Collecting information about your computer?

Yes, but "comply or don't play" is not the way to really encourage your loyal players, is it?

So much for SL being "community led".

Lewis

Total hypocracy.... although I love SL... I find is impossible now to in any way trust LL or anything they say. I'm sorry LL, I will no longer be paying you... and as soon as I read this new TOS, I may leave SL as well.

Why? Because the TOS ask you not to grief and warn you that they are going to get that hash key from your computer? Again, what has that got to do with loyal players?

Lewis, I was really dismayed by the removal of CC verification. But this particular discussion seems to me to be much ado about nothing, as SL is taking not unreasonable steps to prevent griefing (and, of course, I will want to see them in aciton and see the benefits provided by the hash key in griefer bannings).

I think we will have to agree to disagee on the subject.

Wendel

This is probably the wrong thread for this post but anyhow...

Certainly I think as more of these events happen they will need to look at how they minimise lag and griefing. But I do think some of the steps taken are in the right direction.

Theres always going to be risk with regards to bringing in big names, but I personally feel its a risk worth taking. People never like big changes, ironically in many sense we are built to dislike change because it upsets the status quo that we build into our lives. However, I do see the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Big Names may be a disruptive affect, but at the end of the day the BBC had to bring in skill sets and that meant hiring individuals or groups within SL to build functionality. I think that will continue and is quite exciting as in some sense Big Names are playing in SL on a reasonably level playing. I won't say completely level because Big Names could just hired the best of the talent in SL for their needs and that can give them leverage, however, new talent is always going to rise up somewhere in the SL ecosystem.

An analogy to the internet is probably required here The Web has spawn a multitude of cottage industries, individual weblogs, podcasts and websites that have in some cases competed quite effectively against Big News and Media.

Well it has been. It's coming soon. Tomorrow. They announced it today. As he said. And they had already told us they were planning new ways of dealing with this issue. Here they are.

What in Gods name is wrong ?

They are simply collecting a piece of information which otherwise says nothing about YOU, that is freely available to ANY software author with a simple function call. They are not scraping your disk for personal information. There's no issue of trust or otherwise here, and they've responded to community calls to deal with a problem with probably a better technical solution to the untraceability that removing CC verification lead to in the first place. It will no longer be possible to grief with complete impunity.

If you don't want LL to know anything about you, don't log in and use their service. If you don't want anyone to know how tall you are, don't walk the streets in public.

I'm wondering how this is going to work for me...

I log on through my Mac when I'm using Photoshop since that is where I have the software, but when I build/socialize, I use my PC for the better response time.... I'm wondering if they are going to see me switching hardware profile on a daily basis as a "hacking attempt".

... I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

I log in at home, around 7am, before I leave for work.

I'll be in SL at work around 1pm, during my lunchbreak

I am home again at 6pm, and log in to SL.

Mostly using the one account, although I do sometimes switch between my 2 alts for legitimate purposes.

I so hope that this isn't caught up in the way you describe as a problem when it is perfectly acceptable activity.

I see a lot of brown steaming stuff hitting an air circulation device should this happen.

Lewis

It's pretty clear this is not about how many machines you access SL with, and why should it be ? It simply means that if you grief, the machine you do it from can be identified and any punishment you recieve will, within reason, be enforceable.

It seems you positively relish the prospect of it Lewis. There is simply no reason to suspect this is the case and to constantly raise it is FUD at its worst.

Exactly. As has already been said a few times in this thread.

It's only used to enforce suspensions / bans, not count how many machines you access SL from. LL doesn't care. The client is a free download.

wendel

Not at all, I'm just trying to think of what could go wrong. After all, it's not like Linden Labs have a history of thinking through everything before makinig changes that nobody asked for or had any input on.

Lewis

Nobody asked for? People were screaming for something to be done about griefing. Hardware identification is an excellent way to keep banned people banned.

People wanting to protect themselves against selling mature products to minors, now have a means to identify those whose identity hasn't been verified.



Try this for a refreshing change. Consider what could go right.

Let's think about this for a moment.

