IBM to host private Second Life regions behind IBM's corporate firewall

My guess is that in the future (and given a continuing increase in ubiquitous bandwidth) a certain subset of asset info will be locally held on standalone PC or intranet hosting an OPenSim implementation, and this will be accessed by the Grid you visit.

This depends on open protocols and obviously depending on which version or platform you visit certain facets of your local assets may not be available.

On the whole though an Open Source, OpenSim network would easily allow this.

Just my opinion though

They could do it with an assigned range of UUID numbers.
Any asset created in private sim/mode would get a UUID from the restricted pool.
The IBM asset servers would filter by UUID to non-IBM sim servers.

I don't know how long it might take before we would need a UUID V5 because of blocks of the existing range being bought up by corporations and opportunists.


Edit to add:

Nope:
For the ultra-security concious, any assets to be served up to the outside should come from server separated from the confidential asset server.


Edit again. I do love a nice intelligent conversation with someone wonderful - like myself for instance:

It would be by UUID.
Any pre-existing asset that an IBM person adds to their inventory already has a UUID from the outside world. They can use that stuff anywhere in SL.
When they create anything, the asset is hosted in the IBM asset servers and gets a UUID from the reserved range.

The fixed server that is linked to an avatar is not "an asset server" it's an Inventory database.
So IBM would have their own asset servers and their own avatar inventory servers.
The inventory servers would be a bit more laid back than the asset servers. The inventory servers would still need protection as a black hat might be able to read a lot just from reading the names of the folders and the names of objects plus dates in somebody's inventory.



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Way too much coffee, and too long a break. Back to RL. Yes.

Maybe it will be like the TV commercial where IBM makes fun of SL

Fake Dooodz in Zuits on a small fake Island with a fake Palm Tree

I must have missed that one. That's what I get for DVRing through commercials.

Well I know the Company has been working toward this kind of thing for a long time - in fact they have been kicking around how to do pricing, there has been a lot of talk about architecture design, all that stuff.

I too agree it will open up the world - but it's just plain gonna come with problems for content creators.

Not that content creators don't already have serious problems. Even though we aren't seeing a lot of it now, it's still entirely possible to hijack stuff.

I *did* see some commentary about how they are going to be making it easier to file claims somehow - I'm not sure how.

But perhaps a lot of these problems can be solved by a Company office that essentially banhammers anyone who's ripping content. Imperfect, but we don't really see copybot haunting us too much (I think for essentially the same reasons).

I don't have any plans really, but maybe Prok's right - if there was a cool enough solution that met my needs, maybe I'd go down the private grid rabbithole myself.

Thing is, I need visibility, accessibility and connectivity as much as possible - and that's not compatible with hiding.

Its funny that IBM which had a recent TV commercial that was a thinly disguised slam at Second Life, is so heavily involved in Second Life.

Like any mamoth organization, the left hand probably doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Even more so now that they're hanging around SL...



Close. Blue suits. That's the traditional garb of the IBM'er. Big Blue and all that...

(It's not impossible that I once worked for IBM...)

I don't really think that IBM is heavily involved with LL.. unless it's the same way that the Big Bad Wolf was involved with Grandma.

They opened an island or two.. no one goes there and it costs relatively so little that a blue suited middle management IBM'er somewhere pays for it off his corporate plastic.

For such a small investment, they're constantly mentioned in the same breath as SL and often (even by LL) used to add credibility to a small startup.

The cynic in me adds OpenSim, with links to SL, with pointing out flaws in SL strategy and product and comes up with a new, serious competitor targeting business and people with money to burn.

People might not like the IBM's and Microsofts of this world, but they ain't stupid and if there is an anomoly in the message they're putting out.. it's because they want there to be.

Just my opinion

I'm not worried about IBM per se. (Of course not.)

But - let me try this again, and make my question more clear:

a. Somebody sets up something like IBM has.

b. They make it so that they can bring stuff from the regular grid back to their area, but not vice-versa. (Or, one assumes, they might make it so that they can take stuff from their area out, as well.)

c. Where in this are we supposed to worry?

As far as I can tell, when they take stuff back to their grid, it's about the same as if someone took something back to their house on the regular grid and you don't know where they live.

d. UNLESS - their grid is set up so that one can remove the permissions of items, take them as their own, and sell them wily-nilly as they so like. (And there would be no way for the creator to even notice this, if the creator would not be allowed on their grid.)

So:

(1) Is this what you guys mean?

Are these grids, such as IBM's (for example only), capable of taking content from the regular grid, changing all the permissions, and then doing whatever they want to with them? (If the owners of the grid so desired it to be that way?)

In other words, is that part of LL's intended design of offering these separate grids?

(2) IF that is true, why would LL set up things that way?

Why would they purposely make it so anyone can set up whatever they like, and help themselves to all the content we make on the regular grid?

Sort of a, here you go, help yourself to the content from the regular grid, make your own, make it do whatever you like, and we consider that legal as far as we're concerned?

