles, groups, picks, and other elements of the data that we present ourselves.

So, yes, in short, I agree with you on this totally. I'm glad you underlined that point.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Scylla Rhiadra

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, Prokofy Neva said:

I guess it's helpful to remember that unless you yourself link your RL and SL data (or, as I have found, more rarely, you have enemies who are really persistent and obsessive about gathering clues left online to link them), your privacy as an avatar will not be outed nor your identity as a RL person exploited for financial gain.

Thank you.

The one and only thing my avatar shares with my RL self is the brain.  My UUID has nothing whatsoever to do with my RL.  Nothing in my profile will lead anyone to my RL.

If LL (and other government agencies) have decided that all of that is personal identifying info, fine.  That still doesn't make it personally identifying to my RL self, only my pixels.  THAT is what has started this whole fear mongering.  Unless you, yourself, make RL info available, no bot is going to scrap RL info off your profile.  

Personally, LL would do well to remove the 1st life tab on profiles because from what others have said, people aren't smart enough to know better than to fill it with actual RL info that COULD lead back to their RL self.  

[Coffee Pancake]

People will just add a pick for RL stuff.

[Rowan Amore]

Just now, Coffee Pancake said:

People will just add a pick for RL stuff.

Of course, that's what I would do.  My concern is new people.  They usually just have picks that are places and such.  They might assume everyone puts RL info there.  I'm not concerned with anyone who has been here awhile.  They know how it works.  New people may not.  Take 1st life tab off and just give us another pick!

[Istelathis]

Before long, our own writing style will be able to track who we are in real life.  Just like a fingerprint, we all leave traces behind.  Or at the very least, connect various forums we frequent, social media accounts, etc.  Just one more thing to think about, which we will be powerless against.  Thankfully, in general I have conducted myself in a civil manner on the Internet - as well as have avoided social media.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Istelathis

[Rick Nightingale]

9 minutes ago, Istelathis said:

Before long, our own writing style will be able to track who we are in real life.

Hate to tell you this but it has been for a long time. The current state of AI only makes it quicker, easier and more accessable.

I've had a little exposure to such matters in my varied careers and you would probably be shocked at the amount that can be discovered with the use of statistical analysis*, if enough data is available. There's a reason that three letter agencies stockpile everything they can.

*helping a room full of very clever people, admittedly. AI is changing that too.

Edited April 1, 2023 by Rick Nightingale

[Istelathis]

22 minutes ago, Rick Nightingale said:

Hate to tell you this but it has been for a long time. The current state of AI only makes it quicker, easier and more accessable.

Just imagine if it were made available to the public as a paid for service, yay us!  

[Love Zhaoying]

Idea: Charge for "Scripted Agent" registration, but include 3 with Premium Plus!

Brilliant!

[bunboxmomo]

12 hours ago, Randy Pole said:

Parcel level tools for bot access will not work.

A scripted agent simply needs to be anywhere on the sim to perform the tasks it does so someone having the ability to deny scripted agent access to their parcel on that sim will not deny said scripted agent from gathering data on every item and person in their parcel.

Granted it can be used to prevent them from accessing the parcel itself but it will not stop their - other - activities.

This is a huge issue for anyone who owns land on the mainland. Many want the same privacy as has been made available to those on private islands and linden homes but many businesses based on the mainland use bots and should not be punished.

I do not foresee scripted agents being banned from the mainland unless LL gives notice of that happening and relocates established businesses who use scripted agents (greeter bots, models etc.) to alternative scripted agent friendly locations at no additional cost to the customer.

This is a inaccurate representation of what is being asked, and also a misrepresentation of how flags work in SL.

 

Region and Parcel Flags

What is being asked is the following

1. Region Flags - Region Flags need to exist. An Estate owner MUST be able to make decisions at region level.
2. Parcel Flags - Parcel flags allow the owner of a parcel to be able to say *for their own parcel* if they wish to deny access to bots or not.

In Second Life, we already have examples of this. For example in Region settings we can allow/deny permissions, permissions that are *also* available in Parcel settings.

When a contradiction happens between Region and Parcel settings, the highest level *negative* is the one that is applied.

See below for examples

• Region - Allow Fly/Parcel - Deny Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.
• Region - Deny Fly/ Parcel - Allow Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.
• Region - Allow Fly/Parcel - Allow Fly: Flying is allowed in the parcel.
• Region - Deny Fly/Parcel - Deny Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.

Negative permissions when present, be they at region level or parcel level, *always* override Positive permissions at parcel level.

