Theory that explain Second Life's problems...

Hello. My name is Bopkasen Cydrome. I have been chatting and surfing the internet for many years. My interest is in computer and have read about network and cyber crimes that occur on the internet.

Yesterday, Second Life has experiences the major server downtime. It is unclear if it the worst of this year or last. Only a person who been on Second Life would tell you that.

The reason I am posting my theory is not to be a smart alex or trying to claimed I know something that other Linden residents know. This was posted to tell you what might and can happen if we stop and acknowledged that Second Life is not alway a primary alternative to income.

Thus began my thoughts...

Have you ever met a honest politician? Do you know that if a US president hold back information that it was not released to the public that it would be generally a secret? What if.. what if.. the latest blog and information press that was released from the Linden Lab wasn't the latest or was a incomplete information? Shouldn't you keep trusting Linden Lab? Trust doesn't have to be given but believing without trust is unthinkable. It is unthinkable that when news media and newspaper posted the news that almost eveybody believe but if another sources came out and disprove it causing a disbelief and then a sudden reject. The question is are we getting our information or Linden Lab is holding back information that might jeapordize the customer who been paying for that land. Please bear in mind that Linden Lab doesn't make money off of currency and that anything that is lost is not Linden Lab's earn income.

Today as I was in Second Life, I was flying and waiting around in the Iris Temple where all newbies's home exist. I was reading the post and reply of Linden resident's thought about what might happen. Not all of them really know and very few IT have a thought either. Just then something hit me... the recent casino ban. Why after the casino ban was a sudden server downtime? Before the casino ban, US has already place a federal laws that made online gambling illegal. Linden Lab knew that legal consequences and have invited the Federal Investigation Bureau to survey and report. The report was clear that gambling on Second Life was the same as gambling online. Casino owners has made $10,000,000 dollars each month over Second Life gambling. Imagine a casino owners owning over $85,000,000 of US american dollars from the earned income from Second Life? What could they spend with the $85 million dollars? Property? Computers? Cars? Internet service like a T1 or maybe a OC server? Spending on whatever can be done in real life? After the ban, casino owner were fleeing and other try to stand their ground to earn their last million dollars. Everyone didn't survives while other surrendered to Linden Lab. Linden Lab made it clear that they will be punished and turn over to the Federal Investigation Bureau if they stand and continues the casino operation. In the Linden Lab's eye. the casino owners is now the griefers but worst. They became a fugitive and no longer have the pride of doing business in Second Life.

My theory will now be disclosed but let me tell you a true story that occurs after WWI. Germany already made a treaty. Armies and people were getting back to their life back at Germany. They were having an economic problem... their currency. The currency was dropping at a record low values. When they try to buy things, they couldn't afford it. It took lots of money to buy a loaf of bread. The german were devasted and their pride was gone. This economic has became a highlight for the politician who were trying to run for ruler for Germany. Hitler has won the vote over the two parties that try so hard to win the seat. Hitler with great power has arranged the rules and law. He wanted to bring power back to Germany so thus he deploy troops, tanks, and planes. There were some quick successful takeover using the treaty's techniques. Promising that they will not attack country if they were given the land then suddenly break a promise and overthrow the government.

Regardless of the motive but to explains the realism of getting back at someone just because something was taken away from them. Revenge is what was the 1# trigger for WWII.

What bring our theory to the spotlights?

The revenge through form of attacking Linden Lab in the reflect of the recent gambling ban that has occur. Whoever is attacking might be the casino owners and they might be winning the fight. It is possible to say that the Linden resident who is a casino owner may become more powerful than Linden Lab since Linden Lab make most of the money from land. Over $50 million dollars can be possibly been used to attack Linden Lab's server. You might be asking how is casino owners might be attacking Linden Lab?

The attack is called DoS - Denial of Service. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack

The definition of DoS is as followed below that is excerpted from Wikipedia.


Qouted...

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to, motives for and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally comprises the concerted, malevolent efforts of a person or persons to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely.

Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically — but not exclusively — target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers; a pair of DNS Backbone DDoS Attacks, on October 22, 2002 and February 6, 2007, targeted DNS root servers, in an apparent attempt to disable the Internet itself.

One common method of attack involves saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests, such that it cannot respond to legitimate traffic, or responds so slowly as to be rendered effectively unavailable. In general terms, DoS attacks are implemented by:

forcing the targeted computer(s) to reset, or consume its resources such that it can no longer provide its intended service; and/or,
obstructing the communication media between the intended users and the victim so that they can no longer communicate adequately.

End Qoute...

In theory, there is a possible of threat and revenge play from the casino owners over the recent casino ban. Casino owners with great power by using their money can release the attack by hiring someone like a hacker. DoS can be launched by series of computer using the T1 or OC server from any given geographical location throughtout the world. Each computer can fires missle after missle at a given IP target. Anybody who controlling it doesn't have to lay a finger except the on and off switch on the program that is running on the computer. The attacker could be eating sandwhich, chips, and drinking while being entertained from it DoS control center. If not be detected by the police, federal, and forces, it will keep going until the DoS weapon fund ran out. This DoS attack can go up to a year, people and land owners will then quit. Linden Lab will become bankrupts and Second Life will be destroy as an instant.

