copybots

I don't know how common these still are, but some guy or alt in a group I am was trying to palm one off, he got a kick for his efforts and a few said they AR'ed him.

But just in case this poses a new danger to creators I thought I'd post. If not sorry for a wasted thread.

[21:43] : Hello all
[21:43] : I have the new copybot
[21:43] : IT copy skins,shape,sculpted prims, clothes,atachments and alll
.........
(edit on piles of info on it)
...............
[21:45] : submitting AR now.
[21:45] : eRejected from the group & reported for spam. ... Only thieves think its special.
.............
[21:47] : I earn more than 30k for week with this
[21:47] : I sell full perms skins ans cars
..............
[21:49] : yes; he can also join again. I suggest filing an abuse report under fraud, with a lil copy paste of this theives words.

Kinda like kicking the local drug dealer out of your neighborhood, if the business is good, someone else will take over. You'll never be rid of all the jerks that want to steal your stuff. That's the downside of open sourcing. You can always try!

From my Chapter & Metaverse blog back in February:

http://rock-vacirca.blogspot.com/2009/02/diary-16th-february-2009.html


Unfortunately, their departure, although prolonged this time, was only temporary. They obtained a new server from the end of May, and the code is once more available, including the source.

I fear we may see a second rise in the use of Copybot, so vigilence is the key.

Do ANY of the anti-copybot scripts out there really work?

Rock

I'm told they don't, although as with anything in SL the source is unverifiable.

So it IS possible to copybot a shape? Someone and I were having this discussion in SL the other day. She said her twin suddenly appeared near her. So she said it is possible.

I do not think we will see a "re-emergence". LibSL will always be there. AND, there is someone in SL right now actively selling Copy Bot, and they have posted on this forum several times. There is a dedicated website for this place and anyone can go there and pay a few thousand Linden can get the program. And that place has been there since last year.

The people who seek it out do so for a purpose, not always nefarious. But nevertheless, those that want it for less than honest use are going to eventually get it no matter what.

I just checked now and within 3 google searches i found the Copy Bot website.

Over 1800 registered users there! o.O

No.

Now that regular viewers with copybot-like code have hit the mainstream, efforts to identify an avatar as even a bot in general are more pointless than before.

No.

I should also point out that it isn't against the ToS to buy or sell, or even use copybot software. What IS against the ToS is using it specifically to copy someone else's works without permission.

There will never be a time in your life (at least we all better hope there isn't) where there won't be a copybot-type system. The only way to thwart it is to adopt an OS, application, and hardware platform with end-to-end black-box encryption, which would open the door for every content industry to start abusing the media-consuming public to their whim.

For now, the answer is vigilance against people using it illegally, reporting and prosecuting them vigorously with every tool at our disposal, and to keep lobbying LL to make the process of detection and take-down faster, easier, and less painless for the true owner of the content.

There are two kinds of anti-copybot scripts: the spammy one, and the really spammy one.

All the spammy anti-copybot scripts do is send a message (!quite) that the original version of the copybot, the one that was replaced the same day it came out, listened to and interpreted as a logout command. It has never worked: it was already obsolete before it showed up for sale. The person who sells it is notorious for selling abusive and worthless scripts.

The spammy and offensive one is like a captcha. It sends a message to people who "act like copybots" and then ejects them if they don't respond like a human. I've had one eject me and ban me from a store because I took a bathroom break while I was waiting for the store to rez in. It's only effective against old bots, and not at all effective against modified clients.... which are the most common tool these days.

If you can in any way see it, the data for drawing it has been sent to your computer, and thus can be copied. No exception, no magic.
Whether somebody has written a widely available, easy-to-use tool, I don't know. (Though wasn't that actually the first thing the original copybot did; mirroring an avatar?)

Yeah, but that was a temporary in-world effect, the visuals of the cloning effect freaked some people out but it was more bark than bite.

There is some is shape-saving stuff floating around (even the official viewers have a way to do this). There was some non-working upload code floating around at one point, I don't know if anyone bothered to fix it. I *think* it ought to be possible to get the regular viewer to make you appear in-world in a locally saved shape, not so sure that could easily be turned into a saved asset without writing something.

Just because it can't seem to be said enough times:

No. They do not work. They do _nothing_ useful.

