CarlaWetter

And for that reason it's of no use for anything resembling mainland. Not to mention that it kinda requires honesty and cooperation by the bot herders by setting the "scripted agent" flag. So that solution may accomodate estate owners, but it does absolutely nothing for renters and us mainlanders. At the current state of affairs with about 150 active bots seen per month and between 5 and 20 cycled out of duty every month, running them through a parcel banlist is indeed entirely futile and has been futile for a couple of years already. (My numbers come from a homegrown blacklist & eject system running on four or five mainland regions and parcels.)

Perhaps worth noting in this context that the block list (muted, residents and objects) is stored serverside while the asset_blacklist.xml in Firestorm contains derendered items and gets stored locally per user. It's not quite the same thing. The asset_blacklist is easy to share between accounts and even different computers, but there's no local equivalent for the block list to be shared.

It looks like one can. If one is an estate manager. Mere mortals can't. Source: PS: As I'm a mainlander these days I can't verify this any longer.

Default is just another personal EEP on you. Hit the [X] right of the Personal Lighting button to actually reset to Shared, which on your parcel would be the settings you applied to it.

Because it does not really make a difference. To stay with my earlier long winded explanation, "obscuring" MOAP is a limit that generally tells your viewer to ignore MOAP content outside your parcel. It still has nothing to do with the question if your viewer connects to a third party MOAP source or not.

All a region or media prim does is to tell your viewer that there is something or other to be found at some url. It's entirely up to your viewer to initiate a connection to said media url. The region, prim, script can't do anything to force you to initiate that connection. If you don't connect there is no capture because yor viewer never called back to the questionable service. It does not tell the inworld prim or script or land that hey, here it is and it might consider listening. And no radio stream or media on a prim within SL will ever know if you've listened, watched or ignored it, it has by itself no means to sense use of an outside service by a viewer. One COULD obviously have a server script call back to some script within SL to report viewers or listeners as many DJ boards do. That's however something that again only happens if your viewer initiated a connection to that server. No music listened to, no IP to be logged on the music server. Media does not happen between SL and the viewer. SL only tells you that there is some media. Same as it may tell your viewer that there are clouds on the virtual sky or a prim cube has a plywood texture. Your viewer won't tell anything in SL that it views, listens or ignores the offer. That's only between your computer and the media server which is not within SL.

Spelling out the websites name happened in the very first initial post in this thread already, just sayin'.

As that's how their system has to ascertain who opted out you can be absolutely sure that they do have the username of the person opting out.

Dead horse, I know but as you quote me personally, here it's again spelled out: I don't object to the avatar data being available as such, I object to the large scale data collection. Candlelight is different from burning down a barn, even if you may be able to light both up with just the same little matchbox. And I'm quite fed up with all those blanket 'arguments' that if you don't like it, don't log in. Now some people have chosen for their own personal reasons to not show up in the LL avatar search. Those 'survey bots' can't even know about this for technical reasons, so their avatar search defaults to just make the gathered data available anyway. And not only in the rather meagre way LL search works but with a nice keyword search on top. I actually think such a system isn't altogether that bad, it might perhaps really help to connect people with common interests. But I can't really know why someone choses to not be shown in search and it's not on me to judge the legitimacy of that choice. Neither is that something these data collectors should ignore. Obviously they can change their ways. So they stopped visiting the region where I happen to live, which would be a remarkable coincidence if it had nothing at all to do with this thread. Seems that someone decided to add a kind of opt out mechanism as it was suggested earlier here. Or may be not, that's not been communicated. So they do change their ways, may be. Well, now there's another thing to think of, a way to honour peoples wish to not be searchable. Not for me personally, I've always been searchable and show my online status to the world as well. For the very simple reason that it's the right thing to do for an operation that calls us to "be excellent to another". TL;DR: Not everything that technically possible and looks somewhat clever and fun on top is ethically advisable.

No, I point out that it's technically impossible NOT to collect the data without the datapoints given. I have NOT claimed that there is more data collected and that's therefore not an issue currently. You tore own a strawman there, sorry. Calling that conjecture fails the actual matter entirely that you still won't address. It's conjecture that the data has been thoroughly deaggregated through the operators. That it has been collected still is a fact. But be it as it is. You've invested yourself in the defense of that operation and attack the messenger instead of discussing the message. I'm not entirely surprised. But mainly I'm no longer interested in wasting time on this. I've said what I think about that operation and calling it paranoid is no way to change my mind. And actual arguments are not forthcoming and no longer expected.

