Myra Loveless

Welcome to West Virginia, circa 2102, as per Fallout 76.

WTF? That's not a threat. It's a prediction of what can happen... It's called foresight. Calm yourself! How the HELL do you get a threat from that? Seriously!

Well, I'm thinking a full on captcha... like the click the image type captcha, or something procedurally generated that can't be answered with simple heuristics. but you know the really funny part about modern day "click the images that contain" captchas? They're used to train deep learning AIs to answer the same question... It's like modern captchas are slowly making captchas impossible.

Your agency is not dependent on your success at achieving a goal. Sorry, but it's just not. The "bot" isn't making the decision for you only if you failed. It seems you're arguing that the mere existence of bots at all is what undermines your agency... but only if you become aware of their existence... which is just... weird logic to me. I cannot follow that at all.

This is a valid point... I can't think of any good workaround. Not even making scripted agents detectable via script, because registration of scripted agents is voluntary, and it's up to LL to enforce it, and they only seem to enforce it if the bot is gaming traffic. Hmm... no actually, you know what? Perhaps solving a periodic captcha to play the game?

That doesn't rob you of your agency. It just means you made a mistake. BTW, did you know Bonnie says she's doing what she's doing because she got tired of exactly what you're describing. In fact, if you look at her webpage you'll see they track traffic by delta rather than by strict population count. She explains that it's because sims with high population due to bots have a constantly high population, but if you see a large change in population, it's because something big is going on. Oh, like Bonnie. By that same logic, any information that doesn't come from you undermines your agency. When you look for a place with active people and there's bots? Well your agency is still gone if there's not bots, because your "agency" is still at the mercy of some data aggregator, whether it be Linden Lab or otherwise. ... "agency"

I joined Second Life because Blaxxun was a dumpster fire.

The existence of bots has never robbed me of my agency. I am still perfectly capable of making decisions, whether or not bots exist.

There is a possible consequence of that though. Due to the privilege bot operators have had in regards to not being labeled differently on viewer end of other users, it may cause bot operators to find ways to dodge the system that detects unregistered scripted agents. I advise to be careful about starting an arms race when it might be as simple as training a deep learning AI to pass well enough as a human... "turingism" as you put it. I'm not saying that will happen, but I feel confident in the prediction based on my knowledge of human behavior. Also, "scripted agents" isn't my term. That's LL's term. I'm simply using the wording they use for that specific system of voluntarily registering an account as such.

The person who operates the BBs claims they don't actually own all of the BBs you can find on an avatar search, that some of them are copycats with unknown motivations. You can however go to the BB webpage and see a map of where all the BBs are, and examine the HTML on that page to get a comprehensive list of all the BBs operated by the actual BB project.

In regards to coloring the dots of bots. Eh, could be a good idea. Thing is though, at least on Firestorm, the colors of the dots are in the viewer's settings and not at all set by anything else. The only thing that would be required to implement it, however, is sending the flag for whether an agent is a scripted agent or not to every viewer. I don't know if there's still room in the flags for sending that data, but if there isn't, an extra byte to send to add room for that flag wouldn't be too much trouble I think. Of course it'd only catch those that have voluntarily flagged themselves as scripted agents. Accounts flagged as such don't contribute to the Linden based stat for traffic, and if someone gets caught using a scripted agent to game traffic, that's a bannin'. Of course, that's only if they get caught. And it's the scripted agent that gets banned.

Well, I can't find anywhere on the Bonnie website where that information is being displayed. Can you show where that information is available, please? Again, LL is making the information about marketplace sales public. I explained it before, I'll explain it again. marketplace.secondlife.com shows the most recent purchases. It actually has more recent purchases than what it shows on the webpage, just sitting there in the html files. Linden Labs is showing what items are selling on the market place, who sells it, and how much it costs. LL is the one making that information available to the public, not Bonnie. Unless the Bonnie developer has some kind of direct line from Linden Lab, in all likelihood all the Bonnie is doing is representing the data from the web page in a different format. Again, Linden Lab are the ones making the marketplace sales data public. Bonnie is just reporting on it.

This. Exactly this.

