Ginko - Part II

Still. Yes. And has been for ages.

I'm surprised people are suprised by this. If I'd known I'd have created some forum dramah threads ages ago!

Here's a tip: Assume that anything that IS possible to do is being done. It saves on the surprise and anger later

Do you do this because you're a little kid with no success in RL?

Just a few statements to clarify what at least some participants in this discussion are considering said behaviour of these ATMs not "OK".

1. While it is OK, to collect data about people (or AVs) including positional data, in many jurisdictions in the world it is illegal to do so, if you do it large scale and in secret - meaning, you don't inform the people about it.
   
2. Even in those cases, where it is legal to collect this data and store it, it is usually only OK when yo do it on your premises. Doing it on someone elses property and without the owners consent is surely not "OK".

Maybe others are doing it too - or are doing or planning something comparable. This does not mean that it is "OK", legal or an acceptable business practice.

This is good, to have a friend speak on your behalf. It is another thing that people who don't know you use when trying to determine credibility. Please note, Sneak, that I wouldn't have considered the post, or your friend, worth commenting on had I not found the rest of it to be worth reading. You'll just have to believe me that it's not envisioning a guy in a stuffed shirt which would encourage me to invest in your venture. Communication skills and presentation come into play when dealing with people who are neither your friends nor in a position to know you. I would guess many of your customers and potential customers considering an investing in your company fall into that category.

Man, if I don't log in sooner or later noone will ever have my key, and then I'll feel left out when I do eventually log on

1) Seeing how SLB can supply a 'dumb' terminal to clients who request such a service, it should be straightforward for Ginko to do so as well. This would be a simple move that would go a long way towards rebuilding the trust necessary for their business and it's services to flourish.

2) Ginko *HAS* amply demonstrated that there is a place for a banking service in the MMO gaming world. A safe haven where players can save their earnings, cash out for RL curency and/or currency in other MMO's as well as buying and trading MMO game currencies and commodities.

3) Ginko's current status has led to rumour mongering and accusations which not only jeapordise their business but could also put the savings of many players at risk. While it has not been possible for Ginko to be insured, registered and regulated as a genuine banking service in the USA, there is no reason why they could not register and insure their services in another country. This is the internet after all. A bank registered in France, England, India, Brazil, Canada or Japan is no less valid than one registered in the USA.

4) The forum behaviour of Anshe Chung has been apalling. While I am thoroughly impressed with what she has built up and achieved in SL as regards Dreamland and SL Exchange, I remain totally mystified by the Ansche Chung who inhabits the forums. Are they really the same person?

5) Competition in the business world is a good thing. Everyone wins. Businesses improve their products and services in order to win more customers while customers get a better deal for their money as businesses compete. If the end game of the assault on Ginko is merely to take their market, it would be better to simply enter that field and let your business and market forces speak for themselves.

6) The contempt displayed by Hinoserm in his commented line of the Keyharvest script "Released to the public because idiots are stupid" is endemic of the contempt with which many businesses treat the general public / average player in SL. This is not a problem unique to Hinoserm alone as I have encountered similar attitudes at nearly every turn in SL. This has led to the present-day hyper-cynical selfish zeitgeist that currently pervades SL.

I have no axe to grind on this matter nor any favoritism. I want to see this crazy, wacky virtual world we share flourish and go from strength to strength. Tearing each other to pieces and destroying one another's work, while possibly 'fun' in the short run, only serves to impoverish the experience for everyone.

Basicly, what it comes down to is the lack of communication...

I notice this in EVERY business.

This can be with staff or the public.

No-one knows everything.

I, personaly, see nothing wrong with what they are doing.

It all comes down to communication, In ANY business/Corp/Ect...

If you know the person that is, what I know, to be the first one to let everyone know about the scanning script in the Ginko Terms, you would understand this more I think. This one person went around to many large sim owners, acting sneaky, and all suspicious, and telling them that this conversation they had with them never happened. Granted, yes, I don't care if this person did go around saying to those people. "You know, that the ATM keeps stats like this -example here.-" Instead of the way is was done. "Don't tell Ginko or anyone that I was the one that told you this, but look at what Ginko is doing, and this can only be for bad things, and once again, this conversation never happened between us." Of course, I am not going to name this person, I did contact them in game, and I was upset at the way they handled things, and gave a few people the impression that that worked for Ginko, even though they might not have tried too, but they never denied it to those people.

