Warning! Self-replicating Land Scanner on many sims!

Oooh....

EDIT: As per advice from a Linden representative, if this is implemented it could constitute a violation of spamming policy.

This confirms my suspicion! Schwanson was the one I saw picking up public land too quickly for my taste, repeatedly.

Oh, Eltee...

Make it so it changes name for every IM too, so it can't be muted.

Which is completely fair since the objects keep rezzing, being temp on rez, changing location to avoid being returned.

EDIT: Unfortunately, what is fair may not be allowed under spamming policy

What Eltee says about these flying objects being a violation of the TOS sounds right to me.
I would very like to know from LL what they think about all this. I mean, if they think this is against the TOS, they may tell us so. Otherwise a: "this is perfectly regular, no TOS infringiment here" would be enough. A thing or the other. Being so silent isn't a great move, or better, isn't a move at all.

Edited to clarify that I will not abuse report something, if I'm not sure that it's an abuse. I know that "forums are not the way to resolve this kind of things, if you think that an abuse has been committed file an abuse report", but forums should be a way to clarify some situation at least.

Could anyone with good English skills write up a short and to the point abuse report we can send in everytime we find these objects?

I'm frickin' sick of this bullcrap. I found these about a year ago 400 meters high above my land, and after a LOT of IMs, finally got Pete to de-target Indigo and let me have my resources back. Its a waste of server resource just for a greedy person to make a quick buck. Its disgusting.

I like eltee's idea. Maybe we should make it a public script and release it here. Just put it in your sim and start IMing the owner of any scripting objects in your land, and send them a notecard (or 10). The only problem with that is you then get into a situation where you're making a virus to defeat a virus. The Lindens REALLY should step in here on crap like this. At least Chance Small owned the land he put his resource suckers on... this is just disgusting.

Time to go recheck Indigo and see if those damn things have been put back up high. I don't want to have to have the conversation I had about these resource sucking, greed feeding, RIDICULOUS scripted objects - CLEARLY made just like SpyWare... invisible... sneaky... tiny as possible... mobile - again.

C'mon Pete. You've been around long enough to know better. Kill the damn thing now.

-Flip

If anybody has a user friendly detector for this thing, we would love to have a copy for Umber.

Also, if there is a question as to the TOSality of these stealth scanners, someone *eyes looking in flipper's direction* should ask on the Hotline. Let the Lindens clarify their position so everybody affected can feel free to file abuse complaints.

The only beef I have is with the lagbots. Lag takes the fun out of SL. Any situation that induces residents to create laggy stuff is bad. Worse, all this talk about it will give yet more land barons ideas. Sooner or later it will show up in the junkyard.

I don't have a beef with competition, because I'm not "in business". I go looking for low cost land because I think its fun, kind of like a scavenger hunt. I don't make bots because I enjoy the scavenger hunt aspect of it. Personally, I enjoy it, I'm not saying its boring for ME, I'm saying its boring for THEM, because they aren't into exploring, they are into doing business.

I want the land barons to have better tools NOT because I am one, but because I don't want their lagbots ruining my fun.

(I do buy land at auction and try to sell it for more, but that's fun too. I'll get bored with that in a few weeks.)

Buster

not at all flipper.. my object would simply be one, single, adjustable scan rate object, no self replication, no viral tendencies, no using resources by anyone other'n the person who owns the plot (and it would be relatively light with say a one fire scripted object only scan every 10 seconds)

I actually ENJOY exploring. But the land barons DON'T enjoy exploring. Having very limited information about land doesn't induce land barons to explore thus enhancing their fun. It induces them to create lagbots thus detracting from EVERYBODY's fun.

Its the law of unintended consequences.

Buster

Maybe not a virus to detect a virus -- but it would be a lagbot to detect a lagbot. One might not be too bad, but if the idea catches on and they proliferate, the cure might be worse than the disease.

given this would only be useful for landowners, and you would only need one for your land, per sim, and the average sim hosting i believe 15-20 residents, its really a very different beast from someone who owns no land, having by some accounts up to several hundred self-replicating scanners on land he does not own nor claim to have any right to use

furthermore there would be no reason to leave it out indefinately, so unlike land scanners that just run 24/7/365 regardless of who is doing what, you would only need to drop one of these over your land if you knew it was being scanned by objects like this.

and honestly if you own the land, you do have some small right to *use* it, i would say arbitrarly roughly in ratio to how much of a sims land you own... if you own 80% of the land in a sim (as we do in perry), you have every right to drop an opt-out object over your land. Once the object no longer finds any of these viral laggers, just delete it of your own accord, as its purpose will be complete

Moonshine,

I suggest you get your facts straight before slandering me in my own classified thread. It's moronic accusations like yours that make threads like these laughable. Next time before slandering someone I suggest you IM them. I would have been more than happy to speak to you regarding this had you not been such a douchebag and slandered my classified thread.