That's of course factually wrong and you are in a position to know it. The data presented by the bot herders can only be collected as an aggregate associating avatars, worn attachments, locations and time of collection. Now my so called paranoia is that I point these facts out. Nowhere is an assurance that their data is only used to the 'published' purposes. And we know for a fact that they happily use the collected profile informations for a searchable database of avatars, by name, group associations and interests regardless of an avatar would want to be searched in such a way. If they have not considered abusing their data, good on them but there's no such assurance out. At other social networks such datamining outfits have gotten in legal hot water. Of course now you'll say that an avatar isn't as such a protected personal identificator, which on the face of things is probably correct, but from that does not follow that datamining the heck out of SL is legally the same and especially not that it is ethical to do. In my opinion it isn't. If that allows a clinical analysis of my mindstate is better left to accepted experts in that matter So if you have only handwaving and ... ahem ... psychological expertises about me or others to contribute, don't waste my time. Ah, don't waste my time anyway.

Thank you for your highly appreciated and doubtlessly well qualified diagnosis. Too bad that it does not address the topic.

I believe the technical side has been figured out. It obviously is possible to brute force such a bot based surveillance. I'm much more interested in the question if running such a mass surveillance system is ethically acceptable. As a typical European in that regard I have very great doubts. The system they run is implemented to circumvent perceived shortcomings in the data made available by LL. That's ethically questionable to the extreme for a laughable result in their published data. A mass surveillance giving us a bunch of regions with a double digit visitor number (and I don't really mind them putting Sirens Isle in a high spot), that's about as useful to know as how many Lel teeth you'll meet out there, statistically. It's not better than Destinations, only more intrusive by orders of magnitude. And the 'data' published is necessarily only the tip of the iceberg. Why should we trust some nameless bunch of scripties with a data collection containing the whereabouts of our avatars, their online times and attachments? Again, it's not the legality of any single data point collected, it's the aggregation of the data where the whole operation goes beyond the pale. This special horde is singled out now because they make their aggregated data in part available which does not help their legitimacy much. But it again puts suspicion on other bot hordes that shy away from publishing anything about their activities. Of the 136 roaming bots I've logged as active over the last 12 months there are TWO with a well known, documented purpose, run in an open and ethical way. What's with the rest?

I would think that they collect the profile data from everyone they see in a region they haunt. That's in no way affected by any "show in search" toggle anywhere. Obviously they are not guided by any other consideration than "because I can do this". Quick test, an alt of me that has not been online for a good while longer than these bots are around is searchable in the regular SL search functions but unknown to the bot site. So yes, they collect everything they can grab from dropping into a region with people. While one may maintain the view that it's all just public information collected, I still think the sheer mass of collected information about avatars and their whereabouts is ethically highly questionable and while probably not literally against TOS yet, I would very much hope that LL would for a change do something against this mass data aggregation. And not just aggregating this data but publishing it as well in a searchable database unaffected from such peculiarities like some users expressed wish not to be found in search is everything but being excellent to another.

This sounds a lot like an error condition sailors happen to run into a lot. Usually you get it on a vehicle when you happen to get disconnected from SL (the fabulous death by grey screen). Sit targets won't just be freed. Associated JIRA

I have often encountered instant vehicle returns in regular Blake Sea regions on slow crossings. While the regions themselves have a non zero autoreturn, they often seem to behave as if the time counted not for a single region but for all the Bake Sea ocean regions together. Pro Tip: Don't have bad crossings in Blake Sea. Corollary: There are rez zones in the NE of each Blake Sea region.

It's in Preferences, Notifications, Inventory: Log filename of saved snapshots in to local chat history secondlife:///app/openfloater/preferences?search=log%20filename Happy New Year

As I don't care to track any kind of visits on neighbour parcels or public lands, my point indeed is all about land owners to opt out. So you're only distracting from the issue of multiple unwanted intrusions into peoples places, nonchalantly waved away with "once in a while for a few seconds" wilfully avoiding to face the issue people have with this kind of intrusion. The bots collect a large amount of data associated with the targets UUID. That one public use of that data is to display the association from UUID, profile pic and rez day points to an unanomymized data storage. 'That's all I am about. Your claim to be able to look up rezdays on profiles is just a distraction from the actual issue that there is some massive data pool we are just told that it's "interesting" or "fun". If you want to know my rezday, you don't indeed have to send out nearly a dozen bots all over SL day after day, you can as well look it up in my profile. Which would even have some kind of personal touch other than some automated system pushing some profile pic on a wall. What's so humanly great about that? And you don't need to know if I wear Lel teeth either, you're not my dentist. To make it abundantly clear, I am personally running an accessible place with marina and even a little airfield. I am happy for actual visitors that make use of the facilities. Bots do not add anything positive to the social context of any such places, they are just some intrusive, automated nuisance. What use is it to know that Lel teeth are what you will meet most often in your fave club? Why do these bots have to pop in up to eight times a day to present us witch such lame researched "fact"? Already quite a while before the rise of the B-bots I've changed from using some commercial orbs with their limit of just 100 names, one per parcel and wrote a script that just exists to handle a large amount of bot id's to blacklist and kick out from any "same owner" parcel within a region. It does not collect visitor names from neighbour parcels, it does not look at visitors from other places, it does not look anything up on external services because I respect peoples expecation of privacy. All data it collects is that it will store a date and time with the bot it encountered, keeping track of bot activities all over. I've given the system to friends that wanted to get rid of bots on their lands too, so the system now runs in multiple places, some full regions, some private parcels. I'm not giving away lists of bot names and I did not really consider giving away the NoBot system, but this nonchalant attitude here might soon make me reconsider. Why all the drama now around the Bbots you may ask? Well, they manage to easily show up three times as often as all other known bot hordes together. Which indicates that, whatever bots do, the Bbots have by far the worst attitude and create the most bad rep for bots at large. I've never considered adding Tychos gridsurvey bot to my list, nor have I added Lous bot even if I don't see such a big point in statistics about avatar shapes. The Bbots however have gone so far above and beyond everything we've ever before encountered that I'm not willing to accept them in their current modus operandi at any of my places. So while you may want to paint me as an obsessive control freak I still maintain that I don't do any more than what all the roaming bot fandom keeps suggesting. Eject&Ban. But the sheer numbers forced me to stay away from parcel and estate ban lists. The same way you can tell me to move into some protected little glass bowl I can tell you to take your overreaching hordes and learn a bit about what it might really mean to be excellent to each other.