Seems to be. Oh, ok, so you're not talking to me. Why are you directing it at me? Hmm, ok? Who is studio-sky.come? Looks like a business, not a person, and the Bonnie page seems to only be providing data on sales from marketplace.secondlife.com. That's public data. See my previous post to this wone for how that's public data. I did what now? Why are you stalking that creator? Oh wait, did you get it from running a whois on the domain? You know that's public information, right? If you got it from running a whois on the domain, it seems it's that person's problem, not Bonnie's. I mean, they could choose to use an anonymizer service. I don't like GoDaddy but they provide a built in anonymizer for domains bought through them last time I checked. No, I don't. I don't provide data. You're seriously barking up the wrong tree here. Also, what you did was what's called "sleuthing". Sleuthing is not prohibited by any privacy laws. Like I said, if you buy a domain name and don't use an anonymizing service when registering it, that's a choice you make. You chose to make your contact info public. All you're doing is searching public records and crying foul over the fact that public records exist. Sorry, but where in Bonnie's data did you find that? Oh right you got it from public records and following the paper trail that the person in question left on their webpage and Second Life profile, rather than using data from Bonnie. Ok then. If bonnie had never existed, you could have still performed that feat because you didn't use Bonnie's information to identify the person, now did you? The fault here would be with Linden Lab. Again, I already showed you how you can get the same data yourself. Here's the screenshot again. So what you do is you write a script that just looks at the marketplace webpage periodically and record the information on what customers are buying now, and make a note of who the seller is, and Bob's your uncle, or maybe your aunt, I don't know what Bob's gender is. What's the non-gender specific honorific for a parent's sibling? Anyway, that's Bob. So the best argument you have here is that Linden Lab needs to stop showing what customers are buying now.

As per https://secondlife.com/app/tos/tos.php In short, if you don't want your parcel being publicly accessible, restrict access to it. It's your responsibility to maintain the access to the parcel. And I'm not going to. As I said previously, I'm not obligated to answer such questions because I'm not a part of it. I'm just here discussing the facts of the matter. Just because I correct people when they say it's against the TOS doesn't mean I am the person who runs the bonnie bots. It means I'm a person who saw a false allegation and corrected it. If you want an answer to that question, go ask Bonnie. Message one of the bots. There's a human on the other end. Try to be respectful. If you go and start acting all high and mighty and indignant, you might get sassed. That's just how human interaction works. That question makes no sense, but looking at the site, I only see your avatar's profile on their profile search. Your profile is public information. The only thing on the site that is tied to your avatar is stuff you have chosen to make publicly available via your profile. I also don't see any reason to believe that they're storing who wears what attachments or who visits what sim. Seems to me that would multiply the data storage by a considerable amount, and with no actual added utility. So unless you can show me that they do, I have no reason to believe that they do. Ok, but I'm only talking about real life identity because people bring up privacy laws and that's what privacy laws are about, real life identity. *ahem* That data is public information see the following image: I wouldn't doubt it if Bonnie is getting it directly from the marketplace webpage and simply logging it. I doubt Bonnie is capable of reading in-world transactions with in-world vendors, or person to person transactions. I love how you failed to provide the GDPR's definition of personal data. Did you know that laws include definitions to prevent people from making up what ever definition they want and trying to apply it to the law? Here's the GDPR's definition of personal data. An avatar is not a natural person. Unless you have gone and doxed yourself on your profile, there is no way to know that you, whoever you are in the real world, wears Leutka teeth without a Leutka head. I use that example only because I find it highly amusing that Leutka teeth is one of the top attachments according to Bonnie, but Leutka heads are buried several pages in. I've said something to this effect repeatedly... If you're going to cite laws, make sure you're actually correct about it. Better yet, consult a lawyer.

I do not fail to understand the word consent. You gave your consent by agreeing to the TOS. To summarize, by agreeing to the TOS, you granted other users a license to reproduce, distribute, prepare dirivative works of, and display data that you have made available in public areas of Second Life. You consented. If you want to take that consent back, then you are legally obligated to discontinue use Second Life. Simply logging in reaffirms that consent.

