A Modest Proposal for SL: Security Firms

here it is:

-one or more trusted and anonymous administrators
-read above, based on reports made by the users
-no, teleport home imediately, this tool is supposed to create an area denial for the persons in the list, outcasting them from SL if possible.
-free is best but nothing is free usually
-the administrators should be able to receive "unban requests" if enough proofs provided (then they should turn again the person responsible of a false ban)
-prolly not
-teleport home if they cross the land (any height, area denial )

Just a concept here, and I'm not sure the tools support it.

-You contract with a security service that patrols during events and watches stores.
-This service can access the Sim whitelist and blacklist.
-Set teleport to one spot (customs house)

-All Avatars tp into the sim at the custom house
-If on the sim whitelist (citizens, employees, trusted guests) they walk through the door
-If on the sim blacklist they are teleported home
-If on neither list (new visitor) require one time payment of $L500(?) to add to whitelist. Now the door is open.
-Allow whitelisters to withdraw escrow 7 days after last visit. This will remove them from the whitelist.

-Customs writes a log of who comes into town with timestamp to try and figure out who griefs when patrols aren't active.

If an avi griefs or is suspected of griefing they are put on the blacklist until a hearing can be held. If found guilty they forfeit escrow. Every time they grief costs at least $L500 (adjust amount to taste balancing the barrier to visitor traffic).

Can I force all oustide avis to tp into the sim at one and only one spot? Or will landmarks work regardless of settings?

That might work for a sim, yeah. What I'd also like is a low-lag sensor and listen grid for watching people being tp'd in without authorization, and for authorized members' commands.

i made a bit of code that allow sensorless banning and as high as sl go

litelrally a wall to teh sky, need to check if it still work

I'm in-world. IM me.

Okay. First off. I'd like to thank whoever it was that sent alts after me at my cafe last night. I needed the target practice. And FUCK. YOU. TOO.

Now where was I, oh yes, I was thrilled by the positive reponse (read: pleas for help) by some residents and venue owners of SL. I was a litte put off by people that apparently think I'm wanting to start another police department. Okay. Let's get something straight, it's not a police thing, cops in SL don't work when you can get the management to enforce the rules. This is a security firm, you can call it a rent-a-cop service, or whatever.

Tentative Name: Enforcers Security Firm (might change that)

Present Setup:

1. Each member of the service will have devices on their land that check people against a global blacklist. If they're blacklisted for any reason, they get ejected. If they loiter just outside, bad things can happen to them.
   
2. There will be different level of blacklisting, TBD
   
3. Each incident where a person is blacklisted will be backed up by Abuse Reports filed by the parcel owner, victims, and an ESF officer/rep.
   
4. People will have a chance to appeal a blacklisting.
   
5. ESF Patrolmen and Volunteer Watch will patrol around stores and venues periodically to watch for scammers activity, greifers, etc.
   
6. If requested for events, security staff can be on hand. We will not be firing guns but operating fast-response systems. (unless you /want/ a firefight, that's cool too).
   

I'm still working on a hookup for a blacklist. No details to share at present. I appreciate everyone that's contacted me on this issue.
Keep the feedback coming. Thanks.

Others have thought to do something like this, but yours is the first that seems to be properly thought out.

Thanks. I've seen attempts like this fail before. I'm trying to get things worked out, and get the community's support and backing so this endevour will have a chance. I know I can't do this by myself.

The code for the blacklist thing is pretty much almost ready to start testing. I coded it last night. I just need to touch up some little things server side. So far I have, levels of sensitivity, also multiple lists, so users that drop their boxes can pick lists or create there own and share it with friends. (Web interface to come later. The whole thing is pretty secure as it uses MD5 hashs to auth the data sent and received (both sides)).

As for the creation of the 'official' list, i'll let burke do that. Burke, i'll bascily give you a general password and a very basic web interface to edit, add, remove, set levels, all in plain HTML for now.

Sweet.

Now to start making a parcel control system. That shouldn't be too tricky. Note: If anyone who already makes security systems wants to help out, and of course make a working product, please contact me.

Oh. And I guess this would be a good time to start looking for staff, officers, clients, and a better name for a security firm than Enforcers Security Firm (The Enforcers was taken )

If you're proposing a wide, far-reaching ban list then you HAVE to have an appeals process. This really shouldn't even be a question.

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but hope you realize that if you succeed then you're putting an enormous amout of power into the hands of a small number of people. I think that the fact that you're even asking if there should be an appeals process is a bit frightening if you're the one who will have that power.

And now, if you don't like my comments, maybe I'll be #1 on the ban list.

