Phil Deakins

@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.

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.

I'll see your "try not to" and raise you a "don't ever!"

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.

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.

@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

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.

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.

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.

No. I'm saying exactly the opposite - that everyone has his/her own Second Life, and nobody needs to "eff off and go join Tinder" because they don't share BilliJo Aldrin's view of Second Life. First she said that "its YOUR second life" and followed it by saying that all those who have a particular Second Life that they choose can "eff off and go join Tinder". In the space of a few lines she totally contradicted herself. That's what I pointed out.

Make up your mind. You want it both ways. Either it's my Second Life, in which case I am free to feel deceived if that's what I choose, or I can "eff off and go join Tinder" because it's not my Second Life. Nice try, but you can't have it both ways.

I'm still leaning towards my previous thought. The 4-byte (assuming 4 bytes) integer that is used for an account's flags has plenty of spare bits for flags we don't know about, and one of them has been, or is still being, used for other things, such as being thought to be a bot, perhaps from ARs. When agent_automated is requested for an account, instead of ANDing the flags with 0x4000, it is ANDed with another number that examines 2 of the bits. Anything > 0 indicates either scripted agent, or the other, or both, and is returned as scripted agent. It would fit with being able to change the status in the Scripted Agent Status page, and it sticking as 1 or 0. For that page, only the 0x4000 bit is ANDed. And it could possibly fit with my false positives, especially if individually they were ARed rather than seen together with other ones. It may be an old flag that is no longer used, but any that were set in the old days remain set. Bots and Picks.

The 4 remaining false positives have never had anything changed about their account. They are just 4 of many that I created way back and used only for the purposes they were created. Wicked's account was changed a long time ago, when it was briefly a Premium.

We have cat bots now?

Well, I got a reply on the ticket, but not what I was looking for. It was as I thought - a support ticket is a request for a fix the account's problem, and that's what it got. Wicked Leigh is now not returned as scripted agent lol. However, my JIRA attracted a response from Maestro Linden. He asked me to take each of the false positive accounts over to Bellisseria to see if they could get in. That's how I discovered that Wicked Leigh is no longer a scripted agent lol. The other 4 can't get in. So we may make some progress on finding out what causes the false positives. I'm still leaning towards my current theory that I posted on the previous page, even though Wicked Leigh was never used as a bot, at least not after traffic bots became illegal.

I have a high-tech security system that would be ideal for it

Seriously? It is futile to suggest such a thing.

I opened a support ticket yesterday for one of the 5 accounts that are wrongly returned as scripted agents, hoping to find out what the cause is. I'm not bothered about getting an agent's flag changed, which I think is what a support ticked would be for. I'm only interested in reporting a bug. It is troublesome for SL that AGENT_AUTOMATED returns false positives, and must be regarded as unreliable. If it's a bug, then surely a JIRA is the way to go. But if it behaves as intended, then I think we need to know why it does it. I've developed a very rough idea of what might possibly be causing it, but I do think we need to know. ETA: Incidentally, there isn't a category that's even remotely suitable for a support ticked so I has to choose one that has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Maybe it won't even be accepted.

I doesn't mean what you are implying. It means 'of one mind'; i.e. multiple individuals are of one mind about something. I am unanimous about that

TIL that, although banlines only go up a short distance, they are actually effective all the way up the parcel column. I was helping a customer, who told me that the my security device allows another avatar in the level because it's in the white list. But after it's logged out and logs back in, it lands outside the parcel, and she thought that the LevelGuard was doing it. She TPed me over and I landed outside too, as did an alt of mine. This was on and around a platform way up in the sky. It turned out that she had banlines turned on. They didn't prevent avatars from moving onto the platform, but they did prevent them from landing there. So banlines have an effect all the way up the parcel column.

If LL's policy on scripted agents has changed since they introduced the scripted agent status, then I've missed the change. It wasn't a requirement back then unless they were on land that was set to show in search.

So am I? lol

I certainly will. I haven't written all these posts only to keep quiet if I find anything out

Sorry about what? The laugh? I thought it fit beautifully I've submitted a support ticked for Wicked Leigh, hoping to find out why it happens. There was no remotely suitable option in the Account Issue list and I had to pick one that's unsuitable. I hope it goes through.

A thought is meandering through my mind I did use a lot of bots at one time, and I'm wondering if the false positives accounts were reported and flagged back then as individuals. I registered some obvious ones but not others, and odd ones might have been reported. A Linden might have simply flagged the reported one, and not looked for others. It's just a thought. @Silent Mistwalker I'm back to not altogether ruling out the bots possibility