These forums are CLOSED. Please visit the new forums HERE
He's actually suing LL?!? |
|
|
Cocoanut Cookie
Registered User
Join date: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 1,741
|
05-09-2006 18:35
Juro's short post Answer: As I said earlier, "I'm not saying anything about this case in particular". As I explained earlier, the most interesting aspect to me is that all of this probably will become an issue, more and more as time goes on, and that things may well change in the nature of what users are expected to agree to in order to play online games. C  C_____________________
|
|
Midtown Bienenstich
Registered User
Join date: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 47
|
05-09-2006 19:40
If you think the law suit is meritless, fine. But don't go dumping personall attacks on someone you don't know, whose professional qualifications and abilities you have no expereience of, and who has done nothing to you in the way of a personal attack. WRONG! Was I the only SL Resident that was cheated by Thunder Lardner TWICE?! He made exact replicas of my builds in Second Life that I currently have for sale to the public. Because they were modify, he copied their postition coordinates (I presume) and sold them on the SLEX! It seems that the Lindens can argue on my behalf that this guy has come to SL to willingly find exploits to use for this advantage. He has cheated me of possible sales, work effort, and design. Supposedly, I'm not the only one that's been made a fool of, although I have been unable to locate other builders who were also copied. So good riddance to Mr. Bragg. Obviously he wants to become Pennsylvania's most famous day-care lawyer or w/e. |
|
Lorien Languish
A quiet one
Join date: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 11
|
05-09-2006 20:33
"Bragg hopes that this dispute will be resolved quickly so he can go back to his real-world life." Gotta love the "slip me a few bucks and we're cool" angle  |
|
Surreal Farber
Cat Herder
Join date: 5 Feb 2004
Posts: 2,059
|
05-09-2006 20:39
Comment: I'm just reading along here, but this particular post made me think. Where in the world - the real world - would this sort of thing be allowed? I mean, what company in the real world is entitled to take a person's money - just shut off their account and take whatever is in it - with no reason given, no recourse, nothing, whenever they want to? Even if they catch a shoplifter or a bank fraud, they aren't entitled just to help themselves to all the person's money in their account, and refuse to discuss it. The typical online game TOS wording - "You can give us money and use our service but we can shut you off at any time for no reason or any reason, and you just won't ever get your money back, and any money that you have in your account can be confiscated by us at any time we want to," - may be illegal in itself. This is of particular concern as the line between real life money and business and "worthless" game money and business gets blurred. And as SL is on the forefront in this blurring, it isn't surprising that they would be likely to come up first when these sorts of TOS are challenged. I'm thinking, and I can't think of a single other real life company with such a lovely set-up. Not Macy's, not a bank - nobody! And not one of those would even dare to set up such a contract. Nobody would put up with it, and they'd lose all their business, not to mention it wouldn't stand up in court. I'm not saying anything about this case in particular, and I'm certainly not talking about whether or not Lindens are real money, even though Lindens, as well as the initial cash investment in the account would be involved, and even though Linden Lab itself is now preparing to go into the business of selling them for cash money, which certainly makes them quantities of definite quantitative value. I'm thinking - maybe all the online games have gone on entirely too long with these TOS contracts that say they can keep your money and kick you out whenever they want. Maybe if nothing else, this lawsuit, or others like it, could get the courts to take a look at those kinds of contracts, which are common to online games, and perhaps shouldn't be. This suit or ones like it could change the face of consumer rights in online gaming. C CWe don't know what Linden Lab did or did not do. All we have to speculate with is what this guy says. Not the complete story. _____________________
Surreal
Phobos 3d Design - putting the hot in psychotic since 2004 Come see our whole line of clothing, animations and accessories in Chaos (37, 198, 43) |
|
Cocoanut Cookie
Registered User
Join date: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 1,741
|
05-09-2006 20:40
WRONG! Was I the only SL Resident that was cheated by Thunder Lardner TWICE?! He made exact replicas of my builds in Second Life that I currently have for sale to the public. Because they were modify, he copied their postition coordinates (I presume) and sold them on the SLEX! It seems that the Lindens can argue on my behalf that this guy has come to SL to willingly find exploits to use for this advantage. He has cheated me of possible sales, work effort, and design. Supposedly, I'm not the only one that's been made a fool of, although I have been unable to locate other builders who were also copied. So good riddance to Mr. Bragg. Obviously he wants to become Pennsylvania's most famous day-care lawyer or w/e. This same guy did that? !!! C C_____________________
|
|
Cocoanut Cookie
Registered User
Join date: 26 Jan 2006
Posts: 1,741
|
05-09-2006 20:41
We don't know what Linden Lab did or did not do. All we have to speculate with is what this guy says. Not the complete story. I was not speaking of what LL did or did not do. I was not speaking about this particular case. I was saying that the contracts we agree to when we play any online game are not the sort of thing I see people agreeing to when dealing with companies in the real world. I imagine that in the future this will change. C C_____________________
|
|
crucial Armitage
Clothing Designer
Join date: 30 Aug 2004
Posts: 838
|
05-09-2006 20:53
i find it disturbing that a real world lawyer would try and cheat the system as he so apparently did.
