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Brendens and Natalyas landing on sims and leaving

Perrie Juran

By Perrie Juran,
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MeggyReigen
MeggyReigen
Perrie Juran

Perrie Juran

Posted
Posted

Diane Macbain wrote:

Okay this is happening to a lot of people.

Multiple Brenden's and Natalya's with different surnames landing on a sim and leaving right away over the course of a 24 hour period.

Anyone here know what this is about?

User or Display name?

(This is the first I'd heard of this)

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Pussycat Catnap

Pussycat Catnap

Posted
Posted

Could simply be somebody getting some shop item or notecard or whatever on all of their alts.

Some folks use original names for all of their alts, and other people name them all something amazingly similar... I've even seen things like 'bobinsecondlife' or 'janesavatar' (not those exactly, but I once saw something that came across that way... just can't remember it now).

If one user decided there was something on a sim they wanted all their alts to get... you might see... all their alts show up...

 

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RuRu Macbain

RuRu Macbain

Posted
Posted

There are too many to list.  It's in the 100s.

They all start with Brenden or Natalia.

I've had two brendans on the sim I live on in the past 24 hours. Different last names.  And I only notice them come and go while I'm online.  I have no other way to monitor  ( sim wide ) as I only rent a parcel.

They tp in and out in the same moment on the time stamp and someone I spoke to from another sim where they're coming in says they're coming in at high elevations.

 

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Janelle Darkstone

Janelle Darkstone

Posted
Posted

Speaking from absolutely no experience or insight, to me it sounds like just another bot infestation, perhaps for traffic or monitoring purposes.  What has me shaking my head in disbelief is the fact that any person behind the keyboard would think it's worthwhile to spend so much time and talent on such a foolish thing.

But as Perrie asked, are they all Resident or are they all using display names as FirstName LastName?  Or might they be legacy names?  ( Already imagining an army of Brendens and Natalias constructed years ago for nefarious purposes. )

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Perrie Juran

Perrie Juran

Posted
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Posted

Janelle Darkstone wrote:

Speaking from absolutely no experience or insight, to me it sounds like just another
bot
infestation, perhaps for traffic or monitoring purposes.  What has me shaking my head in disbelief is the fact that any person behind the keyboard would think it's worthwhile to spend so much time and talent on such a foolish thing.

But as Perrie asked, are they all Resident or are they all using display names as FirstName LastName?  Or might they be legacy names?  ( Already imagining an army of Brendens and Natalias constructed
years
ago for nefarious purposes. )

Doing a little investigating there were a slew of Brendens created about 3 years ago on the same day.

 

Brenden123,

Brenden1234,

Brenden12345,

Brenden123456,

Brenden1234567,

Brenden12345678,

Brenden123456789,

Brenden1234567890,

Brenden12345678901.......

Looks like a pyramid scheme to me.

 

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Phil Deakins

Phil Deakins

Posted
Posted

Janelle Darkstone wrote:

Speaking from absolutely no experience or insight, to me it sounds like just another
bot
infestation, perhaps for traffic or monitoring purposes. 
What has me shaking my head in disbelief is the fact that any person behind the keyboard would think it's worthwhile to spend so much time and talent on such a foolish thing.

The person operating them isn't being foolish. To that person, it is a worthwhile thing to do. If anything is foolish, it's the sentence of your post that I bolded.

The point is that someone has found it useful to operate them. The usefulness might be something as simple as personal enjoyment in developing and/or operating a set of bots, and that's not foolish. Being judgmental about it is foolish ;)

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RuRu Macbain

RuRu Macbain

Posted
Posted

Well interestingly enough, yesterday I was in a weapons store on mainland and went out of the store to the rezz area to test a shield.

A Brenden entered and left the sim.  I got spooked and tp'd home.  Within 5 minutes of being home, a Natalia entered and left my parcel.  

They've never been on my actual parcel to the best of my knowledge.

They come and go so fast, nothing can touch them.  I've never seen them so I don't even know if they're in avatar form.

doo doo doo doooooo lol

 

 

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Chris Kayor

Chris Kayor

Posted
Posted

I believe you will find that these bots are operating a pre-programmed search.   They are able to search for any parameter in an object's properties or for people (generally by UUID).    I have been watching this develop over the last 18 months.   The account names being used were all created in May of 2009, and include user names starting with Brenden, Natalia, Selena, and Rihana at the moment.    Clearly the person operating these searchbots has both an agenda and a great deal of effort and money into this.   Unlike Beggar bots and Phishing bots, these bots are not obviously malicious, but just as clearly, anyone wishing to intrude on someone else's privacy with automated searches that run grid wide, is not likely to wish someone well.

