Another Example: Armstrong's Hair

Here is an example of how this sort of thinking has just gone too far and needs to be stopped.

Neil Armstrong, the astronaut, recently went to get his hair cut.

The barber took the hair, which you could say "had been released into the public domain", and saved it.

What harm could possibly be done? This is dead hair, discarded by the owner, heading for the land fill to rot forever.

The barber took the hair, and sold it.

Armstrong got wind of it, and has enacted a lawsuit against the barber. He either needs to pay a fee to an (unnamed in the NPR story) charity, or return the hair.

What right did that barber think he had? Is anything that can not be used to attack you financially, "public"?

IMHO, info in SL is far less "public" than some dead hair on a barber's floor, which you implicitly give up ownership to the second it is snipped from your head.

But it is INVASIVE to do anything with it. The hair is unique to Armstrong. The barber has no right to assume he can do anything he wants with it.

And hopefully, that barber will pay. As will anybody taking this info from the community of private residents within SL and doing whatever they wish with it.

I'm too impressed with the barber.. I wanna go out and sell peoples hair. I'm not gonna sleep well tonight..

Apparently, the most famous astronaut of all time, and a well spoken intelligent individual, felt the practice was invasive.

And took action to put out the message. If it's not yours, and you are not given permission...

LEAVE IT ALONE. The fact that it does not really "belong" to the original user is irrelevant. It does not belong to YOU.

Funny thing is, if the barber had asked, for all we know, Armstrong might have said yes. But the barber, like so many that do not require opt in, decided to simply see if he could get away with it. To see if anybody would object.

But I'm sure a number of people in these forums will say this is a sign of oncoming senility, hysteria, and so forth. Because they are incapable of seeing what this represents. All they can see is the hair on the floor.

I salute Armstrong for saying, "this sort of thinking just has to stop. And I will make my statement here."

Does he really give a damn about the hair? Of course not.

He cares about the mindset and the widespread practice of grabbing and using for your own purposes anything that you can grab, whether or not the original owner said you can do it. And this is precisely the mindset and sort of thinking LL apparently has no issue with. Based on their current practices, I would say they would defend the barber.

Of course, a key is not a thing. It's just you. Its not part of you. It's not your property. It's not your trash. It's just you. This is why this issue is not as clear cut as you want to make it: There isn't a real-world analogy to your key. There just is not. So it's a very muddy issue.

By the way, my barber sells bags of cast-off hair to farmers to make scarecrows out of.

The barber's behavior, of course, was incredibly tacky. The whole concept of the hero worship of celebrities is out of hand in modern society, IMHO. I guess it's nothing new, though, if you consider the frenzy that the Catholic Churce used to engage in over relics from saints.

How would you even know if the hair you were buying belonged to some "famous" person? I can think of far better ways to spend money.

We took a day trip up to Mt. St. Helens on Monday and, when looking at souvenirs to purchase in the gift shop, saw some little plastic cubes filled with ash from the 1980 eruption. My first thought was, "This could be from somebody's chimney." (My husband's first thought was "Don't buy this or the kids will play with it 'til they break it and scatter ash all over the house." Since it was the U.S. Forest Service selling the ash it to support the national monument at Mt. St. Helens, I give them some credibility. But some unknown barber selling hair? Forget it.

*Goes looking for old bits of Philip Lindens hair*

Hmmm I'm torn.. Its the kind of thing I'd do if I could lol.. But I can see where Mr Armstrong has a problem with it.

I think I'm swinging slightly towards the barber, its a nice idea if you can get away with it.

WTS bits of of Philip's hair I stole from the floor of LL when I visited.

Well, it could be Philip's.....or it could be Jeff's......or it could just be my own navel lint.......YOU DECIDE!!!!!

Bidding will being at one million lindens!!!!

(I think the barber had every right to do whatever he wanted with the hair. It's freakin hair for God's sake. Everyone needs to get a grip! If Armstrong is so upset about it, don't go back, shave his own head, and sell it himself!)