boggles the mind then again there have always been and always will be people that will cheat and steal and do what every they can to make a fast buck and layers are no different. _____________________
|
|
Morgaine Dinova
Active Carbon Unit
Join date: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 968
|
Re: Lawyers ...
05-10-2006 01:10
i find it disturbing that a real world lawyer would try and cheat the system as he so apparently did. The job of a lawyer is to navigate the extraordinarily convoluted, purposely obfuscated, and heavily mined battle fields of the law, and to do so in such a way that his client isn't prosecuted by the state (as an adviser), or to do so more effectively than some opposing lawyer (in a court of law). We may not like it, but that is all that lawyers do. In effect, a lawyer's job is to "cheat the law", ie. to avoid being caught by its clauses. And that is exactly what he tried to do here. Unfortunately for him, LL does not subscribe to due process within Second Life, but is instead the prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. And he was executed, within the virtual world. Outside SL, and particularly in the US, the job of a lawyer has very little to do with justice, or with fairness. "Justice" that is a direct function of how much you pay is not real justice at all. And how "fair" is it to prevail only if you have more money than the other guy? So while what he did was clearly "wrong" in our eyes because we know that he was getting something for nothing, it was very much the norm in his profession. It's one of the things responsible for turning the US into a nation of litigating non-producers. It seems you thought of lawyers as moral, or at least ethical. This is 100% incorrect. By their very training they seek to be amoral (not immoral, note the distinction please!!!), ie. devoid of morals, because it is this which allows them to legally represent clear criminals. To be amoral is not inherently bad, it depends entirely on what you do with it. But he chose to do what we recognize as "wrong", simply because we know that buying land for L$1 cannot be "right". Par for the course for a lawyer though, because there was nothing in the SL rulebook that identified that loophole and forbade it. _____________________
-- General Mousebutton API, proposal for interactive gaming
-- Mouselook camera continuity, basic UI camera improvements |
|
Nolan Nash
Frischer Frosch
Join date: 15 May 2003
Posts: 7,141
|
05-10-2006 03:10
See, I put this quarter on a string, I went into this video arcade, cheated a few rounds of Defender, then I got caught red-handed.
The bastards said I couldn't come back, and they kept my quarter on a string too! _____________________
“Time's fun when you're having flies.” ~Kermit
|
|
CJ Carnot
Registered User
Join date: 23 Oct 2005
Posts: 433
|
05-10-2006 04:02
So while what he did was clearly "wrong" in our eyes because we know that he was getting something for nothing, it was very much the norm in his profession. It's one of the things responsible for turning the US into a nation of litigating non-producers. I'm sorry, weren't you arguing in another thread that the reselling of free items is perfectly acceptable despite the overwhelming majority disagreeing with you as to what is clearly ("morally" as it seems to suit you to lecture us on the nature of morality rather than technicality now) "wrong" ? Substitute the word "thieving" for "litigating" and what you just said is the perfect argument against what you said in that thread. _____________________
|
|
Nepenthes Ixchel
Broadly Offended.