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EerAftr

EerAftr

Posted
Posted

This is happening to me as well.  Not only do they pop into my home sim, but they will periodicly land on my while I am out shopping or randomly traveling the grid.  There is only one sim I have not seen them pop into.  It's making me more than a little paraniod as I value my privacy.  I am pretty sure they are bots, but thier purpose eludes me.  I've taken to letting on certain Brenden know where I am heading before I get there to be helpful, as I see him most of all.

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Qie Niangao

Qie Niangao

Posted
Posted

Janelle Darkstone wrote:

What has me shaking my head in disbelief is the fact that any person behind the keyboard would think it's worthwhile to spend so much time and talent on such a foolish thing.

The brendenbots specifically? Or Second Life in general?

(There's plenty of public support for Second Life being a foolish thing on which to spend much time or talent.)

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Janelle Darkstone

Janelle Darkstone

Posted
Posted

The bots specifically -- said from one fish to the other in the same tiny, inconsequential fishbowl.  :smileyindifferent:

I'll admit to a bit of personal botcism (is that a word?).  I don't like the idea of bots, pathfinding, driverless vehicles or the other things some people want to introduce to SL because, to me, SL should be about life and about people.  Live people.  An army of mindless drones carrying out whatever inane task their creator has set for them just feels like death to me.  Is this the world they wanted?

I tend to imagine most of these bot owners hunched over at their computers with life-sized cutouts of people behind them in their room, because that's exactly the world they're forcing on the rest of us.

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theOldestLivingWhiteHat

theOldestLivingWhiteHat

Posted
Posted

I have been watching this bot thing with interest, even to the point of running a port sniffer in the background.   (Yes I am a paranoid S.O.B.)   They are a use of resources, so they must have a purpose.    I do notice that when one is around me, it opens a port to my computer, as though its trying to IM me.   I never get any message from them, but they stay on sim long enough to open that port and then go.

This having been said, there is a pair of HUDs that I am testing to see what they do.

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/Stop-Right-There-Crasher-Scum-Anti-Crasher-HUD/3561107

https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/AoRep-Aozora-Tech-Avatar-Reputation-System/2630847

Please do not get me wrong, I am in no way endorsing either of these.   In fact i see surrounding these devices a potential for the same scheme that the Red Zone was in the past.

When I tested these devices, they connect to an outside database hosted by a company outside Montreal.   The second one is interesting in that it also connected to every avi within 4 sims in any direction.   It gave me sim IP and home IP for each, and appeared to transmit this with what could only be a UUID for the avi in question.   On this scripter's website he offers a real time location service for any avi on the grid.   just using the HUD, that failed but it did connect me to both Google datamining and advertising, and Amazon datamining and advertising.

Given all this, and if i wanted to expend this kind of effort, it would not be a stretch to anticipate that the Brendens and their ilk might be carrying the HUD I just mentioned.   Merrily out collecting information to support this scripter's "real time grid location" service, gaining him advertising revenue, and silently supplying information to others who might not wish us well.

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Perrie Juran

Perrie Juran

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Posted

theOldestLivingWhiteHat wrote:

I have been watching this bot thing with interest, even to the point of running a port sniffer in the background.   (Yes I am a paranoid S.O.B.)   They are a use of resources, so they must have a purpose.    I do notice that when one is around me, it opens a port to my computer, as though its trying to IM me.   I never get any message from them, but they stay on sim long enough to open that port and then go.

This having been said, there is a pair of HUDs that I am testing to see what they do.

Please do not get me wrong, I am in no way endorsing either of these.   In fact i see surrounding these devices a potential for the same scheme that the Red Zone was in the past.

When I tested these devices, they connect to an outside database hosted by a company outside Montreal.   The second one is interesting in that it also connected to every avi within 4 sims in any direction.   It gave me sim IP and home IP for each, and appeared to transmit this with what could only be a UUID for the avi in question.   On this scripter's website he offers a real time location service for any avi on the grid.   just using the HUD, that failed but it did connect me to both Google datamining and advertising, and Amazon datamining and advertising.

Given all this, and if i wanted to expend this kind of effort, it would not be a stretch to anticipate that the Brendens and their ilk might be carrying the HUD I just mentioned.   Merrily out collecting information to support this scripter's "real time grid location" service, gaining him advertising revenue, and silently supplying information to others who might not wish us well.

I looked at Azora's web site.

Very interesting.

I'm not too thrilled about a data base collecting and storing Ava info like this but I didn't see anything that wasn't readily available to any one using basic LSL functions.

I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say "home IP" above.  Can you clarify? 

I didn't see the function to search someone's location on the Grid.  I do hope this only works if someone has allowed you mapping privileges which may explain its failure to work for you.

He is trying to circumvent abuse of his Ava rating system but that won't be perfect.

I'm not sure if there is any violation of the TOS here but like I said I'm not thrilled about their database.

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