URL Blocker - Very Neccessary

We need to be able to block the URL that we place in our Land Options window.

Why?

Shoutcast servers can be ordered with a maximum of listeners - if that maximum is exceeded then others will not hear the song.

Because of this, we need to be able to mask our URL music options.

Scenario:

SecondLife, live music concert.
- Music feed is set for 40 people;
- The land is set for paid entry $10 tickets and after max people is hit acess is restricted;
- People who don't wish to pay, copy the URL and put it on their property to listen without paying. if 15 people are listening to this concert off the parcel, then that means 15 people who paid to hear it or were invited or whatever cannot hear the concert at the proper location.

Can we please have the ability to block our URL from being seen by others?

Briana Dawson

endorsed, supported, etc.

Briana, there's another thread in here somewhere that's about 1-1/2 months old that you may want to link to, where this was already debated.

Isn't paid land access also restricted by height? If so, it's even simpler to fly high over the land - the audio stream is not limited by height.

We seem to have several features in SL which are absolutely useless. Altitude in SL is like a wild joker in poker, with altitude you can avoid parcel bans & restrictions making these extra parcel controls for the most part useless.

This is the first time i have seriously thought of the 'pay to access parcel' feature and guess what, its absolutely useless with most purposes you would use it for - unless your entire private sim is the venue.


Briana Dawson

Can't really be done. As soon as you start streaming the music anyone can check what address they are listening to using other tools that don't come with SL.

* edit, I love Galleria City BTW I bought some cool shoes there the other day.

Dayum. You have a point there Ezhar. These silly linden limits are in dire need of revision. They set things to be limited to a fixed distance that is chosen at random. Why not let users have more control over these things? Like, I want to build a house 400 meters up in the sky. Why can't I set the banning walls to be between 400 and 415 meters instead of being attached to the ground?
Ditto for http streams.

The problem with raising the land-ban height is it blocks air traffic.

Solutions might be:

1) Allow the parcel owner to choose the upper and lower limits of the ban region, limiting it's total hight to a set value. (This would allow a floating building to have ban protection -- People weren't going to fly though it anyway.) Alternatively, the ban range might be programmed to cover any altitude within a few meters of a landowner-owned prim. That way a ground instalation AND a floating castle could be protected, but passers-by could fly under or over the castle still. [Griefers could still stagger small invisible prims up through the air above their abode, blocking all flyers above their land. A maximum total altitude to be covered would probably need to be implemented as well.]

2) If pay-to-enter is turned on for a parcel, all sound and audio streaming becomes "local" and confined to the protected area. A further option could be to make all objects and avatars inside that area invisible as well. (Though this may be overkill...)

(For all that Philip mentions the pay-to-enter feature as often as he does, the fact that it is so rarely used (the posted numbers indicate it has been used only for testing purposes), there must be something inherently wrong with its implementation. I think the two changes listed above would make the feature viable.)

I think we should have "access cubes". Sort of like cube prims. You can rez or delete them but they can only be placed on land you (or your group) owns.

They would appear semi-transparent red (or something unobstructive) when editting but otherwise invisible.

They should have a properties dialog with options to set music streaming URLs, paid access options, access lists, ban lists, sound limitations, and chat limitations.

The should support scripts to allow automated updates of the ban and access lists as parecels do now.

This would allow people to define only certain heights, certain rooms, or other areas of their property to have certain access restrictions. By rezzing multiple access cubes you could define complex shaped regions but it should be limited to cubes for quick collision detection or simplicity server side.

The chat limitation feature would allow you to block public channel 0 whispers, says, and shouts from entering the access cube or exiting the access cube, allowing people to create rooms for 'private' conversations.

The other features would essentially work as they do now for land parcels.

signed

Ednorse... Endorsed too.

Even if Linden puts in a URL blocker or the option to hide URL addy ... someone could easily search the shoutcast servers for the stream.Will this be a secure way to block someone from listening to a stream.. no, unless the person who is streaming to the server goes into the admin area and automatically bans the IP or the broadcaster can, if using the right broadcasting tools, .has the ability to make the stream public or private.

I completely agree. I requested this a while ago. I run my own shoutcast server but only allow 10 connections. I'd rather not have people borrowing my stream URL and using it on their land.

Start, run, cmd, netstat. That will give you info about the currently running network connections. Run it before entering a parcel with the desired stream, then run it after you have entered. Compare the two and there will be a new connection which is probably the one you want.

Yeah. Agreed. But, it WILL help against the casual 'stream stealer'.

It's kinda like CD Copy Protection such as Macrovision as employed by companies like EMI... yes, you CAN get round it by simply pressing 'shift' when you put the cd in the drive... but as EMI themselves say, there are enough people that DONT know that that WOULD have copied the cd that it still makes it worthless, even though its actually a pretty useless measure to anyone with an ounce of tech savvy.

So yes, I still agree with the original assertion that having a URL blocker would stop people who KNOW exactly where to go to steal your stream now, but don't know how to get it by analysing your stream... which in this case I imagine to be a fair proportion.

Some of us are paying monthly for our own stream servers.
I get charged if over a max number of listeners that join in, and there's nothing protecting me from them hijacking my stream, and using it.

I may have to disable the Snow Crash Project until this is fixed, and I don't wanna.

Please please please. Soon.


Crow

If the stream change bug is fixed, and you've got the software savvy, you could use rolling URL's (ports) and an in-world object that automatically keeps your parcel synchronized with the channel-hopping sound feed. Somebody might "steal" your stream for a minute or two, but then that connection point rolls out of the system and they have to start over. It won't take long before they realize it's just too annoying to keep having to come back and check the URL every 3 to 5 minutes.

That's the key.

Change your port # or when you have a new event. Since the people have to pay to get on the lot anyway, you have a built-in solution.

Another method is to set up an HTTP server with password protection. Instead of using ShoutCast, set the user name and password to something unique every time. To hear the audio, people pay a vendor for a notecard with the web address and password.

Then they alt-tab over to IE, enter the info, and boom: music

If you have a deterministic algorithm for URL switching, I can still steal your streams and script something to change between them just like you do

Yes, Eggy, but the point is that your average casual stream stealer wont be bothered to do this. So stop being an argumentative oeuf and just accept that the original suggestion is a good one that should be implemented, biatch.

We KNOW you're a clever little thing. It's the other 9000 dumbasses we're trying to protect ourselves from.

Um... did I say that?

*sidles out of the thread quietly*

The other 9000 dumbasses can just buy the script off of me

I thought everything you scripted was free. Or are you now a capitalist too?

If Eggy releases a free script to enable non techies to steal people's audio streams, he'll be rapidly turned into a f*ckin' omelette. Then what use will all his Linden dollars be to him?

Who needs deterministic when you have XML-RPC inbound?