M&M Target of Copybot Attack, Threats

M&M Creations informed SL Newspaper that they were the target of A Copybot attack that ripped off many of their content creations, and then someone threatening to distribute copies of the pirated goods around. “Isn’t this outrageous,” 10 Goosson commented, “This is bizarre, but so open. We traced the thief, and his account was deleted. Then we were approached by a new av who says he is a friend of the thief. So openly?!” Porting reporters to the scene, a sandbox in the sky in the Mythos sim, 10 told, “the more things will rez, the more you recognize our main-stores complete content.” And indeed as shapes and colors formed, familiar goods appeared, “Behind you Bixyl, 2 other plateaus, all rezzed permanent ready to be taken, stolen ... This is still a bit shocking, the way the Hamarack Krovac and Swiss Ryada did this.”

10 handed over a notecard of the conversation she had with Hamarack Krovac, “im gonna give your scultie to every peopla.” “I'll report this, small effort.” “its too late. its on my computer ... LOL, i got your shop in my invent, come see ... adresse renew, its easy. i can come every time, second life cant banned  me. ...  FREE SCULTIE COME HERE, ALL IN THE BOX FOR ) LINDEN, 0 linden*, alll its free.” At times, the griefer claimed he was trying to “help,” but his threats and boasts spoke otherwise.

The incidents confused the Goossons and others. Marcthur Goosson remarked, “the craziest thing is that the copybotter told me he copybotted.” A woman responded, “He TOLD you?  Do include that in your AR , and near the time he said that to you.” “I know, I am struggling with word scanner pictures...  just to relief myself, this matter pisses me off. I am standing in a sandbox with half my shop copybotted. I talk to live chat and they tell me to send DMCA. I have to work my a** out with documents, pictures, notecards, faxes and PDF etc etc. And I am still standing in that sandbox with all proof in front of me.(it is an exact replica of my shop) Where is LL ??? They are hidden behind the papers, crawling in a stupid system. ... Sorry to drop this out of the blue.”

10 claimed the items had been in the sandbox for some time, “We're so sick of these little children! And LL is not showing up while we're standing here, no we need papers, forms, proof, (how much do you want to have) digital signatures ... It's still standing here, for hours!!! ... We both filed abuse-reports but it is bizarre. LL asks us to make such a long wait while all things are here, proof enough even the names and notecards, and still LL responds this bureaucratic paperwork-way, I can't imagine!! For a virtual world that moves this fast, being so so so bureaucratic, is this normal??? Can we as hard creative workers expect this?? Even the event tree, what a cynical thing to see. Pathetic if you ask me.”

10 went on, “I just want to express what happened to us and show all in-world some stupids are playing against LL-Terms Of Service and OURS, and nothing has been done. Marcthur (has been) standing here for hours!! Tell the proof is still here ... I've no idea how many 'friends' this idiot has.”

More people dropped in, and the discussion went on. One visitor after looking the scene over commented, “... Makes me wonder what the hell was the point ... We know: 1)He did this without any monetary benefit, 2)Informed the creator he copied. So this is probably a troll.” 10 told a little more about the incident, saying they had found the first guy at M&M Creations a few days ago, “Swiss Ryada, we approached him friendly, but he just went through with rezzing before using his copybot right under our noses!! So after several requests, we banned him. And now, a few days later this Hamarack is 'back' for helping his friend Swiss.”

Eventually, Marcthur announced, “I talked to the landowner, he banned the guy and waits for my signal to wipe this.” When someone asked why they didn’t go ahead and get rid of it, “I want LL over here, better proof is not be found. ... So we residents have to solve our own business and all LL does is read reports. I cannot file a DMCA in a few minutes. It is good newspapers are here.” Someone commented, “I remember back in 2004 and 5 when Lindens (were) in-game with us, and you could look one up and they (would) just fly right over and issues like this were addressed right away. It’s sad really. ... This makes me feel very uneasy as a designer where Second Life is headed.”

Eventually, everyone left the scene. Hours later when the sandbox was checked again, the copy of the stolen goods was gone. Question is, is this the end of M&M’s problems?

By Bixyl Shuftan

Chain-Messages

By Bixyl Shuftan

I was recently chatting with some friends, when one told me he had gotten an IM warning him of trouble. He then copy-pasted it onto his chat for the rest of us to read:


I have an important warning for you in case you haven't heard : There have been some scripted attacks using the pretend "gift" tactic. Once you rez it if you have land rights you are in trouble, it can destroy your home, steal items, and if worn turn you into a walking advert and dummy gift giver. The worst attacks required a sim rollback to fix, so please be careful....It's called "Life Shop AO.”


