llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE) changes resulting from Privacy Policy

[Jo Glassfield]

LINDEN LABS wake up call, most people in sl do not care less who knows they are offline or online, only the few paranoid people. 

SO WHAT if someone knows one is online , there is nothing they can do anyway!

If someone is griefing then you have the ability to Mute. No one has the ability of finding you in SL unless you allow them.

I mean really people this is a virtual world  if you need to come into Second Life and Hide then you have a problem the way i see it.If you don't want to talk to a certain person then don't.

This all just sounds crazy to me LL creating another huge drama for SL business owners.People are going to get to the point of not being bothered to run business in SL the way its heading .Can't see what good is going to come from this at all! 

LL i would urge you to think long and hard about this i know many people in Sl that have business's that are just about over it!  Another step to SL'S demise thats all it will be

[sirhc Weatherwax]

There is an option in my prefs that reads 'Only friends and groups know I'm online'.

I want other viewers to be forced to respect that. Period.

The LSL functinality is a major problem and needs to be sorted, as a scripter I totally agree. And yes I am aware that scripted objects can check status regardless as I've used the thing. So either remove that illusion from the viewer prefs (thats from LL version 3.2.8) or make it work.

Simple really.

cheers

[Ayesha Askham]

The objective: Stop online stalking by use of llGet Agent Data ()?

So far as I understand it, the TPVs are removing this intrusive facility in their next releases.  Apart from totally breaking the script function, the only reliable way of removing the in-viewer function of older intrusive viewers would be to block those versions of the viewers (mostly Phoenix, I believe) from Secondlife.

Blocking said viewers would be a draconian step, but posssibly less damaging than breaking such a widely used script.  Unfortunately it would not prevent stalking, and since that is the professed intent, we are left in a Catch 22 situation where any action that responsible TPV devs or Linden Lab take will be seen as damaging.

None of the proposed alternatives will cure paranoia or stop a determined stalker/griefer.  I also find it hard to believe that Linden Lab did not know the uses of the script prior to the beginning of this debacle; consequently I can only surmise that Linden Lab wishes to further demonise TPVs, in order to further the moves to rein them in.

[Qie Niangao]

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Blocking said viewers would be a draconian step, but posssibly less damaging than breaking such a widely used script. 

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I would have said "certainly less damaging."

Whatever is hoped to be achieved here, if it's not important enough to block logins by old versions of Phoenix for which there are many easy alternatives, it's surely not important enough to break a widely-used LSL function for which there is no substitute at all.

[Stephanie Steamweaver]

If they take away the online trackers, it could seriously effect many businessess. I for one am a business owner who has a sim that caries 50K daily traffic. I have many managers for my club and I use the online tracker to mnanage my managers and who is online or available. Also, in the club, I have online indicators so my 60 staff and 50K VIPS know who to message when there is a problem. When my managers are recruiting staff and they recieve and application, they need to know when someone ius online so they can get a hold of them when they need to. Also, sometimes you only want to message someone IF they are online because the issue needs immediate attention and to send mesages to 8 peopel to find out who is online, in a business, to help you, is leavig a lot of offlines to many people not needed, when you can see if they are offline, you would never have sent that message. Yes, maybe iof someone is stalking someone i can see it being an issue BUT form a business piont of view.... IT IS ESSENTIAL for the business owner to know when staff are online and for customers to know when THEY are online. Removing the ability to see online/offline in world, in huds, in any sort of tracker, would greatly effect business owners profit and income.

[Kevy Gehlbard]

My reason for not wanting to lose this feature is purely personal.  My SL partner lives nowhere near me in RL.  Our easiest way of interacting is through SL.  We both enjoy it very much.  With the avatar online hud that I have and that he has, we are less likely to miss the fact that the other has come online.  This insures that we have the maximum amount of time together. 

As for the third  party viewers, let me just say this.  I find the Linden viewer so user UNfriendly that if it were the only viewer I was able to use, I would probably have never stayed in SL. 

[Pittacus1488312547]

As a user of an 'Avatar Online HUD' I would find it impossible to continue my Second Life without it. I, like many others, have alts which I use when I wish to concentrate on building or role play. I do not wish add all of my contacts from one avatar to another because I would never get a moments peace. I also do not wish to reveal the activities of my alt as shown in my profile to users of my main character.

When building I will wait until my 'Avatar Online HUD' tells me that others are on line, at which point I can chose to leave what I am doing and log in the appropriate avatar.

I am a lead player in a Role Play sim and our new players need to know when leads and mentors are on line so that they may get help if they need it.

If there is a problem with a product or service that needs to be discussed urgently the facility to know when a creator is on line can save days of frustrating correspondence by IM.

I am grateful that such facilities exist so that others will know when I am on line and can contact me as it enables me to maintain a small and manageable contacts list.

