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Phil Deakins

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Everything posted by Phil Deakins

  1. I already told you that LL produces the viewers that everyone uses. There is no competition. All TPVs are is LL's viewer with a few mods. Or do you actually think that TPVs are created by other people? If you do, then you're wrong. If LL was actually competing, they'd ban TPVs altogether.
  2. Yes, true. We can set and unset accounts without persistence, as I have done myself in these few days. That fact had escaped me when I thought of it whilst writing the post It must be one of those days lol.
  3. Thanks for that 👍 I've sometimes wanted a thumbs up in with the like, thanks, laugh etc. reactions (we could do with one there, and a thumbs down) because thanks and like don't imply quite the same things. Your post made me look at the emojis and they are there. I'll certainly use the thumbs up now, even though I'll have to quote the post.
  4. User numbers only imply competition if more than one is actually competing. LL isn't. LL already has almost 100% viewer user numbers inasmuch as TPVs are LL's viewer with some mods, that's all. LL writes it, and TPVs mod it a bit. TPVs don't write their own - I think that there's one that's written externally but almost all TPV users are using the LL viewer with mods. That's it Yes I know why. It's because it takes significant time for TPVs to incorporate the changes that are in the official viewer, making sure that their mods still work. It's not an overnight task
  5. Firestorm isn't competition. It's the LL viewer with some modifications, that's all. LL likes and supports TPVs because they sometimes come up with good modifications that LL can put into the official viewer, but it's still the LL viewer with some mods. It's not competition
  6. Ah. Yes, I did misunderstand it. I thought you meant that the user didn't want it removed. My mistake.
  7. They probably wouldn't know why they got banned from somewhere, and probably wouldn't even consider a support ticket. This is why the system isn't perfect. I remember discussions about whether or not we should set ourselves as scripted agents when we stay logged in for hours but are nowhere near the keyboard. Some people like to leave their avatars sleeping when they go to bed in RL. If they set them as scripted agents and it sets the internal flag, they won't know why things happen later in life. They'll think the owner of some bot-free place actually banned them. Now that we know about the internal flag, we can suggest trying to TP into Bellisseria to those who post that they were banned from somewhere but don't know why.
  8. That would be a very reasonable assumption. An example would be that, when I was testing the bot detector that I offered for free in GD, I was surprised to see that it had banned a stranger from my little 512. Since then, no other scripted agent has been on the parcel, so I've no idea if is was a potential customer that was booted from my store or not. I suspect it might have been, and, if it was, the person may not have known that he is internally registered as being operated by a programme. Wicked Leigh, my original alt, was never used as a bot and yet she was internally registered as one. I finally went through all my accounts and I have 6 left that are internally registered, but not set as scripted agents. I didn't know about any of them. I did register some since the rules changed way back when, and I'm wondering if the internal flag is set when the user changes the status to scripted agent, and is left set that way when the user changes it back to human. I.e. once a bot, always a bot. It could account for why some of my accounts are internally set and not others, but I can't be sure about that. The system isn't perfect but, on the whole, I think it works. A few people will have accounts that can't get into Bellisseria for instance but they can probably get it fixed with a support ticket.
  9. That sounds as though you are stopping using SL. I suggest that you rethink it, especially in the light this forum where many people have told us the sort of ages they are. Tbh, I've been surprised at how many of us are older and haven't been in the prime of life for a very long time. I'm in the prime of old age, for instance, and I can still get out of SL everything I ever wanted to get out of it
  10. That might be why the accounts weren't informed, but I don't recall any of them being booted out and, if a logged-in agent is determined to be a bot, it would surely be booted out at the time. It's all a very long time ago (I assume lol) and it really doesn't matter. It's just puzzling, that's all. I can have them 'fixed' if it matters but it doesn't, and it may be useful to have some that are "known" for tests in the future. You never know
  11. Yes. But it puzzled me why only a few of mine are "known". From way back, yes, but there were plenty of others from way back, so why only them. For instance, after traffic bots were banned, and just for the enjoyment of doing it, I created more than one bots system that had around 8 bots wandering round the sim in unpredictable routes and they ran on my bot software. I don't remember all the accounts I used, but I do remember some of them and they aren't 'false positives'. I didn't religiously set them as scripted agents because, although they were using bot software, I was actually in control at the keyboard. I can't fathom why the particular 'false positives' that I have came to be flagged. ARs don't make sense in these cases. Anyway, it is what it is, and I'm happy that we got to the bottom of it.