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If the answer to those questions is yes (and I really am rather anxious here to hear a definitive answer), then that would at least explain why LL doesn't seem to care about transaction failures, content theft, copybot, or even bots in general. (Or why they don't mind shafting their biggest and oldest supporters by taking away their ability to use their name in their websites and services.)

Because they plan to give the whole thing away anyhow! That is to say, give OUR part of it away!

(What I've referred to before as their inexplicable tendency to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, with both hands.)

But - they want to keep us from catching on, for as long as possible, cause they like the money they get from us. On the other hand, they're not going to put too much staff on the problem of transaction failures, since they know they are just pulling the wool over our eyes anyway.

So tell me: Does LL intend, purposefully intend, to let people create other grids, take our stuff, and do whatever they want with it, possibly behind closed doors?

I mean, as a sanctioned, "Sure, go ahead, we don't care what you do, let the content creators take you to court if they want, but we're not involved," sort of thing?

coco

It wasn't thin..it was Blatant!!!!

Coco, I wish I had some answers for you, but absolutely zero information has been released to residents about any of this, how it works, how assets tranfers between grids are handled, how permissions are handled or enforced outside the LL grid, how far beyond LL's borders the TOS or its enforcement will extend, how the L$ economy will function (if at all) with other connected grids etc, etc.
Those are things I'm sure we'd all like to know. With the IBM deal we're already at the point where our content can travel places that we can't, so policing and enforcing our IP becomes not only impractical, but impossible, and it would be nice if LL would anticipate these types of concerns and address them.

The real worry is when open source grids are allowed (if ever) to connect to the LL grid. What's to stop certain outside servers from acting as content syphons, happily copying everything that crosses the border? I'm not trying to be alarmist here, but these are all obvious questions that we should have answers to.

I am pretty sure its more than 1 or 2 islands, I am sure someone knows though.

Ill admit not "heavily" as in "big business cooperation" but Heavily compared to say .. 1 or 2 islands.

LOL, I liked how the island proponent's hair even looked like King Phil's

IBM has a massive presence on the grid. It's right next door to Caledon and roughly the same size.

They have a sandbox, cultural events, meetings, protests, sponsored art, corporate stuff, corporate clients, you name it.

There's no way to characterise their presence here other than 'deeply involved' and 'exploring and trying' - from any perspective.

The other day on the blotter (OK, incident report), I saw one that happened on IBM 6..so I'd say at least 6 sims

Stephen, I respectfully beg to differ. Take a look at this story from November 2006
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2006/11/09/ibm-accelerates-push-into-3d-virtual-worlds/

That year, IBM's budget for Virtual World investment was ten million. That year, they had 250 employees in SL ... last year I heard it was 285. (LL has approx. 260 employees total). Some of IBMs tech writeups are online, and it is clear they are in the client code.

Today I attended an office hour where LL gave a quick rundown on the relationship. A few nuggets to add to the astute guesses in this thread:

> Permissions will travel across to IBMs grid, so they will not be able to just randomly rip off everything.

> There are contractual as well as technical aspects to this arrangement.

> Their grid is a "trusted" grid. Much of the security enforcement is indeed being done via classic firewalling. They do have their own asset servers, and much of Sling's postings sounds close to what's happening. However, the discussion was at a higher level than the UUID speculations.

> In the future, there will also be "untrusted" grids, with less portability etc. The nature of interoperability with untrusted grids is in a rather hot-and-heavy specifications phase right now; which is to say, early days.

> LL declined to answer any question about IBM access to server source code, and LL access to code IBM may produce

This is ALL GOOD. /me applauds both IBM and LL.
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Thanks for the added info, Nika. I'm glad to know that content security is part of the design spec for these arrangements, and the "trusted/untrusted" designations make sense so long as content can be flagged for how far and wide it's allowed to travel. I'm happy about the IBM involvement in general, because it means more brains and more money being thrown at improving the capabilities of the platform. In the near term, bandwidth and hosting requirements will likely keep third party grids only in the hands of large corporations. If there are contractual obligations as far as IP protections are concerned for third party grids, that's very good news.

So IBM is heavily involved in SL compared to other corporations I know about in SL. And they also have a commercial dissing Second Life.

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But not heavily involved in Second Life as in owning 10% of the business end Linden Lab or anything.

Oh and by the way, for the nerds among us, here is LL's proposal for grid-grid interoperability:

https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SLGOGP_Draft_1

It IS on the wiki, but I suggest that any questions about it should probably be floated in the forums instead of on the wiki ... that's really for the group of people who are actively working on it.
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The very best satire and wry observation is usually produced from within a system.

Yes , it is a well known fact that Himmler kept the boys entertained in Der Bunker with his hilarious impersonations of all the Party Bigshots.....

Party Bigshot: "I quit the interwebs."

As much as I love IBM I'm glad they don't own 10% of it. I'm glad they also don't own 10% of ICANN for similar reasons...

http://www.icann.org/about/

Thank you very much for this info.

Right now, at least, I conclude there is nothing to worry about.

coco

Ditto. My concerns are really long term, not for the immediate future.