it is about time for developer certification.

looks like it's time for people to start getting certified if they're going to upload textures or write scripts that utilize risky API commands.

linden lab can start out simple - anyone who has paid money to LL can upload textures and/or create scripts that use things like llRezObject / llRequestPermission(PERMISSION_DEBIT) / etc.

as the population grows, I think they can probably get more stringent about who gets access to these commands.

maybe people who've put up a small bond of sorts. That sort of thing.

there will be bit of a reduction in content creation, but I don't think it'll be that much and let's face it, pretty much any serious creator is on record of having billing info of one sort or another.

too many DMCAs / ARs against you, and I think you could be at risk for losing your certification.

oh wow, you're gonna set the forums a-blaze now.

This is fairly close to what I proposed here. It didn't get rave reviews at the time. Maybe times have changed?

What possible logic leads you to thinking this is a good idea?

All I see this doing is stifling creativity.

-Ghoti

I can see this working for scripting, but for texture uploads at all? That's one of the first things a true newbie will try to do is up something and play around with it.

Then again.. maybe it would be a better idea to think on the safe side, what with there being no way to tell who's a greifer and who's a legitimate newbie anymore.

This does nothing to control 'who gets access to commands'. Anyone who then gets a copy of such ready-made script put into item or whatever, can utilize them. Anyone provided with copy of the texture can use it in any way they like, If you then want to revoke these 'rights' based on how the items with these scripts or these textures are used, that's akin to punishing gun makers for crimes committed with guns they produce.

i agree with the fact that there should be more control on who can control access to money based scripts. like for example, if i want to create my own vendor or slot machine and have it take money from me, thats just fine and dandy...

however, if i want to make it where i can sell it or give it away, and it take and give money from someoene else listed as owner, then there should be something to protect the new owner from hidden fucntions that can drain there there account of L.

Gun makers require a license to do so, if i recall correctly.


**edit

Remember the VGI Money Ball scam that just went down? Very new account, probably an alt, used for the express purpose of scamming people.

This would prevent that, and give basic account holders yet one more reason to upgrade.

That's a pretty wild analogy.

However, I support scripter certification. Scripters that I personally know that are good stand behind their work.

I think there's this assumption by new users that anything they buy will be good. Buyer beware, especially for scripts, should be promoted better.

I don't think cutting access from some of the very things that could entice people to stay in SL is a good idea. Im curious as to what you see as the benefits of doing so are though Anna.

Actually, paying for some of the logistics of Second Life (such as high volume llEmail, XMLRPC, etc) is something quite a few people have asked for. It does make sense to pay for higher service volume in the ISP capacity, instead of dealing with lag, script schedulers, multithreading hacks...


But this far down the line, it's not very likely.

When dealing with money matters or other important things, ALWAYS deal with known developers and buy from their stores directly. Make sure the objects are being sold by the people that are associated with the store/group. It only takes a few minutes to figure out if someone you're buying from is from a truely well established business, but it takes only a second to lose a ton of money.

If you buy a money ball from some unknown person that owns no land or has no established well known business, then you are putting yourself at risk by not doing homework. If I see a well known business and they have stores all over SL or even invested in land, then I know odds are they wont scam anyone as they would have more to lose than I would should anything bad go down.

Other common sense protections would be to test items with alts or transfer your money to another alt until you are feeling secure with an item. I remember back when some scare was going around about a vendor bug and I simply transfered my money to an alt to minimize my risk. Then once things settled down and the real issue was made clear I transfered the money back.

- debit permission is a trivial scam, and yes, this was somewhat inspired by the money ball issue below

- there are other things you can do with scripting that I'm not going to reveal on an open forum that can easily scam people.

- if you lose your privilege to upload textures than you can't steal textures. it would be pointless to steal textures because you couldn't upload them.

It gives LL a way to actually enforce IP rights. people are not going to risk their certification in order to steal content, if it becomes complicated in order to get certification.

or, at least, the amount of theft will go waaay down.

also, if we have something like this, then LL can loosen up on the restrictions because they can trust people to act in a sane manner.

Do the kitchen utensil and pillow makers require the same licenses, too? You can use their products to kill people, after all.


So would common sense. A free item made by brand new person, not associated with business venture they claim to be part of, requesting permissions to get money from you. And no source code for script provided. Hello mcFly, anyone home?

perhaps, but it has got to the point where i simply do not rez anything anyone gives me.
if you knew all the back doors I know, you'd be just as paranoid.

Yes its hard to say not knowing what you might know. But anything that takes money from you has to request permission right?

joannah - it's simple math. a certain percentage of people a certain percentage of the time will not always go through all the tests in order to make sure that they're safe.
people are not machines.

therefore, you just play the odds, and eventually you'll get people.

plus i hate it that everyone distrusts everything. why do we have to be in such an atmosphere of fear all the time? just so uber noob can write a money debit script?

that's crazy...

dialog fatigue. we all get it. anyways, it doesn't matter, linden lab will introduce bugs in the future which will open up gaping holes.

people who rely on their good standing with linden lab will not try to exploit those holes

You mean people just clicking yes/ok without reading? Like having a dance machine asking for debit permissions instead of animation permissions?

yeah, exactly.

or, let's say you're clicking through a bunch of dialogs, and I know you're doing it. I can popup a debit dialog just as you are clicking and you can accidentally hit my dialog.

there are a lot more nasty ones, but again, i can't really get into it

but even as LL makes changes in the future - there will be more bugs. they're human (very human, heh) and they will create more bugs. like what if they want to write lSl access to the group stuff?

that could get so exploited ... but people who require their certification to make a living will not exploit them. or, at least, are a lot less likely.

Well, but your solution to 'stop distrusting everything' actually _is_ to not trust anyone out of the box, on the whole system level, until they jump through X number of hoops. Why is such world-wide distrust any better? ^^;

That thing about upload rights being a way to limit texture theft is interesting, btw. A bit of too much of 'throwing the baby out with bathwater' for my taste and if i understand it right there's still ways to go around it in some cases (for texturing prims etc) ... but it is interesting nonetheless.

true, maybe make it so uploaded textures are not transferable (ie: you can't sell them)

Interesting in the way a train wreck is interesting.

Sure, why don't we start locking down all creative aspects of SL to only those people that are willing to wear the 'Mark of the Beast'. Upload image, blocked! Upload sound, blocked! Heaven forbid, someone might be able to reproduce this shape, given enough time to play around, so let's take away Create/Edit objects too! A world of club-hopping blingtards needs not these things!

"Your world, your imagination" but only if you want to dish out more $$ to have the right to create content. Bullshit.

-Ghoti

ghoti, do you create any content?

if you sell anything that is mod, i can dupe and sell it in 5 seconds flat.

if you texture anything (mod or *not*), i can download it, re upload it to slboutique, slexchange, and sell it anywher - 5 seconds flat.

i can crash your simulator (or at least bog it down infinitely) with many simple scripts.

i can do a helluva lot more with scripts that you wouldn't be too happy about.

however, it's an interesting compromise --- how about making scripts / textures uploaded by uncertified people not available for sale.

anyways, in the end, linden lab isn't going to screw people over - the more content that gets created, the bigger this world will be. they will make the process as painless as possible.

the key for them (and for all of us) will be accountability.

I was trying to be nice about it ;.;