This was not the only time I heard that message. Over the next few days, I got it several times in IMs and group postings.

Many of us, inclined to be helpful, go ahead and forward such warnings without much thought. But is this a good idea?

These remind me of the “chain-mails” in email. Some are warnings, others stories of inspiration. But many find them more than a bit annoying, especially when asked to forward them on. Also, many of them turn out not to be true or are inflated claims. With a visit to a fact-check websites like snopes.com, or even a Google or Yahoo search, people who decide to verify a chain-mail’s message find they are often not true.

So before just up and forwarding a chain-message, perhaps it would be better if one would do some research first. Maybe an Internet search will reveal on a SL-oriented forum or blog the facts behind it. If this turns up nothing, there is also the option of asking people what they might know. One group-poster instead of simply passing the message on decided to tell the others “There’s a rumor going on about a ‘Life Shop AO’ ...” and had the message on as an attachment for those who wanted to read it.

And indeed, the chain-message turned out to be almost entirely untrue. The most it did was the “walking advert,” described in this post on the SL forums.


Joppa: ok, false alarm. all this thing does is give out a Landmark, possible giving itself out as well.. but that's it.
Toy_LaFollette: tyvm, may I quote that?
Joppa: surely ..it's also an actual AO with animations in it
Toy_LaFollette: good news TY


Still, it’s a good idea to be a little careful about accepting unknown items from people we don’t know. I haven’t personally witnessed anything like this AO, though have seen pranks involving giant mudkips doing things to the recipient’s avatar unmentionable in a family newspaper.

Bixyl Shuftan

Trapped UnderRedTape - perceived protection

What do you do if you have a problem with someone in Secondlife?
The official answer is to fill out an 'Abuse Report' which is usually answered with an automated response that thanks you for your report and informs you that you will NOT know the outcome of any investigation to protect the person you are reporting.
But if that is the case how then do we know that Linden Lab actually do anything at all when an AR is filed? Simple answer we don't we can only judge by the resulting behaviour of those we report.

Trapped Underwood recently bought a sim AS IS, meaning as a complete business including buildings, landscaping etc. for this he paid real USD and was allowed modify rights of the previous owner - now from experience this sort of thing rarely works but I will gloss over that for now as it is not the issue here.
Not long after the transfer was completed Trapped discovered some major discrepancies in his initial information of a healthy business (SIM) when confronted the previous owner (Rex):
i.Revoking his Mod rights.
ii.Returned all of his stuff.. meaning Trapped showed up and everything that was in Rex's name including landscaping was gone.
iii.Sent their Private IM conversations to other people. (A ToS violation in itself)

Trapped submitted Abuse Reports and requested a rollback - this was denied as it was a resident to resident issue, eventually through negotiation with Rex, Trapped was able to get the rollback and as far as the Lindens were concerned the matter was closed but the harassment did not stop in fact it escalated:

"Rex kept coming back to me to try to come back.. when I refused the new threats started even personal ones to the effect that he even posted in an IM my RL name city and state saying “he knew where I was and if he wanted to he could be talking to me in person right now”
I submitted another report to the Lindens
The Lindens told me not their problem call Law enforcement.
REX (previous owner) WAS NOW BANNED FROM THE SIM"

It became apparent to me that the Lindens were doing nothing. I found it hard to believe that Rex would continue to harass me if the Lindens had at least talked to him. I supplied the Lindens with all of the IM window conversations between Rex and I.
I questioned the Lindens as to what they were doing because Rex’s harassments were continuing. They told me that as per their NON DISCLOSURE POLICY they could not give me any private information.
I stated to them that I did not want private information I wanted to know what was being done to protect me.
Their response was always the same NON DISCLOSURE POLICY.
I told them that they were using their NON DISCLOSURE POLICY to hide behind the fact that they were really doing nothing
I now wanted to speak to supervisors and was again thrown back into the “place a ticket loop” which I did.
I got the run around but I refused to go away.. I specifically asked to speak to Harmony Linden and Jack Linden, Harmony was always in a meeting and Jack was never available."

When reading through this and talking to Trapped I felt acutely sorry for him as I along with many others have seen this sort of thing before BUT why do the ToS not protect him? Why has nothing been done? This Rex has continued in his harassment and when threats are taken out of Secondlife (Trappeds real identity was known to Rex through the business transfer) then surely Linden Labs should respond to it?