To help relieve worry people may have that this is somehow unprecedented, this is how Second Life works and it is how second life has always worked, and a hypothetical parcel flag should be the same here, and if implemented likely would, just like every other flag we already have. (Currently the region level only approach is an outlier that breaks step from how every single other flag in SL works and prevents individual users from deciding they don't want bots on their parcels, when a region owner is ok with it. A user should have that choice, just how region owners should have the choice for their regions.)

The result is a region owner can choose deny on the entire region regardless of parcel owner wishes (This is intended and good).
But also, where a region owner chooses to allow bots on their region, parcel owners could still choose to disallow them on their own parcel. This is currently not possible, and it is this addition people asking for parcel flags are asking for. They are not asking for this as a replacement of region flags (Although I'm sure some here or there are, and I would side against that)

In this case, a deny_bots at region level, would override all settings on parcel level, but a region that allows them, could give parcel owners their own individual deny_bot flags to give more granular control.

 

Changes I would like to see to LSL and Viewers on visibility of data about agents in invisible parcels.

As for your second claim regarding how access to a parcel is not required, you are absolutley correct and that is why parcel flags should also come with changes to how "invisible" parcels are handled.

Currently if you are on a parcel and your parcel is set to be invisible to people outside the parcel, all that's really happening is you're being de-rendered. Viewer floaters still show you in the parcel, you are still shown on the map, and LSL is still able to poll everything it could want to. You don't even need a bot to do this.

Personally, speaking as a scripter, when a parcel is set to invisible, if I am not an EM or my script is not in an object that has been deeded to the relevant group on group-owned land, then neither myself in my viewer, nor my script, should be able to see information about agents in said invisible parcels while I or my script is outside of said parcel.

This potentially could also be extended to objects as a consideration, not just Agents, but I think that may be more disruptive in a destructive way to almost two decades of existing sim programmatic infrastructure, but if possible with a transition period I'd be a fan of seeing that apply to objects as well. For now though at the very least I really shouldn't be able to see infomration about agents in my viewer or LSL in invisible parcels when I am not an EM, or my script is not deeded to group.

This is a thread about changes in policy, infact a change that is highly significant and disruptive (that doesnt mean its bad, it just means it has a huge footprint on impact). As a result, it's not really relevant what the limitations are right now, because this is a discussion about changing them, in light of changes that have already happened.

The people asking for parcel flags, are fully aware of the issues you raise in your second claim, and are asking for those to be changed too to make that viable, rather than what currently feels like a very rushed out and blunt approach to placating the fears of bots that some residents have.

Just so it's clear, and the last sentence doesn't get taken out of context. I'm 100% in favour of the deny_bots flag, even as someone who doesn't have an issue with scripted agents as a concept, but I think it didn't go far enough, and it's implementation is clumsy and half done in a way that doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the flags we have for land management in Second Life, and that it is a reasonable expectation of users to be able to decide they don't want to allow bots on their land, even if a region owner has said they're fine with it, and should be able to apply parcel level denial, just like we can with anything else right now in region/parcel interaction, but yes of course region denial always takes priority over parcel allow.

 

A personal note

I would also say, that on a more personal note, I'm disapointed in the lab and how they've handled this, because between what feels like a rushed half implementation that leaves parcels out in the cold, stokes conflicts between region owners and parcel owners, and a admittedly neutral post announcing this, but one that was made in what feels like it was written in a form that failed to take into consideration in it's delivery the underlying attitudes, tensions and assumptions of malice and the resulting propegation of dehumanising attitudes that risked (and ultimately were) emboldend and validated by what felt like the lab "taking a side".

Obviously the lab is not taking a side, but there could have been a lot more awareness given into how the announcement was written, to pre-empt that. I'm sure to this someone will bring up "Yeah but Bonniebots in previous threads...." and I'd say that while they certainly did not help their case, and while they should have been better about this, they are still residents. While the lab is the lab, there's a different degree of expectation in that.

I'm not going to make a big ongoing deal of that, this will be the only post I make on this aspect, but I do feel I need to express this.

I've been quite put off by some of the things I've been seeing expressed in this thread and speaking as a counsellor, I feel the feature announcement was delivered in a way that failed to take into account this underlying tension surrounding bots on SL and years old, that has resulted in the slow accumalation of distorted characterisations and stereotypes held by a number of residents in both directions (Some bot developers views of residents opposed to bots, and some residents opposed to bots views of bot developers). These characterisations of one another held by some residents have sat under the surface, and easily brought to the surface when *percieved* as validated by the lab, in either direction, and I can't help but feel the lab's either rushed writing of the announcement, or an over-cautious sticking to imagined neutrality through "not trying to say anything" rather than acknowledgement of either groups concerns, ultimately has enflamed this.

