You can all thank me now...

No, you weren't the first person to point it out to LL. They already knew about it thanks to the efforts of someone who was smart enough to notify them about it without posting it in the general forum. It's called using common sense. Try it some time.

Jarod,

It is my understanding that there is no way to protect against this - it is not a flaw in SL, or something that they can prevent. By actively drawing attention this, you are contributing to the problem, not helping push Linden Lab into action to prevent it. While yes, some people knew about this already - by making the information widespread and even encouraging its use, you are doing nothing but helping to damage other users. There is nothing noble in that. This is not revealing an exploit because LL is sitting on their ass - this is simply being one.

Who? If they came first, then I need to edit my original post and give them credit. They deserve it.

But! I still dislike the idea of it being handled in the back room. I still think letting SL users know that this exists and saying "I can steal your stuff" is an O.K. method, because it makes texture makers aware of it. It gives them time to start copyright procedures, to make notes of then they created their textures, to be aware that it's a danger and plan accordingly. It's this mentality that information can only be used for bad that makes me act like such a wanker. It's the idea that sequestering something like this will lessen the damage that makes me mad.

What I did was jerk-like, I won't deny it. I'll admit it! (And accept whatever AR's I get for it.) I did scream about this, I was trying to get people's attention. I wanted everyone to know about this, because if they were in the texture market they needed to know about it.

Again, if your intention was to make sure that people affected by it were aware of it, you could have gone to them individually - most content creators are pretty friendly with one another and certainly would have shared this information amongst themselves to help protect themselves. There is a way to responsibly handle it, and what you continue to do is definitely not it.

There is an ancient chinese saying .. "the prophets of doom are always right, they are just premature."

I disagree. People have told LL about flaws in the software and they have ignored it until people post about it in forums. When all those scripts were stolen and posted on the internet, LL knew about the flaw and they didn't fix it until it was made public. They don't seem to take action until the house is on fire, even when people tell them the battery in the smoke detector is dead.


But yeah there is no way to prevent this, but the drama is entertaining, so thumbs up Jerod.

But, Cristiano, how would Jarod feel good about himself without being able to do all this nonsense publicly? Please, don't be inconsiderate. We mustn't deny Jarod opportunities to compensate for his lack of self-worth.

This is not a flaw in the software. This is akin to hearing a conversation by being in the same room. People are using this on everything; from WoW to Google Earth. That's why this isn't the same as other cases of lax LL response.

Meh. So watermark textures if all else fails and create return business for yourselves by continuing the same quality you always have. There will always be that one asshat that steals your work, but the fact is they rarely if ever achieve the market share of the legitimate business.

Bottom-feeders rely on you for their content, giving you the perpetual leg up over them. I think of it more as white noise or, in some cases, a signal the first business is doing something wrong.

This is par for the course, people. It is akin to the real-world risk of shoplifting and reselling or having employees steal office equipment. Consider your customers stakeholders in your business. They wouldn't want you to fail, either, unless something is very wrong.

Because no system will protect this stuff perfectly. I guarantee it.


My prediction, four to six months from implementation:

Date created: (not on file)
Creator: (nobody)

They could have told people about this the second they heard about it. "Look, people, there's something you should know about OGLE. ... So, just be sure you have your images time stamped -- we recommend burning them to a CD, and mailing them to yourselves -- so if you suspect any copyright violations, as soon as we implement this new feature, you'll be able to prove they're yours." If they'd done that when that mysterious someone Chip mentioned told them about this, it would have been a non-problem. With that made public, GLIntercept would have been just a cool hack.

Oh, wow, you're just full of bright ideas.

The so-called "Poor Man's Copyright" doesn't mean dick. If Linden Lab had honestly advocated it, their general counsel would have smacked them across the face.

There's only one point in the SL system that would need watermarking code to be added: the texture upload module (on the server).

If that module would automatically add a Linden-known (but otherwise secret) watermark, all textures that you ever see in SL would bear that watermark. When such texture is saved then re-uploaded, a (silent) warning could be raised to Linden Labs. Multiple warnings could mean further investigation, and banning of the offending person.

Which is why I took the role of malefactor to announce the problem, instead of trying to offer ham-handed advice like that. Thank you for proving my point!

I wonder why nobody has yelled at furniture and housing manufacturers when they've posted compaints detailing methods people have used to copy their items. Then again, LL was able to nerf the building tools by eliminating the prim settings when examining other people's objects. It's not like this software is supposed to accomodate collaborative building.

