How do you avoid the Avatar Online trackers??

Well, every avatar has a unique key. Mine is 613c5fd4-6341-4acb-936f-2a14a52d7ff5. And no, I am not scared to post it.... there is more then one website out there to get such a key. All you need is the correct name of the avatar... Those that can script can do it even easier.

With a good script and such a key, it is very easy to check if someone is online... no matter what setting in your preferences or friendlist is set. Nothing can block these scripts.

For me? I have no problems with people seeing I am online.... and if they would go through such a trouble I would feel almost honoured.... or I will laugh at them, depending on my mood.

Morwen.

Thank you.

But how would they tell if, or by which name, an alt is online?

I don't care much, if someone who knows my av name, knows I am online - the rest is a bit creepy.

They can only check if a alt is online, if they know the exact name of the alt. There is no logical connection between an "main" and an alt as far as I know... (apart of maybe some payment info on main and alt... but for that info you have to crack the databases of Linden, which will not make them very happy).

Morwen.

Thanks. Appreciated.

I just want to thank everyone for their answers.
I guess I need to start saving so I can make an new avatar
THANKS!!!

psst, accounts are free ;p

There is a way for DJ's streaming music into a sim to see the IP address of those listening to the stream. You and every alt you made would be coming from the same IP address.

So never alt-stalk a DJ

you don't need to do that..
if people drop friendship adds on you without asking..just click the no button..if they ask why just tell them..
cause i don't know you..
then just clean off the ones you don't want on your list..
It's your SL and nobody should make you feel you have to make a new avatar unless you want to..especially over IM's.
if you like the avatar you have you change them not you..
if you are busy..say something like..i really can't talk right now i'm working on this thing..
or i'm on a date and then i'll talk to you later..

people don't IM me anywhere as much as they used to because they think i am busy all the time..which most times is the case anyways lol

now i get this..
I know you are probably busy but i really need to ask you something important..
i'll do important all day long i just don't have time for the go nowhere im's.. So what are you up to..not much what are you up to .not much ...0o
that or the drama stuff bleh..

if you like the avatar keep it..if it's not a big deal then change it but don't let people push you in those directions..it's your SL not theirs..

Isn't this only true if they own the backend server as opposed to simply paying a streaming site to be able to stream music?

i think you see the number of listeners..i haven't really went too deep into the server myself..i know you have admin privliges so you may be able to see them.

now that i think of it i think you can see.. i'm not 100% since it's been so long since i had mine but i kind of remember one time looking at a bunch of ip's..not that you could tell who was who at the time because there are a room full of them where i worked lol

There are also (or used to be at least) products on SL that one could put a person's name into, even if that person was not on one's friend's list. It would then display the list of people added to that tool who were online.

ya i saw those before..
i remember someone going up and buying one when i was there and just thinking to myself..you little sneak!!

I had my busy notice on one time...got an IM from one of my friends (who I've known for over 8 years, exchanged phone numbers, etc.)

I wish I didn't even see IMs in busy mode. In this case, I got like 3 in a row from this "friend" saying...I know you're there...why aren't you answering.

THEN, she called me!!! I have my phone on screen but that made me so mad that I grabbed the phone and told her in VIVID detail WHY I was in busy mode and not answering her IMs. She was all stuttering and apologetic and probably blushing.

However, she did a few more things that finally resulted in my yanking her off my friends list and muting her. Sad after an 8 year "friendship" but she apparently doesn't know the meaning of BOUNDARIES.

IM's can really freeze you to the ground thats for sure..

when i was head manager of this really busy club .i would come on and have my IM's so loaded that it was already gonna take all night to get caught up..then more coming in.

i remember logging in and then noticing that my avatar logged in and logged off in the same spot without ever changing or taking a step for like a week..

thats when i said..i need an ALT!! lol

after leaving there i am all about my time being mine in sl..you have to or you will be owned by everyone around you..

