Verification?

Even more silly in my country.
The only mandatory items are Name, Date of Birth and Part of the Address.
That would be because the only population records that they have access to here is *a subset* of the Electoral Roll.

What they have access to is VERY incomplete because
- We have strong Data Privacy laws
- Data Privacy is so strong that the arm of Government conducting the Population Census is prevented from passing information to the arm of Government responsible for the Electoral Rolls.
- The Electoral Roll is available to commercial entities but most other sensible people use the opt-out feature to prevent release of our details.
- The Electoral Rolls are acknowledged by our government to be a mess. With a mobile workforce and student body significant numbers do not appear on the rolls or appear with an out of date address. Large numbers are not registered because they don't care about voting.
- We have a significant settled immigrant population who are not on the Rolls.

If verification became mandatory, then given that the only record available to Integrity here is very incomplete, one of two things has to happen
1) Significant numbers of people will be banned from SL
or
2) Integrity will simply accept any old rubbish and tell LL that it's been verified



There is nothing available to Integrity to verify that the details that I give them are true or false.
The whole thing is a charade. It's a complete and utter fantasy.

And of course, the killer is that even if Integrity could verify any of it, they have no way of knowing if the verifiable data that I might give them actually relates to me.



It's the just vile hypocrisy and two-faced muppet-speak that gets me boiling.
Verification is the deformed love-child of a corporate lawyer and a marketing muppet.

I don't have a huge issue with verification as such, provided that it's actually necessary and that it actually verifies something.


It's all about 'plausible deniability'.

Where are you getting this?
Who said that if you don't verify, you'll be banned? I haven't seen anything official saying this.

It's this sort of misinformation that just fans the flames of hysteria.

Now that's beautifully put!!!!

He made a conditional statement predicated on saying "IF it became mandatory"

In that scenario.

Im not sure lots of people would be banned though. Just a lot of people would leave.

I (she, unverified) did indeed start with "*IF* it became mandatory".

However, my bad. Perhaps I should have used "excluded from" rather than "banned".
The effect would be the same, no matter what term one chose to use.


Once (voluntary) verification and parcel flagging arrives, expect the following to happen
- Some parcel owners will immediately flag their parcels as mature content and will exclude non-verified. Others may adopt a wait-and-see stance.
- Parcel owners will be ARed for not flagging their parcels.
- There will be a witch hunt. The righteous and the idle will be on a mission.
- LL do NOT want to get involved in defining mature/violent/broadly-offensive content, but their AR staff will be faced with judgement calls. This assumes that they actually look at the ARs. If the ARs are ignored or don't produce the "right result", then very bad publicity will ensue.
- LL staff may err on the side of caution.
- If LL take no decisions on what specifically should be flagged, many parcel owners may ignore the flagging
- Pressure piles up on LL to enforce flagging
- We have a mess

The "easy option" that LL will take will be to make verification mandatory, so that they can cover their asses while not having to define mature/offensive in detail.

Minors will use adult data to verify.
Bad actors will use publicly available data to verify.
Anyone with a brain knows this. The king is naked.

I get a little baffled by people stating the obvious all the time......."no identification verification is fool proof." That's like telling me that 24 hours make up a day but not all that time is daylight (except at the poles during certain parts of year).........gee, how could I be so stupid. The fact is any verification process can be spoofed......some easier than others. I wish people would stop saying such silly things. It's getting old.

A simple (and very easy) method of "verification" could be administered. A simple "accept" or 'don't accept) a statement requiring me to over 18 (or the legal age of consent in whatever country/state/province.....etc, etc. would suffice for the most part to adsolve LL from many legal problems. It puts the burden on the person who clicked "accept". Pretty easy method..........and very ineffective and would probably not stand up to any real legal action. So that is pretty much out the window as an option.

Another method could be the use of a Credit Card as verification. Since Visa (and Masterard) issue CC's to minors (under the legal age of concent) that method is certainly not going to work in any court of law........but it does put the person providing such information in a position of being much easier to catch should legal action be pursued. CC companies don't issue cards to people who they don't verify...........so a court order could be had from the CC issuer (providing the proper legal proceedings were followed). It's a little more intimidating to a casual person wishing to "bend the rules".........it won't even slow the hardcore types though.

