A way to deal with texture theft... but it will cost us, would you put up with it?

My question is this;

Would you support a program akin to world of warcraft's warden system? This is basically spyware that runs with the game and reports any and all proccesses running along side the game...

Would you support linden labs taking a peak at what DLLs you're using in order to stop texture theft?

Aside from privacy loss.... there might be a small, tiny bit of a preformance hit... I dunno, I don't code.

No way.

"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither." - Benjamin Franklin

Okay, to stimulate discussion...

What other measures would you take to prevent texture theft?

My other idea was have secondlife use the same DLLs in memory as the... thingy.... that lets you be a theif... if they're taxed by anything but SL, the game crashes itself and clears all teh data from memory?

*tries so very, very hard not to post exact details and prays he doesn't get nailed again*

But barring those two, anyone have suggestions?

Meh, nevermind...

Someone explained to me why scanning for this would be impossible...

*sighs*

It looks like we're stuck with calling the DMCA goons in on every case.

Cilis, I always run SL in windowed mode with various other programs running at the same time: cubase, trillian, paintshop pro, winword, winamp, etc. and I would not be happy if SL included spyware or other software routines that would preclude me from using my computer as a multitasking machine. I see no reason to have a separate computer built up for SL only.

Well if it were possible, it would only target things using a certain set of DLLS, those programs would be fine.

The problem is, as it was explained to me, those DLLS are basically shared with anything that uses opengl as 3d code, which secondlife does... so it might even trip itself up, and it couldn't simply check to see if they were in use, because they would ALWAYS be in use when the game is running.

There is no magic bullet here, or any long term solution

Theres privacy in SL??? When did that happen...Where was I???.... ohhh nevermind I musta been whining in another forum thread giggles.....least I am never bored.....

rain

No. Doing so would make things like ((It's cool to not name names now)) not function, and cut down on our availible reverse engineering tools.
Also, *hello!* there are Mac and Linux clients! You really think LL is going to waste time on securing the texture cache/display chain on all 3 platforms? We (linux) don't even have copy/paste, and that's a vital feature that's tied to the OS.

spyware!!

NO!

As most of the people are not tech savvy enough to take advantage of the more sophisticated methods of texture theft.
I think that the change in permissions to allow for
resell on prim based textures would be a good lower level
prevent.
This would make transfer of textures in their basic form
prohibited while allowing creators to use the textures on their
created products intended for resale.

It was mentioned by someone in a prior thread, sorry I do not have it atm.

BTW, I really do not understand the people that go to such
great lengths of have to be able to comprehend very complex methods of stealing.
Does that not take as much or more effort as just being
creative?

No, it doesn't. Following a guide is not hard. Creativity requires creative energy, some talent, and time, whereas texture stealing requires (supposedly) 15 min, an EXE file, and a short guide.

Hell... you could stand in the middle of a skin shop and leave it...

In theory, by the end of the day, you could have every skin there if someone wore their purchase out.

Its really sad to me, I don't want to see secondlife dessolve into this sort of trouble.

Make L$ to US$ conversion illegal, and most texture theft will go away. Plain and simple.

I don't see how that would stop the theft. So WoW runs spyware? Is it owned by Sony? I got burned on that damned rootkit stealthware of theirs.

No, world of warcraft is run by blizzard.

SoE doesn't used stealth rootkits either, its their record lable that uses them.

WoW's "spyware" does nothing but watch memory for known trainers and exploits.

Dumb question, AFAIK there's only 1, maybe 2 programs that can pull textures.. why not add a watch for those, and if they're running, the client shuts down? Not horribly difficult.

Thats what I'd like to see myself but people seem so against any sort of monitoring software...

Perhaps if it was completely explained and there is nothing magical/ hearsay rumors over it people would accept it.

Or in typical LL fashion, add it in the next update without telling anybody first

I don't care how you explain it. I don't want -any- spyware. Period. For any reason.

If it isn't reporting back (unless it finds hacks in use) then it isn't really spying...

Its like a poster that is a pair of staring eyes... people become less likely to steal when they feel they are being watched.

I don't want it. I'll feel less likely to give LL money if I feel watched.

So you'd object to having your client shutdown if certain thief programs were detected in memory?

I assume you don't play WoW then, either.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out...

I don't run those programs. I object to having spyware on my computer.

I will remove the spyware if I find it. If the program will not boot without it, I'll just have to spend time removing it after avery boot.

Quit assuming I'm guilty of theft when I'm just against spyware.

Who said you were guilty of theft?

I'm only objecting to your definition of spyware. Spyware generally implies nefarious purposes, and also means that some communication is taking place (The program is spying on you and reporting your actions to someone.) My example includes no such communication.. it's completely client side.

As an example, certain shareware applications are rigged to shutdown if they detect a debugger being attached to them. This is not "spyware", this is the author protecting their work by hopefully keeping the registration system secure.

If the SL client sees a program running (out of a list of 4 or 5, maybe) the client simply shuts down or refuses to run. This is not spyware by any means of the word.

Very true, and I guess we need a new topic since we're talking about a totally differant form of protection... But I am going to leave the forums for a bit, they're making me feel very... tired...

Perhaps you can make the new thread and this one can die.