Using a In-World app - how do you tell between a spy script and a normal one?

Call me paranoid if you like

But on a few occasions I felt that I'd like to check a few items (or around my area in general) for any naughty scripts that should not be there.

I've bought a couple of In-World utils that are supposed to check for such items. But I'm confused.

What they seem to do is to just point to anything that has a script and not tell you what the script might be. Is this normal and all I can expect from such a utility in-world?

Say someone sends me a little animated chatacter, all very sweet and cure.
It sits there, perhaps playing an animation, or perhaps turning around, or poofing out some pretty things.

So this "gift" has a script (or more than one) in the object and my scanners tell me that.
but, then, I know it does !!!

Is there anything I can buy that can detect a Spying script within an object as opposed to just an honest genuine script that the object has to do it's normal function?

I'm thinking either perhaps a script that can locate you, or listen into chat?

(not sure if there are any other underhand ones you need to look out for)

If you think something shouldn't be there, then return it.

On land tools (Objects tab) I think it's "Refresh List" and it shows you all of the prims on your land, who owns them, how many they own, and (only in RC viewer I think) it shows you when their last modification to any of their prims was.

There is no real way of knowing 100% if it is a spy program, but a good way to find out is to buy a channel listener. Check SLX for one. They will intercept messages from any device which is llSaying, llShouting or llRegionSaying (depending on your position from the object - excludes regionsay) and tell you what channel they are running on.

But the rule of the thumb is that if you do not recognise the prim owner, return it.

Piggie, it's highly doubtful that somebody who makes a popular utility is going to inject a trojan spy script - they'd be spamming themselves with thousands of chat messages. What's more likely is a nefarious known individual who wants to spy on you for whatever reason (e.g. a jealous lover)

If they can give you a gift that you'll wear (e.g. hair) and it includes a spy script, they can monitor you as long as you're wearing it and your chat spy detection tool won't pick it up. Another method is to insert a script inside an object that you live around (e.g. the floor of your house) but they would need modify rights to do that and unless you give them perms to do that, that's not likely to happen. Again, a chat spy detection tool won't pick it up.

At best, a chat spy detection will ferret out chat spy's that are launched at you in the form of transparent micro prims that follow you around. Such spy prims are limited though in that they can't teleport to other sims with you, and they're subject to parcel restrictions. If the parcel restricts object entry or script, the chat spy might be deterred although some chat spy's are smart enough to hang at the edge of the restricted parcel and still pick up your conversation if you're within standard chat range.

One other thing to note - if you use voice, all one has to do is to set their cam to your position and they can pick up your voice conversation even if they're not anywhere near you.

Thanks for the two replies, interesting reading.

Let me just clarify the question a bit.

Say someone you know (either wellm, or just a little bit) for whatever reason sends you a gift (In-world)

Perhaps something they made, or something they bought as a freebee with full perm.

This item, is not just a "dead" prim, but does something.
Perhaps it spins, it has some bling on it, perhaps it rotates, it animates.... whatever

But you think, it's nice.

that was what I was asking.
If there was a way to see if any of the attached scripts in somehting like this, may be a spy one, as opposed to one that just makes the item/gift function?

This would pretty much depend on someone actually opening the scripts and taking a look at the code yourself. Just like with real world software, I wouldn't consider any script you don't have access to the source to as trustable or secure in the slightest: You just don't know what's going into it without the source.