Skybox Security?

Can I borrow $10,000 USD?

2 mins is way too long for any reasons I have come across. I has 30 sec warning for my old parcel. You can easily navigate acroos it in that time (I was in the middle of the sim). Even when traveling by vehicle, I have found that 20-30 sec is about enough time. I could see a 2 min time if it were a whole sim though, and you were traveling by foot, and it was fairly laggy. I guess people need to take into account how big the parcel is. Mine was smallish and I figured 30 sec was plenty of time.

Why is it too long? What could I do during those two minutes that will be trouble for anybody that I couldn't do in ten seconds?

The "ample interval" is emphatically *not* the time it should take to navigate across the parcel under normal / laggy conditions. Rather, it needs to be the time it takes to extricate oneself from whatever SL does to you when you cross in a vehicle that goes haywire, or to have a reasonable opportunity to try until giving up and relogging.

I'd be fine with shorter times if LL fixed http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-472 instead of making the situation progressively worse with each new server release.

The question of "what could I do during those two minutes" is not meant to be snide, by the way. Remember, we're talking about "intruders" who have not yet been labelled as deserving ejection on sight. And since we're just talking about security devices, not Estate access control, whatever is being defended is certainly not privacy: now that the security device has tipped off the intruder to where the sekrit stuff is hidden, they know whither to cam from a neighboring parcel.

I also have to wonder just what sensing interval is being used, such that two minutes is a big deal by comparison. I sure hope nobody who scans on a sub-minute interval ever complains of scripts running slowly on their sims.

2 to 5 minutes is way too much time. There's no point in having it if it allows dickheads to harrass you for that long. The time needed to see and read the warning, and walk across and out of a parcel, can be stated in seconds. One minute is a long time, and a very long time for that purpose.

ETA:
I've just seen your later post. When people want to be alone, they don't want dickheads hanging round just because they can. It's not people who walk on off and go on their way that are ever a problem. It's those who decide to be obnoxious and just stay - because they can.

You mentioned what can happen if you're in a car when the boot occurs. What sort of situation is it that 20 seconds isn't long enough to continue on your way?

Seriously, do you ride vehicles across sim borders? Consult the jira I cited in the post for some of the thrills that await you. It is not at all uncommon for the vehicle to end up in a completely different sim from the rider--and not necessarily one on either side of the border. The difficulty is that there's a kind of halting problem, where sometimes SL will collect its wits and put the pieces back together in one place, and sometimes not (at least not within any interval I've been willing to wait). So even two minutes isn't necessarily enough time to wait--I've had it take longer, and still succeed--but it's a minimal compromise; five minutes is more reasonable.

Regarding the "dickhead" problem: Again, we haven't yet identified this intruder as a dickhead. If we've already had occasion to make that categorization, then IM the bastard to that effect and subsequently ban on sight, no further warnings needed at all. In that case, the device is just a work-around for the blacklist ban ceiling, a post-Havoc4 anachronism (Andrew's vaguely anarchist mumblings notwithstanding; see http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-2546).

I never ride vehicles anywhere, so I'm not familiar with the possible sim border crossing effects when doing it.

Your suggestion is all very well, but why should a land owner, who wants to be left alone for whatever reason, have to put up with minutes of obnoxiousness from dickheads, just so that the occassional vehicle driver can drive across the land? It's the change of sim that does what you described, and it must be an uncommon effect or people wouldn't attempt sim border crossings in vehicles. So vehicle drivers are uncommon in the first place, and that effect is even more uncommon. Imo, the balance of reasonableness is on the side of the person who doesn't want dickheads hanging around, messing them about, just because they can, and especiaqlly since it's not the security device that causes it.

Golly. How many fresh dickheads do you attract?

I grant that with border crossings as f'd-up as they are, there aren't as many vehicles as would otherwise be traversing the grid. But it's also indisputably the case that hair-trigger security devices further discourage vehicle use, and that's a shame: vehicles are a lot of fun, and a good attractor to SL--except at border crossings and in all the various security traps. (Those traps aren't just security devices: whitelist banlines are a big problem at ground level--which pushes vehicle users up to skybox territory, making vehicles even more germane to this thread.)

I mean, is it really the case that new dickhead alts appear at the skybox more frequently than vehicles pass through the protected airspace? *Really*?

Or are we just talking hypotheticals here? God forbid a fresh dickhead alt might someday rez in the secured zone and ejection takes a couple of minutes (plus, on average, half the scanning interval, which I sure hope is at least a minute anyway).

I really suspect that a shorter interval is appealing to an illusion of security against an imagined threat, at the cost of real inconvenience to passing travellers, temporarily stranded by SL's b0rkiness. I submit that SL's b0rkiness is a lot more real than any threat to the security of one's pixels.

Hey, calm down everyone

The topic of the thread was Skybox Security, and usually that involves an area of about 20m around the skybox in question - to keep the "listen in" zone clear.
Anything more is really not necessary, most computers today can handle a draw distance of 256 or even 512 without problem, especially that high up where there is no terrain to model, so you can never be safe from cam-ins, unless you really own a private island and ban everyone... but thats really a whole different thing.

But 20m is hardly the entire sim, and if the skyboxes are really at 1000+ height, vehicle drivers that fly that high shouldn't be surprised to run into some security messures up there.

We're not talking about hair trigger ejections. Security devices should never be set to that, except for black-listed people.

We're really only talking about ground level, and just above it, anyway, because that's where vehicles operate, so security in skyboxes doesn't come into it. I don't attract dickehads because I don't do anything at ground level that I want privacy for (I don't do aything anywhere that I want privacy for ), but many people do do things at ground level and often prefer not to be disturbed while doing it. They own the land, so they are entitled to that degree of privacy. I don't believe that they should instantly eject people, but I believe that they are entitled to allow people time to move along and eject them if they don't. For most occasions, that works just fine, and, with the best will in the world, I don't see that people should put up with something that spoils their experience occasionally to take account of something that would happen only rarely. The balance of reasonableness is on the side of dealing with the occasional dickheads, rather than taking account of the rare vehicle problems, imo.

