Are Home Defense Systems considered abuse?

No, because you can't know the land is unsafe when traveling until you're on or over it. This comes in conflict with the idea of the "right to pass".
Stalkers and greifers will be known, specific people - no security script need bother the general passerby to deal with them. As for "snooping" - why is anyone concenrned with this? You can put your "secret items" in the most secure of places when you're not around: your inventory.

I have a 'building area' at 700m above my plot in Behri, with rarely any traffic.
I want a scanner that will detect avs entering within 100m and letting them know that they're approaching a sensitive area and are liable to be teleported home for acting a fool. If they are on a 'banlist', it will shove them away once, then TP them home.
If they are on a 'f*ckingkillthebastard' list, it will drop enough tp home requests effectively kill them.

This is because while I don't mind visitors, I do mind griefers and 'me-too' noob builders that think my place is a public sandbox.

OTOH, I do plan to have a temp-on-rez loveshack at 650m that's only around when I am, THAT will have a 30-sec warning and will gently push approaching people into the next continent.

You must have The Quickie down to a fine art...

-- jj

Actually, I take awhile. Apparently most of the other guys around have that market cornered. I'm used to hour-plus RP sessions, etc, etc. I just don't see the need to have a skybox permanently placed at the moment. I might change my mind in the future on that, tho.

Thanks for all the really excellent replies. However, I feel that some of the replies strayed off track a bit. Remember, I'm talking about a situation where the HDS is on a skybox platform ABOVE the default flying height (175 meters) The skybox is at more like 210 meters. The HDS is tuned to a radius of 30 meters, which means its sphere of influence is above the default fly zone. Furthermore, the scan timing is set such that someone could almost land on the skybox before it would kick in.

There's no question, to me, that any type of auto push system on the ground could be considered griefing, because your security script's sphere of influence extends into normal flight space or ground walking space. If you don't have the red security fence up, no person can possibly know you don't want them in your space. And extending the HDS' sphere of influence beyond the 30 (or 40?) meter height of the red security fence is also griefing, because an innocent flyover could be attacked.

The problem is that there's no way to set a "protected" fence on a skybox or anything above 30-40 meters. If you build a structure higher than that default height (or right up to the top of it) or you build a skybox that you want private, there are no Linden-provided tools with which to do so.

As for the arguments about there being no privacy, etc. or the game is social so why lock yourself behind a privacy script.... Look. SL goes to great lengths to give us the illusion of "property". Real, personal property. Would you want any traveller through your neighborhood to arrive on your porch, look in through your windows, enter your house, listen to your conversations, watch you possibly being intimate with someone, etc. in the real world? Of course not. Would you want people coming down and partying in your backyard and tossing lots of trash on your lot that you have to clean up? Of course not.

Well, same principles apply here. All of our land below is set up in a way that invites public access and enjoyment. We just want as private a space as possible for relaxing up in the sky, above the default flight lanes. Is it really so wrong in that instance to have a GENTLE push script that shoves an AV about 40 meters from the perimeter of the defense field? I'm not talking about TPing someone home or crashing them or sending them flying two sims away. Just a nudge away and preventing them from strolling around in our skybox.

All this said, I'm relatively new to SL. I understand that I may not fully understand the overall ettiquette of the culture here. That's why I'm asking this question and trying to steer it back to a situation of a skybox already outiside the default flight height, with a close-tuned scanning radius, and a *small* push that doesn't really affect your ability to fly anywhere you want in the sim I'm in except for a thirty meter sphere centered on my skybox 210 meters in the air.

I really wish a Linden would weigh on in this because I don't want to break any COC or community standards, but the current community standards are extremely fuzzy in this regard. Nor do I want to be reported for abuse, because I'm not trying to abuse anyone.

As recently posted by Robin Linden in Hotline to Linden it would be rather hard for you to get any concrete answer to your question as the Lindens seem rather fuzzy on the matter themselves.

This is fast becomming my SL mantra, and as a mantra I'll say it again:There's a reason that the framers of the US consitution felt that the sixth amendment and an open judicial process were important: hidden justice gives no guide to the majority of the populace who would like to be rule abiding. So, as this thread shows, no matter how much thinking you do on the matter, you simply don't know whether it is permitted until such a time as you are told it is not.

*sigh*

Pardon, but I must disagree. We defend our property in ral life becasue it's the only way to maintain control over it. In Second Life, the property is unmolestable if you set your land properly - and there is a fine tradition of exploring other people's builds. Please don't extend the anaogy of land and property used in allocating server resources beyond its useful limits.
Also, you'll note I'm careful to say your script should not be swatting others down when you're away. When you're using your land for whatever activities you may wish to keep private, then your script should warn people to stay away (it can do so silently to you, with instant messages) and then remove them if they continue to approach.
The fact is - there is no privacy in SL. If someone wants to watch you move pixels around, they can do it - and there's not a darn thing you can do to stop 'em. Yor only real hope is vigilance and timing.