I've quoted it once and referred to it multiple times. TOS section 2.4. I keep seeing people saying it's a violation of the TOS, but as far as I can tell, I'm the only person to quote it. Have you actually read it? If you don't know what section it's allegedly a violation of, what basis do you have for saying it's against the TOS? Heck, Section 1.4 of the TOS puts the onus on you. It literally says In other words, if you don't want the data being public, then don't make it public. If you're concerned about privacy on something, it's up to you to make sure it stays private. Don't make public what you don't want to be public. If you don't want people reading words in your profile, don't put words in your profile. If you don't want a bot to know you visited a sim, stick to sims that restrict access to a group you're in, etc.

First of all, section 2.4 of the TOS says that you give permission to other users to have any data you put out publicly be replicated on their system. It currently does not prohibit that data from being cached, parsed, or entered into a third party database. So you're wrong about them not being given permission. By using Second Life, you agree to the TOS, and as such you agree to have the data replicated on other users systems. I already addressed this on a previous page. The DPA only covers non-anonymized data. There is no way for any of the data to be linked back to you as a person in the real world. If there is, I would love to know what way that is. Would you care to illucidate? How exactly does "a lot of people wear Leutka Teeth without a Leutka head" lead back to your real world identity? I really want to know how that works. First of all, there's nothing in the TOS that requires users to contribute to the resident experience. Secondly, and more importantly, they are contributing to the resident experience. This webpage residents of Second Life see where the hot spots are, i.e. the popular hangouts. https://www.bonniebots.com/regions This webpage lets residents of Second Life see what attachments are popular. https://www.bonniebots.com/attachments This webpage lets you find abandoned land for claiming as long as you have the available land tier. This is a tool that land barons have had for ages with their own survey bots, but they never made it public. Now you can stand a chance at finding cheap, desirable land before a land baron does. https://www.bonniebots.com/abandoned-land This webpage lets you find an available Linden Home, which previously was very difficult. Thanks to the Bonnies, it's much easier now. https://www.bonniebots.com/linden-homes This webpage lets you see how much money is flowing through Second Life, as well as what items are popular. https://www.bonniebots.com/market This website lets you search users who are active, and more than just simple name search. LL only provides a name search. The Bonnies let you search the content of peoples profiles, which in turn means you can find people who share similar interests to you. For example, you can find people who are into vampires but not into the bloodlines game on SL. https://www.bonniebots.com/avatar-search Just today New World Notes released an article about the bonnies, talking about how useful they are to everyone. https://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2023/01/bonnie-site-second-life-traffic.html Now, before you go and say that none of that stuff matters to you, it not mattering or being of use to you isn't a valid criteria for whether or not it's useful or improves Second Life in some way.

I didn't say that. It's a better argument than claiming it's against the TOS when the TOS specifically says you agree to have any data you make public be replicated on other users computers. It's also a better argument than saying privacy laws prohibit it when they don't. Granted, but that doesn't make it immoral, or wrong either. Because reasons, right? There is no legal expectation of privacy for anything you do in public. I get that you can log on to Second Life from your bedroom, but if you have a video call into a national news report as some times happens to some people for a variety of reasons, you can do that from your bedroom as well. If you don't want other peoples viewers knowing you wear Leutka teeth without a Leutka head, then don't wear Leutka teeth without a Leutka head. Again, allow me to refer you to Second Life TOS section 2.4. (edit) Lyric Demina also said: Actually, you are. https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlGetObjectDetails OBJECT_ACCOUNT_LEVEL 41 Gets the account level of an avatar. If id is not an avatar, -1 is returned. 0 is Basic account level. 1 is Premium account level. 10 is Premium Plus account level. Any time you're in a sim, any script can get your account level. It's public information. Sure it can only be accessed by a script, but it's any script, no matter who. That said, I do agree that there's no real utility for everyone to know about account levels. That said, I'm kind of puzzled... is being premium or premium plus something to be ashamed of? So you're going to punish LL for not enforcing terms that aren't in the terms of service? Ok, that's your choice I suppose. So both the legal system and every English dictionary on the planet is absurd? By that definition of stalking, every single avatar you run into on Second Life is stalking you because it's the only way for anyone to see or interact with your avatar. That's why TOS 2.4 exists. Public is not private. There is no expectation of privacy in public. Did you know that there are countless scripts across the grid that report the same thing to their creator? You just don't know about them because they aren't in the form of bots that all have the same name. Again, the bots all having the same name is not the behavior of someone who's up to no good. It's the ones who hide that you have to worry about. No, it must cause a reasonable person emotional distress, and it must be intentional. The legal term for the intent there is what's called "mens rea" which is a latin phrase meaning "guilty mind", which means intent. At least for criminal accusations (and stalking is a criminal thing) there must be intent. Like Solar said, if you believe the Bonnies are legitimately stalking you, file a police report.