If you wanted to bring something out, don't be afraid of who you are, or what you are saying, you have the right, but to say that you never said it, or trying to hide the facts that you did... It seems to me this person had something to hide themselves. If anyone comes to me with a concern or question, I help them, and I let them know when I contact them that I work for Ginko. If I do not know something, I let them know that I do not, and I will make sure that someone else that knows contacts them. Myself, I never hide information, unless it comes down to keeping personal records of people private. I now work in the EMR field, that being Electronic Medical Records, I know all about being confidential, and taking to Doctors, Nurses, and the like, and being professional about it, not underhanded. We are all people after all, and I treat everyone with respect, unless they give me reason not too, like this person did.

Just my two cents is all.

Sounds like the only one of the whole lot with a conscience...wait, you said he didn't work for Ginko, which explains the conscience. He should get a frigging medal for telling sim owners what you folks didn't bother to tell them (until after it blew up when the notecard was added, or if you weren't lazy and remembered).

As someone that had a few run-ins with Ginko folks in another place, time and incarnation, I see that nothing has changed...same stick to the letter of the rules, ignore the spirit and when caught wail loudly that they are being picked on and line up supporters to ignore the issue and give character references. Bottom line is, they have NO service that needs the info at this time, they are either poor businessmen wasting time and server space on useless info, or they have a use they are not currently telling us.

I've talked to you a few times ingame, Sneak. You don't seem like a bad guy, but you are hanging with / defending folks of lesser character. IM me ingame someday and I will explain.

I mean recently though, where it was started taht Ginko was doign this to 'spy' this person started that rumor. Many people knew about the script already, and this is how this person first found out about it, is from one of the people that we had told, that asked about it. As I said in a previous post, maybe it was not in Ginko's best interest to not have let people know up front, and when a previous customer expressed this concern, Hino started to work on that notecard, and is it now a disclaimer.

And yes, Maklin, I remember you of course, I enjoyed talking to you the few times I have, and even before SL I have seen you on other places.

And I get that way with my friends, and people I respect, I defend them, because I have trust in them, and I just hate when assumptions start to fly about them.

I agree with Al that you should offer a "dumb" terminal for those who do not wish to participate in this little "program" of yours. If you decide to make a dumb terminal available let me know and I'll reconsider requesting a terminal at my establishment, until then please remove my UUID key from your list(s) and blacklist it from being re-entered during your scans.

Remember folks, currently spyware is legal in the US so long as there is a notification in the TOS/User Agreement during the installation process. Doing so without consent of the user(s) is considered an illegal business practice. And all because its legal doesn't mean people should just bend over for "The Man" and let there movements be tracked for whatever reason. I'm not a customer of Ginko's, I didn't agree to let them watch where I go and I'm asking they stop. Until I see that back code to prove they aren't tracking me I can only assume they are.

Stick on your tinfoil hat and suck it up. You have no say in the matter. You can protest all you want, but that's still the facts. Like Taco keeps saying there is a lot of difference between what's 'legal' and what you want. Try protesting this to LL instead of sounding off at Ginko with your personal opinion on the matter and see how far you get.

Why I scanned you only yesterday. You can assume what you like about my motives. But what you gonna do about it? eh? eh? *waves your UUID in the air*

Edit: Oh, by the way, Ron. Your key is freely available on the web, courtesy of Ulrika. Stick your name in here and prepare to get on some righteous indignation! http://www.ulrikasheim.org/tools/name2key.html

Alright!
Having read through the previous umpteen pages that have appeared since I last read this thread about 8 hours ago, it is clear that this issue is, once again, getting blown way out of proportion. People accusing Ginko Financial of spamming people with the information the ATMs gather, accusing of tracking people grid-wide, and pointing out that the information in the database could be sold, etc. etc. I'm going to lay some points out here in bullet form:

1) the sensor script is specifically designed not to lag sims. The sensor in it fires off once every 500 seconds.

2) Ginko Technologies does not, and has yet to spam any user with anything. We send out newsletters periodically to people who hold accounts, but we have never used the information gathered to spam anyone. If you consider an inventory item you recieve from a Ginko Shopping Network item server, because someone bought it for you as a gift, your issue is with the person who bought it for you.