The other way is something along the line as LL is putting forth. A third disinterested party to do the verifying for them. That would require more extensive "investigating". There are many forms of ID we all carry around with us..........and most of those forms of ID are very different from country to county. A company with data bases in many (not all since that is nearly possible) would only need a couple forms to cross check in order to get to a certain level of confidence that who the person that is providing the information is, in fact, who they claim to be. Maybe a driver's license number plus a name and place of birth would produce that level............that would be for the US (that's where I am). But if for some reason there were two Peggy Paperdolls both born in Harlingen, TX popped up more information would be required (I'm not married but someone else who is married and carrying their spouses sir name...........it's possible). Then more information would be required such as mother's maiden name or what color my eyes are or what race, male, female.............and on and on. At some point if all the information is correct there will be benchmark reached where someone can declare with a reasonable amount of confidence that I am who I say I am.......if not, then I'm out.

That's all that can be had...........reach a point where it's likely you are who you are. No guarantees...........just reasonable assurance. I've heard all the words of wisdom about using your SSN or passport number.............and yes I even heard all the legalities of disclosing such information. Each country, area (including individual states within the United States) is different. The verifiying company would have to know what applies to what country/area...........that company would have to be rather large with untold access to numerous data bases in order to conduct such a verification. My understanding is that Aristotle is such a company........one of only a few in the world. Linden Lab could not do it. CC card companies cannot do it............their privacy and finanicial laws prohibit it. The information is out there..........publically. You were born and most likely that birth was recorded. You purchased something with a check or CC or applied for a loan. You live somewhere. You probably work somewhere and recieve a pay check or pay of some kind. You've registered in some way for maybe a drivers license or ID card, or even a store discount card. If required you have a passport. Geeze the list goes on and on.........and almost every bit of that is public information in some data base. All it takes is a company with the means to cross check just a couple or maybe four pieces of that information to arrive and a "yes" or "no" verdict on who you are.

Is that fool proof? No...........not even close. But will it stand up in a court of law? I'm pretty sure it would. And that's what it's all about. Will the information be sold? It could but would it? I don't think so...........your local grocery store might be more inclined to do so. So panic all you want......verify or don't. It matters not to LL or Aristotle. It only matters to us. And if we want to continue to "play" SL we have no choice. It will be mandatory eventually. Being completely unknown in this game is quickly becoming a thing of the past..........as it must be.

Name, adress, date of birth and I'm verified. Forget passport number (they can't check them). Forget additional id, forget even a credit card number. Name, address, date of birth.

This process is a charade./

Had you given another name along with your address and date of birth.........would you have been verified?

I would be interesting to know.

I know you say you are not in the US, but when I call my cable company for almost any reason the first thing they ask me is my name, then my phone number..........then once that is given and it's pulled up on their computer I get asked the last four digits of my SSN. Only then do they attempt to help me.........they won't even ask the nature of my call.

I"ve never tried to purposely give a wrong answer......though I did once give my cell number out of habit. That led to my address in addition to corrected phone number.

What is the new age verification system:

TODAY: It is the end of Linden Labs, there will be a mass exodus of people leaving and it will become a ghost town.

6 MONTHS FROM NOW: (looks around) Not much has changed. Everything is normal. It's almost as if nothing has changed. (scurries off to find the next doomsday subject)

And we'll still be looking at your ass

Wow you could just verify as any adult person you know their name address and birthday for. Not exactly difficult information to get. I sure hope they dont make it that easy to get onto the teen grid.

Others have verified with false information (They've told LL about this). I was a good boy and provided my real information but I'd be interested to know if any US citizens only provided name, address and date of birth.



I'm in the UK, we get asked for a password or number that we either choose ourselves when setting up the account or they send to us. They'd never ask me for part of my national insurance or passport number for an over the phone query.

Umm.. last I checked, I was on the ADULT grid. How would minors be inadvertently accessing it if there are SUPPOSED to be no minors on it?

Is this now tacit admission that they are about to merge the Teen Grid and the Adult Grid? I mean, once they finish foisting this on us, why have separate grids?

Think of the servers that will save. But, then again, think of the added load on an already burdened grid.

In this case it really is voluntary. You may volunteer not to volunteer by taking the responsibility to raise a TOS-shield on your own land. If users are asked before being allowed in if they meet the requirements for agreeing to them, and in addition do agree, and later prove fraudulent on either of those conditions, complaints against you are disqualified.

There are as many lawyers who would agree to that as there are lawyers who would defend Linden Labs on the same argument.

I may have been a bit wordy there, but the fact is that although you don't have to verify, you DO have to play by the new verification rules.

You HAVE to mark your land as restricted if you host restricted content and if you want to go to places or engange in restricted content (WHich I just read means R rated, not even X, R!!!) then YOU have to be verified.