Join date: 6 Dec 2005
Posts: 696
|
05-10-2006 04:38
i find it disturbing that a real world lawyer would try and cheat the system as he so apparently did. Would be amusing if LL gets him convicted of fraud and he loses his license to practice law. Not ironic, but atill amusing. |
|
Morgaine Dinova
Active Carbon Unit
Join date: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 968
|
05-10-2006 06:24
I'm sorry, weren't you arguing in another thread that the reselling of free items is perfectly acceptable despite the overwhelming majority disagreeing with you as to what is clearly ("morally" as it seems to suit you to lecture us on the nature of morality rather than technicality now) "wrong" ? However, I am not a lawyer, and I have never trained in the necessary amorality to be able to defend such an approach to life, and that's why I didn't say that. Furthermore, if we headed down that road then we'd start hitting our heads on the partial responsibility of LL too, since they left open that avenue for profit. It's a different topic, not the one I was discussing. But the selling of free items does not qualify as wrong unless the creators of said items say it is. Their items, their rules. My point on that other thread stemmed from the fact that your position runs entirely counter to the way that Public Domain and Free / Open Source works in the world outside: in both cases, the authors allow and even expect their products to be sold for profit, since they benefit from the increased distribution that results from this. That approach has worked just great in the real world for decades, and FOSS in particular has ramped up to being totally collosal worldwide now, based on that approach to distribution, ownership, and pricing. As a developer in that world, the disparity with the planned economy that you are trying to impose just couldn't be different. Substitute the word "thieving" for "litigating" and what you just said is the perfect argument against what you said in that thread. _____________________
-- General Mousebutton API, proposal for interactive gaming
-- Mouselook camera continuity, basic UI camera improvements |
|
CJ Carnot
Registered User
Join date: 23 Oct 2005
Posts: 433
|
05-10-2006 07:49
You can't just replace words like that and expect the meaning or logic to be preserved. I agreed with your previous point without needing this one. I know but it was just too good an opportunity to miss. Where your reasoning failed was in your assumption that content creation in SL has anything whatsoever to do with the open source movement in RL. Those who participate in OSS expressly condone and agree to this as a matter of policy and philosophy. However, you were repeatedly told that here in SL the use of the transfer permission check box is seen by the overwhelming majority of people, in particular most of the content creators themselves, as granting the right to give something away for free for the benefit of others NOT to resell for a profit, consequently this is the moral consensus as to what is "right", whatever your technical justification or preference for another interpretation may be. The relevance to this thread is some peoples apparent ability to pick and choose when the moral highground or the amoral technical justification for their actions is most useful. _____________________
|
|
Meaghan Winthorpe
~ Ravenhearts ~
Join date: 5 Mar 2006
Posts: 50
|
Some people need a SL
05-10-2006 08:11
|
|
David Newt
Registered User
Join date: 31 Mar 2006
Posts: 3
|
Hmm...
05-10-2006 08:32
Either way, I'm not liking this. This is quite bad.
