Strange Attack

I ran into a strange new situation yesterday in a sim. Many of the avs there were attacked by someone using a sort of invisible cone. A search of the cone revealed a number of scripts, which I could not access, and one anim called "kissmyownbutt" or something like that. I could see who created the device, called something like remote follower, but I did not know how to see who was controlling them. I suspect one individual who was in the air and had rezzed a device at the bottom of a swimming pool.

My question(s)

Is there a way to see the controller of such a device

Is there a way to prevent an attack from such a device

What recourse is there besides ARing to stop this person

It was actually kind of funny for awhile, with people farting all over the place, walking around with their head between their legs, and having fits on the ground. But, it got old.

Any suggestions?

Since you are skilled enough to find an invisible cone and see the scripts in it, you know the basic on how to get the owner.
Also sounds like this was an animation, just say no when prompted for an object to animate you.
If you have parcel return rights you can get the list of objects in the parcel and return the offending owner object to them. Setting autoreturn is also a good ideal.

I'm not the owner - just a visitor - so no rights.
Also, though I am "skilled" enough to see the cone using Ctrl-Alt-T I could not dig down to the rezzer.
And lastly, I only saw the one animation in the cone. The farting, with its associated sounds and rising cloud, appeared to be generated by the cone itself.
I have no idea how the laying on the ground fit was done.
I suspect the cones were generated from the box in the pool, thus covering up an owner. I didn't think to analyze the box. My bad.

The cones rezzed by an object will still show the same owner as the object itself.

When you see one of those cones, or any other object, you can right click it and select Edit. You may have to do this twice for someone else's objects. On the main page of the Edit window, you can see the creator of the object and the owner of the object. In the case you are describing, the object's owner is the person you could have filed an AR against. (if the attacks were against you)

Right-click on the object then choose "more", then "more" again, then "inspect" to find the owner.



Presumably, if the device animates avatars then they have to give permission for that. I have heard of objects that only ask once and then have permission to animate you repeatedly until you somehow revoke permission. Anybody know more about this?



If it is not on your land, then that's your only sensible recourse. It's helpful to get others to AR the object as well.

Thanks for the info guys. I'll go back today and see if this delinquent is still playing his games. I was somehow not effected, though I was covered in a cone at times. So, I don't know if others agreed to an animation.

You cannot revoke an animation permission. Once a script has permission it keeps that.
This is described in : https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2326
I think this is a serious security loophole ..

That is how permissions work, and not any clever object or hack. And as Joris says, you cannot revoke the permission yourself. The only way a script loses permissions once given is if it itself asks another avatar for permissions. (Since a script can only hold permissions for one avatar at a time).
Additionally, sitting on an object implicitly grants animation rights. -Technically, a script in the object still has to go through the motions of requesting it, but it will automatically and silently be granted, and the script will then hold it until it decides to relinquish it.

Good post Tali!

Plus, one can make an object that has a default action of "sit" when clicked on. Thus, one can make distorters where all the avatar does is click on it, and voila, distortion.

The "Stop all animations" choice on your ... I think Tools ... menu may make the objectionable anims stop. Failing that, a deRuther will usually do the job (usually set out in an object that can be clicked).

TPing away and back will work, as of course will re-logging.

It is a serious loophole that there is no way of retracting permissions to a sat-on object once granted.
Someone could simply sit on an ordinary-looking seat and then be griefed forever after without being able to identify the perp.

It's needs something like an option to switch on that will identify the objects and their owners running animations on the avatar and prompts for continuing permission.

That will stop the effect, but if the owner of the object takes it back into inventory, can they not rezz it again, mod it to something minor and use it to control the 'captured' avatar the next time they meet?

Yup! See the Jira quoted above .... one of the very few I created!
.

As long as they don't touch the actual script. Modifying that would reset it, making the script lose permissions. But if they planned the script from the outset as a "permission catcher" with ways to (ab)use the granted permission for something else, yes, they could do that.

OK. I should have read that first.
However, I don't claim to be spectacularly more intelligent/devious than the next person, illustrating that the potential abuse of this is a total no-brainer.

As the current last comment in that JIRA puts it:
"Difficult or not, I find it astonishing that LL has not done anything about this. The idea that ANYONE would create a security system where you could "opt-in" but never ever opt-out again is... well... frankly astonishing."