The Long Arm of LL Reaches Into SLX

Hmm

then perhaps its mainly perception?

Though I suppose perception is as bad as reality if it leads to AR mobs.

So how will they be assured? Can someone from SLX call LL and get information about our account statuses? How can they know what anyone's account status is unless we tell them aside from looking in search and seeing if the account is there, which gives no indicaton as to whether or not a person is able to withdraw L$ from the Lindex or not. I am sure there are plenty of people who cannot withdraw from the Lindex and still withdraw at SLX.

I ask because it makes me wonder if this is just a clause in their TOS to protect themselves or if they are actually able to get our account information from LL.

Those are good questions. I seriously doubt that answers will be forthcoming since it would just expose the inner-workings of whatever system is in place. Goes right back to that persistant argument the USA has politically of "the people demand transparency" vs "but then the terrorists will know too!"

copy pasted from LL's site:

IMPORTANT NOTICE TO THIRD-PARTY EXCHANGES

User-to-user Linden Dollar exchange activity is a consistent target of attack for attempted fraud and similar malicious activity. Because successful Linden Dollar fraud is a matter that adversely affects all participants in Second Life by damaging the virtual economy, Linden Lab has the following policy with respect to any Second Life user that purchases Linden Dollars from other Second Life users other than on LindeX:

If Linden Lab, in its sole discretion, determines that a Second Life user has purchased Linden Dollars for real currency through any means other than LindeX, and that the seller of such Linden Dollars acquired such Linden Dollars through fraudulent means, or any other means in violation of the Terms of Service, then Linden Lab will consider the buying user a complicit party in the fraud or violation. As a penalty for participation in such fraud or violation, Linden Lab will reduce the Linden Dollar balance of the buying Second Life account (and/or any Second Life accounts owned or operated by, or affiliated with, the owner of the buying account), by any amount up to 150% of the amount of Linden Dollars involved in the transaction. In addition, repeated participation in such fraud or violation will result in suspension or cancellation of the buying party's accounts. (The selling account will of course be suspended or cancelled on a single fraud or violation at Linden Lab's discretion.)

We recognize that some users wish to operate a legitmate Linden Dollar exchange, free of fraud. For these users, Linden Lab has developed an Exchange Risk API. Use of this API will allow a buying exchange operator to receive the result of Linden Lab's determination of the risk associated with the purchase of Linden Dollars in a particular transaction. For any transaction that uses the Exchange Risk API to determine Linden Lab's risk evaluation, where that evaluation returns a result that indicates the transaction has acceptable risk, Linden Lab will not apply the above penalty policy to buyers. If the Exchange Risk API is not used, or it is used but returns a result indicating unacceptable risk, the above policy will apply. The Exchange Risk API uses the same risk assessment factors that Linden Lab uses for LindeX. We believe that this policy and API will allow legitimate third-party exchanges to operate with relatively low fraud activity.

If you're an operator of a third-party exchange, you can apply for use of the Exchange Risk API by emailing your name, Second Life account name, and website URL that facilitates your exchange to

From what I understand, the risk API is a black box. The currency exchanges who use it, are not privy to the internal workings. More or less what happens is, you go to buy or sell L$ on a site, and your avatar name (and possibly the $ amount of the transaction) get fired off into the risk API and what comes out the other side is a "yes" or "no".

There is no additional info, no explanations, no background story. LL simply flags a transaction as accepted, or not. Only LL knows for sure what criteria they are looking at and what specific things can cause the risk API to reject a transaction.

-Atashi

I hear IDV will work the same way. Your name will go in, it will spit out yes or no, and no one will know why......

I thought IDV was already working that way

-Atashi

Why am I always the last to know these things?

I use it to buy Microwave Spaghetti

So how will they be assured? Can someone from SLX call LL and get information about our account statuses? How can they know what anyone's account status is unless we tell them aside from looking in search and seeing if the account is there, which gives no indicaton as to whether or not a person is able to withdraw L$ from the Lindex or not. I am sure there are plenty of people who cannot withdraw from the Lindex and still withdraw at SLX.

I ask because it makes me wonder if this is just a clause in their TOS to protect themselves or if they are actually able to get our account information from LL.