Just to be contrary, and because this is so damned depressing, there is some relief on the horizon for skin and clothing makers. In the past, and for the moment, that stuff can all be easily copied by a bot. In the not too distant future, the separate texture layers will not be available to copy because they will not be sent to the viewer. So while it will remain possible to clone an avatar's baked textures, there will be no way to get the skin separate from the clothes.

That is, unless the avatar is naked, I suppose. So if somebody you don't know wants to see you naked...

A couple of the unofficial viewers (Emerald and Meerkat) already offer a way to do this. From the number of people who have trouble seeing my avatar when this is turned on, I hope the more reliable HTTP texture delivery is in place server-side by the time they're ready to hand us 1.24. I'd no idea that the backup baking scheme was still needed that often!

How is this relief?

You buy the skin, wear the skin, GL Intercept the skin - and now you own the skin.

Same with clothes. With clothes, you will still be able to separate the clothing layer from the skin layer using the same process if you know how to use the /character folder.

Not much prevention unless you are a newb.

That's the relief, currently you can grab anyone's without having a copy of your own.

I thought that the PN gave up when they realized that Linden Labs was doing a far better job of disrupting the grid than they could ever hope to achieve.

Yep, guess they figured that setting off to crash a sim, and finding the entire grid already crashed was just no fun at all

Rock

I thought the viewer already did baking of skin & some clothing layers.

How?

It does very little to stop anything.

A gomer can still buy the skin, rip the skin, and XstreetSL the skin as their own or open up tempary stores on the grid (like they do every couple/few months)

That does not seem like much relief when you look at the skin rips of 2008 - those are not Copy Bot skin thefts. Copy Bot is not used to rip skins - GL Intercept is.

You are mistaken, both are equally capable of grabbing exactly the same avatar textures, and both will be equally reduced in capability.

I do not think so.

Nothing is going to stop GL Intercept from ripping a skin you already own. Nothing is reduced if a thief can still buy the skin, rip the skin, sell the skin, using GL Intercept.

And though Copy Bot can clone someones appearance, the skin is not saved in a retrievable "import/export" manner the way prims are. I am not saying it is not possible since it is LibSL and someone can program anything - but right now, the most common Copy Bot client on the grid, with over 1800 people using it, cannot do that.

This is the same specious argument that says locks are useless because they can be picked or torched. The change puts a big dent into casual copying, professional thieves will always find workarounds.

You are several years behind on that program's capabilities. It didn't stop being developed in 2006. This has nothing to do with the old clone command. I've tested what's in there (was even a goody two shoes about it, sticking to library clothes and Eloh skins on the target avatar and erasing the textures when I was done), it downloads the textures directly off the asset server.

There is nothing 'specious' about it.

And there is nothing "professional" about downloading GL Intercept and ripping a skin. It pretty "casual" and pretty "common".

It is a common tool - not a professional tool, and definitely far more common and available to the layperson than Copy Bot.

If *i* can use GL Intercept. ANYONE can.

Also for future clarity:

Couple = 2
Few = 3/4
Several = 5 or more.

There is what people *can* do, and what they *will* do. Someone who just wants an outfit or skin for free isn't going to *buy* that outfit to get it, because then it's not for free any more. Even if it's shared with a friend or two, the maker is at least getting something rather than nothing because one of the purchases happened.

Someone looking to redistribute that thing on a larger scale, for sale or not, is past casual copying. That's where copyright infringement crosses the line from a civil matter to a criminal activity. So yes, there is a big difference.

Setting aside the extreme comparison between locks and what not.

I can understand to some degree what you are saying - but I think that in your own technical expertise, you are way above everyone else and what the layperson actually uses to get the job done. And Copy Bot is not the tool. GL Intercept is. Copy Bot is the tool for the "Professional", and for that, baked layers will be great (and Green Life already does this). But for the layperson who simply wants to mod their skin, mod some clothing, mod their hair, given the chance between paying several thousand linden for a Copy Bot program or going and downloading GL Intercept and following the 1 step process to make it work - GL Intercept is going to win every time and no matter how you bolt your door - the lock won't matter.

I am not saying the lock is USELESS.

I am saying this particular lock will offer NO RELIEF against GL Intercept - which I find to be the common program to use, not Copy Bot - which according to what you have said, this change will most impact.