Annonymity

It does not bother me in the least, sending off enough information that I can be verified ‘as of adult age’, and I support utterly any move to prevent minors accessing the main grid. However, when I read the email inviting me to ‘verify’, one phrase jumped out at me:

…….We see this tool as critical to supporting Residents in shedding anonymity…..

Really ??
Do I hear a chorus of voices demanding that their RL details, warts and all, are displayed.

To my mind one of the beauties of SL lies in the fact that we can meet and interact, unencumbered by the false barriers that separate us in RL. Whether chatting or dancing or role playing do any of us stop to think or even care that the AV we are engaging may be older or younger, thin or fat, black white or whatever, I think not. A recent friend in sl expressed it as ‘a meeting of minds’ which I think sums it up well.

Within Second Life we don’t hide behind anonymity, rather we expose an otherwise hidden inner self.

How many people in second life put their real life name (First and last) , Age, City and state where they live.

On their My Space or similiar personal page.


I doubt many would put those details on the forums.

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I sure as hell wouldnt.

Maybe it comes from being online since 1998

I lost my "Born yesterday" Naivete.

It's also something that has changed over time. The whole Web 2.0 thing with all the folks basically plastering their lives all across the internet -- never made the slightest shred of sense to me, but apparently a lot of people do not value their anonymity -- or they value their publicity more than their anonymity. Boggles my mind, because I'm a very private person generally, but so it is.

SL is well on its way to becoming more like a graphically enhanced MySpace than a true virtual world, in my view.

Some people don't like the anonymity and aren't really interested in exploring the inner beauty of a 40 year old guy that's exploring his feminine side.

I personally don't like all the role playing and anonymity in Second Life. But I've come to terms with it and I now accept that this is what Second Life is all about for the majority of its users.

It would be interesting to see how popular Second Life would be if people could no longer hide behind anonymity. Online Now = 100?

Age verification isn't about preventing minors from accessing the main grid simply because it's not a requirement.

Any minor also has easy access to at least one adult's identity and age verification only verifies the information that's entered, not that it belongs to the person who's entering it.

Age verification isn't about age at all, but as you realized it's a starting point for identity verification and "think of the children" is always a good starting point (although identity verification fails for the same reason it fails to do actual age verification).

And how exactly would age/identity verification solve that problem when all the guy has to do is to submit the information of his wife, girlfriend or adult daughter?

Identity verification has its uses, but when it's this easy to circumvent and masquarade as another person you're really worse off with verification than without it, because you're trusting information that isn't trustworthy.

Thankfully I had my 15 minutes of Fame years ago.

I think the ammount of RL info other residents will be able to see will be completely up to you. If this is the case, as long as I'm verified, no one sees my age, name, SS#, or anything else that could be used to identify me because NO ONE in SL is entitled to that information. I certainly hope we don't see a bunch of people abusing the RL info to somehow prey on users. You see this all the time on MYspace because too many people put their RL information. Now LL wants US to open up our RL information to RANDOM people around the world?

I don't think so. Sorry LL, no go.

Add also, I don't trust that any information give will be safeguarded as they claim. Every other service that hass been outsourced seems to be a mess, whay should this be any different. This isn't about "protecting" anyone. This is about pinning a avatar to a real person, for a variety of reasons. In my opinion.
/waits for Conan to show up to make one of his completely asinine and entertaining comments.

I wouldn't be here.

Evidently you have never met anyone whose doorbell rang -

SURPRIZE its the guy they have been chatting with online.

Unannounced, Uninvited, with luggage.

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Ive known a couple people who have experience a variation on this,

And a couple others who narrowly avoided it.


Ive known MANY who have had their phone numbers handed around in chat rooms, etc.

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Most people learn to be a little more guarded as their experience with the net goes on.

Back in the 90's I exchanged phone numbers, addresses, etc with friends from the net.

I almost ended up getting divorced and there were a lot of other troubles besides.

I have since learned to keep my online socializing and my Real life socializing seperate.

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I do not see why someone's hang up over gender benders should have anything to do whatsoever with me being safe as possible from the people I meet online.

Divorce would have been lucky. A friend from College was almost killed by someone she met in an Online Thingie.

And this would be a less colorful place in that case....

How about that date rape guy? - raped at LEAST 8 women he met on the net.

It's pretty clear that there should be some way to validate the 18 & over rule.... and over the web there's really only limited resources to pull from to do that. And, as we all know...beyond that it's still a matter of the individual being honest to begin with....but of course that doesn't always happen.

Personally... I don't mind being verified....I'm not in SL to RP or be anything other than who I am. I DO mind if half the globe gets hold of my personal info.....not cool. I've never been 'taken' over the net.....and I've had a few years of web socializing. What amazes me is how easily people DO get deceived. But then again...I could be sitting next to a stranger in a bar who is feeding me a pack of lies....so it all boils down to being smart and wary of others.