Of course it should be a given feature. The trick is what kind of appearls. We also need 'temporary' bans and 'permanent' bans.
And you'd have to actually do something bad, not just run your mouth off. The parcel owner can kick you for that. It's the running scams and trying to blast patrons that'll get you a dark mark.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I *do* appreciate what you're doing here. I was at Celestia with a bunch of friends last night talking about how sad we were to be losing the place where we all used to gather and chat, when we were attacked for about 30 minutes. It was pretty nasty and only stopped when the attackers filled up the parcel and then I kept it full with blank prims to keep them from rezzing bombs and cages around people.

But, having studied a bit of history and human nature, I know that when you put this kind of power into people's hands, it will be abused. There isn't even an "if" in there. It always, always is abused somehow, someway, by someone. You can state what you intend it for, be honest and have all of the best intentions, however somehow, someone will be banned without cause. Maybe it will be an officer who is angry at someone and makes up a story about them or maybe it will take a shopkeeper and three friends to scam *you* into banning people they simply don't like. And the honest mistakes will be even greater in number.

If you're successful in what you do, you (and many of the people whom you hire) will have the power to ruin the (second) lives of anyone you choose. You need to think through how to balance that power.

Good luck.

Of course it'll happen. I don't want to sound like a dork but...


Yeah. We'd need safeguards, and people that can get along without petty bickering, etc, etc. It's one of those things we need to think about. Any ideas?

Ok well here are some details,

I named it Guardian, sounded right.

All the parcel owner does right now is drop the box with the scripts on their land. That's it. The box registers and then starts scanning. I created it so that it only scans people that are on your land (otherwise would be a TOS violation). Gets a list of people on your land, polls using MD5 to a webserver, compaires the list, the server polls back to the object using MD5 and tells it what to do. IE eject x person. The ejection is done by teleporting home, if the user sets their home on your land or close, they will always be teleporting thus making them usless. I'm debating if I should keep some info in memory to reduce polls, however as of right now it checks every time. (just in case if a griefer gets added to the list while he's on your land, I wouldn't him\her to be able to stay on your land because the script held in memory that he\she was ok.

The database is coded to accept multiple lists and every unit can subscribe to more then one list. There will be different levels of ban\kick. Also with a timelimit or forever. For example if you set it up with 3 levels of banning, lvl1 being annoying, lvl2 pushing\verbal attacks, lvl3 pushing\bombing\scamming etc. If you ban somone on lvl1, someone with their unit set to level 2 or 3 will ignore this person, a unit on lvl1 will TP this person home. (if the unit is subscribed to that list) For the time being there will be one master list that all units are subscribed to by default. I will then code the interface to enable people to create + share their lists with others.

Suggestions, comments, questions?

EDIT: Also I will probably create a throttle. EX if the unit detects people being kicked it will reduce the delay between scans, if it's being idle, it will increase the delay to easy the strain on sims.

Sounds good so far, here's what I had in mind as well.

1. If a kicked person returns, and keeps returning, send a message to (security company) and the land owner. Then start scanning for them outside of parcel, report loitering.
   
2. Allow device to be set by 'trusted' users, like officers of (Security Co), and people the land owner trusts. Security Company would have a server-based whitelist that updated daily or is hooked into Guardian
   
3. Method for storing reports.
   
4. Attachment for Security Co to interface w/ land devices and Guardian web interface.
   
5. Panic Button?
   

And I'll think of some in a few. Damn RL job.

Nexus - sounds really, really interesting. Especially the part about being able to subscribe to other's ban lists.

A couple thoughts, right off the top of my head:

---Hypothetically speaking, lets say I want to subscribe to Luskwood's ban list, in addition to my own.

Avatar X has been banned from Luskwood, and now is also banned from the Shelter. Avatar X pleads his case to the powers that be at Luskwood, and they don't buy it. Avatar X pleads his case to me, and I feel he warrants a second chance. I'd need a way to pull Avatar X off my list, while still subscribing to Luskwood, if that makes any sense.

For me, about 10% of the people that are ejected want to debate it. 10% of those are very mature about it, and I typically end up giving those people a second (or third) chance.

---From my own experience with my own security system, I wouldn't depend solely on Teleport Home. When the sim/grid/asset server is having trouble, I've seen it fail, and then you end up with a really pissed off griefer

I'd follow up any Teleport Home with an llUnsit + llAvatarEject. If the Teleport Home succeeds, the latter action should silently fail anyway.

---The Shelter is split between two sims. The way I've had to deal with that, is have a main sensor in each sim. Would you have a better way of handling that?

I agree - one of the first things you have to ask yourself when building something that potentially affects large numbers of people is, how can this be subverted to other purposes or abused to do things not intended by the original design?

All banning database ideas I've seen so far get bogged down by the problem of who's going to be responsible for it? It proposes the notion that one person, or a small cadre of people, should have control over what a large number of people may or may not do. But who guards the guards?

This idea rubs so many people the wrong way so quickly, that to date nobody has implemented a banning database that has succeeded in the sociological sense.