  12. You mean problems like being told they can eff off and go to Tinder? You muckied yer ticket with that comment, lass.
  13. THE ANSWER Maestro Linden posted in the JIRA that the false positives are actually flagged as scripted agents internally. It means that requests for AGENT_AUTOMATED check both bit 15 (the agent_automated flag) and an internal flag. If either flag is set, then 'scripted agent' is returned. It is necessary to do it that way for LL to try and keep bots out of Bellisseria and other places, which is what they try to do. If only bit 15 is used, then bots couldn't be kept out because they'd be set as human, not scripted agents. So AGENT_AUTOMATED works as intended, and there is no bug. I am satisfied In the process, I've discovered 2 unpublished flags. I'm sure I know what one of them is for, but the other is a mystery.
  14. It could be coincidence that the 2 Speedlight accounts that were Gold for short time, are the same 2 accounts that have bit 16 set, while none of the other account have it set. I'm not insisting that bit 16 is the flag for it, but I do think that it's a very reasonable conclusion to make. Nothing has been said in this thread or by LL's jira/support about bit 16, except by me. I no longer see it as being bug. I'm now convinced that it's behaving as intended. I simply don't believe that a bug causes the Scripted Agent account pages to display the wrong settings. Yes, as an experiment, I did set one of the accounts to scripted agent, and back again to human. It made no difference. LL won't tell us the details of why it happens, but Maestro effectively told us why it does - the accounts are set as scripted agents internally. We know it has to be bot-related ("in that direction") because AGENT_AUTOMATED is only about scripted agents and, even though the user-facing accounts pages are set as human, they are returned as scripted agents; i.e. they are set as scripted agents internally, as Maestro said. I see it like this. When a bot is recognised, probably from an AR, a Linden sets a flag for it in a programme form, but not in the user-facing account's page. And that's the flag that is checked along with the user-facing flag when AGENT_AUTOMATED is requested. As far as I am concerned now, what appeared to be a bug is not a bug at all, and we've learned that there is an internal bot/no-bot setting as well as the user-facing setting. It does make sense from LL's point of view, because LL keeps scripted agents out of Bellisseria and other places. If that relied solely on the agent-automated flag, then users could set the accounts as human and the ban on bots wouldn't work. From that point of view, an internal flag is necessary. We have the answer and I'm now satisfied
  15. That's it then. They are not going to tell us why it happens. Maestro Linden just posted this in my JIRA, and then closed it. I can confirm that those agents are flagged as scripted agents internally, so the script is returning the correct result (as is the sim refusing entry). If you have an account in this state, I recommend filing a support ticket requesting a fix for the agent. They are not set as scripted agents in the way that we understand it. They must have been stealthily flagged as bots at some stage in their careers, without any communications with them. It means that AGENT_AUTOMATED is intentionally modified by something else that has to do with bots. They won't tell us what it is, and I have to assume that LL flags agents as bots in another place and, once spotted and flagged, it is never changed. It means that requests for AGENT_AUTOMATED can't be relied upon to return the correct answer. Accounts that get manually flagged as bots, however long ago, are typecast for life as far as LL is concerned. It was interesting finding the flag for Speedlight Gold accounts though, even though that flag can't be relied upon to be correct at the time
  16. @Qie Niangao Yes, the returned integer could be a combination of data pulled from more than one source, but bit 16 and bit 17 (the 1st bit of the 3rd byte) are returned, and we are given no constant for either of those, so I think that the whole integer is returned, but modified for AGENT_AUTOMATED to take account of other data. I still favour the idea that some avatars have been flagged somewhere as bots, although it's flag isn't in the main set of flags that we're talking about, and that the other flag is intentionally used to modify, if necessary, the returned integer when AGENT_AUTOMATED is requested. As you said, someone at LL easily fixed Wicked's account, which does sound like it's known about and the simple resetting of a known flag - the unchecking of an element in a programme form - fixes it for an account. Maestro Linden asked another question in my JIRA today, and I've given him the account name of one of the false positives to see for himself.
  17. I tend to look in the GDF quite a few times a day, partly to see what's happening SLwise, but mostly for a little break from whatever I'm doing. It usually keeps me up to date with what's new in SL. I enjoy a discussion and I like to join in, but only if it's something that I find interesting. I also find it excellent for sharing some useful information that I've found. It's the only place I know where I can do that. It doesn't happen very often though.
  18. I decided to check 32 bits for flags and I now know that there are more 16. So it's probably a 4 byte integer. I'm pretty sure that the 16th bit is the Speedlight Gold flag that (I think) @Love Zhaoying mentioned somewhere. I feel sure of that because I had 2 accounts that were changed to Gold out of the blue when Speedlight was changing to allow everyone to stay logged in 24/7. Their Gold status was turned off when they'd done it, but those 2 accounts are the only ones that it happened to and bit 16 is set for them, but not for others I know there's at 17th bit being used because, while I was testing, an avatar entered the store and she has the 17th bit set. I've no idea what it indicates though. She has payment info used in her profile, so it could be that [ETA: it couldn't be that or bit 17 would be set for me, but it isn't]. And I saw an av a few days ago whose profile stated that it's a Premium account. She didn't have that in her profile so it doesn't indicate a Premium account. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I'm only interested in what causes the false positives. So I discovered that whatever changes the correct scripted agent status to being incorrect when it's returned as a false positive is not in those 4 bytes of flags. It's something else. On the plus side, we can actually check if accounts have Speedlight Gold accounts - if we're so inclined lol.