As a frequent flyer of the skies I really think it is "so wrong" to push my avatar no matter how gently without a heads up first.
I've never minded the "This is a private lot & we don't want guests. You have 10 seconds to vacate the area before being forceably removed." type security systems that then push me off the perimeter of the property if I'm too slow. Most of the time if I'm flying to my destination I'm done and gone in that time frame anyhow.
I'm really honestly fed up and sick to death of push scripts & teleport home scripts when trying to get anywhere. I've started flying at over 1000+ (feet? meters? I'm too lazy to log in and look) and I'm STILL getting forceably ejected from my vehicles or teleported home when flying about. I sound like a whiner but it's seriously gotten to the point where I get so frustrated when I run into them trying to go anywhere that I just give up, log out and play other games.
So please oh please, if you must get a security system get one that gives even a 5 second heads up.

-Sun
well before sending this I went to log in & saw that the update (1.6.11) lists the ability to cancel teleports...I wonder if that will apply to TPs initiated by security systems as well. <crosses fingers> Anyone know?

Nope. Which is a good thing, really. It's a powerful anti-greif tool.

I just want people to stop abusing it, or it'll get taken away. We've already had one close call.

I love (ed) to fly around in the lower parts of the SL sky... Every week I used some hours to look around...

BUT...

After some weeks doing it and meeting You are not allowed.. secured area.. waking up at home. sent SIMs away, crashes - its not that nice and fun and lovely as SL shall be..

Some one early in this tread wrote that we can steel .. do any harm... so what the problem with you that live in a 3D world that need all this??

I think the need for Home Defence scripts should be removed by augmenting the current ban system. The only way for a defence system to work is for it to run a sensor, which consumes precious sim resources. Right now when you are banned from a parcel, the ban extends from ground height to about 45 meters above ground height. Instead, I think the ban "field" should be defined as a three-dimensional box, itx x and y bounds defined by the shape of the land (like the one we have currently), but its z bounds dictated by the concentration of prims at a particular region on the parcel. If XX% of the prims used on the parcel are between z=50 and z=80, create an additional ban bounding box constrained to that space.
==Chris

Of course not and no they don't apply here. The world is constructed in such a way that, on the mainland, the only way, let me reiterate, the ONLY way you can prevent me from seeing what your doing is to own enough land that I can't view across it and ban me from it using the builtin feature. That's about a sim's worth at my maximum functional view distance. Sorry to burst your bubble but if you think you can prevent us from watching you by using security scripts, you're just plain wrong.

There is a social stigma against looking in my windows in real life and people can't just stand in the road and zoom their view into my house. I have an Expectation of Privacy in the real world. I have NO Expectation of Privacy in Second Life because the abilities of my fellows residents and the inworld social fabric effectively prevent me from having any privacy in mainland sims on The Grid All Hail The Central Grid.

That said, LL do provide a solution. They provide private islands that are detached from the mainland and grant owners and their guests real privacy. You can actually prevent me from being able to come there in the first place. You can even hide them from view so they don't appear on my map.

Island = Expectation of Privacy

Mainland = You're just fooling yourself and people are watching and listening to you just because they can and you've challenged them.

Now this misunderstanding has cost us a much needed feature. I can't believe that LL are scrambling to cater to people that are using a scripting feature for a purpose that it was never intended to serve, trying to accomplish something that is impossible to accomplish, based on a notion that is altogether false.

Just when I was starting to hope again

Privacy used to realy irk me I loved my privacy then I discoved something.... "IM"

Cat

Agree completely, Chris. Something very similar to this idea is included in prop 244 - the link is in my sig.

You keep mentioning the default (max) flying height of 175m as if it meant something. The only people restricted to staying below that height are newbies that have not yet acquired an X-flight or other flight module.

-Ghoti

My current personal situation has pointed out something to me that has me now reconsidering Second Life as a "platform".

Let's imagine that someone somehow manages to get a RW corporation interested in having one of their new products represented in SL. Assume the brand is well-known and is heavily violated within SL, and that there will be those who simply will not wish to see the brand legitimately entering their virtual space... for whatever reason.

Assume for a moment that the resident representing that brand now sets up a store to sell/distribute the product. Right now - based on my own current situation where a neighbor is (mis)using a HDS to purposely intrude into my land to extend his so-called privacy - there is nothing to stop people who somehow consider the introduction of a RW brand a different kind of invasion of privacy, from doing the same thing and effectively shutting down that SL business. And like my current neighbor, it's not even necessary for them to have a parcel adjoining the business.