LL itself said that they removed the CC verification requirement because it was restricting many non-Americans from signing up for SL. Now, this new status system includes the option for "verification" with PayPal, as well, but there are still a lot of people in other countries who, through no fault of their own, can't obtain a PayPal account either (not to mention those who refuse to touch PayPal because of some questionable practices used by the company). PayPal only covers 55 countries, so while this new system may be an improvement in terms of allowing more folks to be "verified", it's far from acceptable because it still excludes people from a lot of countries. While those people in non-PayPal countries who don't have a CC can still get a free basic account, it will be un-"verified"...if other members start using this "verification" status as you suggest, they still may be discriminating against perfectly innocent adults who simply can't get "verified" through no fault of their own.

I think identifying avatars and alts by their computer hardware is an absolutely fabulous idea. And it would be great if they have it set up so when you ban an avatar's name from your land it also bans their hardware profile as well, which means when you ban someone..... any and all of their alts get banned right along with them.

Freyr, you make a valid point. LL needs to keep working on expanding its range of options for people to pay and be verified.

Wendel

They are getting tired of grey goo attacks and so want to be able to permanently shut off those who embarras them like that - because fixing the code would be "not fun".

Now that PvP reporting is going away I have absolutely no reason to believe that enforcement will increase an iota. So great, they've got a machine fingerprint for someone who they aren't going to do anything about anyway.

Wankers - This really should have gone out to all customers via mail - instead it is burried in a sub-page on someone's blog.

Calm down Lewis, what they are doing is techie speak for getting your MAC address. Its the only item on your computer that will always be positively ID'd as you and never changes unless you buy a new NIC card.

We use them to identify people all the time, they didn't even have to let us know they were doin this as its standard web business security policy... =P

Well then you haven't heard of MAC spoofing...

SL has been reporting this as part of the login transaction for a while anyway -- there have been bans done by mac address previously.

That being said, spoofing the mac is not terribly difficult, but your typical griefer isn't going to know how to get around it, and isn't going to know the right question to ask google.

I think that is a fair concern. However, I guess if you're selling a mature product, and want to exercise some form of due diligence in order to ensure you don't sell to a minor, it might be reasonable to decide who you're prepared to sell to. Covering your individual ass, it's the same as asking for ID before you sell someone alcohol.

And if they can't use Paypal, or don't have a CC, then surely under the old system they were more restricted? Then they couldn't get it at all without some sort of billing information. At least now they can get in to something.

A similar hardware-fingerprinting system was brought in at an MMORPG that I worked for a few years ago (though their players weren't even told it was happening). It was a resounding success - made our policing (and banning) of griefers *much* easier. So, good move, imho!

(surprised LL weren't already doing this, to be honest... most of the competition does!)

Then quit!

I am so tired of people complaining endlessly about LL and SL as if it is an entitlement. LL is a private business and makes decisions based on their needs as such. We may not like those decisions (and I certainly don't like them all), but it's not a democracy.

You certainly have a right to voice an opinion, but stop continuously harping on how bad SL and LL suck. You have a right to not participate if you don't like it. LL owes you nothing other than providing you access to the world that you have signed up for of your own free will.

Otherwise STFU!

Note: this not directed just at Lewis, but the whole community of complainers!

Oh, you're absolutely right. My concern now is merely that LL might treat this semi-solution as a full solution and move on to other things without continuing to improve on this.

I for one think this IS the answer to griefing.

It does not matter how many alts you have, you still only have so many computers. And for the record, the way this normally works is that the profile is recorded at LL, and they they then ban the PROFILE.

This means that you switching between computer is not seen as hacking, buy you could get back in from the other computer.

Eventually, LL will have all the common computers available to a griefer, and shut him down. This means that login info is just secondary to that hash. They also probably use IP and other identifiers to make sure someone else with a similar hash cannot accidently be kicked.

Either way, they would be able to contact LL to hav that corrected, since it would be fairly obvious that a statistical anomaly was causing it.


As a person who has dealt with security and privacy, let me assure you, this is LESS invasive and dangerous than Credit card methods!

Woot!