Casey Pelous
-
Posts
205 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Forums
Blogs
Knowledge Base
Posts posted by Casey Pelous
-
-
Starry Questi wrote:My partner and I own well over a SIM. We definately do not use or allow Red Zone and have the green Zone decctors all around for people to get. We have a Mall, Shopping areas, Clubs, residential areas and interactive areas. I am currently having a problem with a neighbor who has her two Red Zone bots set for SIm wide, when she does not own the whole SIM, and is not listening about setting it for her parcel. These two Red Zone Bots fly through where I am trying to rent houses, at the rate of once a minute. I have parcel music off and set object entry to only group, yet they still fly through my property at once a minute. This has become a problem trying to rent houses on my property. (I did send an AR, we will see what happens)My opinion of Red Zone- I personally know they gave someone names of another person's ALTS, and it was for personal reasons, nothing to do with copy bot. Their database has questionable security and their employees aparantly none, as they give out ALT's. I understand LL has made it so they cannot collect alt names recently, so it is said anyway, now, but although better late than never, Red Zone's database is absolutely enourmous and already has info on ALTS, and a lot more info as well. My husband does security for the Gov. I am not blowing smoke here. Red Zone is a stalkers dream come true.Just a thought, how about banning BOTS all together? Reasons stated by those who are for bots are ridiculous, they can use an ALT. hmmm, bots make the number count of the amount of people on SL rise by the thousands, maybe that is the reason LL does not care? ONly thing I ever saw them do abolut it was go after campers and take camping pads out. idk
Hi, Starry. Just to clarify, RedZone continues to gather alt data. Indeed, it was never interrupted by anything other than the maker's server going down a couple of times. All that LL has prohibited thus far is the revelation of that alt data via an inworld object. The maker has already threatened to take the database offline and offer it on a subscription basis.
Bots would be difficult to ban, since they are just avatars being run by a computer rather than a human operating a computer. There are a few areas where they are very useful, especially in the area of group invitations which are clumsy to handle via the scripting language. There are also companies that run them to gather economic data such as "busiest sims", etc. One could even argue that we need a bot net programmed to look for URL's that are attempting to violate privacy, since the RedZone folks and their competition are already experimenting with ways of masking the URL that gathers your data as an innocent address. As for bots running up the numbers, they are SUPPOSED to be identified as bots via the account's web page so that they don't run up the numbers. How diligent are folks about that? Well, there are penalties for not doing so, so at least the Lab is doing more than just suggesting it's a "good idea".
Those RedZone "bots" aren't real bots, anyway -- they're just objects being rezzed inworld, much like any "full sim scanner" would use, but with much different purposes, of course.
-
-
Gina Chrome wrote:Actually, this is a great question. I own eight sims, residential and commercial. I use RedZone on my main sim and it has served us well. I have never received a complaint about any of my residents having or using RedZone themselves. But this topic does make me think that we need to look ahead and decide how we will handle it when it does happen.I can tell you that I do not use the hud that came with the updated. I really do not care if people have alts. The only time I access RedZone is if someone has to be banned. I will also ban their alts. This has been a valuable tool for me. However, I do see how people could misuse the product.Kind Regards,Gina Chrome
Gina, I guess you also mention it in your covenant, not just on some obscure web site your potential and current tenants would never know to visit, right? Oh ....wait ....by then, your unit would have already harvested, without notice, their data and fed it to every other user of the system on the grid. That system that you say "could be" misused. The ethical thing, then, would be to mention it prominently in all your advertising, fully explaining the functions, so people can choose whether to even visit your sim. Since that system is such a good thing, that shouldn't be a problem. It's for their own good, after all.
