Sim Security Advice

I've been asked to research security/anti-griefing options for an entire sim, and know very little on the subject. I'm hoping to get some advice and/or suggestions.

Here is what we have done so far:
Restricted Push
Rezzing set to group only

We will be getting a security system, which would grant ban/eject rights to our "security officers."

What are we missing? We would still seem to be vulnerable to scripted object or particle attacks. How do people protect against these sort of attacks? Is there anything else we should consider?

Thanks so much in advance for any advice.

Object Entry is another you may want to restrict as well.

The thing is with security, it has to be a balance between being secure and acceptable to your "market".

You can make it totally secure, but it will be horrid to use, or you can make it less secure and nice to use.

Example, I hate it when I go to a shop, buy something, it comes in a box and I can't rez the box to get the contents out.

Solution with Security and Market Acceptance: No create for the entire store, a small well signed rezzing zone for unpacking what you just purchased.

A slight inconvience for the customers, but better than having to TP home to open the box, and your still fairly "secure".

Don't do anything at all.

If anyone messes with you, you can freeze/eject/ban/mute them. And return all their stuff.

But I wouldn't worry about it. Griefing is the sort of thing where if you are spending tons of money, planning how to stop it, locking down your region - well, you are practically griefing yourself at that point aren't you? Saves them the trouble!

I've got thirty sims, and it's rare that our ban list has anybody on it (we had some attention lately, I think it's got 5 names).

But at the end of the day, banning doesn't work. People come back as alts. Regions can be crashed pretty much near instantly and there's little to nothing you can do about it.

Basically if you invest a lot of effort in the 'fight' you will paint yourself as a yummy target that provides what is desired most: attention and lulz.

Which sets you up for *moar* griefing!

Your best defence of all: don't take the internet too seriously.

Desmond, you are the wind beneath my wings.

I think this is a really good point. Last night I visited a sim-sized store selling some most elegant and beautiful clothes and dresses. The build and ambience were superb; staff well dressed....

However, the sim was set to no-script, disabling all our AO's and so left the clientele waddling around like demented ducks...kind of spoiling the whole effect.

I could not say I would not visit there again, that would be too extreme, but certainly if I know I can get the same or similar elsewhere I will go to that other place rather than a no-script sim.

It sometimes seems to me that switching on all the security options on a parcel/sim can change it into a kind of prison, and thus self-defeats the freedom that SL can otherwise provide.

my tup-pence worth...



Yep, great summary!

Word of note here: If on a single private island sim, then Eject is worthless. Thanks to LL's lack of forsight there is no place to Eject them TOO. They wind up in a corner of the sim, and held there for a few seconds (20 seconds I beleive), but then the system releases them. Only good for getting warnings across to people, or for ticking off griefers to make them come back at you in a worse manner.

Ban or nothing, imo.

A few suggestions:
1) Don't split up parcels more than absolutely needed. Ban only works on the land you're over, so you'll need to add names to each parcel seperately. PITA with a lot of parcels.
2) Put in a Telehub location. This way you know where people will be TPing into your land. Good for times with returning alt account griefers.
3) Think about a Visitor Tracker at the TP point. That way if things happen while no Land Officer is there, you can go back over the logs for clues.
4) As most island owners are Premium Accounts, they still have a tier-free allotement of 512m (not used with the island sim). Consider a Mainland parcel to place a remote sim-radar. There are a few models out there that can use said radar to ban remotely. Good for the serious griefers that use the 1% weapons mentioned below.
5) NEVER argue with, make fun of, swear at, etc, at griefers. Instruct all Security Officers working there in the same. A lot of riefers do greifing jsut to get a response so they can AR you. Don't sink to thier level. Locat/Ban/(Mute if needed)/Forget.

As for particles/scripts:
Without Push/Build 99% of scripted weapons are useless. I wouldn't worry about the other 1%. If you hit those, get on Support with Concierage Live Chat for Linden help.

For particles: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+= is the hot-key command to turn them off. Locate offender. Ban. Return to buisness.

~Jessy

I've always thought of SL security the same way I think of RL home security. Do the best you can, within reason, to stop crimes of opportunity while realizing that not much is going to stop someone who is determined to target you. The important part in SL is to try and avoid the "determined" part.

Turning off object entry, build (except to group) and restrict push will stop 90% of casual idiot griefers. Trying to avoid pissing someone off and turning that person into a determined griefer with a target is critical. I generally tend to "Freeze" first and send an IM asking the person to please refrain from whatever behavior they are engaged in. If that fails, I teleport home. If that fails, then I go for the ban hammer. Ban should be your last resort when diplomacy fails.