[Lisabeth Nikolaidis]

I am a founding member of a far Left wing political group which meets in SL once a week with other members from around the world. the purpose of our meetings is to study political theory and history. we are not RPers. we are a philosophical study group. however, because of the far Left nature of our group, we have often had trolls and griefers who attack us due to their opposite political views or simply out of ignorance and misapprehension of ours. our group has never attacked anyone, does not seek contact with anyone outside of our own circle and is here in SL for the legitimate reason that it is easy to meet internationally here. 

if i did not have the Conover Avatar Online HUD i would be defenseless when the usual griefers come by. as it is i can see when they are in the sim (if they use the same avatar more than once which often they do, dont ask me why) and we can take measures to avoid being harrassed. usually what we do is just leave, and notify the sim owner that such people are about. the sim owner can then decide what to do, delete any weird prims or scipts the trolls drop, or whatever. 

is this not a legitimate reason to have such a tool as the AOL HUD? must we be sitting ducks for any inconsiderate troll who gets his kicks from harrassing others? the HUD  has saved us from awful inconvenience and wasting of time on many many occasions. it is a brilliant tool and we need it.

everyone who comes to SL does not come with the best interests of others at heart. many many people come here to harrass and make others miserable. this is a fact. everyone should have an option of a way to protect from such people, so we can get on with our day.

[Innula Zenovka]

H, Lisabeth -- I'm not arguing with you about DATA_ONLINE (though I do disagree with you), but have you tried discussing the problem with the sim owner?  There's any number of ways he or she could easily stop you from being harassed like that, simply by using the estate tools, and maybe making sure there's someone around  somewhere on the sim with Estate Manager powers when you're holding your discussions.  

There's no good reason I can see why you should have to abandon your meetings simply because you see a griefer has come online.

[EmmaRose0214]

Why isnt there a way to have an AV mark there status completely private or not?  I use this tool becuase of having an older computer.  When the friends online status pops up it lags me out and i crash.  So this tool is much nicer to my system and lets me know who is on and who isnt. 

 

 ALSO it gives the user a right to privacy as well.  If using an alt you may not want someone to know that you are on line, and this can let you know from another av if that person is on line or not. 

 

 

 

[Lisabeth Nikolaidis]

those are sensible suggestions, however it doesn't end up working that way. our sim is owned by someone with a busy RL life, most estate helpers are not online at the right time, ould not be depended upon to be there at the time we might need them 9everyone has an RL you know), the nature of the griefing is severe not simple (one of them has even crashed the sim once)...we need early warnings when we can get them and i will continue to support the use of the one tool (Avatar Online HUD) which has saved us time and annoyance, thanks.

[Innula Zenovka]

I get that.   All I'm saying is that if a group were regularly meeting on one of my sims, and I knew the meetings were being disrupted by griefers, even to the point of crashing the sim, there's a number of steps I'd want to take -- some of them to protect the group and some of them to rectify clear gaps in the sim's security -- before throwing up my hands and saying, "all I can suggest is that, if you see these guys come online, you should abandon your meeting".     

[Lilmix Pixelmaid]

Have you AR'd this person? If you use an online HUD to wait for them, then you have clearly seen them before and could just report them for griefing. If the are causing regions to crash the Lindens should act on it as long as the report has all the right details.

[Nickel Briand]

 llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)  helps better the griefers than yourself .

Indeed , a griefer can easily use an alt and you couldn t detect him because you don t know his new name or key .

Yourself , because of your activities change less often alts .So you can be tracked easier by the griefers

[Jenni Darkwatch]

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Nickel Briand wrote:

 llRequestA

genData(uu

id,DATA_ON

LINE)  helps better the griefers than yourself .

Indeed , a griefer can easily use an alt and you couldn t detect him because you don t know his new name or key .

Yourself , because of your activities change less often alts .So you can be tracked easier by the griefers

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You're not supposed to derail emotional, irrational arguments with logical arguments. That's unfair. What's next? Debunking religion with science? Sheesh.

[Roberta Messerchmitt]

This whole rediculous issue could be resolved with no coding at all, just a change to the EULA stating that SL is a social enviornment and to not expect to be able to creep around invisibly. The busy flag is enough to tell friends that someone is not able to chat at the moment, there is no need for angst-causing skulduggery like masking logins.

The Data_Online restriction will not hamper griefers at all and neither will restricting legitimate TPVs since persistant griefers usually use illegal rigs that are just masquerading as other viewers, especially ones that apperently track the person accross alternate accounts via yahoo like the jira that started this whole thing states is happening.  Doing something to keep IP addresses from being leaked into the general enviornment via the media functions would be far more useful against griefers than this bit of OCD nonsense.

[Nickel Briand]

Yahoo is unable to track someone online  , and to know your connections hours to SL in a forced way even if you publish your web profile in the web.

And the IP is not tracked on media on prims if you use only in-world URLS and don t use external URLS.

Even if the IP is tracked by an external server , the external server can t know which avatar has called the page .

Let s guess a griefer who puts a media on prim ; there are 30 people in the sim . After a moment he can see a call to his web server . He can know the IP published . But he doesn t know  who between the 30 people has this IP

To add , if the griefer wants to grief someone specifically ,  he must wait that his target will turn his media .. He will wait a long time . Maybe some hours , maybe some days , maybe never . 

And think too that for many people the IP adress is dynamic not static .

Think too that some people can protect themselves by proxies too .

