Sending IMs from RL

Hotline thread on topic:

/invalid_link.html

Phillip Linden says he's concerned about spam if you allow IMs by emailing to the user by name. Well, there are much better alternatives than an email/IM gateway.

Jabber (www.jabber.org) is a great alternative - it is open source and freely available, and pretty darn secure too (SSL encryption). It also has free clients on every major platform, and will soon be supported in Apple's iChat (in the Tiger release of OS X this summer). It should be relatively straightforward to provide a Jabber gateway to in-world IMs.

Barring an Jabber gateway, put a login-protected page on the website that allows authenticated users to IM to avs they have exchanged calling cards with. That should be pretty secure against spam.

i alway thought something like this would be a page on the site you login to and there's a chat interface. it would be nice if it had all the features of the finder for groups and events and profiles and could IM anybody from their profile since you'd have to log in to get to it.

i dunno what he was saying about [email]philip.linden@secondlife.com[/email] unless he was thinking of an email addy for every single player. that would be kinda cool but i'm not sure how useful.

There's so many times at work during the day that I wish I could click on my calling card list from the website, and send a friend a quick note in-game.

If I had to log in to the website in order to send the message.... and even if the message was only semi-realtime, that would be such a huge help.... and wouldn't that nullify the spam concerns?

Travis

I think, Phil (/invalid_link.html) is totally justified in his fear, that a system that is to easy and open (like [email]kim.charlton@secondlife.com[/email]) would open the doors for spam. And with regard to spam it makes no difference, if it is email or an IM (RL IM) system. The current forwarding system for inworld IMs (to which you can answer via email ... for a limited time) seems like a sensible solution to me. You can only send emails (or IMs) to someone, who has sent you an inworld IM before. Hard to use that as a spamming gateway. But not verz helpful if the person in question did not sent you an IM while you were logged out ...

I would very much prefer to have a more flexible system for sending emails during the day (with no possibility to log on or without enough bandwidth avail) to my friends in SL. Even though I am not sure, I will get anything done at the office, should such a system be available; LOL. This is especially important for me as I am on CET and most of my friends are in the US.

But if this would mean to open up the doors for spam, i can live without it.

A password protected page on the SL website, from where I can send an email to one of those residents I exchanged calling cards with (or, where I could generate a temporary email-adress) might be a solution. If such a solution would be made TOO flexible this would open the spam gates again:Zuzi, if this would work, all I need would be one SL account (not that hard to get) to flood all residents with offers for viagra and cheap replica watches.

except then your account gets banned. anyway you wouldn't be able to do anything you can't already do with your account. you just wouldn't have to be in the SL world to do it.

I am not sure, Zuzi. May it is just my inexperience.

But, i was thinking ... if you need at least calling cards to send someone an IM/email from the outside - that would make it uninteresting for the spammers. But maybe I am mistaken. I am just a bloody noob. But I know of no efficcient way for me to get the calling cards of all or nearly all users. And anything less probably would not be of interest to a professional spammer. Spammers are only interested in big numbers.

Yes, I could send out spam by going inworld and sending IMs throught the FIND dialog. But - to the best of my knowledge - this would have to be done manually. Or can I script that process? I honestly don't know. When I have a web interface for what the FIND dialog can do, I can always automate.

The mechanism would be:
* Open an account
* Let the spam bot attack the web interface you proposed
* Sent out Viagra advertisements to all residents
* Get banned
* Open up another account
* ...

This all depends on the ability of a spam bot to reach out automatically to all residents without costly human intervention.

I just proposed this as a feature. Go vote on it! YES on 195!