While it's possible to do some educated guess work about IPs that tune into a radio station on SL and connect that to an avatar, there's really nothing the Bonnies can do that are like that. They also tend to rez in at 4000 meters altitude which is WELL out of render range even for most skyboxes. That means that you don't even have to worry that much about them using prim media attachments, and if you do worry about that, just disable loading media sources on attachments. It's there in the media tab of the your viewer settings. So outside of that, what data could someone use to connect to your real world identity? What about your attachments says you're John Smith at 1234 Street Rd of Springfield, America? The thing you're missing here is the Bonnies aren't collecting any data that you aren't already broadcasting to them by wearing your prims, or being present on a sim. I know this because I know how Second Life works inside and out. I know what kind of data they can gather, how they can gather it, and the extent to how it can be done. Bots like this have existed since the libOMV project got first started. I don't hold it against anyone for not knowing what libOMV is. It's an open source project that predates the official LL viewer going open source. If you've ever heard of "copybot" you've heard of libOMV. Copybot was a thing a troll did with libOMV and it caused a huge stir. I actually helped the Lindens figure out how to stop CopyBot long enough for the libOMV crowd to purge their ranks of the troll cancer they had. A friend of mine is currently using a descendant of libOMV to make a new third party viewer using the Unity game engine. It's no where near ready for public testing but it's caused a bit of a stir with the OpenSim crowd. Google "Crystal Frost Viewer" and "Berry Bunny". But That's neither here nor there. The point is... bots of this sort have existed for nearly 15 years now. They've always been on Second Life. A person on SL named Lou Netizen actually has a grid wide network used to detect and track bots, though I doubt their list of them is comprehensive. Lou's list of bot activity tracks the Bonnie cohort bots under the alias "Chuck" https://www.lounetizen.com/botdata/cohorts/ The difference between the Bonnies and most of the bots of this sort is that the person running the Bonnies is being transparent about what data is being used and how the data is being used, and sharing the data with everyone instead of hoarding it like some kind of creep. Have you even tried talking to a Bonnie? There's a person on the other end. They won't always respond right away because... you know, humans have to eat, sleep, and have day jobs. But there is a person on the other end. If you are polite and ask questions about how the data is used, they will respond, and in my interactions, they've been very forthright and their answers jive with observations. Is it? What is your thinly veiled accusation, exactly? The only other thing you said was a suggestion about opting out... And you said it to Skyler, not me. Since Skyler's speaking in collective first person pronouns regarding the bonnie bots, I was under the impression the suggestion would be more up their alley, not mine. I was just responding to point out that your "data protection laws" thing isn't very well thought out. Since so many of those who are paranoid (I don't say that in a judgemental tone) about the bonnie bots are so very concerned about the TOS, allow me to direct you to section 2.4 of the Second Life TOS. So you see, you already agreed to let the Bonnies use the data. I went over the most restrictive privacy laws in the world, those of the EU. They allow fully anonymized data to be collected without your permission. Since none of the data in SL can be connected to your real world identity without you actually doxing yourself, there's no legal ground to stand on there either. But what do I know? I'm not exactly a lawyer, even if I do know how to read the law well enough to have been to court multiple times, pro se (means self representing) and never lost a case. But like I said, I'm not a lawyer. What do I know? If you have a valid moral reason for the Bonnies to not gather fully anonymized data, or you have evidence that it's not fully anonymized, I'm all ears. I'm sure the person who runs it would like to know if you have valid moral reasons for not collecting fully anonymized data. Heck, it seems the EU would like to hear it too because even the EU thinks fully anonymized data is harmless to collect.