-
I think, Steven, there are two key areas for us to focus. 1) Consent to scan. The alt detectors are still scanning invisibly and I believe the vast majority of users are oblivious. So far as I know, the viewers as delivered default to a less-than-fully secure state -- that includes the media patch already in the Cool viewer and the coming update of Phoenix being defaulted to "off". 2) Nevertheless, "they always find the blue dress" as I heard a public relations consultant say recently. Awareness will spread. Those of us who are aware and who care about the future of our little pixel world are called, I believe, to share the needed information with those who don't know and to share it in a way that fully informs yet welcomes them to continue being residents. The helpers at at least one of the resident help sims are already mastering this by working it in casually to their chats with new residents who come to them for help. We can do this in a way that is world building, not world destroying. Unfortunately, at this point, the only fully safe method is to switch voice, music, media and cookies off permanently. This breaks significant amounts of content, including Search in viewer 2.5. So -- we educate them about TPV's based in viewer 1, too. While the media patch and full disclosure of media URL's is a great tool, it really has nothing to say about which URL's are suspicious and which aren't. We had quite a lengthy discussion in another forum today on this topic and the very knowledgeable folks there were, thus far, unable to come up with any method of reliably detecting suspicious URL's -- and certainly no simple method that would work for the average user. I won't blather on about the technical details -- trust me, we worked this one over in some depth. Until the exploit is patched -- not a trivial exercise -- that's the best we can do. This doesn't need to be the boogieman that killed SL -- it can be a nuisance we dealt with while LL developed more powerful technologically and policy based methods.
-
...............you WORKED to put your RL info up on the web for every data miner on the planet?????
Did you enjoy having your computer's innards poked around in by those Like and Tweet buttons on your web profile???
(Oh,yeah, you don't even have to click on them or have a Facebook or Twitter account. They're awesome.)
-
I haven't read much of anything here as "trying to undermine LL's authority." Nor really much, "She didn't do anything wrong!" either.
More like .........
"There was this cool, creative person. Such a bright light. And, sheesh, she really screwed up. For creative reasons, not for sinister reasons, but still ...... I know she screwed up, but dang .......I still miss her."
I remember when I was just little, my dad wrote a letter to the court for a friend of his who had stolen some money from the company he worked for. The guy was guilty as could be. But in other matters, that same guy had conducted himself honorably and had made some contributions to the community. I guess that letter really made an impression on me, 'cause many years later I still remember it. I think it made a difference at his sentencing, too.
Even though I've never met her, I feel the same about Keli. Yeah, she screwed up, went overboard ....or as I used to say about my oldest when he was a teen, "stuck that hairy toe over the line one too many times." (Sorry, Keli! Don't actually know about the sartorial state of your toes!) But on balance, she was - and I still hope "will be" - a contribution to our community. She is JUST the sort of person who adds life and fun to our little imaginary world.
I hope "the court" can take those mitigating circumstances into consideration.
mitigating circumstances n. in criminal law, conditions or happenings which do not excuse or justify criminal conduct, but are considered out of mercy or fairness in deciding the degree of the offense the prosecutor charges or influence reduction of the penalty upon conviction.
-
I get it about rules and all, but Keli really sounds like somebody I'd like on my friends list.
Here's hoping for an, "Okay, we're letting you out, now go and sin no more."
-
There are quite a few "resident help" locations ... two I'm familiar with are Help People Island and NCI. I know the Help People group has been studying up on Viewer 2 and would assume likewise with NCI. I'm not a 2.0 user so am not familiar with the problem you describe -- which DOES sound quite annoying.
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
YouTube
Flickr
Basic sculpting program?
in Building and Texturing Forum
Posted
Sculptypaint is indeed free and still available: http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/ with video tutorials here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~elout/sculptpaint/tuto/index.html
If you want to take a bit bigger leap, there is a "special version" of Blender called Jass that includes some remarkable capabilities, including the ability to generate an lsl script that you place in a prim inworld along with your final sculpty textures. The script then assembles your multi-sculpty object right before your eyes.
The basic version is available for what I believe is a voluntary contribution through an inworld site. (Search "Jass".) Gaia Clary's tutorials at http://blog.machinimatrix.org/ are positively wonderful. Though Blender can be a bit intimidating, Gaia's tutorials -- especially if you can put the tutorial up on one screen and have Jass running on another so you can work along with the videos -- will have you creating AND understanding stuff really quickly. (Now you know why you have a laptop AND a desktop!) Making basic sculpties like what you want really isn't that hard in Blender. If you have achieved at least an intermediate level with Photoshop -- using layers, say -- you can learn to use Blender/Jass. If you do, you'll be ready for mesh when it debuts.
Either program will get you going, though.