Casey Pelous

Well, good luck with it. I'd stick around to see how you do, but my trust is shattered. The last straw for me was yesterday when your company put people's Real Life/1st Life/Real World profile information (your own people can't seem to keep the ever-shifting terminology straight) back up on the web after saying they'd switched it off -- and didn't even whisper a word about it. While you've been figuring out where to put the stapler, I've been saying goodbye to friends from all over the Earth that I've met here in my four years. While you've been having meetings, I've been backing up my inventory for a move elsewhere. I keep scrambling in my mind for some reason not to go, but I do hold a belief that "we become what we tolerate" and there's really not much of anything about your company that I want to become any more. I'll be watching from a distance, hoping that you inject some integrity and consciousness into Linden Lab. It seems sorely needed.

The Real Life section is indeed back, and fully exposed. Wow. Seriously, wow. And without so much as a "heads up." On January 20th I asked "Is there NO end to the arrogance of this company?" I just got my answer, I guess.

On https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-3494 ..... "Yoz Linden added a comment - 20/Jan/11 12:44 AM As you may have noticed, the Real Life section has been removed from publicly-visible web profiles for the moment, so as to bring the new web profiles in line with the old ones. We don't know if or when they'll be back, but we would like to offer residents more control over the visibility of individual profile sections in the future; if this comes about (the likelihood and timing is not certain) then the Real Life section would be part of that." I was just looking at a friend's web profile ...she was busily implementing the "uncheck Show In Search" and other security measures ....and I read all her Real World section. Oddly, she was not able to see it. The "uncheck Show In Search" was in effect as we both had to log in to my.secondlife.com to see it. Both of us were inworld at the time. Anyone care to check a few more and let us know if LL has switched the Real World section back on? Am I just confused? Do they think that a "publicly-visible web profile" does NOT include all profiles that can "only" be viewed with an SL user name that takes five minutes to acquire for free? Would they actually switch off Real Life for those who are still "Show In Search Positive" and leave it on for those trying to opt out? Or was this just some weird glitch? (It's a couple of hours later now, and I'm still able to read it ......)

No data farmer with any amount of legitimacy whatsoever would do that. What about the ones without any amount of legitimacy? Do you have any idea how many programmers are out of work in the USA? Doesn't matter, though. I'm getting ready to opt out in the only way LL has left me. Been packing up stuff all day off and on.

ahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa..................................WOW, that Facebook sure is secure! http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/26/zuckerberg_facebook_hack/

Last night when I checked your profile I wasn't logged in to SL nor to secondlife.com. This morning I need to log in to secondlife.com to see your profile ....maybe I hit it just at the moment you were twiddling with settings or something? (Or maybe my browser still had a "log on cookie" .... but I was reading the e-mail copy of your post, wasn't reading it here.) In any case, the "you have to be logged in to see this" affords about as much protection as a toilet paper hat in a rainstorm since pretty much anyone with an e-mail address can get an SL user name and password. It doesn't even require a log in for each profile you want to see ....log in once, spider at will! Google won't do that, but if I was a marginally legitimate (or worse) data farmer, I sure would.

I didn't have much problem finding it, Garner. You're a member of TSO and There Refugees A community of both current and former players of TSO and There . . . Join us to chat about the differences and similar ....... right? Try this: https://my.secondlife.com/gamer.grimm/ And, btw? When you click that link, if you have ANY Facebook Connect cookies on your computer, you'll be uploading info to Facebook. If you have a Facebook account and have THAT cookie on your computer, you'll be uploading your Facebook user name along with the rest. Click away!

AdBlock Plus http://adblockplus.org (there are versions for Firefox and Chrome as well as some lesser-known browsers, but no Safari that I saw ...) and the "anti-Social" subscription for adblockplus here: http://adversity.uk.to/ claim to block at least some of Facebook's assault technology. You can also just set a filter to vanish SL's Facebook and Tweet buttons on SL web based profiles very simply. Just click the little "stop sign" in your address bar after you install adblockplus, then "Easy Create Filter" and right click on the button or ad you want to disappear. Poof, it's gone! I'm not at all sure this stops the upload of the data from the FB cookies you might have been infected with on other sites, though. Maybe someone more technically adept knows? Just out of sheer cussedness and irritation at the amount of time I've now spent trying to get the opt-out options I think should have been offered as a matter of common courtesy, I'm also going to block SL's ads from profiles. Still looking for other resources. None of this stuff gets the button's off anyone else's viewer/browser, of course. If anybody wants a titler that helps publicize this privacy issue, IM or notecard me in world. It's notecard config, all full perms so you can snoop around inside and know there aren't any tricks to it.

