http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6164806.stm
'Worm' attacks Second Life world
Virtual world Second Life had to close its doors for a short time on Sunday after a worm attack called grey goo. The self-replicating worm planted spinning gold rings around the virtual world, which is inhabited by more than a million users.
Players treated the attack with a mixture of mirth and anger.
"Can this game get any more unpredictable and exciting?" asked one user, Loretta Lurra on the official Second Life blog.
As users interacted with the rings they replicated, resulting in a slowdown on the servers used by Second Life's creators Linden Lab, in California.
Second Life has become one of the most talked about developments in cyberspace in recent years.
Companies are taking note of these digital realms, 3D worlds populated by onscreen representations (avatars) of real life people, as they gain more and more popularity.
Adidas, Reuters and Channel 4's Big Brother are just three real world commercial enterprises setting up business in Second Life.
Second Life has a population of more than 1.5 million and Linden Lab, its creator, says it is growing at about 38% every month.
The inhabitants can buy and sell virtual land and objects for real money and in any 24-hour period as much as $690,000 can be spent.
Recent controversy
But the grey goo attack and recent controversy over a tool called copybot which can be used to replicate people's virtual wares without paying intellectual property rights is beginning to sour some people's opinion of the world.
One user, Marzipan Maladay, wrote on the official Second Life blog: "Congratulations Linden Lab, you've finally done it.
"I'm selling my land since I haven't been able to use it for nearly a month. I'm sure I'm not alone in declaring that this is last month you are getting [money] out of me.
"Maybe you can con the new people into believing that this is a great thing but you can't fool the people who have been here any length of time.
"You are selling a service which you can not and have not been able to provide."
Some users are angry because the copybot tool can be used to make replicas of objects created in the virtual world and sold by some users in their virtual shops.
The shopkeepers pay a monthly fee to Linden Lab for the virtual land where they keep their shops.
Copybot was originally intended to be used as a tool by Linden Lab to find vulnerabilities in the virtual world but it has since been modified and spread to other users.
Linden Lab has promised it will release tools to protect people's virtual assets in the first quarter of 2007.
Advises residents
"Like the world wide web, it will never be possible to prevent data that is drawn on your screen from being copied," the company wrote in its official blog, advising residents to sue those who are copying their wares.
Other users are unhappy that Linden Lab continues to offer free accounts to people, who are portrayed more as sight-seers than real residents and increase the load on servers, diminishing the virtual experience for everyone else.
"Stop admitting new residents to Second Life until you get adequate server power," wrote one resident on the official blog.
Users complain that the virtual world becomes unusable once 15,000 people - a fraction of the overall residents - are logged on simultaneously.
No-one from Linden Lab was immediately available for comment.
Just thought some might be interested.
Lewis
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Lewis Nerd
Nerd by name and nature!
Join date: 9 Oct 2005
Posts: 3,431
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11-20-2006 03:21
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CJ Christensen
Secondlife chilled GURU
Join date: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 122
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11-20-2006 03:48
All news is good news ¬
 The story kinda highlights that SEcondlife is very much the early adopter and in need of more investment. - ie bandwidth and servers with memory  |
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Alex Worters
Registered User
Join date: 29 Jun 2006
Posts: 28
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11-20-2006 04:15
No-one from Linden Lab was immediately available for comment. I wonder if they called Livehelp. |
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Warda Kawabata
Amityville Horror
Join date: 4 Nov 2005
Posts: 1,300
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11-20-2006 04:17
So LL wants us to sue those who infringe on our copyrights?
And LL wants to position itself as the replacement for the www? Any webhosting company that wants to be taken seriously gives its customers access to the ip connection logs, so we can see who is visiting and when. Perhaps LL should do teh same favour for landowners? That would also give us a target we can actually try to sue, as opposed to the total anonymity that they have now. |
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bilbo99 Emu
Garrett's No.1 fan
Join date: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,468
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11-20-2006 04:17
Big Brother?!?!? Oh Jeez-us!! I came to Second Life to get away from that kind of 'reality'!!
15,000? yes, it was that on Sunday night when I crashed four times in ninety minutes! Just a quick comment about free accounts - I probably would never have tried SL if I'd had to put money up front .. and at multiple crashes I'm not changing my mind even now! |
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CJ Christensen
Secondlife chilled GURU
Join date: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 122
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11-20-2006 04:29
I think the fact Linden Lab found the problem and resolved it within 24 hours , eps as it was a sunday pretty good service.