If the theory and attack is real, I am asking all casino owners to stand down. Please understand that Second Life doesn't have to be a primary sources of income. Be thankful that you have earned ton of money. Live your life, buy a new car, get a bigger or better house, and retire! You don't have to get back at Second Life and you may get caught for violation of federal laws for sabotaging the server according to the law.

If the theory is not real and that Linden Lab has disprove my theory, I am asking everyone to disregard but take this theory as a novel.

You may posts your comments or questions. If there is a question that I can't answer, I am asking that someone who is reading it may answer it for me. Thank you and you have a wonderful time digesting this articles.

Could be but if the current problems are deliberate, I think it's more likely that it's just the standard drama queens who don't have anything better to do.

For casino owners/fans that still think they can talk LL out of following federal law and who spam places like orientation/help island, I encourage them to set up their own online gambling sites in the US.

LL does not require any outside assistance to sabotage the grid.

Thanks for your input. We need more posts like that. Really.

funny, cuz i was thinkin' kinda the same thing you two were - but only generically as 'potential hack-attack', not necessarily casino-related, but potentially a good investigative angle. (after last week's announcement, the Lindex market did soften briefly, but seemed amazingly to bounce back strong by the weekend.

it was maybe sometime last year that ll announced that serious hack-attacks would now be at least a u.s. federal matter, and as such investigations would not be announced as such. albeit small on the world stage, the sl economy is 'serious business'.

the other option is that maybe the last update didn't really take after all, but it has had 'a lot' of time by now to shake out and live stress-test. so frankly, i go with #1!

if, say, it's casino grievance, lol well, that's just the wrong kinda pro... goofy kids. i'm wondering what it would take to say, start an organization/lobby group that creates a legitimate process for RW approval of virtual/SL gambling mechanisms, just like RW regulated gambling. gee wish there was something that was 'tax-free' - but really ain't no such thing. (lol but 'we ain't socialialist', lol!! really - what a hoot)

first they disneyfied 42nd street... then they disneyfied las vegas.

'what of this thing, electricity??' 'well someday, your highness, you may be able to tax it.'

'when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.'

P.S. just to say - i'm a total 'rank amateur' really at precognosticatin'. it wouldn't surprise me either if there's just been a vital 'piece of equipment/software' breakdown that finally occured too - router outages have caused more damage!!

I have a simpler theory to explain SL's Problems....too many drugs, not enough studying in College.

I do admire the OP's use of history , in any case.

Explain Strong? Didn't you login into Second Life? The search is not working and the server were down this morning.

And yet they get that kind of assistance from 'helpful' saboteurs every day.

While I can't find myself agreeing with the post-WWI Germany analogy in regards to LL shutting down the scamming casino owners, I do find it sad that the issues in SL the last couple of days (payments aren't working, LL tells us don't buy things right now, etc) will inevitably show a sharp drop in the economic stats in the days after gambling was banned.

Not that the drop in economic activity will be remembered two months from now as being caused by significant server side problems in SL. It'll live on forever in stats quoted by the scammers trying to drum up support for getting gambling back into SL (which, come on, is just never going to happen).

that was referring to exchange market stats/volume as of late friday/saturday morning (according to my own hazy recollection), connecting conversation 'directly' with casino/economic fallout (although not accounting for begrudged former casino owners/contractors). if anyone wants to go back and confirm my observation, welcome to it!! 'strong' in no way was connected to or connoctated any personal belief in 'no search is good search', apparently the way you read it, lol.

p.s. and if grid servers were completely down this morn, i missed it - was back on to catch tail-end of 'no tp's-ville anywheres' though, lol. i'm not trying to butter anything up for you. i'm as disappointed as any of you in the performance since the weekend... just postulating upon the root cause of it. update, or hack attack?? last i knew, that was the topic.

Anybody else?

in theory that could be why linden labs tightened up the permissions for the start page. giving everyone access denied for half a day.

I have to put my two cents in here.

It seems rather harsh to me, and terribly convenient now for anyone to suggest that vengeful former casino owners griefed the grid after the gaming ban LL. This is kind of a "kick em when their down" mentality isn't it?

I have only been in SL for 8 months or so, but one of the first things I encountered and experienced on a weekly and sometimes daily basis throughout my time here, is that teleporting often doesn't work at all and is unreliable a whole heck of a lot. Asset servers randomly deliver to my inventory what I pay for, and sometimes things disappear without any explanation at all. Logins sometimes don't work and the grid goes offline for inexplicable reasons that LL doesn't feel inclined to discuss. Attachments frequently don't stay where ya put em after tp and sim crossings. Payments in game made to objects that don't get to the owners, but leave your account still occur on a regular basis as well. I know I've personally submitted complaints about them and never received anything more than email spam for my efforts. LL certainly hasn't given any of the money back. Now if I was a whiner and complainer, I might call that griefing, but I tend to think that its just LL's inadequacies and the result of problems on their end. If you've been here for any length of time, you have experienced these very same things. But surely you don't believe they are the result of grief attacks by anyone other than LL. Do ya?