Nobody complained when people've pointed out such tips as saving zoomed texture views directly to disk rather than as a texture in order to gain the highest possible quality either. But those were posted as warnings in the context of explaining that there was no way for LL to prevent it.

I'd link back to these examples; but then, unlike the OPs, I'd be promoting theft right? Does calling a fellow poster an ass constitute a personal attack? Maybe not; no, I suppose not.

I suspect you're making some assumptions. For all you know, an email was sent and not even opened until AFTER you started yelling about it. Or the email was received and the person who received it needed to discuss it with Philip or someone else higher in the chain.

If the binary was released the same day that the OGLE SourceForge forum was opened - Jan 11, 2006 - and assuming that a resident of Second Life miraculously happened to see this the very next day (Jan 12, 2006) and then immediately tested it, immediately recognized the potential harm, and then immediately emailed a warning to LL, that gives LL what?... TWO WEEKS to get the email, have a meeting to discuss the implications, and then come up with some kind of solution/announcement? Was senior Linden staff even available for a meeting? Seems like some of them have been busy traveling based on what I recall of the Lessig visit (Jan 18, 2006).

Right.

Well. You have your "I wanna be the first" need for attention and "I post private IMs without being courteous enough to inform the other individual" lack of consideration for others, and I prefer to give some reasonable thought to my actions (as evidenced by that very same conversation). Thank you for showing us to be such entirely different people.

I think you missed my point slightly. They, the Lindens, probably would do no such thing, as it would be easily broken and difficult to enforce. We, the residents, on the other hand can place any watermarks we like on any and all textures we own.

A watermark is not simply a bit of code - it's a visual representation that takes more effort to reverse-engineer than it would to simply make a new item. It may potentially give you new business as well.


However, every texture of that nature would require said watermark to be applied, else the system is irrelevant. This is similar to why textual works are published (only) as PDF. Saving text in an image file. Brilliant!

That's the sort of "DRM" I advocate. Natural, simple, requiring no technical knowledge beyond simple common sense. Anything beyond that is just loco and unenforcable.

If they want the credit they can step forward by their own choice but they probably won't because it's not a pissing contest. Several people (myself included though I didn't contribute anything but gratitude) compiled a document of several severe holes in the security of textures, not just the one you're talking about. The document was then forwarded on to several people at LL. It's not the kind of stuff you make public for incredibly obvious reasons (well, obvious to everyone but you, apparently).

That I do, so in that vein:

February 11, 2005: WHY Second Life NEEDS and API, my first post of the potential of ripping data. It didn't make it to BoingBoing, though.

Mmm... Apparently.

No, I'm actually advocating a different system. It would help everyone, not just the people who have the time and software to watermark.



An unknown watermarking system easily broken? How? How easy is it to break a picture watermark? I would guess it's too hard.



Yeah, brilliant PDF. Ask the blind people (image cannot be read aloud).

Though it can be OCR'd with ScanSoft or other software.

Well, PDF files aren't images in the JPEG sense of the word, they're images in the "OMGWTFBBQ peeple r stealing form us!" sense of the word. PDF files are presented as images, but they're really just documents not unlike Microsoft Word files (or PaintShopPro's PSP format, where text can be stored as text editable data). If you open up a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat, you can edit the text just as easily as you can in Word.

If DRM weren't treated as such a cure-all for privacy, I'd imagine that Adobe (or a third party) could release something that reads the embedded text within their PDF files. The problem with copyright enthusiests is that the ability to help people falls vastly short of their desire to ignore real thieves' cleverness.

I assume you were suggesting a watermark added to every snapshot saved to disk or captured in OpenGL.

So I hit Print Screen. Now what?


Point was, a system-based solution is irrelevant, as the data must be read by the client machine to "work." A system-neutral solution, as with pure (graphical) watermarking or moving text data to a PDF, is a far better solution to a very common problem. What we're discussing is nothing new; it's simply closer to its pure, distilled (information) form.

As for the blind person, that's a special case, but the example is well-taken. Same problem with giving out handouts in class. Special provisions, as the example you gave, would be the best course of action.


At the end of the day, though, these mechanisms are for the paranoid (as Jarod put it) and fall into the realm of common sense. The best business model is to simply continue to make a better product.



Bears repeating.

Probably not that hard, actually. I haven't followed the field lately, but watermarks in images have never been that foolproof, or they weren't back when I still cared.

depends on the quality of the source ...

altho i have personally started putting my face on the crotch of every pair of pants i sell

(just kidding, i dont sell pants)

Besides, Flip already patented that security system.