Protection against being spyed or tracked?

A friend told me that there is spyware software around in SL that can even track where you go. Is this really true, how can I found out if I am spyed, what can I do against it if so?

Luckily no one can track you unless you let them via your friends list, or you wear something that sends them your location.


You can check exactly what you are wearing by searching for the word "worn" in your inventory.

I know where to see what I wear, but can such a tracking code be hidden in some objects or clothes I wear? Can any freebie be a trojan theoretically?

Yes, most definatly.

Second Life has a very complex programming language anyone can use to make objects do just about anything. And unless you have permision to read (and the skill to understand) the scripts in objects, then you really can't know everything they are doing.

Don't get too freaked out though, think of how many people own those freebies, do you really think the creator would want to have to sift through all that data to find where you (a random person) are?

Also keep in mid they are only in second life. They can't affect your computer. And you can always just take them off

One of the scanners use to be able to tell you what sim someone TP to but as far as i know that has been stopped

Yes this was an exploit that made the persons destination available to custom made clients, this was a very technical thing that not many people would understand much less be able to do themselfs.

This has since been fixed.

Thanks for your reply again. I agree that it does not make sense to track all the people who wear a freebie jeans, and I see that I can only be spyed by someone who gave me some gift as long as I wear this gift (and I am changing things a lot

Don't forget that there are groups that have ATMs and vending machines and other scripted objects all over the grid.

Personaly I think that is a bit out of the scope of this thread.
Sure, Big Company™ has it's stuff everywhere. But Big Company™ doesn't care about you in particular, it has a much larger scope of things.

Big Company doesn't care about you, but in the past at least one Big Company has been found to be tracking avatars around their ATMs. This means that flaws in Big Company's security aren't just limited to their customers.

Oh I should have been clearer. My post was assuming that they did in fact track people, not disputing it.

Regarding "freebie jeans", system clothing items, the ones with the shoe, shirt, jacket, skirt, etc. icons, don't have scripts associated with them, so no need to worry about wearing clothing of that sort.

Nothing that is solely in your inventory is running scripts. Only in-world items can run scripts.

Sometimes somebody will be bitten by a radioactive spider, or arrive from a distant exploding planet. When that happens, they acquire super powers. one of those powers is the ability to track others no matter where they go.