And even better, the instant you open someone's web based profile, the Facebook widget is sending your browser history to Facebook, even if you are not a Facebook member and have never visited their site. All it takes is for you to have visited a site with Facebook Connect, which these days basically means, "you visited a web site." Once your computer has a Facebook Connect or Facebook cookie in it, that innocent little "Like This" button whooshes up your browser history and all sorts of other data as soon as you start loading the page. No it doesn't - it just lodges a cookie on your computer saying you visited that page. That helps Facebook with targeted advertising (love it or hate it). It does not send your browser history to Facebook! Hitomi, I couldn't believe it myself, but: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1717563 It seems to be exactly as Tali described. True, it isn't technically your browser history. Close enough, though!

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.

which these days basically means, "you visited a web site. Hey, not all website managers are dumb enough to cover their pages in facebook's advertising. I sincerely hope it's not on most sites. I hope not, too, Phantom, and point taken that not everyone is jumping on this idiotic "Teh Fazebooks Iz Teh New Webz" bandwagon. However, I sure see that little widget in a lot of places. Most of the time, really, who cares? Hey, I browsed Barnes & Noble's philosophy books and looked at Groupon today, Frankly, I don't much care who knows it. But SL is different. I'm not really sure how to check (yet) but given LL seems infatuated with Facebook and clearly either has zero consciousness or zero concern ("Your World .....In Your Imagination!") when it comes to users being sensitive to privacy issues, wouldn't you guess that Facebook Connect is on this very site? There's a hack to disarm it listed up above, but if you use that you won't be able to log into Facebook. You say that like it's a bad thing, or like it matters at all. Me? "Like it's a bad thing"? NEVER! I've been teaching people how to edit their hosts file all day! I actually almost put, "which would be good for you, anyway" then deleted it for snarkiness, but maybe it's just good advice!

You know, Rene .....1) I agree and 2) That really suggests a potentially viable exit strategy for Linden Lab as well as a future for this virtual world. I can't imagine any sane company would want to buy this mess. It's a technical disaster duck taped together with mostly open source software and you can download a passable copy for free. It has a growth curve that resembles the deck of an aircraft carrier. There's certainly no cache in the company name; in the tech circles I travel in LL is pretty much known as "last decade's news" at best. The management is sort of a textbook case of "what happens when you think you're smarter than your customers". They haven't impressed me with their strategic brilliance nor their capability to execute. For whatever reason, the staff doesn't seem capable of fixing the simplest things, or they have the attention span of gnats. There's just not much value here as a company that I can see. I'm guessing maybe $5,000,000 scrap value for a bunch of beaten-to-death servers, racks and routers? So .... Resident buyout. Do a private stock offering to SL residents (as of the date of the announcement) and if we buy up 50% or more, now the Lindens are working for us. The major fly in the ointment for LL is that at some point they'd have to reveal their financials, if only to qualified buyers. On the other hand, the world would be in the hands of people who actually get what it is about, the VC's might get out with their skin, which isn't too bad a result these days, and the founders' legacy would have a chance of being something more than .....well, than what it is headed toward being. I'll take my consulting fee in stock, tyvm!

Phantom's right, Ricky. They plan to get rid of inworld profiles and move to all web based profiles. At the moment, you have absolutely no way to opt out of this. Short of deleting everything in your profile, you don't even have an effective way of keeping the whole thing off the web. It's already there. And even better, the instant you open someone's web based profile, the Facebook widget is sending your browser history to Facebook, even if you are not a Facebook member and have never visited their site. All it takes is for you to have visited a site with Facebook Connect, which these days basically means, "you visited a web site." Once your computer has a Facebook Connect or Facebook cookie in it, that innocent little "Like This" button whooshes up your browser history and all sorts of other data as soon as you start loading the page. You don't even have to click the button. In fact, you don't have time to click the button before it has done its dirty work. Here's a research paper on it which also mentions the Tweet This button. That button functions in a similar way, though not quite as aggressively as Facebook's, in that you have to have actually visited the Twitter site to get "infected". (I think that's a fair term in this case.) http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1717563 There's a hack to disarm it listed up above, but if you use that you won't be able to log into Facebook. This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the potential privacy risks with this move, btw. I realize this is a sort of endless column of comments, but you'd do well to study up on it including the jiras if you value your online privacy. It's looking rather grim for there being any change in this, too. Linden Lab seems extraordinarily adept at "not understanding the concern."

Mr. Zuckerberg, say hello to Mr. Localhost! Thanks and done!

Wait ...so you're saying this thing sells me out to Facebook just because I opened somebody's (web) Profile???? Could you and/or Soto please post instructions on how to alter the hosts file to disable this Glorious Triumph Of Linden Fail? I'm guessing there might be far more than passing interest ....

