Annonymity

It depends.

For most, anonymity is fine. But hang around the SL stock exchanges, the banks, the estate developers, the RL Corporation builds, etc. and there are people demanding RL identity before handing over piles of money. I think there should be ways we can confirm our identity to one another--and ways to remain anonymous.

theres good and bad in this as always things....BUT, if LL want it . you either give it or you dont. The extent of the information is down to you but dont be fooled into thinking that you are "off the grid" information wise, I have seen many reprts that a persons details are already on file if you pay a bill, or have credit... or have a bank account...drivers licence etc... All this information is ALREADY available.
I personally couldnt give a toss who knows my REAL identity becasue i dont do anything on SL that I wouldnt ant my 8 year old son to see BUT that isnt the case for some.. and absolutely if for example a 40 stone bloke wants to play at being somebodies kiddie daughter on SL... then as long as only LL know that information then so be it. The web is full of various differnet people who sign up to BDSM etc sites using credit cards, the days of a cash society and anonymity are long gone.... If you dont want to exist on the internet ...dont use it.
In my work theres a saying..... The ONLY way to secure your computer is to unplug it and dont run any software you havent wrote. Same thing goes... if you want to stay private then dont be out there...

Marty

Stay Private - Go Amish

After what happened to a online friend. I value anonymity.
We used to chat it up in a political chat room. He was very proud he what he did for a living and where he was from. This came to a crashing halt. When some nut job he was arguing with did not like his politics and ended up on his front door.
The police were involved and it scare the hell out of him.

Go ahead tell the world who you are. I will stay in the shadows thank you.
Because the internet is full of nut jobs. Ban that griefer today and tomorrow you are
dealing with him/her face to face. No thank you.

Rox

The problem with this post is that MySpace and the like are not asking for SSI or ID numbers, in fact they caution you about giving out too much information over the internet. I have no problem stating my name (well, my first name that is), my ago, or my general location. But I will be dammed before I give my SSI number over the internet.


To the Lindens: as I've stated before, you will lose my business before you or anyone hired by you get any part of my SSI number or any other vital information from me.

Anyway.... I've had this type of conversation over and over again among friends and associates....the internet is no greater or lesser risk than walking out your front door and running in to some freakazoid who has it in for you. People get stalked...kidnapped... scammed....on a daily basis out in the real world. The bottom line is you have to be careful no matter what you're doing.
I don't care if people know who I am...my age & gender...I have nothing to hide....but I'm not gonna give out address & phone # or any other identifying details about my life to anyone over the web unless there has been a long established relationship. In truth...I've made very dear friends via the web.....I know them IRL...I value those relationships. But, the other issue that noone ever brings up.....and it's key....is that some people are just a lot more trusting & gullible than others. Some people have stronger gut instincts and are better at sizing others up. That can't be taught....it is what it is.
Sadly....rules/laws/restrictions are prmarily put in place to protect those that can't seem to protect themselves. This isn't a slight on anyone......it's just a fact. It's the same reason some of the ridiculously obvious warnings exist on every day products. It seems the world favors the stupid people.....again, not a slight.
The other thing that the Lindens surely must have considered (and if not, well then I guess they fit in the catagory with the stupid people) is IF they are so foolish as to be sharing or selling personal info......the impending law suits that would follow would obliterate SL and any profits made. That would be utterly insane. I'm going to try and have a little faith that this is NOT the case....and SL is simply trying to adhere to age restrictions guidelines that are already in place as understood restrictions to the general population. people will slide under the radar... but without the radar....a lot more damage could potentially be done.

The is no reason to help the nut jobs out though.

You would be amazed at how the simplest, most innocuous seeming information can be used.

I was online in another game in IMs with someone and made a comment about a nearby lightning strike, from that the person I was chatting with was able to make a surprisingly accurate guess at my physical location. This scared the crap out of me as I've already had problems with people I've "met" online and never what to go through anything like that again.

I wont verify for two reasons. I think the information they require is far too much for a game and it is now so easy for people to steal your identity with all this information. The forums comments show that it is very possible that companies collecting this information get hacked!

My second reason is that I came into SL to have some fun and enjoyment in a second life. I decided that I wanted to keep my RL and SL separate and only bring RL details into the game which I choose to reveal. My avatar is pretty much of the same character/has the same views and opinions as I am/have in my RL. I am older than the young man I look like in the game. I give more personal details sometimes to my closer SL friends if it comes up in conversation. I dont cause grief to anyone and dont do anything to cause others to grief me. I am not bothered by any SL persons' RL age (over 18 of course), what they do for a job, or how they live their lives in RL. (That's not to say that I dont care about my SL friends or what happens to them in their SL or RL - I do care). It's just to say that if they want to be anonymous about their RL then that's fine by me.