 

So if I were to hypothesise how the announcement could have been better worded, in my opinion something like:

<//// NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE LAB.////>

<////I'M MERELY WRITING A HYPOTHETICAL FROM THEIR POV IF I WERE THE ONE WRITING IT ////>

"Scripted Agents (otherwise known as "Bots"), have been a controversial topic for the residents of Second Life and a topic of discussion on our forums for over a decade. Over the years, Scripted Agents have allowed a number of our talented residents to find solutions to challenges that have allowed for the creation of products and services by our users that come together to directly and often invisibly, contribute to the grid and second life as a whole. This is why we have always encouraged use of our scripted agent status by bot developers, recognising the work that goes into these less conventional solutions by our residents, while still making a distinction between residents and scritped agents."

"However, Scripted Agents function as a black box, seperate from our own code base, while still having access to the same level of information (if not more) than is typically available to a resident through a viewer. While this is also true about a number of LSL functions that return information about a region and it's contents, in the case of LSL, we can make adjustments whenever we feel we need to in the interest of making a better experience for residents of Second Life. However, with Scripted Agents, since the code base running this bots are not our own and not built on LSL we are unable to effect the same steering decisions in running code as we can on our own codebase, or scripts developed using it. Instead we have maintained a list of best pracitces and guidence we offer to bot developers about good practice considerations and imposed limits into SL where we've felt we needed to, such as the daily cap on sending IMs and Notices in responsed to advertisement bots several years ago."

"While we are happy with how this has worked out, this does however ultimately mean that the nature of Scripted Agents and their role in Second Life, is one fundamentally built on good faith trust. While we at the lab are happy with this, this also means that residents of Second Life are in the same position having to trust bot developers to act in their interests when developing Scripted Agents for Second Life, however without the same degree of trust they feel they have with us at the lab. We at the lab are beholden to our residents in a way that establishes the basis for our relationship between the lab and our residents. As bot developers are residents themselves first and foremost, this basis of trust is very one directional instead in a way that makes a percentage of residents uncomfortable or even concerned about the presence of bots that come and go across their land, or can even be found in their travels in Second Life."

"The nature of Scripted Agents in Second Life is subject to a long standing debate and is one that is unlikely to end soon amongst our residents, but one position we do firmly believe is that residents deserve the ability to decide for themselves on what terms and where, are they comfortable with Scripted Agents in their day to day experience in Second Life, and the ability to make this decision should be as easy and accessible as possible, and without having to explain or justify their choice first to have it respected."

"While some bot developers offer opt-out capabilities, this still asks for a resident to contact a bot developer and trust them with their information to request an opt out, if the bot developer even offers it. We feel this is far from ideal and in the interest of empowering our residents to be able to easily make these decisions for themselves without having to trust a third party to respect that wish, we are pleased to announce the new addition of.... <the rest of the announcement as it was released by the lab>

<//// NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE LAB.////>

<////I'M MERELY WRITING A HYPOTHETICAL FROM THEIR POV IF I WERE THE ONE WRITING IT ////>

Personally, I feel something along those lines or anything else really that better prefaced the announcement itself, would have gone a long way to preventing the ignition of the kind of characterisation of people who make things I've seen in this thread.

It's left me feeling pretty uncomfortable, as a developer myself about how safe SL is as an environment to be a developer in SL when this kind of characterisation can descend upon a person. And as a counsellor, I feel uncomfortable seeing the way these characterisation and attribution of ill-intent have only intensified over the course of the thread.

While of course, there will always be a few who hold such views and of course while BonnieBots played their own role in the fermentation of this in the most recent bot contraversy from what I understand learning from other residents, I still feel the the lab's announcement and it's lack of due context and consideration prefacing the announcement itself, has in turn contributed to this and does leave me a bit disapointed.

PHEW.

OK.

Bit of a long post, but I wanted to get my thoughts on that out in one go, so I can leave that to the side having said, because I notice my difficulty feeling comfortable engaging in this thread after last night after seeing this happen and wanted to get my views on that out as well as my own thoughts on the nature of Region and Parcel flags.

(Morning everyone!)

Edited April 1, 2023 by bunboxmomo

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

I'm not concerned with anyone who has been here awhile.  They know how it works.  New people may not.  Take 1st life tab off and just give us another pick!

The problem with the 1st Life tab could be newer generations.  The newer generations are growing up putting real life info on Social Media.  It is not a good idea but they may not necessarily know that since it's how they have grown up.

I think getting rid of the 1st Life area is not a bad idea. 

Just my .02 cents worth.  

Edited April 1, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Love Zhaoying]

22 minutes ago, bunboxmomo said:

This is a inaccurate representation of what is being asked, and also a misrepresentation of how flags work in SL.

