"reasonable expectation of privacy"

If you had already made up your mind that it was perfectly legal and within your rights to do what you are doing... then why this thread? Why the query in the first post as to "exactly how can there be a "reasonable expectation of privacy" if voice chat is conversed in the general public ?"

It seems to me that you had already made up your mind on the subject and really was not looking for opinions, just maybe some folks to agree with you, because maybe... you were having doubts?

Not sure, as some posts seems to be full of doubt, and other posts it seems you know what you feel is right and wrong, etc.

I do not know much about the law of this type, and do not know if it is legally right or wrong.



however for me, it would be morally wrong to do such a thing. I can not help but wonder who it is that you are spying on and why.



If not spying on someone, then why the fascination with Ahern???

I'm not sure if you genuinely misunderstood what I'd written, or if the lack of comprehension is a pretense, used as a diversionary tactic. Here's what you were responding to:



Quote:

When a newbie hears other agents speaking, the newbie also sees that the agents are nearby (either through seeing the avatars or seeing the green dots on the map). Thus the newbie gains the impression 'if there's no other avatar nearby, then my conversation can't be overheard.

............................



Notice that there was nothing about 'who' the avatars might be, or 'how many' there might be. Let alone whether or not the avatar 'does not know' other avatars.



Assuming you genuinely misunderstood: The point was that your earlier defense (that avatars should conclude that they have no expectation of privacy when they overhear the audio generated by other avatars they see around them) is completely invalid in this case, because what's being discussed is NOT audio that's streamed from avatars who can see the agent doing the streaming, but from avatars who see no agent nearby.

its funny how many have "threadcrapped" my post, but the obvious still remains:
public is not private and a "reasonable expectation or privacy" cannot be afforded in the public domain.

what would the point be in that itself if the agents cannot tell who is doing the streaming in the first place ? - whether the agent doing the streaming is visible or not. - if i hide myself in a box in a public place with lots of people talking and no one knows, does that change the expectancy of having reasonable privacy ? - what would the difference be if the agent doing the streaming is visible or not ? - if the agent is part of the conversation as it shows in the "active speakers list" but not shown in-world as an avatar, what is the difference ?

Privately owned and operated servers and services DO NOT EQUAL public domain.



Cases in courts both in the US, Canada, and the EU have decided that.





It is more akin to going into a dance club and recording with a hidden camera... than stanind on the street corner with a boom mike and camera on your shoulder.

There are probably two answers that would be meaningful to you: what the law relevant to your situation says, and what some people (for instance, the majority of people who post in the Forums) think.



Personally, I think there really is a distinction based on whether the entity doing the streaming is plainly visible (whether on the screen or on the Minimap).



I'd guess that for the vast majority of Residents, a visual inspection of surroundings or Map that shows no other avatars but those wanting to converse would signal 'our conversation won't be shared by anyone other than Lindens.'

did you have to agree to an EULA or TOS when you activated voice on your SL viewer ? - what makes the voice service provided by Vivox private if it is offered to the public without an agreement to EULA or a TOS before using the service ?

Jesse, that link produces an empty page on my system.

and how would the "Lindens" be any different in listening to public voice chat than a regular resident ? how would you know that there isnt a "dirty" Linden in the group ?

The same way a store is private property, even though the public has access to it.



The SL voice is limited (by hard code in the servers, to the point a client change can not override it to 60m radius listen/speak distance for voice) and in the process of being encrypted for privacy.



Therefore it is considered a Community Standards issue for certain, and likely a legal issue to rebroadcast the data.

It's akin to saying: Well FOX was sending the data over the ether to my antenna why is it illegal to transmit it through the internet...

You don't have an EULA agreement when you walk into grand central station saying you have to respect the privacy of those in there... since it is a privately owned facility. Much like an airport. Yest the public has access, but it is still treated as a private location.

for a good example google street view and private city streets.

Would most people see a difference in these situations?....

**A phone company employee hears a conversation that takes place on that company's equipment



**A phone company employee streams a conversation that takes place on that company's equipment, to a website (the URL of which is posted where many people can see it).

I would guess that most people WOULD see a difference.

Everything we do and say inside SL is subject to being witnessed by Lindens.

But that's a different situation from one in which what we do or say is posted on a public website.

Fun part is the op is fully aware of the SL ToS and conditions.



But is arguing that the means of violating them protects them, similar to someone finding a Os client that blocks the ToS and CS popups... on sign in.



You are still aware of them, and the fact your remote monitoring of a service constitutes harassment and disclosure per the ToS.

Whoever gave your account login status again should be give a nice talk about things. You broadcast the link in your profile on SL. And it's documented now that you were disclosing the conversations in direct violation of the rules related to monitoring per the rules of SL.

How you do it doesn't matter, it's the act and the willfulness to try and say it's okay.

As for the site rebroadcasting, Fox can and likely will shut them down if made aware of it (per the station notices about all rights reserved with station id's )

The city in question had publicly assessable but privately owned streets. and google lost the lawsuit and had to remove all street view data for the private city.

there is no way to connect or tap into a private voice stream directly, its not a security issue.
LL or a Linden does not have the authority or power to forcefully disconnect you from a voice stream.

No, that is incorrect. Vivox carries all the streams whether they are private or not. A private voice conversation on SL is "private" only because the LL's servers say that only these two (or however many) particular agents have access to the stream at this time. Outside of SL (i.e., to Vivox), these "private" streams are just another stream, nothing special about them. An individual who can tap voice streams through Vivox theoretically has access to any stream he chooses, including "private" streams. It is a security exploit, albeit a roundabout one.

that does not make sense, if there are other avatars within range that he/she does not know, the conversation can be overheard, regardless of who and how many are within range [snip]

Thank you for calling this capability to our attention, EliteData. Personally, I feel this is a clear violation of the intent behind SL's voice chat - the Preferences dialog creates an impression that no avatar outside of camera distance can hear voice chat, and making it available via simple streaming clearly violates that intent. I'm hoping that this is simply an oversight on LL/Vivox's part, and that some form of stream authentication can be put in place without too much trouble.

Accordingly, I have created this Jira:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-3875
"Privacy: eavesdropping on voice chat is possible from outside of SL"
.

I would just like to note, that using the OP's method to listen to voice chat places a listener in the "active speakers" dialog. So the "microphone under the table" analogy does not apply.

Anyone will clearly see an additional listener is present.

Okay, you are seriously arguing the wrong issue. If I and one other person were having a conversation where we both verified nobody else was anywhere in earshot, then we have a reasonable expectation of privacy.



What you have done, using your conversation-in-a-restaurant analogy, is the equivalent to hiding a microphone under an unsuspecting party's table and piping the captured conversation to a radio station. That will open you wide to legal liability.



What you are doing is the legal equivalent to tapping into an e-mail server and making copies of the message traffic and posting it to a website somewhere.

No avatar is within the hard coded server range though so they assume that it's not within range of voice chat