I allow scripts so that AO's can work.

Can somebody else validate that an "eject" on a private island actually keeps the "ejectee" on the island? I thought it sent them to their home location.

This is correct. It throws them into a corner and pins them there, but they don't actually leave. You can, however, use the region's 'Teleport Home One User' function (assuming you have estate manager power).

-Atashi

There's quite a range of opinions when it comes to securing areas in Second Life. Some folks feel that the best approach is to completely ignore griefing, and deprive the griefers of the (negative) attention they so desperately seek. Others feel that their griefing problem goes beyond what can simply be ignored, and feel a proactive approach is neccesary.

At the end of the day, you need to take a close look at your own, unique griefing issues, and ask yourself whether these are minor issues that can benefit from the ignoring approach first. Especially if you don't have a griefing problem yet, you might be surprised at the results by taking this approach.

However, if this is something that's already affecting your ability to do buisness, you might look into a proactive approach, like BanLink. http://www.slbanlink.com Note that while BanLink is completely free, very little support is provided, and its only intended to be used by either full-sim private islands, or high-traffic mainland locations.

If you're just curious about what BanLink *is*, read this blog post here: http://meratalk.com/blog.php?p=304

Hope this helps & good luck!

I work security for a club, and also for my "home" nature preserve. We don't do much in the way of actual security though, other than restricting build forn non-group members and set no-push. At the club, it's the same way ... no-push, no-build. Our "security" is simply to kick-out the griefers.

For me, I'm a huge fan of the simple stuff. Some security people like to torment their victims, orbit them to a billion meters (which can make them lose no-copy/no-trans inventory), set them on fire, etc ..


Me? I like the simple stuff. MystiTool Trap them, give them their warning, release the trap and see what happens. If they continue ... eject. Done. No mess, no fuss. If they are obvious griefers ... just TP in and start griefing ... it's insta-ban.

When there's something weird, in the neighborhood
Who ya gonna call?
Griefbusters!

I ain't afraid of no Griefer

Got a problem hun, then call in the professionals. We go griefer hunting for fun.

We kick ass and take names!

SLAGS

(Second Life Anti-Griefing Society)

Just so you're aware, hunting griefers is griefing by LL's ToS. *shrugs* I agree with the concept, but the execution is impossible to do within the rules.

~Jessy

Are you sure about that? I thought that scripted attachments, which would include an AO, continue to work if they're attached in an area where scripting is allowed and then worn into a no-script area.

Not as far as I've experienced.
My walk always goes back to primate wobble whenever I enter a no-script area.
Most shops these days seem to be no-script areas btw.
Doesn't bother me too much, because everyone there reverts to wobbling as well. Kinda funny.

Wow! Thanks to everyone for all the great advice. It sounds as if we don't have to go much further than we've already planned.

Thank you all so much!

Hi all, I made a security device myself (a sim radar with attack capabilities and ban/eject/tp home functionality) and did some research on security.


The land options that disallow build/object entry are buggy. I can get an object into a parcel that has NO build and NO object entry on pretty easy. In fact there are 3 distinct ways of doing it! (I'm not going to explain them here, for obvious griefer reasons but most safezone killer weapons use these tricks)

Therefore a serious griefer WILL get objects in and customers or visitors cant build, which is a nuisance sometimes as noted earlier in the thread.

What I usually do:

Let everyone build/object entry /script BUT use the autoreturn!
If you set the autoreturn to a fairly short time (1 minute is minimum) griefers cant leave stuff out. (Well there IS a way to defeat that as well, but I havent seen it widely used even by professional griefers)

If a griefer is still annoying and wont listen to reason: Ban and tp home.

The tp home usually does the trick because half the time they dont even remember where they were when they got send home!

If they come back as alts soon after that, you are forced to use a good security device and have security personnel. As said before, this isnt usually neccessary.

Hope my contribution will help

If the script uses llTakeControls it will keep working, yeah.

Auto-return. Best solution for most situations.

Just set everything on your land to the same group as the land (remember this if you ever switch group!!!) and then enabled auto-return. This way you can enable rezzing, with the safe knowledge that after a while any items will disappear.

The only trouble then are sand-boxes, where a relatively short auto-return is not as reasonable as for an object rezzing area.

You must have a bargain basement AO, Sally. I've never experienced this, and I've used many different AOs and animation vendors, and visited many no script areas.

[EDIT: But you say, it happens to everyone? It must be something in your viewer, then.]