I don't recall ever seeing a vehicle going along its way in SL. I've seen them do short runs for a bit of fun, but that's all. They are rare, and the sim border problem is even rarer. For a vehicle user, that's not true, but for SL in general, it is. On the other hand, dickheads that would trouble people just for the sake of it are uncommon, but a lot more common that those vehicle sim border problems.

Thanks, Phil.

I had a look on Xstreet, and prices range from 2L for a basic script all the way up to 1000L for a "built" one. A lot seem to be in the 300-400 L range. But is the price an indicator of anything? ie, do the higher priced ones work better or do more than the lower ones?

Essentially all I need is something to stop people using the skyboxes; I don't need anything to stop them peeking inside. So how do I tell what is a good set up to go for?

Yes, this thread has taken a direction I did not quite expect

With all the comments I've read I don't think I'll be installing a security system anytime soon. There'd be too much to consider and I really can't be bothered spending days trying to set that thing up correctly. I don't mean to eject everyone on sight, like I said. Just that experience with that one creepy 'intruder' made me consider it.

I've encountered security systems myself by the way. I don't have any problem with people wanting to protect their property. There have been occasions when the warning did not leave me enough time to get out of there, as some others in this thread have pointed out. I remember one incident where I was crossing sim borders and saw a warning, but could not act on it because I was lagging out so badly. I don't get up in arms over that though. You get tped to another location at most.

@Kay: In SL, even more so than in RL, price is no indicator of quality; some of the finest work in SL is available for free. I'd suggest you try the free stuff first. Get an alt or a friend to try them out on. Then you'll have an idea of any features lacking in the free ones that you need to look for specifically in paid ones.

Or learn to script one yourself

Some do more than others. For instance, some keep a list of people who came within range. The one I sell is basic. It costs 150 or 175. The owner can set the range up to 96m, the scan interval, which is linked to the warning period, and it operates a blacklist, a whitelist, and stuff like that. If you want to have a look, it's on the landing, halfway up to the second floor in my store (near the landing point). The sign can give you a notecard all about it. You can find my store from my signature here if you are interested.

I'd forgotten that lol

Nice idea. Thanks.



Getting some knowledge of scripting is definitely on the agenda. I even went to one of the NCI scripting classes on Friday ... well, sort of. One was listed in "Search/Events" but turned out to be a mis-schedule. I and the others who turned up discovered there wasn't one at that time after all. Sigh.

Yep, I'll take a look at that the nest time I am in-world. Thank you.

Most security systems (those worth a dime anyway) can be turned on and off with a simple click.
So you could have it off usually (it doesn't scan anything then, doesn't take up sim resources or anything), and when a creepy person comes in, you turn it on, it gives them a warning, sends them packing, then you turn it off again.

Yay the nosey parker charter that was used as an excuse for the adult content fiasco, people might be camming in and see the naughties so you all have to toddle off to a new continent.

Do you have any experience of any sort of programming at all, even using formulae in spreadsheets or macros in things like Word?

One advantage of free stuff is that a lot of it is copmletely open: you can look at the scripts to see how they work, and then you can modify them to work they way you want. The Scripting Tips forum is a valuable resource: if you're actually trying to learn (as opposed to trying to get someone to do it all for you) you will get a lot of help there (and a lot less sidetracking of threads) from some very experienced and capable people.

Personally, I don't bother with any sort of security for my skybox. Mainland is so empty of people that it's a rare occurrence that there's anybody else on the sim at all (this is probably partly because of the times I log in). If somebody does drop by, I am more inclined to invite them in for a chat. Occasionally, I'll be doing something which does require a bit of privacy, such as trying on skins, and in those situations I will keep half an eye on Emerald's radar, but if somebody did come close, I'd still be more inclined to get dressed quickly and shout "hi!".

If I had a sex life here, I would use a security orb, but just switch it on as needed. I have NEVER managed to get out of the way of an orb before it boots me ... perhaps I'm just slow. Part of the problem, I think, is that I am never sure which direction to move in. So, if I used one, I would give a minute's warning I think, and set it to just eject from the parcel, not to TP home (that's really annoying). I'd also make sure it was the sort that only tried to eject from the actual parcel. There are still a few of the old ones about that just act on a simple radius without respecting parcel borders. They are just a spam problem though, they can't actually eject you from a neighbouring parcel. I'd also make sure the message was polite and that autoreturn was switched on so people at least got their vehicles back.

I use BASIC still, and some Z80 code. Also IBM 1620 machine code (purely theoretical - never actually seen a 1620), and PERL.



Good suggestion. Thanks. I will use that, but at this stage I don't know enough even to ask meaningful questions.

But I definitely want to do my own stuff - building and scripting eventually.

I used to fly a hot air balloon, moved a couple of meters a second, and it could take 30 seconds just to figure out where that chat was coming from to tell whether I should turn around or turn to the side. Sometimes there was no way I could get out of range in time, because the sensor was at 30 meters but the parcel was bigger than that across and the damn security script didn't rescan before acting, just assumed that if you were still anywhere on the parcel you must be a bad guy.

Any kind of slow vehicle... glider, ultralight, balloon... needs more time than that.

Thanks, another duplicate of http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-22.

I suppose that's quite quick for a ferret

In that case get a free script that does something like what you want to do yourself, open it up for a look, refer to the LSL wiki at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LSL_Portal for explanations of the function calls and program structure, and ask questions about the things you don't understand in the ST forum.