"reasonable expectation of privacy"

We've looked into this issue with Vivox during the last few days. Thanks for the abundant detail, everyone.

Voice chat was not really hacked. The original poster was not able to hear any conversations that his avatar couldn't already access normally and as expected in world. S/he could not, for example, hear a private conversation between two other Residents (either two Residents in peer-to-peer conversation, or Residents speaking in a private parcel channel).

If you're ever in doubt about who can or cannot hear, and/or be heard in, a particular voice conversation, the Active Speakers list is the definitive source for this information. You can see the list by clicking on the button immediately to the left of the Talk button (the button with little chat bubbles on it).

Even though the "hack" appears to make listeners disappear and become "spies," the original poster is just hanging the Viewer and making the avatar disappear (since the sim no longer knows about the avatar). The voice channel, however (as shown in Active Speakers) very much knows about the "disappeared" avatar's presence.

READ FOR CONTENT.

We want to be informed when people are using voice.

We have been asking for this since before voice was implemented.

We have been ignored and rebuffed over this *simple* request.

CAN YOU UNDERSTAND WHY WE ARE GETTING A LITTLE TESTY?

if this is the case, then why are remote monitoring devices illegal per the TOS/Community standards. After all, the text chat is not something that would not be normally heard.

I feel that this remote monitoring of voice chat should fall under the same guidelines as remotely monitoring text chat.

(not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand why voice chat is exempt from this clause)

you mention that the listener would not be able to hear chat taking place on a private parcel, what is defined as private? (privately owned sim? resident owned mainland? please clarify... thank you.)

I just do not understand why it is just a big issue (that's all).

Obviously what is an issue for one person is not an issue for another.

you mention that the listener would not be able to hear chat taking place on a private parcel, what is defined as private? (privately owned sim? resident owned mainland? please clarify... thank you.)

We've looked into this issue with Vivox during the last few days. Thanks for the abundant detail, everyone.

If you're ever in doubt about who can or cannot hear, and/or be heard in, a particular voice conversation, the Active Speakers list is the definitive source for this information. You can see the list by clicking on the button immediately to the left of the Talk button (the button with little chat bubbles on it).



Thank you very much

On any privately-owned parcel, the parcel owner has the ability to restrict spacialized audio, including voice, to the parcel. On many estates, parcel renters have been extended the same ability. By restricting voice to the parcel and setting access restrictions to the parcel itself, you can, in effect, create a private voice channel.

Can the landowner eject the listener? There is no avatar shown on the map or able to be clicked, so they can put the listener in the private land... and short of turning off voice... they can no longer have privacy.

if this is the case, then why are remote monitoring devices illegal per the TOS/Community standards. After all, the text chat is not something that would not be normally heard.

I feel that this remote monitoring of voice chat should fall under the same guidelines as remotely monitoring text chat.

(not trying to be argumentative, just trying to understand why voice chat is exempt from this clause)

you mention that the listener would not be able to hear chat taking place on a private parcel, what is defined as private? (privately owned sim? resident owned mainland? please clarify... thank you.)

remotely monitoring public general text chat and relaying that text chat over the internet, how would that violate the TOS ? how would you know who is doing it ?
i believe the "remotely monitoring" part of the TOS applies to "in-world", not "out-world".
what you do with the information you collect from within SL, outside of SL is your business.
SL is not a private community.

remotely monitoring public general text chat and relaying that text chat over the internet, how would that violate the TOS ? how would you know who is doing it ?
i believe the "remotely monitoring" part of the TOS applies to "in-world", not "out-world".
what you do with the information you collect from within SL, outside of SL is your business.
SL is not a private community.

As I understand it, a listener has to be either an avatar or a scripted prim. In the case of an uninvited avatar, the landowner can eject the avatar and even ban him or her. In the case of a scripted listener, the landowner can simply return it.

It's not so simple if the listener is an avatar who "hung" the viewer, though. Since there's no avatar to eject, your only choice may be to temporarily disable voice, thus causing Vivox to log off whoever might be on, and then re-enable it again; or reset the sim.

Since both of those options are fairly extreme and disruptive, I think anyone who abuses the system in this way (hanging the viewer so that he or she can keep a voice connection in perpetuity) should be classed and AR'd as a griefer.

i would make a suggestion to the person that is attempting to "DoS" my internet connection, to "quit while you are ahead".
your internet provider will be notified with your IP address shortly.

Interesting. Are you in the habit of giving out your IP address to people? I only ask because, without knowing your IP address, or even just your ISP, how is anyone going to be able to target you with a DoS attack?

His feed, anyone linking to it gets his ip or anyone that had a music feed on sl that he listened to can try to pick him out of it... but most likely his little feed was the source of the data.

His feed, anyone linking to it gets his ip or anyone that had a music feed on sl that he listened to can try to pick him out of it... but most likely his little feed was the source of the data.

A decent DoS attack is run through slave machines, basically a bot net... and even then the good ones will use proxies to hide themselves well.

So contacting the isp and such means nothing, personal experience when we had a DDoS attack on my work's network and mail servers after we blocked china after a couple hacking attempts against the old email server.

remotely monitoring public general text chat and relaying that text chat over the internet, how would that violate the TOS ? how would you know who is doing it ?
i believe the "remotely monitoring" part of the TOS applies to "in-world", not "out-world".
what you do with the information you collect from within SL, outside of SL is your business.
SL is not a private community.

Good point. Similarly, we can publish chatlogs anywhere else, just not on SL servers. (Which is kind of silly when you think about it: I can relay private SL chat out to IRC, but god forbid I should stream that IRC channel back into SL.)

it doesnt take much reverse engineering to figure out who is doing it, just takes some time.

You haven't explained how someone found your IP address if you weren't sourcing the feed, though.

id rather not say.
im not the only one in here with the "smarts", there are plenty available.

oh good lord, you already admitted to being the one who does the remote monitoring of the voice, why evade it?

remotely monitoring public general text chat and relaying that text chat over the internet, how would that violate the TOS ? how would you know who is doing it ?
i believe the "remotely monitoring" part of the TOS applies to "in-world", not "out-world".
what you do with the information you collect from within SL, outside of SL is your business.
SL is not a private community.

4. Disclosure
Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Life experience....[snip]