I completely agree- as far as his case goes, you have as much chance of trying to keep a snowball from melting in hell just by putting a hat on it. What he has done by trying to exploit a glitch here to fool an economy, however virtual, that usually deals in thousands of dollars of a -lot- of people's pocketbooks. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but not only does that fall under -hacking-, but wouldn't such an act count as stealing money under false pretense and thusly constitute -fraud-? However, such a case like this is going to bring unwelcome attention. If this sort of media gets onto more mainstream press and becomes seen in much more public venues...not only is it going to bring a lot of unwelcome scrutiny, but you'll have those trying to find out what said glitch was and trying to exploit it further or via a a different route. Absolute worst-case scenario...? I was talking with a friend the other day, trying to explain SL and it's economy, and he turns to me and says, "Wait a second....it's a form of online gambling, then?" I tried my best to explain it any other way, but the truth of the matter is, that even though it isn't, it could be percieved as such. And governments don't particularly like that sort of thing. 'scpecially if they're not getting their cut. Either way, we lose. |
|
Morgaine Dinova
Active Carbon Unit
Join date: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 968
|
05-10-2006 08:47
Where your reasoning failed was in your assumption that content creation in SL has anything whatsoever to do with the open source movement in RL. Those who participate in OSS expressly condone and agree to this as a matter of policy and philosophy. However, you were repeatedly told that here in SL the use of the transfer permission check box is seen by the overwhelming majority of people, in particular most of the content creators themselves, as granting the right to give something away for free for the benefit of others NOT to resell for a profit, consequently this is the moral consensus as to what is "right", whatever your technical justification or preference for another interpretation may be. (Downstream L$0 sales would be enforced in server code if LL wanted that interpretation to be compulsary.) That said, my main disquiet applies only to the community attempting to apply those unwritten rules to everyone, even to those who release their products to the Public Domain or under FOSS licenses like the GPL or Creative Commons. Enforced communal planning is not as widely supported as you seem to think (except among planners), and it is certainly not supported by LL --- they have explained this in black and white in Ask Lindens. The relevance to this thread is some peoples apparent ability to pick and choose when the moral highground or the amoral technical justification for their actions is most useful. By the way, it's a pleasure discussing this with you rationally. We may not agree (though I do see small points of agreement), but at least we can hold a reasoned exchange of views and hopefully understand the basis of each others' positions. _____________________
-- General Mousebutton API, proposal for interactive gaming
-- Mouselook camera continuity, basic UI camera improvements |
|
Siobhan Taylor
Nemesis
Join date: 13 Aug 2003
Posts: 5,476
|
05-10-2006 09:05
There's a story doing the rounds of the news agencies over here in the UK at the moment. It's about some guy who, a few years ago, on a 56k modem, dialed into a US Gvernment computer. Apparantly he changed nothing, he copied nothing off and caused no damage except the fact that he was there where he shouldn't have been, looking at photos taken from a space shuttle.
The situation is that he's likely to be deported to the US to serve 20-30 years in jail for bypassing the security on the system (let alone the hundreds of thousands in damages). The security he bypassed was finding a username for which there was no password. Now, if they're willing to prosecute that hard against a foreign national... well, I feel sorry for this guy if LL do push back. He was, by his own admission, bypassing security, AND in order to profit. Now I know LL's not the government, but even so... I wouldn't like to be in his shoes. _____________________
http://siobhantaylor.wordpress.com/
|
|
Ricky Zamboni
Private citizen
Join date: 4 Jun 2004
Posts: 1,080
|
05-10-2006 09:13
The situation is that he's likely to be deported to the US to serve 20-30 years in jail for bypassing the security on the system (let alone the hundreds of thousands in damages). The security he bypassed was finding a username for which there was no password. IMHO, that is a very different situation from what has happened here. Finding a username for which there is no password is bypassing security. Simply dialing into the host is not. That's basically what this guy did -- entered the address by hand using the auction ID as it was given in the sim description on the map. There was no security to bypass at all. If LL hadn't intended to sell the sim, they should have implemented something to prevent access to the page. Users aren't mind readers after all! Access validation is lesson #1 in ecommerce development and both the person who coded the page and the QA tester that let it through to the live site should be either fired or severely reprimanded. |
|
Siobhan Taylor
Nemesis
Join date: 13 Aug 2003
Posts: 5,476
|
05-10-2006 09:14
IMHO, that is a very different situation from what has happened here. Finding a username for which there is no password is bypassing security. Simply dialing into the host is not. That's basically what this guy did -- entered the address by hand using the auction ID as it was given in the sim description on the map. There was no security to bypass at all. If LL hadn't intended to sell the sim, they should have implemented something to prevent access to the page. Users aren't mind readers after all! Access validation is lesson #1 in ecommerce development and both the person who coded the page and the QA tester that let it through to the live site should be either fired or severely reprimanded. Not that different, it was obscurity only. And this guy did it with the intention of stealing. _____________________
http://siobhantaylor.wordpress.com/
|
|
Scotty Cerveau
Registered User
Join date: 2 Feb 2006
Posts: 1
|
dughhhh
05-10-2006 09:40
I'm on the lawyer's side. Who the hell designs an auction system that can be started by anyone at anytime if you point to the right URL? Oh, yeah, the Lindens. people need to play by the rules, it dont matter how the system was made he cheated. he used an unethical method to cheat the lindons and he got caught |
|
nimrod Yaffle
Cavemen are people too...