Griefing and grid attacks go on all the time in SL in many forms and seems to not really require a precipitating event. It's a fact of life here for at least two reasons. Computer saavy residents, being what they are, tend to be anti authority and mainstream establishment. I mean after all why do people come here - to live RL? No. They come here to build and live their Ideal Life, which is whatever they perceive it to be at any given time. And some of those are griefers. Many griefers will engage you or the grid just because they can or its just what they like to do or try to do. Its fun for some. The other reason is that LL is not known for treating its customer base, even its extremely good paying ones, with concern or good faith. If you even did a modicum of research on the global history of SL or checked in the forum archives, you would know this already. The gaming ban is not the first and certainly won't be the last unpopular policy change made by LL. However, many view it as the final straw and foresee the decline and eventual bankruptcy of the company. Time will tell.

In summary, LL pisses off a lot of people all the time. Griefers are generally happy to avenge anyone for free. Your premise that the casino operators did it because they could afford to from all their profits doesn't have much strength. The honest ones were the only ones who remained in the business for any lengthy period of time and build up enough of a customer base to become well known. They did this by continually putting their profits back into the communities they served and were extremely popular because of it. Yes it was a lucrative business and highly attractive to start one, but in order to be successfull you had to give a lot back and because of this, the hardest hit ones were barely covering expenses, not including their initial investments. The few who were well beyond that and pocketing profits already certainly wouldn't throw their nest eggs away like that. It doesn't make sense to me they would make all these good business decisions on the hard road to success only to toss their profits for a griefers attack that could be gotten for free.

Its just as possible LL did it themselves intentionally because they underestimated the impact of the ban on SL's economy. Preventing teleports, log-ins and rez would effectively block the dissemination of information, prevent the organization of protesters, prevent a "run" on banks, and generally provide a "freeze frame" and give them a window of time to assess the damage and to plan a course of action.

It a huge huge waste of time to even discuss who "might" be responsible. We won't get an answer or admission from LL if it was on their end. But if it can be attributed to griefers, we'll probably hear about that group themselves, as they tend to be proud of what they do, especially when they have been successful at it and like to brag.

Having been personally involved with so many people in the gaming industry, I have found there is no warmer, more communicative, more generous or loving group of people in all of SL. They are neither the enemy nor the creator of problems here. They are victims of injustice and could use a little help righting the wrong, not just for themselves but for everyone's benefit.

I invite you to read my other post - perhaps you will find we share some common concerns.

I personally would LOVE to see where those figures came from for how much the gambling industry makes each month. I know that my poker house,when compared to others that offered basically the same services and no camping, like us, did not make anywhere near that! We got to the point that we could handle payroll and tier on two of our islands, but were still trying to make tier on the other two, and we were second in our field quickly about to take over first. I suspect those numbers are inflated, but then again, there were hundreds of little casinos all over the place.

How about we get the numbers that compares these with land sales, manufacturing, clubs, etc for a *true* comparison?

It was all caused by the Griefer on the Grassy KNoll.

This is wild, and maybe not very founded in economic theory (I aint a banker)...but, just a thought....

Because of the way LindEx is set up, no matter how loudly they (the Lindens) yell about the fact that they do not "own" the Linden$'s and that they do not "make" the currency, the fact of the matter is this...when you buy Linden$ from the LindEx, your US$ payment GOES TO A LINDEN LAB electronic account...don't believe me? Look at your credit card statement and compare it to your account transaction history...you are putting the entire amount into a Linden bank account, and not just the $0.30 LindEx transaction fee.

So, think about it...who has to maintain the US$ funds to 'back up' that transaction, when those same Linden$ are cashed out to PayPal? Linden Lab, of course...the exchange can be as virtual as they like to make it, but, in the end, they ARE responsible for ensuring that they can cash out the Linden$ on the back side of any "buy" transaction, just as banks do with your deposits and withdrawals...Linden Lab is not the Treasury, but they ARE the bank. And not unlike all banks that invest in currency exchange, their greatest point of vulnerability is getting caught with too much of their total commitment in any one pool, should supply v. demand for that currency suddenly and catastrophically shift.

Therefore, when they shut down gambling, en toto, in Second Life, one obvious consequence of that would be for all the casino owners who were/are in Second Life only for that purpose (or just plain scared of losing big chunks of money to virtuality) to rush to cash out their 19 alt-avatar Linden$ balances quickly, in case the FBI or FTC, or whoever, was prepared to freeze those funds in place, virtually or otherwise.

Now, the overdraft/bank-run firewalls in place, as LL has them, requires some period of time, hours, to kick in and shut down the exchange of Linden$...and by then, how much has the value of the Linden$ skyrocketed, just by virtue of the shortened supply? What was the potential damage, should they have "created" temporary supply adjustments to offset this effect? I suspect we'd not be just burning Linden$ to stay warm...and I also am free to guess that the outages we are seeing could have much more to do with liquidity of funds, and stability of the exchange rates, to back the LindEx during spikes in Linden$ cashout activity.