 

Region and Parcel Flags

What is being asked is the following

1. Region Flags - Region Flags need to exist. An Estate owner MUST be able to make decisions at region level.
2. Parcel Flags - Parcel flags allow the owner of a parcel to be able to say *for their own parcel* if they wish to deny access to bots or not.

In Second Life, we already have examples of this. For example in Region settings we can allow/deny permissions, permissions that are *also* available in Parcel settings.

When a contradiction happens between Region and Parcel settings, the highest level *negative* is the one that is applied.

See below for examples

• Region - Allow Fly/Parcel - Deny Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.
• Region - Deny Fly/ Parcel - Allow Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.
• Region - Allow Fly/Parcel - Allow Fly: Flying is allowed in the parcel.
• Region - Deny Fly/Parcel - Deny Fly: Flying is disabled in the parcel.

Negative permissions when present, be they at region level or parcel level, *always* override Positive permissions at parcel level.

To help relieve worry people may have that this is somehow unprecedented, this is how Second Life works and it is how second life has always worked, and a hypothetical parcel flag should be the same here, and if implemented likely would, just like every other flag we already have. (Currently the region level only approach is an outlier that breaks step from how every single other flag in SL works and prevents individual users from deciding they don't want bots on their parcels, when a region owner is ok with it. A user should have that choice, just how region owners should have the choice for their regions.)

The result is a region owner can choose deny on the entire region regardless of parcel owner wishes (This is intended and good).
But also, where a region owner chooses to allow bots on their region, parcel owners could still choose to disallow them on their own parcel. This is currently not possible, and it is this addition people asking for parcel flags are asking for. They are not asking for this as a replacement of region flags (Although I'm sure some here or there are, and I would side against that)

In this case, a deny_bots at region level, would override all settings on parcel level, but a region that allows them, could give parcel owners their own individual deny_bot flags to give more granular control.

 

Changes I would like to see to LSL and Viewers on visibility of data about agents in invisible parcels.
As for your second claim regarding how access to a parcel is not required, you are absolutley correct and that is why parcel flags should also come with changes to how "invisible" parcels are handled.

Currently if you are on a parcel and your parcel is set to be invisible to people outside the parcel, all that's really happening is you're being de-rendered. Viewer floaters still show you in the parcel, you are still shown on the map, and LSL is still able to poll everything it could want to. You don't even need a bot to do this.

Personally, speaking as a scripter, when a parcel is set to invisible, if I am not an EM or my script is not in an object that has been deeded to the relevant group on group-owned land, then neither myself in my viewer, nor my script, should be able to see information about agents in said invisible parcels while I or my script is outside of said parcel.

This potentially could also be extended to objects as a consideration, not just Agents, but I think that may be more disruptive in a destructive way to almost two decades of existing sim programmatic infrastructure, but if possible with a transition period I'd be a fan of seeing that apply to objects as well. For now though at the very least I really shouldn't be able to see infomration about agents in my viewer or LSL in invisible parcels when I am not an EM, or my script is not deeded to group.

This is a thread about changes in policy, infact a change that is highly significant and disruptive (that doesnt mean its bad, it just means it has a huge footprint on impact). As a result, it's not really relevant what the limitations are right now, because this is a discussion about changing them, in light of changes that have already happened.

The people asking for parcel flags, are fully aware of the issues you raise in your second claim, and are asking for those to be changed too to make that viable, rather than what currently feels like a very rushed out and blunt approach to placating the fears of bots that some residents have.

Just so it's clear, and the last sentence doesn't get taken out of context. I'm 100% in favour of the deny_bots flag, even as someone who doesn't have an issue with scripted agents as a concept, but I think it didn't go far enough, and it's implementation is clumsy and half done in a way that doesn't really seem to fit with the rest of the flags we have for land management in Second Life, and that it is a reasonable expectation of users to be able to decide they don't want to allow bots on their land, even if a region owner has said they're fine with it, and should be able to apply parcel level denial, just like we can with anything else right now in region/parcel interaction, but yes of course region denial always takes priority over parcel allow.

 

A personal note

I would also say, that on a more personal note, I'm disapointed in the lab and how they've handled this, because between what feels like a rushed half implementation that leaves parcels out in the cold, stokes conflicts between region owners and parcel owners, and a admittedly neutral post announcing this, but one that was made in what feels like it was written in a form that failed to take into consideration in it's delivery the underlying attitudes, tensions and assumptions of malice and the resulting propegation of dehumanising attitudes that risked (and ultimately were) emboldend and validated by what felt like the lab "taking a side".

Obviously the lab is not taking a side, but there could have been a lot more awareness given into how the announcement was written, to pre-empt that. I'm sure to this someone will bring up "Yeah but Bonniebots in previous threads...." and I'd say that while they certainly did not help their case, and while they should have been better about this, they are still residents. While the lab is the lab, there's a different degree of expectation in that.

