A modest proposal to Grey-Goo

One of the perhaps easiest ways I can perceive to combat the ongoing Grey-Goo issues, is to remove only one feature of the scripting language, that is for the most part a pure convenience aesthetic.

Prevent in script renaming of objects.

Then if you add a semi-simple function to the land owner controls to allow deleting all objects by name (ex. delete all objects from my land named "goo”).

Should allow Grey-Goo to be somewhat kept in check.

It would also allow Lindens to log in as, for lack of better terminology, God landowners and globally commit the same action.

This would allow the semi-quick removable of Grey-Goo objects.

Unfortunately, this does still leave the possibility of a user manually creating a script and set of objects that have been manually named a couple of hundred different things, but it should make these types of attacks much less appealing.

Or we can just feed the Goo to the greifers

Believe it or not, I have some code that relies on an object being able to set its own name. It's not just a nice aesthetic touch; the system would break without it.

The real question is whether your code absolutely cannot be modified to function without the renaming feature.

Note the object description can be changed as well as the name. So why not change just the description and leave the name alone? You can still store your data but with an unchanging object name that can be easily muted/suppressed/removed.

Or we could just get the grey goo fence working again.

Ditto. It's possible to store data in the name of an object, and for some applications there really is nowhere else to store it.

You can't read the description of an object from a sensor event, or when it is inside the inventory of another object. You can read the name.

Oh, and of course every griefer object would henceforth be known as "Object".

Simultaneously is the question of whether it's worth it to break my code and that of everyone else in world who's relying on llSetObjectName(). Some people who used that function might have since left the world, and people might still rely on their code, which will never get fixed once you break it.



Well, it's not just a matter of storing data. I have a central inventory server in my sim that holds all of the various things that my objects will give away to people, so that I only have one copy to update when I want to make changes. When the server goes to give something away, it changes its name to match the object the person THINKS they're interacting with, and it gives the item to them.

There's also the fact that the name of an object is sent along with a listen event. In another case, I have objects carefully modify their names to add the llMD5Sum of their object key with a secret password. That provides authentication in a situation where I have to be clear whether an object is legitimate (a game piece).

Besides, there is a very legitimate use for renaming objects: chat relays. The object renames itself to convey a message to a remote location using the name of the person who sent the message. While you CAN prepend some text to the message itself instead, it ruins messages that are already near the 256 character chat limit (or the larger limits once they are put in), and it has nowhere near the immersive feel. Compare:

to:

(something like that anyway. I didn't count characters.)