I am a good friend of Pete Fats. I have NOTHING to do with any flying objects of his. I am in a group he created. The group does NOT buy and sell land. I do NOT employ his services for the aquisition of public land. I have been accused wrongly in the past for being a member of a group that had no malicious intent, here we go again.

I didn't say it clearly enough, you are correct eltee.

What I was meaning by the "virus to defeat a virus" was this trend...

Stage 1: People are ignoring Internet banners.
Stage 2: A brilliant marketer somewhere decides to create Pop-Up and Pop-Under Ads.
Stage 3: A company develops a product which takes up system resources to block these annoying pieces of crap that suck resources and NOBODY likes that feed the greed of a few individuals at the expense of everyone on the web.
Stage 4: The pop-up ass holes rewrite the code to get around the pop-up blockers.
Stage 5: Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

This situation is similar, and cutting it off at the source through a ban on the objects is the logical way to go... or at least making temp on rez objects susceptable to auto return... or, even better, make land bans apply to the owners objects as well, instantly... if an object belonging to someone enters a land parcel and that owner is banned, auto-return immediately.

Regards,

-Flip

I will also state for the record that Schwanson is a great guy... I have never found any lag inducing, intentionally hidden, invisible tiny scripted objects that have had him listed as the owner, ever. (As the oldest mainland full sim owner, I think I have a fairly good perspective as I've been tracking/finding these things for a LONG time <grin>l)

OTOH, I have found plenty of Pete's and Chance's and other peoples' intentionally hidden lag inducing scripted objects in the past... and I call shenanigans on them every time. Its rude, wrong, inconsiderate and while it doesn't violate the letter of the law... per se... it definitely violates the spirit of the law and the community.

Regards,

-Flip

Flip: A swift ban by the lindens on the owner of the items would solve the situation and pose a good examples for future wannabe smarties.
Unfortunately the ones that put pop ups on their sites can't be banned from the internet, but SL is a different matter and people CAN be baned here.

Yes, that's true, its not all that horrific. A better cure would be to get rid of the damn flying lagbots in the first place.

Shiryu, this is quite true. However, we're in a grey area here on ToS violations. The Lindens tend to avoid bans at all costs. If you consider these objects a virus, as I do, then its a ban-able offense, but it could be argued "its just a script." I'd at least like the more realistic measure of the Lindens stepping in, saying to these folks that its time for them to stop being irresponible idiots, and let's all move on.

As for the analogy I used, perhaps a better one would have been Spyware --> Spyware Removal Tool --> Stronger Spyware --> Rinse, lather, repeat.

Regards,

-Flip

Hey eltee, if you or anyone else comes up with a script to send a notecard or something to the owner of these scanner scripts I would love a copy. Im also gonna have to get a better scanning script myself to detect these things and their owner; like scriptfoos.

My feeling is, once the Lindens refuse to punish for scripts like these, it's a green light to use them as retribution. After the Lindens says "these scanners are ok" then all you need to do is publish to the forums your own identical, sanctioned scanner script so everybody can can unleash their own. The Linden's stance would be reversed by later that evening.

But I don't think it will ever come to this. Ask in the hotline forum, the Lindens will agree it's against TOS and a precedence will be set against these things. Then the bannings can begin!

That is exactly why i think a ban is the only possible solution to remove the problem. What stops the owner to just slam his thingies at 5000 meters and maybe make them even more stealth so no one will ever find them? But they would continue to lag the place. I dont want to have to scan the whole airspace over my land everyday to avoid this viral infection.
This behavioir is not only irresponsible, but even plain damaging, and the perpetrator is not a clueless newbie. This means he can be fully held responsible for the damage he caused and continues to cause.
It's about time the lindens take the responsibility to eliminate such lamers from the grid to increase tyhe quality of the community and to protect the fun and investments of honest players.
On february 14th Square-Enix permanently banned over 800 accounts from Final Fantasy XI, all at once. It would be time for a bit of (maybe on a smaller scale, but still radical) cleansing even here.

honestly i don't want to see a witch hunt, i simply want to see people have better control over what can, and cannot take place on or above their land

That sounds like WITCH TALK TO ME!

*lights the fires*