I'm not going to make a big ongoing deal of that, this will be the only post I make on this aspect, but I do feel I need to express this.

I've been quite put off by some of the things I've been seeing expressed in this thread and speaking as a counsellor, I feel the feature announcement was delivered in a way that failed to take into account this underlying tension surrounding bots on SL and years old, that has resulted in the slow accumalation of distorted characterisations and stereotypes held by a number of residents in both directions (Some bot developers views of residents opposed to bots, and some residents opposed to bots views of bot developers). These characterisations of one another held by some residents have sat under the surface, and easily brought to the surface when *percieved* as validated by the lab, in either direction, and I can't help but feel the lab's either rushed writing of the announcement, or an over-cautious sticking to imagined neutrality through "not trying to say anything" rather than acknowledgement of either groups concerns, ultimately has enflamed this.

 

So if I were to hypothesise how the announcement could have been better worded, in my opinion something like:

<//// NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE LAB.////>

<////I'M MERELY WRITING A HYPOTHETICAL FROM THEIR POV IF I WERE THE ONE WRITING IT ////>

"Scripted Agents (otherwise known as "Bots"), have been a controversial topic for the residents of Second Life and a topic of discussion on our forums for over a decade. Over the years, Scripted Agents have allowed a number of our talented residents to find solutions to challenges that have allowed for the creation of products and services by our users that come together to directly and often invisibly, contribute to the grid and second life as a whole. This is why we have always encouraged use of our scripted agent status by bot developers, recognising the work that goes into these less conventional solutions by our residents, while still making a distinction between residents and scritped agents."

"However, Scripted Agents function as a black box, seperate from our own code base, while still having access to the same level of information (if not more) than is typically available to a resident through a viewer. While this is also true about a number of LSL functions that return information about a region and it's contents, in the case of LSL, we can make adjustments whenever we feel we need to in the interest of making a better experience for residents of Second Life. However, with Scripted Agents, since the code base running this bots are not our own and not built on LSL we are unable to effect the same steering decisions in running code as we can on our own codebase, or scripts developed using it. Instead we have maintained a list of best pracitces and guidence we offer to bot developers about good practice considerations and imposed limits into SL where we've felt we needed to, such as the capping of IMs and Notices per day in responsed to advertisement bots several years ago."

"While we are happy with how this has worked out, this does however ultimately mean that the nature of Scripted Agents and their role in Second Life, is one fundamentally built on good faith trust. While we at the lab are happy with this, this also means that residents of Second Life are in the same position having to trust bot developers to act in their interests when developing Scripted Agents for Second Life, however without the same degree of trust they feel they have with us at the lab. We at the lab are beholden to our residents in a way that establishes the basis for our relationship between the lab and our residents. As bot developers are residents themselves first and foremost, this basis of trust is very one directional instead in a way that makes a percentage of residents uncomfortable or even concerned about the presence of bots that come and go across their land, or can even be found in their travels in Second Life."

"The nature of Scripted Agents in Second Life is subject to a long standing debate and is one that is unlikely to end soon amongst our residents, but one position we do firmly believe is that residents deserve the ability to decide for themselves on what terms and where, are they comfortable with Scripted Agents in their day to day experience in Second Life, and the ability to make this decision should be as easy and accessible as possible, and without having to explain or justify their choice first to have it respected."

"While some bot developers offer opt-out capabilities, this still asks for a resident to contact a bot developer and trust them with their information to request an opt out, if the bot developer even offers it. We feel this is far from ideal and in the interest of empowering our residents to be able to easily make these decisions for themselves without having to trust a third party to respect that wish, we are pleased to announce the new addition of.... <the rest of the announcement as it was released by the lab>

<//// NOT AFFILIATED WITH THE LAB.////>

<////I'M MERELY WRITING A HYPOTHETICAL FROM THEIR POV IF I WERE THE ONE WRITING IT ////>

Personally, I feel something along those lines or anything else really that better prefaced the announcement itself, would have gone a long way to preventing the ignition of the kind of characterisation of people who make things I've seen in this thread.

It's left me feeling pretty uncomfortable, as a developer myself about how safe SL is as an environment to be a developer in SL when this kind of characterisation can descend upon a person. And as a counsellor, I feel uncomfortable seeing the way these characterisation and attribution of ill-intent have only intensified over the course of the thread.

While of course, there will always be a few who hold such views and of course while BonnieBots played their own role in the fermentation of this in the most recent bot contraversy from what I understand learning from other residents, I still feel the the lab's announcement and it's lack of due context and consideration prefacing the announcement itself, has in turn contributed to this and does leave me a bit disapointed.