So if you are, is, and was always a PG resident then it is still 100% voluntary, if not, then no it is not voluntary, it is play by the rules or be banned or worse (cause LL to make it manditory).

In the end I personally would not call that a voluntary system. Narrowing the definition down far enough to make "voluntary" apply while ignoring the larger picture is not... right. And Torley does that a LOT

Except no, because if the verification information you submit is for someone other than you, it won't match your account and payment information. At that point you'd have to supply person B's payment info too, at which point you're guilty of identity theft and in a lot of trouble if you get caught. (and maybe even before that point, but certainly by the time you're billing things to someone else.)

Edited to add: There is no system they could put in place that would be absolutely foolproof. Some have suggested this one is too easy, and that may be true. But I really am not going to fault the company for trying to protect itself from criminal and civil liabilities. That really protects all of us, considering we need LL to not be sued or fined out of business if we want to keep using Second Life.

It could be that. I think it's more likely a tacit admission that they really have no way to keep minors off the main grid... but it is an extra layer to make it more difficult for minors to get to the stuff that could really expose LL to legal trouble.

Not impossible, but more difficult.

I think that this is a really good look at what exactly this verification is meant to be. Even the comments are useful!
http://gwynethllewelyn.net/2007/09/08/i-am-who-i-am/

Just a reminder to show what we are talking about for the future read.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 3:58 PM PDT by: everettlinden

On August 29, we announced the beta test of identity verification (IDV). As Robin Linden explained, the goal of IDV is to increase trust, by enabling Residents to voluntarily verify parts of their identity, and giving content creators and landowners the ability to restrict access to content that is inappropriate to minors. In this post, I’ll expand on restricted content and how to flag your parcels.

What is defined as Restricted Content?

As a general rule, Restricted Content is any content that is explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature. For guidance, consider AO-Rated (Adults Only) video games or R-rated movies.

What is the meaning of “flagged as having restricted content”?

Estate and parcel owners will be asked to flag the presence of restricted content on their land. This flag restricts access to verified Residents only, and provides notice to adults that content within may be objectionable to them. It also provides an added layer of protection for you, your friends, or your customers from being involved in inappropriate contact with minors who have gained unauthorized access to Second Life.

Note that if you are in a PG region, the parcel flagging system does not allow you to have restricted content. Restricted content is only allowable in Mature regions.

How to flag your parcel as having restricted content

The land must be on a region that is marked Mature (PG regions cannot be marked with Restricted content)

From the menu, go to World > About Land > Options. Under ‘Land Options’, check ‘Restricted Content’. The tooltip should read ‘Your parcel information or content is considered inappropriate for a minor’. Unchecking ‘Restricted Content’ will remove the ‘Restricted’ flag from the parcel.

What happens if I don’t flag my restricted content?

We strongly encourage estate owners and parcel owners to flag any restricted content and restrict their parcels to avoid minors inadvertently accessing it. If you are an estate owner, make sure that your parcel owners are flagging restricted content properly.

If Residents and businesses choose not to do this, land containing adult content that is not clearly marked will be easily identifiable by the community. Resident can raise concerns directly with the landowner or with Linden Lab via the Abuse channel.

As has always been the case, Residents are morally, socially and legally responsible for their actions and content in Second Life. Clearly, any illegal activity or content will be investigated and appropriate action will be taken.

So, flag your parcels and do your part to increase trust and safety among your fellow Residents in Second Life.

Consult the Knowledge Base under parcel flagging for more details and updates.

I love how he talks about actually going and doing something like... right now?

That check box is not there in 1.18.3 is it there is .4?

When is this coming out? Will it be a manditory upgrade? He could have said "When the manditory update comes out next week then you got to the menu and..." instead of just saying how to do it as if it were active today.

Maybe it'll be there when the manditory security update comes out on friday? (Well they SAID security updates would be manditory...)

Whoa Whoa Whoa ..Back the Train up.

People have been operating all alont under the assumption the flag for verified only was explicit meaning "X-rated movie" ish content , not "R-rated movie" ish content.



This changes a LOT of things in a lot of the assumptions people have been making.

Does that blog post tell me what the change in the ToS my alt was just forced to accept is all about? I tried to copy/paste this new ToS text to notepad to do a text-compare and find out what I was accepting, but that failed.

[deleted for now because I'm not sure I agree with myself.]

No it doesn't, but the post two posts below that one on the Linden blog does. It's hiding in plain sight under the cryptic title "A change to the terms of service."

It's a change to the dispute resolution process.