3) The scanner records your position, key, distance from ATM, etc. ONCE per "batch." Once the batch is sent, and variables are cleared, you may be recorded again by the same ATM, due to limitations of script memory for controlling duplicates, but when the next "batch" is sent, a SQL query will go through and check User Key against ATM ID, and delete any redundant entries. In short, your information is stored only ONCE PER ATM in our database. we do NOT track movement, current activity, nor do we actively log any conversations on any channel.

4) To the comment about some dodgy Ginko Financial employee running with the key data and selling it to someone: There are a select few people (three to be exact) that have access to the Ginko Financial database, none of whom would have anything to gain by selling key information or anything of that sort. If any of these three were going to do something unscrupulous, they'd make off with the money Ginko Financial holds in reserve to cover withdrawals.

5) The "idiots are stupid" comment in the code is because Hinoserm is fed up with people going through Ginko Financial's practices, and going off half-cocked at the smallest thing that seems likeely that it could be possibly maybe kinda sorta a little bit unethica, but we don't knowl. I swear, there are some people here that get their daily dose of exercise by jumping to conclusions, side-stepping responsibility, running down their friends, and pushing their luck.

6) As it has been pointed out on several occasions, Ginko Financial ATMs are NOT the only object in Second Life that will harvest your name, key, and position. Heck, some will even record exactly what you're doing (sitting, standing, walking, flying, away, busy, etc) and track you while you're doing it, all the while recording on channel 0! That particular example is a bit extreme, but I know of vendors that fire off a timer, sometimes more than four times a minute, to do a sensor sweep of the surrounding area, and some do record conversations on channel 0.

7) Ginko Financial does not exist to screw anyone over. We are in Second Life to have fun! Having fun in our case means Building Things. Things That Do Stuff(tm). We built the bank because we got bored one day, and decided to start a bank. We build additions onto our services, because we think "hey, cool, what if we did X, Y, and Z!?" and then do it, with little regard for the amount of work, time, and effort it consumes. We do these things for YOUR benefit, because we think they're cool!

Anyway, I think people need to look at the bigger picture of things. As it has been kindly pointed out in this thread, by a proprietor of SL Boutique, SLB machines also harvest user data. I'm not pointing fingers at all (SLB is just the example cited in this thread, and I thank them for speaking up), or trying to point any blame to them, but I'm wondering why Ginko Financial is a target for this, rather than any of the multitude of other objects that harvest user info, and possibly use it for things more malicious than gift-giving services.

As for the anti-ginko merchandise -- sign me up for a set of whatever you manufacture! I'd like to license a bunch of copies for Ginko Technologies uniforms!

CCC

Or I can opt out of it like the website says I can wich is what I want from Ginko, to be taken out of the list.

Though that wounld be too late if people have already downloaded the most recent file before you opt out, and will already have your key saved on the computer. The point in this, is that you were upset about Ginko taking keys, even though this has been all addressed in the past, about a year ago if other posts serve right, from other companys, it has been popping up again because the person who made this post, vowed to ruin Ginko previously already, and is looking for every single angle that she can to flame us, or spur distrust in Ginko. No matter what, someone is going to have your key, somewhere. What it is used for, god knows, but we have been up front,a dn truthful on what we are going to use it for, for a future service, for a Database that has to be started now, so that we have all of that info already for when the Shopping Network launches.

ANd looking at that site, I am not sure how it works... but your key is stored when someone is near you, or when you just say something. It saves it in that name.cache file in your SL folder.... well.. I just learned something new, I will have to look at that and see if it is true, and that means anyone, can get anyone's keys, and you would never know...

Once I get home from work of course, since I do not have access to my home PC just yet from here.

Lesser character? If I were taking pictures of you and posting them around saying "Maklin beats orphans", that would probably be of "lesser character". Slandering the name of someone who has done nothing but create bullhonkies for us would be lesser character. Answering every question we can as nicely as possible when we're not being yelled at is not lesser character.

But I guess I don't really mind being accussed of being lesser character by an orphan beater.

I see several PR level mistakes, Sneak.