The Terms of Service state:

CONDUCT BY USERS OF SECOND LIFE
4.1 You agree to abide by certain rules of conduct, including the Community Standards and other rules prohibiting illegal and other practices that Linden Lab deems harmful.

specifically:

(x) "stalk", abuse or attempt to abuse, or otherwise harass another user. Any violation by you of the terms of the foregoing sentence may result in immediate and permanent suspension or cancellation of your Account. You agree that Linden Lab may take whatever steps it deems necessary to abridge, or prevent behavior of any sort on the Service in its sole discretion, without notice to you.

Yet this abuse continues to this day and Trapped is now considering legal action against Linden Labs for the perceived protection of the Tos.

Linden Labs response to his many support tickets and abuse reports:

Hello Trapped, Patch has escalated your ticket to me following your request for "someone of importance." As he has explained, Linden Lab does not provide any details regarding the results of an Abuse Report. That is to say, none. This is a matter of long-standing policy and is also mentioned in the auto-reply email that is sent when an Abuse Report is filed. This policy is in place to protect the confidentiality of all Second Life Residents, and would serve to protect you if the position were ever reversed. I am sorry that we disagree regarding which pieces of information should remain confidential, but we will not violate our policy in this regard. I understand that you may have other issues regarding this situation you wish to discuss, and I am happy to do so. However, I request that you consider the matter of the Abuse Reports closed as this is our final word on the issue. Thank you, Maurice Linden Support Operations Manager

At no point has Trapped asked for any information pertaining to Rex's identity or asked for any confidential information all he has asked for is to know why nothing has been done to stop the harassment he is suffering but Linden Lab hides behind their NON-DISCLOSURE POLICY and Trapped is left to deal with any and all harassment with no recourse.

Do the Terms of Service protect a user - yes if you are the one harassing someone!

Add your comments of how effective the AR system has been for you? Has it worked when you have had a problem? or have you been Trapped in a loop with no recourse?

Dana Vanmoer

New BETA abuse categories - some cause for concern?

On the right you can see the screen print of the AR form, but it a little difficult to read so I will paste the new categories here for you to be able to read, highlighting ones I believe of special note:

Age > Age play

Age > Adult resident on Teen Second Life

Age > Underage resident on Adult Second Life

Assault > Combat sandbox / unsafe area

Assault > Safe area

Assault > Weapons testing sandbox

Copyright or intellectual property violation

Commerce > Failure to deliver product or service

Disclosure > First life information

Disclosure > Remotely monitoring chat

Disclosure > Second Life information/chat/IMs

Disturbing the peace > Unfair use of region resources

Disturbing the peace > Excessive scripted objects

Disturbing the peace > Object littering

Disturbing the peace > Repetitive spam

Disturbing the peace > Unwanted advert spam

Fraud > L$

Fraud > Land

Fraud > Pyramid scheme or chain letter

Fraud > US$

Harassment > Advert farms / visual spam

Harassment > Defaming individuals or groups

Harassment > Impeding movement

Harassment > Sexual harassment

Harassment > Soliciting/inciting others to violate ToS

Harassment > Verbal abuse

Indecency > Broadly offensive content or conduct

Indecency > Broadly visible mature content

Indecency > Inappropriate avatar name

Indecency > Mature content in PG region

Intolerance

Land > Abuse of sandbox resources

Land > Encroachment > Object/textures

Land > Encroachment > Particles

Land > Encroachment > Trees/plants

Trademark violation

Wagering/gambling

Other

All of this, including a full discussion, can be found on the forums HERE after SuezanneC Baskerville found this list and posted it.

The highlighted catagories are cause for concern to many and it is to be hoped this list will be reworded or reviewed before going live.

It is great to see a catagory for 'Copyright or intellectual property violation' but since Linden Lab have always maintained Residents should file a DMCA I wonder what use this catagory actually is?

Trademark violation - Do they mean the SL trademark or the consumers? This seems to mean nothing at all without further explanation.

The main one of concern here is Commerce > Failure to deliver product or service - I would love to know how this one will work, quite apart from increasing AR's to an unworkable level, most failures are due to grid problems. Are customers now going to AR content creators simply because of grid hiccups? It would be confusing, to say the least, and those creators could find themselves punished for something they have no control over. Anyone that has sold through a vendor is SL knows these hiccups occur and the majority are happy to put it right if a vendor fails - but how can they do that if the first they know of a problem with a vendor is a warning from LL? Think again Lindens.

Age > Age play - Since when has been against the ToS to age play? This is going to cause an uproar simply by the wording - what I think is actually meant here is SEXUAL age play but this is not made clear, and it should be. Any child avatar could be Abuse Reported under this category as it stands right now.

Join in the discussion HERE and thank you Suzanne for bringing it to every ones attention.

Dana Vanmoer