 

With  llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)  , the griefer/spyer doesn t need to wait , and it a forced comportment . And there are no existing protection 

So your two points are not so critics , the user can decide himself to activate or descativate these features to increase his privacy . He has the freedom of the choice .

 

It s not the case with lRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)

As it s scriptable , not only a griefer can know the  hours of connection of someone else , but he can build a whole database. I don t know if someone has tried it , but it s technically possible . 

It s not an innocent affair .

 

[xstorm Radek]

It seems that this is a Jira and not so much a forum item.
I read and test Jira reports more then to bother with forums.

Oz Linden asking for Jira's to be posted on Forums ?
I read Jira first..

[xstorm Radek]

Kelly i see this as a Jira not a forum topic?
why is Oz Linden trying to pull this off of the Jira system ?

And a forum and Jira can be locked.....

[Verena Vuckovic]

"This whole rediculous issue could be resolved with no coding at all, just a change to the EULA stating that SL is a social enviornment and to not expect to be able to creep around invisibly. The busy flag is enough to tell friends that someone is not able to chat at the moment, there is no need for angst-causing skulduggery like masking logins."

 

Couldn't agree more.  We have this skulduggery masquerading as 'privacy'. As you say, there is Busy mode........and people can mute and so on......so I cannot see a single legitimate ( non-skulduggery ) reason for a person logging into a social environment and effectively preteding they are not there at all.  A person's reasons for wanting to do so strike me as rather more dubious than mere 'privacy'.

Not to mention that it is utterly absurd that a person can pretend they are not online......yet anyone in their groups or on the same sim can see that they are. And that includes 'friends' from whom they think they are hiding their status. The net result being that such people get booted out of friends list.

After all.....what kind of friends pretend they are not even in the country ?

 

[Nickel Briand]

1) To mute don t protect. 

2) Busy mode don t protect

3) Online in groups are protected by teh combination of 3 ways :

- the user may hide his groups .

- the groups may hide their users

- the groups may be in closed subscription

So the user user has the choice to publish or not publis his privacy in his groups . He has not this choice against llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)

And nobody is obliged to use groups

4)  To add:  llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE) is avaailable on teh whole user database of linden so 20 000 000 accounts .

Generally the most active and largest  groups have at the most 50 000 accounts . It s very limited compared to the 20 000 000

5 )To scan someone in a large group , takes several minutes , because there are no warranty it will scan the targetted peope at the first 

llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE) takes 0.1 seconds , so it s  easily repeatable and automating

6) You can t export  without developping in C++ the viewer  the results of your group scan .

You may export easily by script the results of your scan , publish it in secoond life , and publish it too in the whole internet. ( any script may be a server web http accessed outside sl  )

7) you need to be online to use groups . You don t need to be online with llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE) . Just a prim dropped in a sim is enough

So llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)  gives extremely more power than groups

 Delete this function

 

[Verena Vuckovic]

"Why are you so interested in knowing the online status of people who're neither on your friends list nor members of the same group as you, if they've set their preferences only to show their status to friends and group members? "

Simple answer.........those people may actually be friends under another account one has.

Also invaluable is the ability to know if someone has been online when one was offline. For example a few years back I had a friend in SL just disappear for over a week.....I had no idea what had happened. And it was only by using an online tracker ( which can send emails )  that I knew my friend had not been online for all that time.

Nobody seems to be taking any of these social factors into account. It's yet another example of things being 'fixed', and people going on about code changes, without anyone considering the sort of multiple responses here ( and on the JIRA ) about how things are actually USED in SL.

Just gota fix those non-existent issues......even if it cheeses off more people than it helps. Par for the course with SL.

 

 

[Verena Vuckovic]

"1) To mute don t protect.

2) Busy mode don t protect

3) Online in groups are protected by teh combination of 3 ways :

- the user may hide his groups .

- the groups may hide their users

- the groups may be in closed subscription"

 

Er.....what....exactly.....are you being 'protected' from ??  All I see is a pedantic 'privacy' for its own sake......that is a complete joke unless one lives 24/7 on a private sim.

OK so I know when someone is online. So what ? Ya think Rupert Murdoch might buy the story ? Is the CIA and MI6 desperately seeking this information while searching for Lord Lucan ? Are the Zeta Reticulans compiling a list of online people so they know what time to invade Earth ? Is Jesus gona hold up the rapture so everyone has time to log off ?

What's more.....why would you even want to hide your status from the vast majority of people who don't even know you exist anyway ? And equally...why would you want to hide it from friends ? Sheesh ! Anybody'd think this was a social environment !

 

 

 

[Nickel Briand]

If you were friend , you could add in your contact list .

Even if you didn t add him , you could exchange your calling cards

It was not the only way .

You have told sooner you could check the online status with groups . And now you you tell that  llRequestAgenData(uuid,DATA_ONLINE)  was the only way

 

So , ever you are a liar , ever you are an hypocrit

 

[Nickel Briand]

Social environnemnt mean to meet some people .  But 99 % of the users who can scan  me if i am online are neither friends , neither contacts , neither old contacts , neither some people who are in common groups , neither some people who i have met  one day . So it s normal to forbid them to know it.

Why they should ?