"Fixed An Exploit" - whaaaaa?

This scenerio would be valid if the culpret hadnt flaunted his hacked client on IRC. Once the exploit becomes open to the public, its no longer flattery, at least in my eyes.

Right now I'm thankful that I dont have anything rezzed in world that had RL implications if tampered with. I give my sincerest condolences/sympathies to those that did though

Given that the network protocol SL uses is completely unencrypted UDP (save for the logins), I thought LL would have thought better of what was communicated over the internet. The fact that sensitive data even touched an unencrypted channel blows my mind.
==Chris

It's a shame that the rumpswabs that do this kind of thing usually get jobs, rather than prison sentences as a reward.

I hope you were in that horribly sexist thread entitled "Are There Any Good Men In Second Life?" to point out how ignorant and insulting some posters were being.

The only reason that, say, Francis knows that the Seburo was compromised was because of individuals telling her about it. Her code was sufficiently high profile to merit its wholesale theft and re-distribution, so as a result of the distribution, she knows it happened.

The rest of us with trade secrets, authentication schemes, or simple hard and expensive work written in scripts will just have to wait until Linden Lab concludes its internal investigation of this event and brings the general population up to speed with what's happened. I'd like to think that Linden Lab will be able to assess the damage done to any resident as a result of this exploit, but we don't know enough about the details yet to hold that expectation with any certainty.

God, don't remind me.

Actually not anymore. That was the 90s. There are too many hackers now (or shall we say a surplus of crap software to exploit), so that doesnt really happen anymore unless someone is truely exceptional. They go to jail now. One of my good friends was caught back in like 1995, it was on 60 minutes and everything (famous black hacker etc, they were so shocked a negro could be that smart, lol). He was forced to work for the government, it was basically like being a slave and he is scarred from it for life. So I wouldn't call it a reward exactly.

That makes sense. Thank you.

Bugger.

I'll forward along to those I think may be interested, but nothing I personally was working on was worrisome. (All my active projects are purely for learning purposes, so I encourage copies made - just not yet, some of it is rather raw still and/or is not commented yet with attributions or explainations.)

My agreements go out to Enabran et al, regarding the whole matter and how they feel it should be resolved. I've also dealt with security in the past, and I'd think this should be rather clear-cut on what was done and possibly by whom. However the matter of the exploit's scope and/or value will determine how seriously it is taken in the courts. Thus LL needs to make the time for that audit.

I hope all turns out well the next few days.

Nexcom will be transitioning to a new authentication scheme as a result of this. Please stand by while we upgrade our networks and bring the SL public up to speed.

I sincerly hope that whoever has done this has this happen to them one day and have to deal wih it. Nexcom is the only way I can possibly pay for my college tuition and if it is compromised what can I do. The creators of the work you see that has been pirated and stolen rely on it more than just for kicks. If I lost the little bit of financial support I have from nexcom this will most certinly be the end of me. Please, if you see any pirated material of my creation or any other SL creator down to the smallest person. Please tell the creator who made it and what was found. Theft is still Theft, no matter what angle you look at it from, and stealing a nexcom product that uses an outside server would be more than just theft of my work(Scripts) it would be theft of any bandwidth consumed with their illegal device, and theft of the disk space their data would be stored on. Please dont steal my work.

Ok let me first say this. The guy that did this.....needs lorena bobbit for a jail mate.

With that said....it seems this took a long time to make this hack. Has anyone even stepped to think WHY he made it? Was it for kicks? Was it because he was fed up with prices of stuff in game? Did he think Jeska Linden was hot?

If we knew why maybe there would be some changes of opinion. Someone going to such great lengths and spending that much time. I doubt it was for kicks.

This is one of those cases where grasping the mentality and reasoning behind the crime doesn't change the case or give it merit. There is no excuse for theft like this.

Bullshit.

He's a theif.

I don't care about his reasons. There isn't any possible reason he could have that would change my opinion, not a single bloody reason.

I couldn't agree more. It's criminal, pure and simple. I really couldn't give a damn if he didn't get enough love as a child, is lonely and needs attention, or any other sad tale. There's no possible justification for this kind of behavior.

Have to agree there.. the 'broken home noone loves me' doesn't work on me either.. when I was kid my father beat the living shit outta me, and in hindsight I'm rather glad he did, or a right little turd I might have become.

The person who did this knew what they were doing and why.. the time it took to actually perpetrate it only takes away any doubt -- plenty of time for second thoughts..

Siggy.

**blown away**

I'm absolutely disgusted with the actions of the individual/s that did this. I really do hope this does not deter the scriptors of SL from bringing us such wonderful things in SL. Sadly, I'm afraid it will. The ignorance of some people in this thread is not surprising. They are not the ones effected. I'm truely sorry for any of the scriptors whos hard work was exploited by this hack. I wish you the best of luck in a quick resolve.

With that being said...I'm curious as to how long this information was available before whoever it was decided to brag about it on IRC? Could this have actually been open source for awhile now?

**shakes head**

IMO.

Client-server games are never completely secure; a good hacker can reverse-engineer any game.

Sucks this happened BIG TIME, but I seriously doubt it will be the last time. How many times has the GOM been hacked now? A few- to many.

Cat

Edit:

PS: Hugz Doc

He's not a theif. He didn't steal anything. Stealing is typically proven when you say, "Hey, I had something, but another person took it from me!" If we're going to play that card, then I think someone needs to charge the Lindens with theft by way of criminal neglect. After all, how many dollars worth of merchandise has been lost, nay, stolen because of the faulty asset server?

He's guilty of invasion of privacy, sure. He's a counterfeiter, if he created any Lindens and if the California legal system recognizes the Linden as hard currency, sure. He definitely violated the terms of service. However, I'm not even sure if what he did can be considered cracking. He found a hole and created a game exploit around it, this happens all the time in other MMOG's. Back in Asheron's Call, people completly devalued several items due to bugs, but no one ever called them theives.

Unless you can prove he (or she) has cost more loss than the asset server has, calling him (or her) a theif is rediculous.

Rolling my eyes so hard right now.
It's Monopoly money, guys. The Lindens could shut down SL any minute and never open it back up again and they would not owe you a dime. Keep SL business (and SL criminal justice) in SL.

What? Why don't we just start blaming people and starting a good old fashioned witch hunt. Sure, we may loose a few (dozen) innocents in the process, but justice will be served!

The theft of intellectual property is a crime - this was source code that was stolen and published to a web site. The source code is protected by copyright, and copyright infringement of it is pursuable in a court of law. The modification of the SL software is also punishable by law. It's not about play money - it is about the fact that a crime did occur. Niot an SL crime, a crime period.

It's not monopoly money to people who are making hundreds of real dollars a week from SL. It's part of their livelihood.

As someone about to start a mildly subversive product for SL that preys on the weaknesses of the vain, I too feel the need for secured code. Especially since this code will pay for my tier.

It doesn't matter if electronic cabbage was being traded. It's not legal to modify the content of another individual's computer system without permission, regardless of whatever naive rationalization you give this behavior.

Agreed, but here it is true that it is not about financial loss, which would be impossible to prove because the L$ has no inherent value. In situations of intellectual property, the courts determine the value of the IP ultimately, generally through damages and fines. It is sort of a grey area, but the crime here has nothing to do with the loss of L$ income from a legal perspective. It is theft of IP and copyright infringement by distributing it.

Forget the civil part of this. What about the criminal act of accessing portions of Second Life that Linden Lab has explicitly declared, via the permissions system, to be entirely off limits?