Understanding the difference between an alt and a user name

Aimee,

The emails contain the avatar name that sent the picture to the site as part of the email. No IP addresses are used, or necessary. If the picture says Aimee Weber on the site, it came from you.

That's what I said.

The mail server used to send the pictures is Linden Lab's mail server - if you are so paranoid about this, send yourself a snapshot and look at the headers - you see the exact origin and all data it contains. I know that is more complex than just putting out your theories, but at least then you would be informed.

I think Aimee raises an interesting point.

I for one, as a single girl, go to great lengths to mask my presence on the internet. Particularly in games. I don;t know if you have ever been stalked. I have, and I hated it. I love my games, I love the escape and the fun. Sometimes I even appreciate the catharisis in being a "buck ass amazon bitch of a fighter, killing stuff left and right."

But really, I'm not. I'm just a girl. And for me, walking across a mall parking lot at night alone can, not unreasonably, cause me some nervous fear. Thus I want my inofrmation protected. I know that it is not easy to translate IP to RL address, I do. But I feel a hell of a lot safer if I know people aren't tracking me.

Many gamers are not the most socially adept people, and while many are kind, intelligent and giving. There are some who take things too far. Particulalry if you are using online as an outlet for sexual explorations. I know that sort of brings things on me, so I take precautions. So in this sense, I agree with Prokofy. I am not suggestion that Cris does anything wrong, or is a bad person, I am simply saying it means something to have repsect for my provacy stated in his policy. The same is true of any business online. I want to be reassured you aren't doing things to track me down. Ultimately it may be meaningless, but it will make my proverbial walk through the dark parking lot easier.

But of course this is silly because if you had that level of cooperation from Linden Labs, you pretty much can get any info you want anyways.

Good question, Aimee.

Do you have that level of cooperation?

You, a beta tester and respected player by LL and the community, let's say, have that kind of cooperation to get that kind of information, in the way that town fathers often get cooperation from sheriffs in RL?

That's all I needed to know, Chris, thank you. If you do not have a means of grabbing IP numbers from anonymous Snapzilla uploads, that's good to know.

You didn't say Linden Lab's mail server, so I persisted in questioning.

Consumers questions producers, it's normal Chris, it's fine. No need to be defensive.

So you are saying then: Linden Labs' game Second Life is an anonymizer that can be used by players of Second Life to send contributions to various websites around the world without any traceable fingerprints. Great!

But could that become a haven for terrorism in some future world when the metaverse is bigger? Or, conversely, could the Great Anonymizer in fact turn out to be the Great Blackmailer or the Great Account-Canceler when LL changes its mind about ignoring this?

Does Second Life have ways -- if it wants -- to track what people send out of the game to third-party sites?

This isn't a personal discussion about you and your website, Chris. Try not to be defensive about that. Instead, it is a generic discussion about these games and their related websites and how they might be misused.

Good question, Aimee.

Do you have that level of cooperation?

You, a beta tester and respected player by LL and the community, let's say, have that kind of cooperation to get that kind of information, in the way that town fathers often get cooperation from sheriffs in RL?