And you can log who visits your plot with a visitor list script. If your crashing so much either dont play or upgrade your pc Im in uk also and pay 1/4 subscription at $8 a month. Thats what £4.80? a month - not alot to pay . price of fish n chips |
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Strife Onizuka
Moonchild
Join date: 3 Mar 2004
Posts: 5,887
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11-20-2006 04:31
Yes... the grid got ring-worm... They had to deworm it.
I'm not surprised LL was not available for comment, they don't get into the office until 9am PST (or 5PM GMT). I'm going to move this over to "Resident Websites", the BBC do have reporters that are residents... the RA forum isn't an announcement forum. _____________________
Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite. Islanded between the arms, the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as to which is the main river. - Cyril Connolly Without the political will to find common ground, the continual friction of tactic and counter tactic, only creates suspicion and hatred and vengeance, and perpetuates the cycle of violence. - James Nachtwey |
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Inigo Chamerberlin
Registered User
Join date: 13 May 2006
Posts: 448
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11-20-2006 04:34
15,000? yes, it was that on Sunday night when I crashed four times in ninety minutes! Just a quick comment about free accounts - I probably would never have tried SL if I'd had to put money up front .. and at multiple crashes I'm not changing my mind even now! Precisely - but meantime you are consuming resources without paying for them. You are adding to the crippling load on the asset servers with your inventory and consuming bandwidth that has to be paid for every time you log in... Hundreds of thousands of YOU is why you crashed 4 times on Sunday night, which is fine by me. What ISN'T fine by me is that I also suffered crashes on Sunday night, along with enterprise class lag and packet loss, also caused by hundreds of thousands of YOU - but I pay for my Second Life. |
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bilbo99 Emu
Garrett's No.1 fan
Join date: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,468
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11-20-2006 04:39
I think the fact Linden Lab found the problem and resolved it within 24 hours , eps as it was a sunday pretty good service. And you can log who visits your plot with a visitor list script. If your crashing so much either dont play or upgrade your pc Im in uk also and pay 1/4 subscription at $8 a month. Thats what £4.80? a month - not alot to pay . price of fish n chips Yes, quick repair on a sunday is impressive. Upgrading RAM by 520Mb and Radeon from 7500 to 9500 upgrading already done. Probably will pay - thinks fiancee would like a proper home  |
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bilbo99 Emu
Garrett's No.1 fan
Join date: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,468
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11-20-2006 04:48
Hundreds of thousands of YOU is why you crashed 4 times on Sunday night, which is fine by me. What ISN'T fine by me is that I also suffered crashes on Sunday night, along with enterprise class lag and packet loss, also caused by hundreds of thousands of YOU - but I pay for my Second Life. Point taken but please, please see my point? If I'd bought a game, meeting minumum specs with my machine .. and it crashed four times in ninety minutes, I and I'm sure many others would take it back, get a refund and never be heard of again. I probably would not have rushed back to the shop and buy a video card and some RAM? Anyway, as I say, I shall in all probablilty take out subs. |
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mrlk Perry
blah blah blah
Join date: 9 Sep 2006
Posts: 35
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11-24-2006 11:04
"What ISN'T fine by me is that I also suffered crashes on Sunday night, along with enterprise class lag and packet loss, also caused by hundreds of thousands of YOU - but I pay for my Second Life."