PHEW.

OK.

Bit of a long post, but I wanted to get my thoughts on that out in one go, so I can leave that to the side having said, because I notice my difficulty feeling comfortable engaging in this thread after last night after seeing this happen and wanted to get my views on that out as well as my own thoughts on the nature of Region and Parcel flags.

(Morning everyone!)

Would you say then, that you are a "net detractor" of the changes, rather than a "net supporter"?

[bunboxmomo]

8 minutes ago, EliseAnne85 said:

The problem with the 1st Life tab could be newer generations.  The newer generations are growing up putting real life info on Social Media.  It is not a good idea but they may not necessarily know that since it's how they have grown up.

I think getting rid of the 1st Life area is not a bad idea. 

Just my .02 cents worth.  

People should be free to decide that for themselves though.

You're totally right about a generational difference, us millenials are kind of half and half on it when it comes to our online and rl identities being one and the same, albiet from personas, but when it comes to the most recent generation they have fully embraced that and while we may feel concerned on their behalf because it doesn't fit with our own choices, they're stillf free to make those choices for themselves?

[bunboxmomo]

51 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

Would you say then, that you are a "net detractor" of the changes, rather than a "net supporter"?

Accurate statement, I feel the existence of the ability to deny access to scripted agents is one that is rooted in good common sense and in line with residents making their own decisions about their own land.

I would not choose to prevent access of a bot but I do not believe my choice to be alright with it, should be imposed on other residents, or vice versa. (With the exception of the right of region owners to impose this on parcel owners within their region)
I am 100% lockstep in support of someone who would choose to do so, and their ability to do so without the need to petition bot developers themselves.

In terms of parcel flags, I support that because that's how everything else works, and the UX should be consistent. We already have region/parcel flags, there is no reason this should not be the same and it also gives more freedom of personal agency to residents over their own land.

I do however, think the fears about bots, is very very much rooted in a firm misunderstanding of what code can and cannot do, and what these things are in SL. However, that doesn't change the fact a resident should still have the right to say "I dont want it on my land", but I would be an advocate of "Hey its not that scary" and helping to relieve concerns, while still ultimately leaving the decision to residents in their own land.

So yes, I am a net detractor. I'm not against it, I think it should do more and I think it should be done better, but I have concerns about the way its been done, and the potential impact for further creating a divide between residents on account of how clumsy it's been implemented and the style of communications in how it was announced.

I have a deep appreciation for the lab and their continued passion for Second Life, and while the lab has taken different paths I can recall over the past 13 years I've been a resident of SL, their most recent path on their philosophy is one that I've felt genuinely encouraged by and optimisitc about SL's future with regards to their comments and stated goals on LabGab and other communications.

But that doesn't mean I won't raise criticisms or concerns where I see it. We often focus on the good things do, and often shame the idea of pointing out the bad something does, or how something isn't as good as it could be, but in devops (and honestly engineering or anything really as a whole), pointing out what is shakey, is the first step to getting it stronger and better.

This also extends to individual policies or aspects about SL. Such is the case here, I think a region deny_bots flag is a good thing, but despite being in favour of it, I have concerns and I see shortfalls and problems I am concerned about, as well as other knock on effects, that are worth acknowledging, even if that consideration wouldn't result in a changing of course.

Hence my, at first appearance, contradictory positions in this thread. In my experience, I find at times people have a hard time working out "What side is he on?" when I'm actively passionate and engaged in discussion, not just here but in all kinds of things?
Sometimes people think I take contradictory positions, it's more I seperate things out quite heavily in the way I kind of go about considering things in my own thinking, so it looks like I'm darting back and forth on a "side", when rather I may agree in some areas and not in oithers.
Truth is, I'm not on any side, I'm just a person who takes a very analytical approach to things.

But in terms of my personal views, I highly value personal agency in SL and the ability of people to determine for themselves what they are comfortable with and what they are not, so in line with that I'm in favour of the scripted agent access policy as a concept and even in its partial implementation, but want to see more.

Edited April 1, 2023 by bunboxmomo

[Caeruleiae]

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

Just imagine if it were made available to the public as a paid for service, yay us!  

I almost hope this is just sarcastic.

On the-I hope very slim-chance you are being serious, this has been a thing since before I was born. Your information and all kinds of data that leads to you has always been up for sale. What data and what entities want with or can do with that data may change-but it's always been a commodity. Even with current and proposed-plus any future I suppose-laws and regulations in place you are still and always will be a commodity available for the right price. 

[Love Zhaoying]

1 hour ago, Istelathis said:

Just imagine if it were made available to the public as a paid for service, yay us!  