And I gotta say..... any adult who is that desperate to come on here and play as a completely different gender/person that they would use someone elses info to get an account..... wtf... if that's the case....that person needs help....not SL. I have run into a few freaks in SL who fit the 'need help' catagory....and I can honestly say...I wouldn't miss em. (just my opinion...I will duck now in preparation for the tomato throwing)

Why the hell should I have to display my phone number to have sex in a video game?

I actually know quit a few SL folks who make their RL details freely available, folks like CharlesEBristol Xi, Etherian Kamaboko, JueL Resistance, and Cylindrian Rutabaga to name a few. (At one time I even knew the email name for the paypal account for one of them .

I guess I'm silly, been online pretty much since there was an online, first web page in 1993, and my RL myspace page does have my real first name, my real age, and my real city and state and has for several years. Yeah, it was my choice whether or not to put it there. I also know the risk associated with that and feel it is negligible enough I'm not worried.

Only one other person in SL (outside of LL) knows all those details, plus many more, and I intend to keep it that way. I didn't mind verification of my age, felt a lot more secure about that than letting LL have my CC in the first place

The age verification company already had all my information, that is why they only needed the last 4 digits of my SSN to verify that it was me. So the only additional information they have now is that I am someone who uses SL. Not really sure how that give them an advantage, from my understanding of the process they don't even know my account name, and LL doesn't know my whole SSN.

It isn't like my real age is now plastered on my SL profile, my understanding is that it is still my choice whether or not I want someone to have that information. I had that option before but now it can be verified so I can do things like get on my own mature rated land, lol. If LL adds an LSL function that can look up that information without asking me permission first, then I'll be worried, but I highly doubt that will ever be the case.

Some make the slippery slope argument, but those are at best weak, my brakes are pretty good and I am perfectly capable of saying NO if LL wants to do something I am not comfortable with (and I realize there may be those who are uncomfortable with LL knowing their age). My understanding is the degree with which I shed my anonymity is still up to me, but say in the future I may want to be able to walk into a casino and gamble because it is allowed in my verified country of residence I know many who would love that (alas, it is not allowed in my country of residence, so I would decline to verify this if that is the scenario)

I'm sat on the fence on the subject of anonymity. So I can't really disagree with anything you've said. Anonymity can be both good and bad. It can be used to protect us from psychos. Yet it can also be used by psychos to take advantage of people.

It's a difficult subject.

I'd say it's about two things:

1. Protecting LL's ass by giving LL a "good faith defense" in the case of future complaints or legal action about the adult content on the grid, and essentially allowing LL to say "we have a system in place for this" as a good faith defense.

2. Furthering LL's agenda to further corporatize and monetize SL. The more LL can push SL away from being a standalone virtual world where people are living alternative reality lives and towards more of a real life extension -- where various "safeguards" like voice communication, verified RL identification schemes and so forth gradually work to ensure the ever increasingly tight welding together of RL and SL -- the more LL can attract and retain the corporate base it seems so desperate to court. Reason: corporates don't want to market to furries and Goreans and online Dominiatrices; in fact they don't want anything to do with any of that. They want to market to people who are the same as they are in RL, because after all they are in the business of selling RL things in RL. So the way you do that is by adding "optional features" that all add up to closing the gap substantially between SL and RL, and hope that over time their use becomes near ubiquitous, and the grid is transformed from an alternative virtual reality to a graphical, online marketing paradise for RL corporates.

I agree .

But the point of verification is ultimately to establish trust beyond what is available now and it goes far beyond age verification which is just a handy "well, we can't be blamed for false information now can we?" excuse for LL when a minor does verify and gets exposed.

If there's really a situation where identity is required for trust, then relying on what LL is offering is dangerous since it is so easily circumvented. Using a fake identity for gender is a silly example, but a scammer using a fake identity to fool someone who blindly trusts LL's implementation is far from silly, and is what we'll see happening if enough people fall for it and blindly trust identity verification.

But with anonymity people cant actually FIND YOU.


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I understand the scam artist rationalle. But thats a crime where the victim hands their damn money over. If they hadnt been so gullible it wouldnt have happened.

Why should my safety be compromised to protect gullible people?

Besides which the Scam artists are not anonomous from Linden Lab. LL are just too wimpy to stamp down on it. They'd rather go after Age Play than Ginko.


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As far as "being taken advantage of" in a SL relationship where there is annonymity - people need to get over themselves.

Ick.

I've not had dat, but I've had close. One guy a long time ago was IMing me and telling me about driving near where I was living an stuff. Enough information to make it clear he was getting really close to me. I learned dat day to be a bit more careful with my personal information.

Mari

I've never had that misfortune... just bad translation to rl relationships. As far as I am concerned... never again.

But the 'anonymity' issue with age verification... I just don't want yet another avenue for my information to be divulged from yet another company who may not regularly patch their computer systems.

/me nods in agreement. Which , at least for me, totally removes any reason for coming to SL.

Hey you! where did I say that?

I'm not really disagreeing with anything you've said. You're clearly looking for somebody with opposing views so then you can have a good ole gunfight with them. But I'm not that person, sorry.

I mean in general as a response your comment about taking advantage of others.

The ways people use anonymity to take advantage of others -

Scams

Online Relationships

I cant think of any others.