How does LL stop the "TMNT" attacks?

When the teenage mutant ninja turtle, goatse porn, etc. attacks start, then get stopped, how are they stopped?

My understanding is that they are done by accounts that use the Shooped Life client to mask the identity of the client so that it can't be blocked.

So how are the attacks stopped? Are they actually stopped or do the vandals just get tired and go to sleep or go get something to eat or what?

At the risk of going 0-for-2 responding to you tonight, I've yet to see one of these that I couldn't find the owner of. Can you post a sim name where it's happening?

Usually you have to AR them then a Linden will eventually show up and remove the generators manually.

I'm not aware of a current attack.

There's been dozens to hundreds of such attacks in past months.

Accounts can be created essentially at will.

It's my understanding that the folks using the Shooped Life clients can login in with a new account as fast as the old ones get banned.

Hey, what do you know, while I was typing this , an attack started. It's in

This one has the TMNT and the words "I AM A MEMBER OF THE PATRIOTIC NIGRAS, YOU LINDENS CAN....." That one.

http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa245/SuezanneC-Baskerville/Second%20Life/SecondLife-Chatandparticlegriefing.png

I know that the objects generating the textures can generally be found and abuse reports filed.

What keeps the troublemakers from just making new accounts and griefing endlessly?

Not a whole heck of a lot.

I guess the particular mix of alcohol, stimulants, and physical brain malfunction that makes griefing in Second Life so rewarding might be hard to maintain for long.

Well, considering the people that do it, it's most likely that it stops when they inadvertently spot something shiny.

BanLink helps to a point, but at best it mitigates an attack in progress. (Only subsequent locations attacked after the first are protected, and only if they trusted bans from the first.) The next weekend they all create new accounts: wash, rinse, repeat.

I think what stops it is a combination of resident communication, Linden action, and ultimately: them just getting bored for the night.

Nice link, Chip, I hadn't seen that story.

Perhaps the ID concealing clients are something used at times, by some folks , but not all the time by everyone.

Heh, yes, they get bored, or the school bus comes, or some such.

....or mommy tosses down the weekly twinkie/jolt cola/yoohoo food supply.

yes they do kinda tick me off, but now, im feelin a new emotion; pity.

The irony is, from the source of all these kiddies out there with their particle crap etc.

The anonymous find you piteous.

So you're not alone Maggie. Never mind. They might all just go off to Habbo Hotel instead.

SL is not alone in being a playground.

Travis is very right. The problem is that people respond, which is the cause of the amusement. Seen one screen of Mario, seen them all.

It helps you personally if you just turn off particles and go somewhere less interesting to being griefed.

Anonymous blows up vans.

Or maybe just the same ugly yellow one over and over.

I saw that 'Faux n00z' video.

/me chuckles, not being anonymous at all.

Well quite.

You notice it's Goatse and not Meat Spin though.

Yanno I have to back Beezle up on this. Or perhaps a cat with something to say.

One bit of that article struck a chord:
"As one GoonFleet member's online profile declared, "You may be playing EVE Online, but be warned: We are playing Something Awful."

If someone else is playing a game (or life) against you by their own rules, your winning strategies probably do not involve
1) Playing by the usual rules
2) Playing by their rules


There is another line from the Wired article:
"It's only one element, he insists, in an arsenal of PN techniques designed to push users past the brink of moral outrage toward that rare moment — at once humiliating and enlightening — when they find themselves crying over a computer game. Getting that response is what it's all about, the Nigras say."

AND:
"Their work is complete when the victims log off in a huff."


How to spoil 'the game' for griefers?
The most common advice is to TP away or log out.

This gives griefers a partial victory, but at least it would be the least satisfying victory.
It looks like we'll never beat griefers at their own game.
The only people who can play with a set of rules that grief griefers are LL.

Until LL begin to quantify the costs of griefing, there is no way their beancounters are going to sanction effective RL action against griefers.
It is possible for people to escape the attentions of the Feds and courts as long as the complainant can not prove an actual financial loss exceeding tens of thousands of US$ (I forget the precise number).

This is referred to in the article:
Pressed as to the legality of their griefing, PNs are quick to cite the distinction made in Second Life's own terms of service between real money and the "fictional currency" that circulates in-game. As ^ban^ puts it, "This is our razor-thin disclaimer which protects us in real-life" from what /b/tards refer to as "a ride in the FBI party van."


Your World, Your Imagination?
I think that LL should use a bit of imagination to analyse the activities of griefers and begin to stick dollar bills on the costs of dealing with ARs, cleanups and region downtimes. Those costs are real. Costs due to lost or reduced revenue from users are less straightforward to 'prove' but there must be the potential for a plausible number.

What may be one of the biggest costs to LL is probably not quantifiable: How many newbies arrive at entry points from Orientation Island only to be insulted, grossed out and harrassed mercilessly by the juvenile sorts of griefers who hang out in those places for exactly that purpose - and leave SL never to come back, but whenever asked give SL bad word-of-mouth to their friends based on their experiences?

Personally, I think this is costing LL more, and in many more ways, than the PN-type attacks.

Seems to me that what they do in SL are essentially denial of service attacks which are already punishable under real world laws. LL just has to develop the stomach for setting a few examples.

...or the opposite

Lindens have been seen and videotaped agruing with the PN, and pretty much the members they have been bugged by and even personally griefed by years ago, are mostly still able to come onto the Grid over and over 'til this day.

...why they would want to, when they have thier own "videogame style" Grid with plenty of builds and no rules, is pretty ironic.

It's certainly true that for many homeless, carefree users of Second Life it's easy enough to escape from griefing by going somewhere else.

If you've paid money to have a store where products are sitting unused due to griefing it's not quite so easy to solve the problem.

Remaining calm and rising above the situation emotionally doesn't spend as well as the lost money would have

"I laugh at those who think themselves good because they have no claws."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

- and, I suspect, most griefers

You actually looked that closely at it? Eurgh.....


And I don't think some of these people even have a brain...they maybe share a group brain cell.

And they get joy out of crashing the grid...

Until havok4 goes fully live, that's sort of like sabotaging an '83 Yugo so it won't run. Not an especially impressive feat.

LMAO!!!!!!!!!

I just got done laughing so hard I bruised a rib...muscle...or something. Ouch.

That's true, I was just talkin' about that with my GF last night (she's an painter who sells in SL and RL).

Somebody will "rack UP" money-wise, if they figure out how to make a "shoot-em-up" video game style place with RP Sim elements, by the time Havok4 hits. That will give the griefers somewhere to hang out all the time too. Just charge for a proprietary weapons system, make them pay for vehicle permits...let them play pretty much any role you can play in Midian and the Crack Den combined... and voila...a "polished turd"!

An actual polished turd. ...and they say man can't play God. lol

Places similar to this in the past always crashed over and over because of the heavy load on the Sims, but with Havok4, they'll be a lot tougher, which means eventually this will probably happen.

Too bad I'm broke or I'd pull out the graph paper, highlighters, pens and a calculator right this moment.

Nope I wasn't there. I just think Meat Spin is funny, personally.