What is so hard to understand about, "The only way anyone can connect your RL self to your SL self, is if YOU choose to place information on the web that connects your two lives". ?? 1) Data aggregation never sleeps. 2) Databases never forget. 3) Data mining gets more clever every day. 4) Your IP address is probably already db'd numbers of times by redZone et. al. And yes, it's relatively trivial to change IP address, but that's a level of skill, knowledge, and willingness to be bothered possessed by a relative few, even among us SL folks. 5) Your avatar key is easily obtained 6) Facebook gets crawled constantly in ways both legitimate and not-so-legitimate. 7) Same with the rest of the web. 8) Your SL profile is available on the web. MOST of the time, none of that will add up to anything. MOST of the time, most people delete most of the spam they get, too, but just this morning I heard from yet another Nigerian banker with a tempting offer, so every now and then it seems their "numbers game" pays off. Data aggregation is basically the same game ...gather enough data about anything and you can start to find patterns. It isn't a matter of always getting the right answer, just of getting enough right answers to matter. (Clever Google!) I'm no software engineer, but even I can think of some triangulation techniques that might not lead to me, but might lead to you or some of your Facebook friends if you and a few others shared my SL profile on your Facebook page. In your case, you don't care, and good for you. Clearly others do. I see that most of us are in agreement that we'd like this to be, at the least, opt-out. I just wanted to say that the folks who are concerned aren't necessarily paranoid wackos having trouble understanding ....maybe we actually understand something you hadn't considered.

A couple of MySQL commands, a few lines of PHP, probably a little tweak to the CSS, and five minutes in Photoshop to make grayed out buttons and those of us with concerns will be singin' Kumbaya! You have to remember LL is all about Open source and stuff. Let me fix your sentence: "A couple of MySQL commands, a few lines of Perl, probably a little tweak to the CSS, and five minutes in GIMP to make 73% grayscale tinted buttons and those of us with concerns will be singin' some song released under the Creative Commons License!" /me dopeslaps forehead. D'oh! What was I thinkin'?

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."

The ability to Like and Tweet profiles is a feature many users have been reacting to. This feature isn't new and is already available already on the old profile pages, i.e http://world.secondlife.com/resident/8f014fb1-a47b-4cec-be9e-064268cc9b1a. We're investigating whether to make this opt-out or not. Sharing a web page on Facebook and Twitter is something we can never block, As several have mentioned, many folks didn't even realize they had a web profile. Honestly, I think 99% of the traffic on the old web profiles was most likely those "profile picture display" scripts. The first I ever learned of them was when I wondered aloud how those scripts worked. I managed to find mine once -- not a trivial task, as I recall -- and stayed just long enough to copy the HTML so I could try making a profile picture script of my own. (Which somehow prompts the stray thought, "Dood, all ur traffic is primz!" But I digress .....) It is quite a leap from there to making the web profile THE profile, so hooray for revisiting the thinking on privacy matters, and I vote Like and Tweet buttons get to be opt-in! They could display grayed out with "activate this link" and "what is this?" text links beneath each one. "What is this" would also afford the Lab the opportunity to explain in some detail what the link does and what it doesn't do AND give marketing an idea of just how interested people are in that feature. Same with Payment Status, while we're on the topic. A couple of MySQL commands, a few lines of PHP, probably a little tweak to the CSS, and five minutes in Photoshop to make grayed out buttons and those of us with concerns will be singin' Kumbaya!

Amazing! YOU ARE USING THEIR PRODUCT! You joined. Noone forced you to do. This is their world. You can ask something not PRETEND it. You come at my home, I let you play my games and you pretend to rule? You can suggest something. If LL doesn't agree, just accept it or leave. Yes, I am rather amazing, aren't I? Thanks for noticing! No need to leave ....problem's handled!

You made it so anybody can just post my profile on Facebook by clicking a button? Really? And I don't get a choice? Well, I exercised the only opt-out choice you left me. I just deleted most everything off my profile -- and before somebody goes off on a tangent, it was all G rated. By the way, that included deleting all my picks. Sorry 'bout that, favorite merchants. Tweet THAT. The point isn't the content, it's the lack of control. I'm furious. Cannot believe LL is so (intentionally?) out of touch that they didn't know about the multiple furors created about Facebook and privacy, yet that seems to be the case. Is there NO end to the arrogance of this company?

Addressing "the culture of Linden arrogance" that has (real or just percieved) been established. ^^ THIS! As arrogant and disconnected as the culture of this company is, you would think they had actually accomplished something meaningful in the past 7 years beyond bare survival. What keeps me in world is my friends and the chance to create stuff I couldn't otherwise create, but the platform on which I'm creating has improved only infinitesimally since I first rezzed a prim. So you have quite a cultural shift to accomplish there, Mr. Humble. It will be interesting for us and for you! I truly do wish you tons of luck and success. I still have a dream for what this global community can be, and I still long to see it happen. Count me as an occasionally frustrated but nevertheless gung ho booster.

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.