To be fair, bots have been added to parcel and estate ban lists as long as they popped up in peoples private homes. So it's a bit of a stretch to conclude that no one ever objected to them.

It would not prevent them from showing up say, on another parcel, so I prefer to send them away as soon as they arrive. And they are not alone, so with a list of currently 254 known active bots of a list of 430 names total I don't care to track and manually add those pests on rather limted space of parcel ban lists in multiple places. Instead I'll continue to rely on my own little "NoBots" system in the places which don't want to have to do with your not very good looking data collection system. Let's have a look at that innocent and fun statistic about current and upcoming attachments used. So it's allegedly totally anonymized and all public information. First, it's not that anonym as you can not collect a list of attachments without collecting the wearers UUID first. So the data collection already begins pretty much non-anonymized and no one said that it's stored in an anonymized form. Which would be hard to tell with a straight face when there's that "birthday board" to display avatars on their rezdays which indeed points to an avatar keyed data pool. Second, publicly available information may as such be fine to see but a massively aggregated collection of them tends to fall into a different category, especially if the whole ethics behind the collection comes down to "I think it's fun" and "Because I can do it". Where is the reason to trust any of this? Is it really a sensible attitude to hit up "at least every region in SL once a day" as I seem to remember one of the statements to find 20 or 30 crowded spaces that are not already on Destinations? If there even are that many. I would strongly recommend the implementation of an opt out mechanism, both for lands and avatars because hitting up random places multiple times a day that aren't even some random shopping event, meeting place or party bunk is just plain inconsiderate.

I can't really think of any sensible reason to drop into our pacel eight times in a single day. And that's parcel, not full region. Whatever you think you do, it's beyond practical reason and in my opinion pretty much abusive.

As I was counting over 450 bot accounts over the years, excluding all bots with a documented purpose (that's two if you must know), I'm waiting for a serious attempt to publish purpose, scope and collected data from this bot horde before I'd remove them from my orb system. And those "at least once a day" visits can often amount to something like eight per monitored place. That puts this specific bot group on the top of the nuisance visitor lists by a wide margin. I'd easily be equally if not more happy if they just get retired. Thank you. Note, an unpublished purpose may be as sensible as happy sunshine, but as long as it stays unpublished it's indistinguishable from any other random abusive resource hogging for us.

Grid Status currently mentions intermittent outages on Voice, see https://status.secondlifegrid.net/incidents/4yk18gt59lt1

If you travel a lot, say, by plane or boat and you get chatted up by IM it happens quite often, nearly regularly that an IM sent at the moment when you're in a transit will go to your mail and then show up in your viewer on your next login. Has been that way for years I would say. Can be a bit awkward so I let everyone IM'ing me know that I'm travelling and may miss parts of the communications randomly.

As it told you, the root prim can not be set to physics none. Only child prims in a linkset can be set that way. If you have a single prim object, all you can possibly hope for is a reduction in physics impact if you set it from prim to convex hull. Beware, tortured classic prims, not mes, can explode in land impact massively when set to convex hull. So use with care. Best way to reduce the impact of a complicated physics shape in a single prim mesh is to link it as child to a root prim and set the child to physics type none. When you click the "More Info" link in your edit floater you'll get an additional info floater that can give you a better picture of where the object/linkset collects most of its LI. There are three relevant weight factors, Download, Physics and Server. The highest number rounded up or down determines the land impact of the object. (Display is more of a render complexity measure and does not impact LI that directly.) Ex: 12.3 Downoad, 5.4 Physics, 10.2 Server Here we end up with a LI of 12, the highest of those three numbers. This can help greatly in determining if playing with physics shapes would have any impact on the LI of the object. Edit: If you select a linkset and set it all to physics none, you get both an error message like above and all child links set to physics none. However, this isn't necessarily visible at once. While repeating the process won't hurt, it does not really help either. Eventually the simulator and viewer will agree and report the LI correctly either way.