i can spend all day walking round a shopping mall and not spend a dime - the shopping mall still has to pay for security, lighting, rates, taxes etc do you see the (albiet simplified) analogy ? if you dont want to sell goods in a shop then dont have one if you dont want to pay for sl then the simple answer is dont you cant have it both ways _____________________
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Inigo Chamerberlin
Registered User
Join date: 13 May 2006
Posts: 448
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11-24-2006 14:50
"What ISN'T fine by me is that I also suffered crashes on Sunday night, along with enterprise class lag and packet loss, also caused by hundreds of thousands of YOU - but I pay for my Second Life." i can spend all day walking round a shopping mall and not spend a dime - the shopping mall still has to pay for security, lighting, rates, taxes etc do you see the (albiet simplified) analogy ? if you dont want to sell goods in a shop then dont have one if you dont want to pay for sl then the simple answer is dont you cant have it both ways The analogy is weak - my island is my home. In RL I don't pay for a home to have it and it's resources (heating, lighting, air-con, hi-fi, tv, broadband, water) used by anyone who happens to feel like it - and who refuses to pay for it! Furthermore, what's going on now is like having a landlord who accepts rent from me - then insists I share my apartment with a bunch of non-contributing street people! And the simple answer is to make the freeloaders PAY. |
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Jopsy Pendragon
Perpetual Outsider
Join date: 15 Jan 2004
Posts: 1,906
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11-24-2006 15:03
What amazes me is that quoting anecdotal blog comments and distorting official statements some how passes muster as 'news'.
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Cocoanut Koala
Coco's Cottages
Join date: 7 Feb 2005
Posts: 7,903
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11-24-2006 15:12
Precisely - but meantime you are consuming resources without paying for them. You are adding to the crippling load on the asset servers with your inventory and consuming bandwidth that has to be paid for every time you log in... Hundreds of thousands of YOU is why you crashed 4 times on Sunday night, which is fine by me. What ISN'T fine by me is that I also suffered crashes on Sunday night, along with enterprise class lag and packet loss, also caused by hundreds of thousands of YOU - but I pay for my Second Life. I think LL actually wants us to stop paying, and become landless basics, but we just can't get our minds around that concept, or why they would want that. I know I can't, anyway. coco _____________________
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bilbo99 Emu
Garrett's No.1 fan
Join date: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 3,468
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11-27-2006 00:47
I think LL actually wants us to stop paying, and become landless basics, but we just can't get our minds around that concept, or why they would want that. I know I can't, anyway. coco Oh Coco!!!! I took upgrade and just won enough for first land on a Sploder yesterday -you're confusing me!! LOLOL |
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Pie Psaltery
runs w/scissors
Join date: 13 Jan 2004
Posts: 987
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11-27-2006 14:45
What's wrong with this is that if you don't ever spend a dime, the mall's gonna close. Mall rats aren't what keep the doors open, the prospect of sales does. What's even more wrong with this is that what I personally wanted from SL when I joined as a premium resident 3 yrs ago was "my world, my imagination", not some damn mall packed with teenagers smearing grey goo around. Having paid for this service for the last 3 yrs, I can confirm I am no longer getting the level of service I did when I started, even in something as easy to verify as 'uptime'. Why would LL want us to stop paying and become landless basics? Because they have all these big-money corporations wanting to use thier platform (read 'mall') who will fund thier little experiment without the need for forums or livehelpers or the resources required to provide basic customer support for the million unwashed masses. When they sell this place off, we can have all sorts of AdidasWorlds and ToyotaWorlds who will run thier own servers from thier own offices, NOT as a part of some hugely unmanagable grid, but utilizing the SL platform to provide thier customers with yet another shopping oppurtunity. My only remaining hope for having been part of this experiment is that, when LL does finally sell thier soul to the highest bidder, it will possible for the truly creative people of SL to afford to have thier own worlds on thier own servers. Hopefully one of those will see the potential of this incredible medium for imagination rather then for blatant commerce, and I wont have to pay for lag and downtime due to mall rats. At this point I would pay twice what I give LL a year for a world I could enjoy rather then endure. _____________________
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Mina Welesa
Semi-retired
Join date: 19 Dec 2004
Posts: 228
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11-27-2006 17:02
Why would LL want us to stop paying and become landless basics? Because they have all these big-money corporations wanting to use thier platform.... who will fund thier little experiment.... After all, one might view the original SL as an open "frontier" that once drew explorers, adventurers and hardy individualists. One might also view the future SL as moving toward a more settled, developed, "civilized" world populated largely by free/basic "consumers" who will continue to purchase Linden dollars whenever they happen to be in the mood to enjoy unlimited virtual fun in impressive corporate-designed-and-run playgrounds. Only the most talented content creators (with deep pockets) could even hope to compete in such a world. Those are just a few of my thoughts. And I honestly hope they are proven to be incorrect. Personally, I would prefer exploring a frontier over a vast theme park, however well-constructed it might be. |
