RL email addresses revealed in SL!

OK,

This is a bug i have experienced since the beginning, and it is annoying, but as far as I can figure out, it might actually also be a security risk as well so I am posting here.

Hopefully you can all tell me how paranoid and silly I am being.

The bug is on older dresses that contain mostly a transparent texture (like short skirts especially).

You put it on for the first time and the area that is supposed to be alpha or empty contains a grey hodgepodge of (your own) screen elements. That is, it mirrors the dialogue boxes and so forth that are on your screen.

The problem is... for some absolutely illogical reason, Linden has your RL email prominently displayed on one of those boxes and thus your RL email address can end up on the front of your skirt!

Now I always htought that only I could see these glitches, but someone told me that they too could see my grey skirt with dialogue boxes very clearly.

Most of the time this means nothing. It is too hard to read them and mostly they are garbled. But I have seen my own RL email prominently displayed, so if others can see these grey glitches, then cannot they too see my RL email?

It seems the possibility exists anyway.

So...

1) Am i crazy?

2) Why do we have to display our RL email anyway?

3) shouldn't number 2 be fixed regardless? (just to be sure)

Hi Torley
Thanks for the reply.

I could post screenshots but mostly they would be me in a state of undress and thus not good on the forum. It only happens once in a wile so i cant "plan" to take a pic of it.

I have already figured out the Appearance trick
I usually go into apperance and change the length of the skirt
then save, exit, re-enter, change again, and save.

The thing that freaked me out about it was the fact that someone said that they to could see the grey dialogue boxes. I can see how knowing someones RL email could be a big problem in some cases. I know I have been stalked and harrassed quite a bit in SL already and I am still a newbie really.

I just dont understand why the email is not xxx'ed out like the multimedia url. We are protecting Internet radios companies, but still have our user emails in a dalouge box?

Something like this was happening last fall, where RW IP addresses were being exposed (if you knew where to look). Thus, this Email issue is a very valid concern, and LL should take any reported security lapses very seriously, IMO.

I've pointed this one out to the developers. Sounds like a screenshot's becoming the texture; if that's the case, it should get fixed. Obfuscating the email address isn't quite as easy because it's a screenshot of the field you actually need to type your own email address into and be able to read.

I hope a Bug Report was filed?

I'm curious as to whether disabling "UI in next snapshot" affects this...

Well I did not file a bug report cause I was not sure it's a "bug" per se.

I posted the same thing and a second realted matter on the linden support forum thingie so hopefully I will get an answer there.

for clarification:

- The email address display I am thinking of never needs to be changed and the field never needs to be entered AFAIK so not sure about whether it might be rather *easily* obfuscated.

- I am not *sure* but I am fairly certain that the "include UI" thing does *not* have to be checked for one to get this effect. The "screenshot" is picked up at the moment the skirt is ressed I think, and has nothign to do with those settings. Just what happens to be on the screen.

No, this isn't a new issue, Lee. She's talking about a bug (that I thought was fixed) in which the texture baked for the skirt (and only the skirt) is a big chunk of the UI. The fact that she had her preferences window open and turned to the right tab at the time meant that her email address was copied in the screenshot as well.

Is this constant or intermittent? If you attempt to edit one of the skirts it happens in, then save it, does that fix it? If all the skirts that do this are no-mod, would it be possible for you to ask the creators for new copies to test this with?

Usualy only once with each garment, usually the first time you put it on, and mostly older garments.

Yes. A simple edit fixes it.

Well it has only happened on newer skirts once or maybe twice.
Usually it is what I take to be an older skirt so it would be very hard to trace.
I will look and see if perhaps I got a picture of the effect.
I will certainly try to photograph it if i see it again.

So it only happens when you first wear the skirt, as if the texture hasn't loaded yet, but then it does?

On the first loading yes.

The previous skirt texture in use comes up first (as always), then it changes to the new one but with the alpah areas picking up the desktop instead of being transparent.

It stays that way even if you take it off and put it on again, but the first edit that you perform and *save* on the skirt fixes it.

In practice this means two edits of course because you have to change whatever parameter you changed, back to it's original setting.

Ahh, okay, so this IS that old bug. That's really weird; I thought they'd fixed it. I'm vaguely recalling a workaround involving changing a driver setting? Lindens?

i think its less saving a screenshot as a texture lee, and more a crossed pointer somewhere where when 'burning' your avatar skin texture, it somehow gets fed a portion of the screen buffer instead... aka when i've seen it happen, it included things that actually were not part of screenshots, and usually happens when no screen shots were taken.

it does seem to occur most often with alpha clothing, but viewing the actual clothing texture does not show those elements, only the finished aka 'baked' skin contains them.

This is it exactly.

Since it seems like we are all on the same page now i will just wait for a reply from the Lindens.

But I would like to say that I dont believe things like this are really a problem they are just the kinds of little glitches one would expect.

What *is* the problem is the fact that my email address is (potentially) revealed. I dont realy care about a grey dress that can be fixed in a second. I want to know why my email address has to be there at all.

Even if they fix the current bug I wont be happy until that email field is removed or obscured.

I'll do what I can to pull someone more knowledgeable of the lower-level tickings of SL into this thread to see what we can do.

I went out and gathered a lot of the old freebie skirts and found at least two that exhibit this behaviour for me.
(see attachment)

whilst this is another fun issue that has existed forever, lemme tell you about an even funner one that is far more blatant/obvious, and consistently ignored by the Lindens (I've reported it and it's been reported loads of times. I've mentioned it face to face to various Lindens too). They apparently couldn't care less.

When you batch upload images - and ONLY when you batch upload, not single images - the FULL path of where the image came from is stored in the description field. Why? What possible use does it serve to know where that image originated from, file wise? And if it's important, and 'by design', then why doesn't it happen with single images?

Think about it: Where do many people store images? That's right - in the directory set up especially for the purpose in Windows. And where is that stored? That's right - under your Windows login name. And what do many people use for their Windows login name? That's right - they use their full, real name!

And then people forget that every image they uploaded needs to be blanked in properties so that the Lindens aren't revealing this information for them. So they give away their image, and low and behold.. everyone suddenly knows who they are irl!

I have seen this happen to three different people - LL revealing their real life details through image uploads. One, thanks to some particularly malicious behaviour by a resident who found out their rl details this way and started muckraking, left SL for good. Another also turned out pretty nasty for the person concerned.

So don't tell me the Lindens care about privacy. They know full well they have all these holes, and they obviously couldn't give a shit about plugging them because it doesn't take over a year to remove a description line on upload. That's willful neglect due to not giving a fuck.

Well that is another thing that is good to know security-wise.
It also seems that it might be possible to break apart an SL object and take the textures out. (several people have suggested to me that it is) .

If so, most image programs also put your full real name in the image info, unless you delete it. So if you upload a pic and then give it to someone and they are able to get it back to their desktop someohow, they could concievably also find out your real name.

Actually, that wouldnt be the case - even a digitally watermarked image is mangled through SL's compression and subsequent re-output to h/d.

Well that's good to know at least. I had assumed because the formats werethe same sat either end that the file was unploaded unchanged.