  19. No certainty at all. It's just a theory that could fit why an account's Scripted Agent Page returns the correct result, but requesting agent_automated for it a different result is returned. I used to have many bots logged simultaneously before traffic bots became illegal, but they were never logged in individually, so the accounts I have that return the wrong scripted agent status didn't make sense; i.e. why would those few be flagged as bots but not lots of them. I complied with the traffic bot ban even before the date it came into force (we were told the date in advance). But I didn't set them all as scripted agents because I wasn't using most of them any more. Those I did use since then were set as scripted agents. But I used add ones for different brief purposes, logging them in with my bot software, without even thinking about setting them, and it may be that a few of those were ARed and set as bots in the LL system. There's no way I can remember which accounts I might have logged in like that or for what reasons, so odd ones may have been ARed and flagged as bots, and they may be the ones that return false positives now. The idea of an account's flags being in the same integer is just my imagination. I like it better than a separate set of flags, that's all. Whatever causes the false positives must be to do with bots because it's taken account of in the new(ish) AGENT_AUTOMATED constant.
  20. @Love Zhaoying Yes, the second flag has presumably been reset for that account. Also, yes, it's a static flag - once set, it stays set. It's probably an old flag that may or may not still be used, but it was still intentionally included in the code for when scripts request the AGENT_AUTOMATED status. That's my theory, anyway. I don't think I've misunderstood your post
  21. The support ticked I opened achieved what I expected. The account was fixed so that it no longer comes back as a scripted agent, which was not the purpose of it. But I have another 4 accounts that are wrongly returned as scripted agents so it's ok. My JIRA has received a bit of activity (Whirly is on it ), but nothing to indicate what the cause of the false positives is. This is my current theory... An account's flags are stored in an integer - probably a 4-byte integer, which means there can be up 32 flags, one of which is the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag (bit 15). When AGENT_AUTOMATED is requested for an account, the code does a logical AND on the flags. For AGENT_AUTOMATED, the flags would be ANDed with 0x4000 to check bit 15. That's what requests for the Scripted Agent Page does, and it comes back correctly. But I'm leaning to the theory that it's not what an AGENT_AUTOMATED request does. I'm thinking that it does an AND on 2 flags - the AGENT_AUTOMATED flag and another. If the result > 0, 'scripted agent' is returned. So when the scripted agent flag is 0, and 'scripted agent' is returned, the other flag must be 1, and It's the other flag that causes the false positives. Since it's been happening from when AGENT_AUTOMATED was introduced, I'm thinking that the other flag is current, and not an old forgotten one. It may have been implemented a long time ago, but it's still taken into account or it wouldn't be affecting AGENT_AUTOMATED requests. And since it's being included, I must be to do with bots. I won't expound on the pros and cons of my false positive accounts. In a nutshell, my theory is that processing script requests for AGENT_AUTOMATED inspects 2 flags, one which is the agent_automated flag and the other is set when an account is thought to be a bot. If it's true, then everything is behaving as expected and there is no bug.
  22. While reading these posts, a memory just surfaced. I have a small, decorated Christmas tree that I wouldn't have if I were bent on not divulging my RL. I've never minded talking about it in SL, and some time ago a girl here sent it to me from the U.S. (I'm in the UK), because I didn't have a Christmas tree. I wasn't bothered about having one, but Christmas was approaching and she insisted that I have one, so she sent it :D. I put it up each year. The things you can miss by being too secretive lol. This is a very long thread, with many different points of view, and they are all right for those who have them. Nobody has the absolute correct way for everyone. Everyone has the absolute correct way for themselves, and that's all. Nobody needs to leave SL because they don't share the views of other people. Everyone can be happily in SL, doing things that are right for them. Personally, if I am going to 'play' with a girl in SL, I at least need to have a good degree of confidence that she is an RL female. And that's right for me. Well it was back when I sometimes 'played', but that was many years ago.
  23. Then that's what she should have said, but she didn't, so it wasn't her intention. She didn't mention anything about how Second Life works. She only talked about how people in Second Life think, first telling us that it's our Second Life, and then telling us, rather crudely, that if we choose to think a certain way (that's different to her way of thinking), we can eff off and go to Tinder.
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