I am now quite concerned as I own several parcels of land that I run businesses on in a mature sim. There is nothing of any restricted type of nature on my land or even nearby as far as I can tell. If I dont age verify, will I still be able to access my land? What if someone renting one of my lakeview homes chooses to have a sex bed and use it in their home - does that mean I have to flag my land as restricted, therefore again I wont be able to access my own land/businesses?

I have a lakeside beach and want to buy dance balls for it but these are usually sold where there are sex poseballs. That means that these places will be restricted to me as I wont verify, so I cant purchase non-restricted items I want for my businesses that I bought my land for and for which I pay a monthly tier (and which LL are very happy to take, whatever my age)!

I am an artist in RL and here in SL and have a few outlets for my work inworld. Only two days ago I set up a new gallery in a very nice new sim on mature land. My paintings are landscapes and seascapes and such, so no nudity. Above my shop, the owners of the sim rent out an apartment and it has a sex bed which the occupants use for what it was designed for. Does it now mean that if I dont age verify, I cannot now access my new gallery because of the use of the sexbed in the apartment above?

I cant be the only one in this situation. What are LL going to do about it because I will not verify at all, now or later! An answer from a Linden might be nice!?

(Just to add, I have personal experience of this sort of private information being hacked into and used where it shouldnt have been)!

Like Windhendon said, identity theft is one of the things about this that alarms me the most. Some dweeb can rummage through my garbage, pull out a cell phone bill and poof - he's me. That's becoming a huge problem already. Now the possibility of making that available across the globe? Ummm... no thanks. I just don't trust strangers. Heck, I don't even like writing out my SS# on a job application, loan application etc.

Plus : /327/4b/207286/1.html

That thread discusses that this Atistotle third party company doing the verifications does keep the records used to verify intact, whereas Linden is saying they will not. Doesn't really make me want to jump on board with this whole idea.

Thats got to be more rare than those who get Stalked though.

Congrats for you of course!

- but it really doesnt argue for disclosing RL information over the net to strangers and semi strangers.

Well said!

Let me guess - Planet earth?

If no data is stored, how can an avatar have their name, city and age?

If no data is stored, how can this comply with the information being vaulted, as LL previously said, what's in the vault? Ooh a match code, yeah right.

I was under the impression that was something LL was going to allow us to add later, if we so chose...sort of like a MySpace profile.

The information on show will be verified information, you can't just enter anything you like. It's to heighten trust apparently that you really are in the age group you claim, are the gender you claim and are in the location you claim.

The verification doesnt require you to give a telephone number

Roland, that is beautifully put. Yes, LL is destroying the most unique thing about Second Life in the pursuit of corporate approval.

Ya its just more LL lies to bad really only thing we can do is simply not pay LL anything at all not for accounts and stop buying L's on the lindeX use the SLX instead
I cant see how SL is gona last but hell maybe LL WANTS to kill SL lol
wouldnt be supprised in that at all

OOOOHHHH not yahoo politics lobby!!! There were more than enough nutters in there, I know, I was one of them....better entertainment than the TV....wind em up and watch them go.

While I agree that people can be stalked in RL, using naught but RL available information, the thing is that SL and the internet in general provides far more easy access to you than simply walking about town does. The whole POINT of the internet is to provide easy access to information.

We shake our heads at a teenager who lists her home address on a Myspace page, with justification. The fact that her home address is not a national secret doesn't change the fact that she is clearly exposing herself.

We walk about in SL with our names (which equate to a SL email address) floating above our heads. Anyone can click on you and send an IM. Of course, we can mute or choose not to directly share information, but would we wear a shirt with our home phone number on it to a crowded bar, secure in the knowledge that we can just hang up a phone?

None of this is worrisome, of course, so long as we remain anonymous in SL. Worst comes to worst, we can just start a new account and send IMs to our friends with our new alts name. But drop that level of anonymity, and suddenly we are becoming like that foolish girl with the Myspace page.

My problem is that this Aristotle will be storing all of the information you submitted to verify, not just the verified results about your age, gender etc. At least it sounds that way according to the article.

Right. There will eventually be a tab in your profile headed "A/S/L", and if the person has elected to verify those things, and to display them there, they will be displayed there. And if you have elected to do neither of those, you may as well leave SL altogether because you will be an absolute pariah.

Virtual alternative reality ... away with you.

This is actually pretty easy,
in my estimation, second life is shutting down,
LL is looking for a way to get most members to leave before they do,
so they hire a known Political Deployment organization to collect deep personal information,
like your passport,
no one does it, everyone leaves, SL shuts down and LL owes no one anything.

quoted for truth