Data protection laws protect a person, not an avatar. While there is a person behind the avatar, the person's data is secure. If you disagree, tell me what my legal name is. LL has it laying around somewhere because I bought my account back when you couldn't join Second Life for free. Looking at your account info, it looks like you joined after it became free. So LL might not have your real name. I know you don't have my real name. Bonnie doesn't have it. Bonnie doesn't have your real name. Nobody here but LL has any of our email addresses unless we've chosen to divulge it to someone. What data protection laws have been violated, exactly? Don't merely name some law, actually cite the law itself and explain how it's a violation. For example, some people think that being required to show a vaccine card to gain entry to a store is a violation of HIPAA, but it's not. HIPAA prevents medical professionals from divulging your medical records except to specific types of parties, and under specific circumstances. There's no wording in it that prevents a privately owned establishment from requiring proof of vaccination. So has a specific law has been violated? If so, which one, and how does it meet the criteria of that data privacy law?

Well I object to helicopters flying over my home at all hours. They claim to be looking for someone who wandered away from a retirement home, but what are they REALLY after? Do you use Firestorm? Cuz that setting only prevents you from showing up on the web search, not the people search in the old search API which Firestorm and other third party viewers still provide access to. For that matter, that option is COMPLETELY toothless, assuming it even works at all. You don't even have to log in to Second Life to get someone's profile. All you need to do is point a web browser at https://my.secondlife.com// and then the name of the avatar. If it's an avatar with a last name like mine, it'll be be like: https://my.secondlife.com//myra.loveless Here's yours: https://my.secondlife.com//carlawetter It works even when someone doesn't click the useless checkbox to not be searchable. Blame LL because in both cases all avatars can have their profiles searched and pulled up regardless of that check box, using the tools LL provides themselves to the general public. (edit) In fact the above web method provides far more details about the avatar than Bonnie does. The only thing Bonnie does differently is make the text in a profile searchable. That's actually a handy feature because it lets you find like minded people that wouldn't otherwise be possible to find. Speaking of which, it seems that people fall off of the bonnie search if they aren't seen by a bonnie for a specific period of time. This again lends itself to the idea that it's to find like minded people, because there's no point in letting you search for people who don't log in anymore. Combine that with the fact that the search box on the bonnie website directs you to search for terms rather than avatar names further lends credence to that. It's not speculation on my part, it's preponderance of evidence. Again, like I said, object all you like. I object to birds. Filthy, noisy creatures always waking me up and following me everywhere. I mean really, everhwhere I go, there's birds within line of sight, even if I can't see them. They're EVERYWHERE and they're always pooping on everything.

Oh, yeah, they're totally listening in on your conversations and compiling a list of everybody who wears an open collar so they can black mail people by exposing their kinky SL relationships to their employers. Yeah totally. Oh wait, they don't stick around long enough to record conversations? There's no way to programmatically connect your avatar to your real world identity? Also, only sticking around on a sim for 20 seconds before disappearing is completely consistent with only gathering the data shown on the webpage? Well, they're still totally nefarious, because... because... oh look, someone left some cookies on the counter. Oh wait, they have raisins in them. Yuck.