Join date: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 3,146
|
05-10-2006 09:44
lindons >_< _____________________
"People can cry much easier than they can change."
-James Baldwin |
|
Keiki Lemieux
I make HUDDLES
Join date: 8 Jul 2005
Posts: 1,490
|
05-10-2006 09:52
I'm just wondering out loud here, but a long while back there was a parcel next to me which was marked for auction but wasn't on the Auction list. I noticed the ID number, and went to the website and plugged that ID number to see if it would bring up the auction. Unfortunately I can't remember what happened. I certainly didn't get a page where I could start an auction. I'm not sure I got a page at all.
CODE http://secondlife.com/auctions/detail.php?id=0026198673 I would submit that simply plugging in an ID to see what popped up in this case would not be unethical. And I'm also guessing that you needed to do something more clever than this to actually place a bid and start the auction. Now sometimes when you submit a web form it also produces a similar url with things like the "id=0026198673" at the end: CODE http://secondlife.com/auctions/bid.php?id=0026198673&avatar=5896&bid=1 It might be possible for someone start an auction like this, by starting a legit auction and decyphering the variables in the URL. Now if I used the plug in the ID trick to look at an auction detail page that wasn't open yet, and couldn't place a bid on it. And THEN I used this second trick to spoof the form and begin the auction. I can't see how I wouldn't know that what I was doing was wrong. In any case, this is all speculation, because I don't know exactly what happened. But something like this does seem to fit the info I know of. _____________________
imakehuddles.com/wordpress/
|
|
Jonas Pierterson
Dark Harlequin
Join date: 27 Dec 2005
Posts: 3,660
|
05-10-2006 10:05
I just finished reading the MM article on the land auction 'exploit.'
I stand by my position that he should have his account and funds returned, and the sims go on auction -with- a proper minimum bid. At LEAST. He was even told by a Linden 'good luck' after he asked if it was ok... |
|
nimrod Yaffle
Cavemen are people too...
Join date: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 3,146
|
05-10-2006 10:29
I'm just wondering out loud here, but a long while back there was a parcel next to me which was marked for auction but wasn't on the Auction list. I noticed the ID number, and went to the website and plugged that ID number to see if it would bring up the auction. Unfortunately I can't remember what happened. I certainly didn't get a page where I could start an auction. I'm not sure I got a page at all. CODE http://secondlife.com/auctions/detail.php?id=0026198673 I would submit that simply plugging in an ID to see what popped up in this case would not be unethical. And I'm also guessing that you needed to do something more clever than this to actually place a bid and start the auction. *snip* I guess some people don't read the whole thread. Anyways, this is how he did it. He plugged the auction ID numbers in at the end of the URL. I tried this about 10 minuted before they fixed it, and it does (did) in fact work. And no, you didn't need to do something more clever.  _____________________
"People can cry much easier than they can change."
-James Baldwin |
|
nimrod Yaffle
Cavemen are people too...
Join date: 15 Nov 2004
Posts: 3,146
|
05-10-2006 10:31
I just finished reading the MM article on the land auction 'exploit.' I stand by my position that he should have his account and funds returned, and the sims go on auction -with- a proper minimum bid. At LEAST. He was even told by a Linden 'good luck' after he asked if it was ok... Yep, but it wasn't entirely LL's fault. I bet it was a miscommunication error with a Linden, but I believe I asked about this in-world to a Linden a while ago and they (the Linden) said that it would be ok. I'm thinking they didn't really understand how it was possible to do it, and just said that it would be ok since it was possible. _____________________
"People can cry much easier than they can change."
-James Baldwin |