Well, if you go back to the same places with your alts, and listen to music or watch video in-world, then the sites that are providing the music or video stream can see your IP address. So if they see you arrive as Mira Kalinakov and then someone connects at 74.125.45.100* and then you leave and Justin Yubee shows up and then someone connects from 74.125.45.100, they can probably figure out that Justin Yubee is an alt of Mira Kalinakov.
Well, that depends. If they're just looking for alts they can put a stream up pointing to pretty much any address they can monitor, then say "oops, I guess it doesn't work" and change the stream somewhere else... but they'll catch everyone streaming at that time. There are people actively doing just that using video streams... when LL changed video streams so you had to click to see the stream, one of the people doing it complained on the blog that they couldn't "track griefers" that way any more.

And setting up a streaming server isn't all that hard.

* That's actually one of google's nameservers, no real avatars had their IP addresses revealed in this post.

another funny one how people let their alts be known is you see the main log off at their house and their alt logs in AT THEIR HOUSE 10 seconds later.

hehe

hahahahahah

is that you Ceka? me no it's not me i am Trisha ..i was looking for her too have you seen here or did i just miss her AGAIN!

hahahaha

And possibly everyone in your neighbourhood, dorm, apartment building, office block or city depending where you live and how your internet connection is shared.
IP address are always assumed to be useful in determining these things but in reality the false positive rates are so high that using them is useless unless you don't care about the people who are falsely lumped in with the offending person.

For most broadband connections it's unlikely that many people who are actually using SL will have shared IPs unless they're in the same household... and once you have evidence that two people MAY be the same person it's pretty easy to improve your confidence (like, watching when they log in and log off).

If you're using an alt to hide from overeager people, it's probably a good idea to avoid streaming media.

(and, yeh, stalkers and people using ban-bots probably don't care much about false positives)

I disagree that it is unlikely.
I mean how are you determining this?
I think you are guessing but would love to be shown evidence to show me you are right

when you log into sl for the first time, the asset servers assign a random generated number like "oo89guah74" this is how the assets recognize who is online, with out it, the servers go wonky

There are several hundred million unique IP addresses in use. There are never even one hundred thousand SL accounts online, and at most a few hundred thousand active accounts. Therefore the space occupied by active online users is fairly sparse. In addition, even with companies that don't guarantee a static IP a brpodband user's IP address does not normally change unless they reset their modem. There are a few ISPs that use large area NATting, and there is the usual exception for college students, so if you get two people using AOL or at MIT you generally don't have any good information, but outside those specific cases the odds are good that users regularly using the same IP are either:

1. related to each other (eg, in the same household)
2. working at the same business, and likely know each other
3. using the same public access locations (internet cafes)

I'm basing this on what I've observed doing technical support for "road warriors" at a former job (which gave me a pretty broad view of how a variety of residential ISPs worked), and doing contract work for several cable companies.

In addition, it really doesn't matter.

It's pretty easy for a specific person to tell if they're at risk, too. It's not hard to tell what your IP address is, and whether it changes. If not, then they should be extra careful about streaming media in SL if they're hiding from a stalker... because there ARE people actively using this kind of technique.

if you are a dj with a lot of listeners though you are not gonna be able to tell who is who..
i mean there is a whole page of ip's and also they don't have to be in the sim to be listening to your stream..just have your stream going i believe..
if i am at my house and listening to you on my land my stream still gives out my IP with all those others listening..
i don't remember ever seeing names tied to the IP's ..but i've only used the shoutcast servers before anyways so maybe others are different..

With a cable modem, and I assume a DSL modem, it's the modem that gets the IP address. Once it has it, it's going to keep it as long as it's connected to the network, and hence no one else can get that IP address. I don't turn off my cable modem, even when I turn off my computer. It doesn't even have a power switch. I can't prove it, but I'd be surprised if there were many people who did.

Dorm's are likely to be different, because they're not going to put a broadband modem into each room. I can imagine some condos (especially converted houses) or apartment buildings sharing a connection, and that may be common in some areas, but it's not universal. The broadband provider is going to want to collect payment from each household, and they do that by tracking the modems.

No proof then? No offence but you could be anyone, your person testimony means nothing on the internet unless you back it up with a link or something that adds weight to it.

I also have testimony that means just as much that in small countries and rural areas around the world, some small towns have lots of people are sharing a single IP address. It is conceivable a group of friends from that place might all use SL and decide to hangout at the same SL place on a friday night to party.

Where did I ever say people were not using this technique?
However they will be getting false positives some of the time - how much of the time? Nobody knows, including me, you and them. Just saying.