We already don't have to remember near as much, with teh Google!

[bunboxmomo]

3 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

There has been data that resident griefer groups or rather anti-griefer groups collected which fell into "the Wrong Hands," as one hacker group was calle

 

Not an entirely accurate retelling, there is some context here that is relevant. (We dealt with TWH, *alot* back on the MLP sims when they were around and have as a result ended up pretty familiar with them and even had several conversations with them.)

What happened there was an anti-griefer organisation by the name of JLU, was running a networked ban system and collecting data on its users on a wide scale through the on-sim devices people using their system had. This database was *massive* and was done in secret while pretending they only collected data on the "bad guys".

During this time period, a lot of universities, and student groups as part of these were also common on SL. I wont name the specific one of import here, because well, it blew up rather spetacularly in a conflict with LL and I don't know if even naming that student group might run afoul of LL (it shouldn't, but better safe than sorry lol).
 

Two members of this student group, ended up joining JLU. Their intent was to learn about it, during the course of their induction and training at JLU, they were shown, and given access to, this massive database and told to keep it's existence a secret because "It would be really bad if people knew we had this, if this was to fall into the the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic for our reputation."

The name "The Wrong Hands" was the name this group picked in response as a play on the term their instructor at JLU had used, when those two students decided this wasn't right of JLU to be doing.

They took vigilante action on their own to leak the existence of this database. I can't recall if they leaked any of its contents with it. However people see the name and it's an easy conclusion to draw that they're "bad" when someone names themselves "The Wrong Hands"

There was no hacking involved, they literally had been given access by JLU.

The resulting fallout, was massive and JLU was disbanded, but so was the student organisation that these two had been part of by LL as a result of tangental issues that the student group caused LL.

The Wrong Hands, continued for some time after that. They were never a griefing group, but there was some overlap with some of them in later years, that were also part of PN or "The Letter H", but in truth most of them were pretty chill people.

Just some interesting SL history, you'd be surprised how much rumour and false characterisation distorts history over time.

Edited April 1, 2023 by bunboxmomo

[Silent Mistwalker]

The JLU used RedZone. Enough said.

[bunboxmomo]

5 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

The JLU used RedZone. Enough said.

Oh! it was redzone?
I never actually knew those were one and the same!

Well yeah, there point exactly lol, but yeah just some contextual history that may be of interest to some.

Update: Checked it after reading this, seems JLU did have their own seperate thing that did rediculous levels of data gathering, but it wasn't redzone, but often described as "redzone-like", but yeah this wasn't meant to start off a line of conversation since this would be off-topic lol

(Slightly related though regarding historical basis for resident concerns about data collection given past events though!)

Edited April 1, 2023 by bunboxmomo

[Paul Hexem]

4 hours ago, Sparkle Bunny said:

I'm saying that somebody who refuses to pay for scripted agent status would automatically be a bad actor.

Unfortunately, until additional features are added to the status, that's no longer the case- some honest people's hands have been forced due to the current knee jerk reactions.

It would have been much, much smarter to have had all these debates before implementing and activating new features.

[Ceka Cianci]

26 minutes ago, bunboxmomo said:

Not an entirely accurate retelling, there is some context here that is relevant. (We dealt with TWH, *alot* back on the MLP sims when they were around and have as a result ended up pretty familiar with them and even had several conversations with them.)

What happened there was an anti-griefer organisation by the name of JLU, was running a networked ban system and collecting data on its users on a wide scale through the on-sim devices people using their system had. This database was *massive* and was done in secret while pretending they only collected data on the "bad guys".

During this time period, a lot of universities, and student groups as part of these were also common on SL. I wont name the specific one of import here, because well, it blew up rather spetacularly in a conflict with LL and I don't know if even naming that student group might run afoul of LL (it shouldn't, but better safe than sorry lol).
 

Two members of this student group, ended up joining JLU. Their intent was to learn about it, during the course of their induction and training at JLU, they were shown, and given access to, this massive database and told to keep it's existence a secret because "It would be really bad if people knew we had this, if this was to fall into the the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic for our reputation."

The name "The Wrong Hands" was the name this group picked in response as a play on the term their instructor at JLU had used, when those two students decided this wasn't right of JLU to be doing.

They took vigilante action on their own to leak the existence of this database. I can't recall if they leaked any of its contents with it. However people see the name and it's an easy conclusion to draw that they're "bad" when someone names themselves "The Wrong Hands"

There was no hacking involved, they literally had been given access by JLU.

The resulting fallout, was massive and JLU was disbanded, but so was the student organisation that these two had been part of by LL as a result of tangental issues that the student group caused LL.

