The (not so) "Lucky Flying Fish8!" incident

Short: That was me. I'm really sorry about that. I didn't think it through and just thought it'd be funny. Well, it was, for awhile. Then it got a bit out of control :(

Long: Today (yesterday) I found an "exploit" that allowed me to rez things as someone else (Andrew Linden in this case). Instead of reporting it, I thought I'd play a little with it. I took one of Accent Godels flying fish (the harmless version). These fish are cute little pets that follow random people. They also reproduce. Once. After the parent fish has rezzed a child, it soon dies. I changed that. The new fish would not die, but instead say "I'm a lucky fish." and then rez another fish. Then it'd wait 5 minutes and rez another. And so on (not limited by player cash, as it was instead rezzing from a Linden account).

Each of these newborn fish had the same script, doing the same, rezzing new fish every 5 minutes. After a few hours, there was lots of fish (Fleabite seemed to be a very happy cat). Soon there was definitely too much fish, causing lag and filling up sims at an increasing rate. That was bad. The fish were deletable by anyone, but there kept coming more. Soon after, Andrew Linden logged on, stopped the fish from further replicating and informed people to delete any fish they see.

Many players, the Lindens and me have deleted alot of fish since, but likely there'll still be some around, so if you see an object named "Lucky Flying Fish8!", delete it please. I made a quick script to help finding them, you can find it below. Also, if you find such a fish, do not copy or take and rez it, as it will reproduce until all your money is gone. Just delete it.

I'm really sorry about the whole mess, I just didn't think it through (and I reallly should know better than that). I especially apologize to Andrew (who was very cool about it) and Char and Michael Linden for causing so much trouble. And to Accent Godel for abusing her fish. And to anyone else who got more fish than they liked. Thanks also to all the people that helped (and still are) cleaning up.


Fish Finder script:

default {
    state_entry() {
        llSay(0, "Meow!");
        llSetTimerEvent(1);
    }

    touch_start(integer total_number) {
        llSensor("Lucky Flying Fish8!", NULL_KEY, ACTIVE | PASSIVE | SCRIPTED, 96, PI);
    }
    
    sensor(integer total_number) {
        integer i;
        
        for (i = 0; i < total_number; i++) {
                llWhisper(0, (string)llDetectedPos(i));
        }
    }
    
    timer() {
        llSetText((string)llGetPos(), <1, 1, 1>, 1.0);
    }
}

Simply put this into a prim and attach it. When clicked, it will output a list of any fish found within a 96m radius around you. It will also display your current position above the prim.

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish :-/

What WAS the exploit may I ask?

Definitely not well thought out. It didn't help that I had almost $20,000 in my account. I think i'll be keeping a lower balance from now on.

I'm still hunting down the last of the fishies. And I'll run another sweep tomorrow morning just to make sure.

As we hunt the wily, self-replicating, account-draining fishies, I feel as though I've somehow stumbled into a very low-budget, slightly reconceptualized version of Night of the Living Dead...

Personally I hope a couple escape detection. It would be kinda cool if the ickle fishes enjoyed some freedom for a while..!

Go fishies.. go..!

Wow - SL's first replicating virus lol!

Lets hope it's the last

This is actually very cool,

I have a suggestion for something interesting.

Modifying this script some more, don't remove the die but make it longer than 5 min. set up a Animal Linden account with lots of cash. Somehow make it so that large amounts of animals can't be created, and give us some wildlife!

Wildlife in SL would be so cool.

JV

How long before people complain about the animals taking up too many prims?

Thus ends today's lesson in exponential growth.

I'm glad to hear it was you, Ezhar. I was a little upset yesterday to hear Accent's name getting dragged through the mud, when I know very well that she is a good and responsible scripter.

Thanks for letting us know what happened!

I'm more concerned about being able to rez an object as Andrew Linden? Has that been fixed yet?

I for one wouldn't complain, having wildlife in SL would be amazing.

i had some more thoughts on it too, create a food chain, where there are predator animals that search and hunt for certain named animals, etc. and have the prey try to run from the predators.

AS to your questions about them taking up too much space perhaps they could be confined to the restricted sims like the housing one and the camp ones which I bet will never be at full object usage...

Also at some point, I believe Havok 2.0, they are supposedly going to raise avatar and object limits in sims.

JV

I sure hope so! As it is, the available prims and the sim performance drops out before we even get the sim halfway full and detailed. :/

Wouldnt it be cool to have animals confined to specifric sims
like how Linden World is being set up ?

Ezhar are you no longer apart of second life? Your place in slate was open, the land , like you dont own it but everything else was there that was yours, but it was decaying , I bought the land to keep it from decaying b ecause its a nice place and Im not sure if you ment for this to thappen or if you got suspended?

I'm afraid it's not the first, nor likely the last.

I once created a cloud maker that rezzed exponentialy and spread storm clouds across the whole northern continent - luckily they were programmed to die after 10 minutes and luckily I only had $2000 in my account.

Ezhar's still around - he's got a spiky forest in Tan. He probably pulled another game with his land that I've done before when I moved - release the land and see how long the objects stay around once they go public.

Ezhar is still around, I saw him earlier today. Maybe the Lindens should make him write "I will not play with multi-generational flying fish scripts again" 100 times on a virtual blackboard...

Well, at least you're honest about it.

Exactly.

I was teaching class in Perry at the time. Before we knew it, we each had several fish and they were reproducing, changing colors and swapping places with each other.

They were delicious!



Next time how about trying saucers of milk?

-flea

I personally would like wildlife.. not too many though. Thing is though, they'd have to either float or kind of wobble around...