Well, the appeals process can turn into an administrative pain in (your) rear so you'd want to try to limit the number of appeals that happen. Here are two ideas off of the top of my (pointy) head:

1. Use permanent bans rarely, if ever. If the bans are timelimited, I would hope that they'd handle 90% of the problems and are less likely to be subject to appeal. For most people, maybe that week long SL vacation might do them some good and they won't want to spend hours spread across days trying to appeal. Either way, if a mistake was made it's reversed in a week if a week-long ban is used. Maybe start with 1,2,4.

2. For an appeals process, how about a public discussion forum such as this, but with moderated posts? The person making the complaint could post their case and could ask that witnesses be allowed to post on their behalf. You might ask shopkeepers or the original complaintant to testify. The moderation here is key -- otherwise it will become mob rule with tons of people who have no actual knowledge of the case posting their uninformed opinions. You don't want this to turn into Perry Mason with lots of work on your part, however this might be quite elegant and simple. Requiring people to make permanent testimony, in public, is a strong deterrent against lying and abuse of the system.

Interested to see what people have to say and I'm happy to volunteer some time if you need help.

You might be right about having bans start out as temporary, say for a week. Although, it depends on the griefer... there's several different flavors:

-The Passive griefer (Attaches giant penis, dons a universally offensive AV, etc)
-The Annoying griefer (Spams sounds/gestures/chat/particles incessantly and wont stop)
-The Driveby griefer (Randomly (or specifically) shoots patrons)
-The DOS griefer (Attempts to kill the party by slowing down the sim or crashing it)

The first two could probably benefit from a temporary ban. The last 2, and especially #4, warrant a more permanant ban.

As for an appeals process.... Boy, that's a tough one. While I like the idea of opting in to others' ban lists, the idea of folks having to appeal to some sort of central committe to get off the list doesn't sit well with me. Especially because the "Adding to the list" would be decentralized, but the "Removal" wouldn't.

If "Jodi" got on the list because her x-boyfriend subscribed to it, and then appealed - she could probably get off of it. But then the X-boyfriend could simply add her back, and she'd have to go thru the whole appeals process again.

You could say, ok - fine. When someone appeals and succeeds, they can't be put back on the list. But what if "Jodi" stops taking her anti-psychotic medication, and suddenly turns into a genuine griefer. Hijinks ensue...

I'm not sure multiple lists is a good idea... local lists yes, dunno about sharable ones.

I agree. The problem with sharable ones is that they would rapidly coalesce into fairly large, cross-subscribed lists. But now with the problem that getting on the list is decentralized. Local lists reduce the impact of a proprietor-customer dispute to that establishment, rather than giving a single proprietor a lot of power to possibly inadvertantly, possibly not, harm a possibly innocent individual.

Right. We already have MySpace for SL.

Oh, I agree here, however my suggestion about time-limited bans was more to create a self-solving problem in the case of abuse of the system and mistakes. I find it hard to believe that someone who is intent on griefing will simply wait a week to start up again. In that case, it seems like a week is a very long time and a month is an eternity. They'll either get bored or create an alt.

Regarding the shared appeals process, that was intended for the (original?) suggestion of a shared, single ban list. Not for this distributed, shared, any subscriber can ban idea.

Two other notes: it seems like LL should have a vested interest in this stuff and could add some features that would help. A problem that was had recently at a club that I was at was that they could ban the griefer, but not his objects. I've only been in SL and scripting for a month, so maybe I'm confused, but it seemed that they could rezz objects on a neighboring parcel and have them travel in even though the agent himself was banned.

Finally, to the merchants here, I feel your pain. I'm only a new resident and a small land-owner. But my favorite place in SL is disappearing in a week. I like conservative approaches and would like LL to help solve some of these issues in a coordinated manner. But, I'm also sympathetic to people who are struggling with tier fees and need a solution sooner, rather than later.

I would just make a whilelist here. Whitelist > BlackList.

As for multiple lists, bascily I don't want to administer this. I'll support the software, server etc, however i'm not going to be running any type of appeals. The multiple lists opens the door to people who want to subscribe to a 'coorporation' list. This is where Burke comes in with his company. I imagine I will enter payments etc for people like burke who want to run a business whatever.

So people will be ablet o ban together and create giant lists or simply stay home and use their own lists. I'll probably add subscriptions to user lists and stuff. So if say, Burke wants to charge 1L$ for each 100 lookups, cool.

As for the apeal system... don't know yet, i'm going to provide logs and such, however when someone is kicked I would probably get the system to send them a message 'you have been ejected from X's land because you are on X Y and Z's lists. This way they can make the apeal directly to the list owner or the huge coorps that maintains active lists. I imagine a service like this would become quite popular.

Again for the initial testing and deployment, i'm only going to make very primitive tables and logs, a solid base so we can then hook up more complexe moduals and options as demand grows and the system matures.