The Wrong Hands, continued for some time after that. They were never a griefing group, but there was some overlap with some of them in later years, that were also part of PN or "The Letter H", but in truth most of them were pretty chill people.

Just some interesting SL history, you'd be surprised how much rumour and false characterisation distorts history over time.

I think I remember something like that with them around the RZ time period too.. I wanna say just afterwards or maybe going on right at the same time.,something like that..

[Love Zhaoying]

11 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

JLU

Is related to JFA? Good band.

[Scylla Rhiadra]

30 minutes ago, bunboxmomo said:

Not an entirely accurate retelling, there is some context here that is relevant. (We dealt with TWH, *alot* back on the MLP sims when they were around and have as a result ended up pretty familiar with them and even had several conversations with them.)

What happened there was an anti-griefer organisation by the name of JLU, was running a networked ban system and collecting data on its users on a wide scale through the on-sim devices people using their system had. This database was *massive* and was done in secret while pretending they only collected data on the "bad guys".

During this time period, a lot of universities, and student groups as part of these were also common on SL. I wont name the specific one of import here, because well, it blew up rather spetacularly in a conflict with LL and I don't know if even naming that student group might run afoul of LL (it shouldn't, but better safe than sorry lol).
 

Two members of this student group, ended up joining JLU. Their intent was to learn about it, during the course of their induction and training at JLU, they were shown, and given access to, this massive database and told to keep it's existence a secret because "It would be really bad if people knew we had this, if this was to fall into the the wrong hands, it could be catastrophic for our reputation."

The name "The Wrong Hands" was the name this group picked in response as a play on the term their instructor at JLU had used, when those two students decided this wasn't right of JLU to be doing.

They took vigilante action on their own to leak the existence of this database. I can't recall if they leaked any of its contents with it. However people see the name and it's an easy conclusion to draw that they're "bad" when someone names themselves "The Wrong Hands"

There was no hacking involved, they literally had been given access by JLU.

The resulting fallout, was massive and JLU was disbanded, but so was the student organisation that these two had been part of by LL as a result of tangental issues that the student group caused LL.

The Wrong Hands, continued for some time after that. They were never a griefing group, but there was some overlap with some of them in later years, that were also part of PN or "The Letter H", but in truth most of them were pretty chill people.

Just some interesting SL history, you'd be surprised how much rumour and false characterisation distorts history over time.

As a primary target of the griefing of much of this and associated groups such as Woodbury U, I think you'll find that Prok already has pretty good background on the story. And I myself was in the JLU database, as events proved.

But you are right, it was not a "hack" in the technical sense.

[Ceka Cianci]

8 minutes ago, bunboxmomo said:

Oh! it was redzone?
I never actually knew those were one and the same!

Well yeah, there point exactly lol, but yeah just some contextual history that may be of interest to some.

Update: Checked it after reading this, seems JLU did have their own seperate thing that did rediculous levels of data gathering, but it wasn't redzone, but often described as "redzone-like", but yeah this wasn't meant to start off a line of conversation since this would be off-topic lol

(Slightly related though regarding historical basis for resident concerns about data collection given past events though!)

Ya, I remember The Hand also.. hehehe

[WereBeast Alpha]

4 hours ago, Soft Linden said:

You're sure it's not a coincidence? Scripted agents aren't supposed to contribute to traffic.

Or are people not TPing in because they don't see someone on the map, where they saw a bot or two as green dots before?

I don't know all I know is accounts would pop in for 5-20 seconds then leave then more would come and do the same thing all day every day ever since I added the extra security it stopped those accounts from entering. I have Casper tech visit orb as well each time someone was on the sim it would let me know. 

[bunboxmomo]

3 minutes ago, Paul Hexem said:

Unfortunately, until additional features are added to the status, that's no longer the case- some honest people's hands have been forced due to the current knee jerk reactions.

It would have been much, much smarter to have had all these debates before implementing and activating new features.

To be fair, I empathise because I can get where you're coming from on this, but residents *do* have the right to decide if they want to allow a scritped agent onto their land or not.

Yeah it may be a kneejerk and clumsy implementation of this, I'm with you on that, but its not our place to just ignore a resident setting an option to deny access.

This does get a bit more cloudy with the Belli estate ban, I do agree that is overkill by LL because it means people who own homes their with their own personal use bot that don't leave their own homes have been affected by this too.

At the same time, neighbour residents are still entitled to knowing that, that *personal* bot isn't doing any collection beyond that personal use, and LL should have implemented a better more granular system so all parties are satisfied, rather than the one we have,  but for now it's how it is and it should be respected by developers (even if we're voicing our strong concerns about it in the mean time)

Yeah its going to cause problems to things when those services degrade, but let them. If anything that may lead to further discussion.