No, actually, it's not. There's no targeted advertising services in SL at all. None. There's also no way to tie the information gathered to data gathered about you by targeted advertising services outside of SL, at least not if you don't go and put your email address in your profile. I get that data collection is generally done for marketing, but... seriously, someone wearing leutka teeth in second life... Oooh, wow, what now? Does that mean Google now knows that. um. what? That you bought a Leutka head, took it off, but forgot to remove the teeth? How is that marketable? Seriously, I find that bit of the bonnie bots webpage to be the most interesting. It's downright hilarious even. That's what I infer from it, that more people who buy a Leutka head stop wearing it and forget to remove every part of it. If you don't want your avatar's data being transmitted to anyone, don't log in. The only way anyone can see your avatar in Second Life is if it's transmitted to other avatars. You aren't a Linden, you don't get to lurk and be invisible. At this point I'm imagining people getting upset that when they talk to someone on the phone, their voice is reproduced on the other person's phone without permission... That's how silly the "my avatar attachments are protected personal information" argument actually is. Any time a Bonnie is spent trying to locate a specific person instead of surveying the grid is time not spent surveying the grid. Seems to me that targeted stalking is therefore counter productive to the project's apparent goals. Anything more frequent than the 47 minutes you've calculated could be due to optimization: frequenting more populous sims more frequently, and less populous sims less frequently. Reading all of this is really quite tiresome. I get it though... If you hear a rustling in the bush, and assume it's just the wind when it was really a tiger, you've made a deadly mistake. But if you assume it's a tiger when it's really the wind, it's just an embarrassing mistake. Yet assuming it's a tiger and it's really a tiger, well that gives you a better chance of escaping alive. So yeah, I get it... your risk assessment instincts are doing exactly what they evolved to do and misidentifying the wind as a tiger.

I've been on SL for nearly 19 years. I rarely pop my head up anymore because of nonsense like what's going on in this thread... So rarely do I pop my head up that this is my first post since this particular version of the forums was created. It says I "joined" in 2010, but look up my profile on Second Life. You won't find me on BonnieBots.com because I rarely ever log in to Second Life anymore, and when I do it's generally sims that are group restricted. Not that I care. You people are freaking out entirely too much over a network of land survey and census bots. The only non-anonymized information it's collecting is your profile which is already public. Yes it's collecting the data about the attachments you wear, but it's only taking a census of the attachments, not going "so and so wears this or that attachment." So if you wear scripted diapers, your secret won't be exposed by the Bonnies. I'm using that as an example because I can't understand why anyone would be concerned about the knowledge that they wear a Maitreya avatar. Oh no, a name popped up in the sim I'm in. Oh no, the same or similar name popped up again in the sim I'm in. If the Bonnie bots all used entirely different names you wouldn't even know they exist. Nefarious bots would not draw attention to their existence. They'd operate in the shadows using such a large variety of names that you'd never know the names occasionally popping up are associated with each other. And nobody's being stalked by them. Seriously, if we change Bonnie Bot to Amazon delivery van and Sim to Neighborhood, would you take someone seriously if they were saying Amazon delivery vans were stalking them because everywhere they go, there's a high chance of seeing one? I get that you're unnerved. I get that you're panicking. These feelings are valid and understandable. They are however misapplied here. One of two possibilities. Either the person running them named them all the same because they're a troll and delight in seeing people panic over nothing, or the bots are named all the same in an effort to be transparent about who is popping up every once in a while in various sims. Given the fact that they have the webpage and it shows useful information like popular sims, abandoned land you can claim, and it provides a better way of searching profiles than Linden Lab provides, I'd say transparency is the answer here. Go to the Bonnie webpage's profile search. Don't search for a name. Search for a concept. Search for "role play" search for "motorcycle" etc. Now do that with the Linden Lab search. Now stop panicing over someone trying to improve Second Life by providing features Linden Lab refuses to provide themselves. As for llGetObjectDetails being "terrible"... Why? Oh no, someone can use a script to tell that you have subscribed to Second Life. Wow, what are they going to do with THAT information? Remember how I said I've been on Second Life for almost 19 years? I paid $10 for my account. See that name there? It says Myra Loveless? Yeah, I paid $10 for that. How much money did you pay to join Second Life? Why does this matter? Because I remember when accounts went totally free. The number of griefers skyrocketed because it became free to get a totally new account after being banned. Or just to make a throw away account to grief someone with. A griefer who's serious about it would even create a large number accounts and let them age so that the low age wouldn't set off anybody's alarm bells. So, Linden Lab implemented that feature in llGetObjectDetails. That way you could tell who has invested real world money into Second Life. That makes the individual less likely to be willing to just throw their account away to grief someone. That's why llGetObjectDetails has that feature, so security orbs and whatnot can be set up to restrict land to people who have a vested interest in not getting banned, or notify a region's staff of people who don't.