1) only telling a few folks. You should have realized it would get out and that there would be an appearance of 'hiding something'. And the excuse of what the data is for is lame, IMO.
2) Letting Hinoserm talk to ANYONE outside your group. I already had a low opinion of Ginko and his attitude knocked it down another 10 or 20 ranks. Programmers should NEVER be allowed out in public!
3) Having a scanner 'just to collect data'. If you need it for a future project, fine, put it in WHEN THE FUTURE PROJECT GOES ALPHA OR BETA. Sticking it in and collecting data now, for no real reason than someone making amusing maps, is not valid. Again, perception of nefarious deeds.
4) Refusal to take it out the instant it was discovered, since it has been said by Ginko it is for a future purpose, wouldn't it have been easier to muzzle Hino and take it out? When you are ready for it and have a legit purpose, put it back in.
5) Ginko Secrecy - My bank publishes quarterly reports RL...not stonewall when asked where the money goes. And when this event broke ingame, I went to the Ginko site to read your forums...can't read unless I open an account? What you hiding in there was my first thoughts. I wouldn't open an account without being able to research your group / but to research your group I need an account - catch 22

Again, it may be innocent...but the lack of info until it became a PR nightmare the part of Ginko, the utter secrecy in which it seems Ginko expects to operate and still be trusted, and the 'you're abusing us / Anshe is de devil!'' defense makes it look like you are hiding something.

And of course you'll post a notice for every land owner in SL with a visitor counter to write an exclusion routine so it doesn't note yours too, right? Go on. I wanna see you enforce it!

I assure you, I won't be doing extra work to remove you from my own key database. It ain't opt out unless you wanna pay me the going rate to write the script to exclude you

As to the first, don't do me any more favors.

As to the second, you can contact SLB and opt out of their DB...they put in a null key and no longer add your data to the DB, as the owner stated. Is Ginko willing to do the same? I want NO PART in your group's activities, for good or ill, and prefer to have my info nulled out of your system.

If you wanna make an account, put 1 linden into an ATM, and take the 101 out that you get as a bonus, then go make an account. I am sorry, but to allow anonomus access to forums is a very, very bad idea, I have been a Forum mod for many years, and that is the same reason that you have to have a SL account before you can post or even view the SL forums.

As well, if I am correct, it is being tested currrently in some ways, just not for public testing yet, I remember buying a special cube that was colored green, and shiny over a test site we had, and it was delivered in game.

And to put a cap on what the Lindens want to be a resident run community by bringing up new ideas to use and foster, that is totally wrong. Laws that might be in place RL, are there for a reason, sadly somethings are not laws that should be, others, there is no need for a law as such in SL, such as in this case.

Bad idea unless you wanna hide from bad press (which is why LL hides their forums). I admin two sets of forums. Both are world-readable, member writeable. Isn't hard to do, any decent software supports it. Unless you are trying to hide something (bad patches, lame excuses for bugs and downtime) like LL, no real reason to block reading. Blocking unregistered WRITING, that I agree wity you 100% on due to spampost bots and folks out to sell something. Secrecy for secrecy's sake breeds rumors, and is never a good thing.

Isn't starting this thread a comment?

It is speculation, but sure, anyway, if you want to talk to me, leave me an IM in game and talk to me that way, as the forums are not supposed to be used for just talking to one person like this, I admit my flaw in doing such, and not blaming anyone, I just want to respect the forums policies.

And I will get back to you in game when I get home from work.

Even better yet, feel free to AIM me if you want, I have to update my new name in the forums profile, but the name is sneakdulce, I don't care who knows me or talks to me, and I have access to AIM at work now and again when I am not too busy.

Unless you don't care. Not trying to speak for Ginko, of course. But if it were me, I know that the kind of people that I'd be interesting in targetting aren't going to be swayed by endless attempts to blacken your name or righteous indignation from people who have no intention of ever becoming a customer.

Like I said, I got all your UUIDs. And no, I'm not going to tell you why I have them or what, if anything, I intend to do with them no matter how loud you howl. Please feel free to start all the rumors you like about me

When they do something wrong that bothers you - AR them. But so far I haven't seen them do anything you can AR them for.

DUH? ebcuase its L$ others are making, of course she doens't like it, she wants to be the onlyone amking serios money, simple capitalism.........



Erm yes and no. the ONYL REASON, ONLY REASON this is an issue is because its being done by script. EVERY ATM IN THE WORLD (probably) has a camera on it. that camera records people that ren't using the ATMor even bank customers.


AKA ginko's "spy"script could be considered a security measure as well, ever thoguh of that? if an machine geos DOWN and tehy can collect the script from it, AND NO ON E KNEW IT WAS THERE TO DELETE IT! they could ahve cuaght the person, thank Ansche for screwing them over on that.

No I don't like being spyed on, but Idont' consider this any more violative then theVAST array of cameras in any gien bankint he Real world. atualy less so because it isn't constant