Is there currently some kind of permissions exploit out there?

hehe, just an FYI. A lot of people are unaware of that.

Because it does discourage them. If I'm going to quit my day job and do something fulltime, then I'd like to know what every conceivable risk and hardship could be. Let me offer this example...

When you make the maps and simple floor plans to buildings available to the public, you open up the risk that some terrorist group is going to be able to download those maps from home and figure out the best place to plant bombs. If you don't publish those maps, all you're doing is making sure they have to go to the place a few times to draw their own maps. However, if those maps are on the 'Net, then a handicap person can grab those plans from the site at home, look them over, and decide if their are enough ramps and elevators to make the trip worthwhile. Having a map online that shows no ramps may discourage said handicap, but it also saves them a lot of wasted time and effort.

That's one purpose of posting the GLIntercept hack. It was so people thinking about going into the business would know completely what they're getting into. It would let them know the risks. As Leyla Firefly shows, that knowledge doesn't necessarily discourage a pro, but it's something professionals are aware of, and something newbies need to be aware of as well.

That's the benefit. Full disclosure. Complete awareness.

You're both part right and part wrong.

Filing with the copyright office, in the US at least, gives you the ability to claim damages. It's more complex than I'm putting down here, but in general if you don't claim your copyright about all you can do is get the court to tell the other guy to cut it out. They have to continue infringing after that for you to get damages.

In many countries you still have to place your copyright notice on the work ("Copyright 2006 Your name" to be covered, and in many contexts the absence of that mark pretty much makes any infringement innocent (even if you filed copyright).

In practice, I recommend including a copyright notice AND a license, on all works. Regardless of the fact that technically both are unnecessary.

Star Man: But you told me after that you loved it!!!

Cris, I understand your concern because you have been burned big time in the past due to a permissions bug exploitation. I am still seeing the same occasional bug that I messaged you about a few months back where items I rezz sometimes revert to full perms and its a big concern. It seemed to me that this was more of a problem under heavy lag conditions and wanted to do some experiments to see if I could force a permissions change to test what I have observed, but I am just too darn busy with RL now.

Maybe I am paranoid, but I am almost convinced that there is somethign "out there" that is enabling permissions changes. There is one notorious examble of this with a member who occasionally surfaces selling items made by others but with her name as creator. Several who have been victims of this theft have reported this, yet she remains in business, with vague explanations that an unnamed friend gave her the item and/or texture offline.

If any of you computer tekkie gurus know whether some kind of hacking or script or process can in fact change permissions, can you please post a heads up to the rest of us with some suggestions about how we and/or LL could take steps to protect against this.

By the way Cris, did the purchasers offer any explanation for their intended use? Could you tell if they were alts. newer members or were they established members?

Is this the reason they don't publish a user manual?

That really made me laugh....good one!