I have no doubt this form of griefing will occur. And because Linden Lab appears to allow this use (or at least ignore enforcement of their ToS in this regard), griefers will either be able to do this or, if chastised, point to further inconsistencies in how SL policy is administered.

We often hear arguments that Second Life is a "platform". But that term implies stability. Until Second Life lives up to being a true platform in the sense of the word, I'd venture people with an interest in managing the controlled influx of RW brands (as opposed to having them stampede at some point in the future) will have a hard time putting their reputations on the line.

theres a direct flight path across two sims from my house to my store. on the way, there is a house with a 10-sec warning sec system backed up by a VERY powerful push. 99% of the time Im fine, but like once every couple of weeks it'll lag enough that Ill still be considered in the parcel when the 10 seconds triggers. Ive been crashed twice and almost crashed two other times. I curse that thing every time I get the warning.

You need to get around more, then. I can list two valid reasons just off the top of my head for running a security script:

1. I know 2 people who have a personal RL history of being abused (we're talking the most horrendous, damaging psychological trauma imaginable). For them, SL is supposed to be a relatively safe way to reenter a social life but, of course, there are still abusive jerks and griefers. They benefit psychologically from the feeling of safety the scripts give them.

2. As I've developed relationships in SL, I've also attracted stalkers and ex-partners I do not trust any farther than I can throw them. A security script won't prevent many things, but it WILL at least keep them at a distance from me and, once again, give me the psychological feeling of safety. Most importantly, because the default land settings are so weak (and don't go much higher than 30m or so), it gives me a good feeling to know I am not completely powerless.

I do not want to ban everyone. I only want the ability to put *certain* people on my ban list and keep them as far away from my private build as possible.

So I submit that the primary benefit of security scripting is psychological. Is there something wrong with that as long as I'm not blasting everyone to the edge of the world at random?

This is the only legitimate use of a security script, in my humble opinion.

I feel safe in saying the scripts everyone has a problem with are the ones that indescriminately (and pointlessly) swat everyone from the sky.

It would be neat if whoever designs these HDS things would add a feature in which the HDS only operates when an authorized user is present by default.

It would fix the problem of these unattended avsex skyboxes that have a dozen aircraft cluttered outside of them.

I disagree. What happens when someone decides they want to keep *certain* people (who happen to be neighbors and who owned their parcels before these people moved to their privacy sanctuary - ha) decide that keeping "them as far away from" their build means pushing them off their land which is already one parcel removed?

I very much doubt she's suggesting this - and it's already clear that:
1) llPushObject is not a security function - you'll get RAed for using it, and LL will use thier (painfully slow) system of warnings and suspensions.
2) You don't have control over other's land.

Those with ejection/teleport scripts on the ground have told me to fly higher. Those with ejection/teleport scripts 500 meters in the sky, well... I haven't talked to them but I think they presume that I ought to fly lower.

It's annoying. I try to climb to 900 meters so that I can go above the sensor range of everyone's no-one-ever-there fuck shacks, but sometimes I get nailed either climbing to that height or descending from it once I get near where I'm going. There's even one at ground level in my neighborhood.

Understand... someone whose script unseats me from my aircraft and ejects me from their land, without any warning at all, is griefing. It is no different from using a push script against me - in fact, the unsitting makes it worse. I have given something like 20 negative rates (one for behavior and one for building) and sent many abuse reports because of these things.

Cubey Terra made a suggestion a while ago that made a lot of sense to me. Allot people some "block" of space above their land, say 64 meters of height. They can divide it up, using (for example) 32 meters of height to protect a ground level build and the remainder to protect their skybox. If an avatar or vehicle tried to cross over the boundary of the skybox, they would be deflected harmlessly away - and could see red ban lines in advance, if they were going slow enough.

llTeleportAgentHome() should only work on private islands. llUnsit() should be disabled, except if called from an object the agent is sitting on. llEjectFromLand() should eject a person even if they're sitting on something, and if the object is theirs, it should go with them (i.e. a vehicle.) If not, the agent should be unsat automatically, and whatever they are sitting on can stay behind.

I never said that, Csven. If I put a security script on my land that either (a) Prevents people on my banned list from coming within 100m or (b) prevents people on my banned list from entering my property at all, it should have no effect on a neighbor unless they're also on my banned list.

Bear in mind that I'm not talking about little 512m parcels. I own 1024 now and have owned 1536. My land group owns most of a sim. When I get a little more money together I'm also buying the land next to me, mainly to increase my prim allotment (I'm a prim addict). If a neighbor complained to me that a script I was running interfered with him in any way, I would not even ask. I would take it down or modify it so that it didn't bother him. After all, he's not the reason I have such a script.

Huns, it might be more accurate to call them "no-one-ever-there-when-I-am fuck shacks Just because you don't see anyone doesn't mean they're unused.


What Huns said!