(Oh and Jeska, this looks like it should pop on over to Off-Topic )

Tzocs lies were picked apart in the other thread, so to be sure it got burried to page two as soon as possible, he started another one. A thread with even worse statements to back his arguement up. Thats all this thread is about really.

Tzoc, you are trying SOOOO hard to make this an issue, but no one is biting. You seem to be the only one who cares. You are a general with no army. At least the other forum troll who gets attacked on this very forum, uses facts that make sense and some people agree with him. You are standing here alone babbling nonsense and making yourself look more foolish with every post.

Atmstrongs hair being sold by a barber to support your fight against public key list? Are you smoking crack?

Hopefully the Judge will throw this out as a frivolous waste of time and perhaps fine Armstrong for wasting the courts time.

Yay for the barber, i hope he wins the lawsuit.

The real genius of that barber was that he found someone dumb enough to buy the hair from him.

I can just see Armstrong a year from now, walking down the street in a bathrobe muttering to himself and pushing a shopping cart filled with plastic baggies of his own hair.

The mindset being promoted here is to sue over anything and everything a person doesn't like without consequence.

I'm far far more afraid of a world were you have to speak to a lawyer about the advisability of simply walking down the street for fear of being sued because your shadow touched someone.

I didn't know far fetched examples and vague analogies were a widely accepted method of proof.

Tcoz,

What exactly do you want to see done?
From what I have gathered a third party site has published avatar keys and this makes you angry . Are you asking LL to somehow intervene and demand the third party site remove the keys?
Provided the original site complied with that request, wouldn't another site, not linked to a specific SL avatar, just spring up?

damn, you mean this might not be Armstrong's hair?

what a waste of $1.95.

Yaknow, I can see the point behind some of this. Perhaps not the keys, but the names themselves. Lemme toss out a hypothetical idea or three.


Name Last name Password is your authentication into SL. Kindasorta normal security, right. Now, How would you feel if you used internet banking, and your bank published all the usernames to the Web. I dunno about you, but I would be PISSED! That's half your identity credential right there.

NOwthen, lets try this. Who here has a secure password. I'ma define secure off of DoD standards for unconfidential access. This would be, 14 characters. Two uppercase. Two lowercase. Two number. Two non-alphaneumeric characters. Nothing based on any RL info. Nothing based on a dictionary word. Those are the standards to make a basic password, just to the DoD. Who here has one?

Now, Idea. I'm Johnny Idiot. I get....Ohh, and I'm not naming a name in a malicious way, Anshe Chung username. I have nothing better to do than, lets say, write a script to brute force that password. It's probally not that secure, and I have, two-thirds of the login key. I get in. I just made some money.

Now, that's just using one case. You compile a list of avatar names, outside SL, and make it easially accessibile...I can bet, your basic script kiddo somewhere is gonna start getting ideas.


BTW, this is one reason why "real" MMOGs have a "master" accound, then seperate sub accounts for characters. Juss so you can't get parts of that login key, wandering around in-game.

That's it!!!! My head just exploded again!!!

PS: For what it is worth, I do agree that our login name should not be the same as our Avatar name.

When I have a phoneline installed, soon my phone number shows up in the phone book, unless I specifically "opt out" by asking for an unlisted phone number.

Your avatars key is nothing but your virtual "phone number" which can only be used inside of SL. Anyone can contact you with or without it. The only reprecussion I can see coming from this key list is notecard or object spam. People can also use the find list to randomly spam us. With this ability to spam already in place, I still only receive about 1-2 random notecards in a week, if that.

So I don't care if the list is out there somewhere or not. I can't imagine why anyone would get so worked up about it. It seems there are so many things that are more important or more interesting to spend time on than this key list.

Um, Neil Armstrong's hair has what to do with avatar keys exactly? You're really reaching now. You win the absurd analogy of the day award, hands down.

I just wanna know how many prims his hair was. And do people lag at the barber shop when they walk in? How much bling also?

Another example of something that has absolutely nothing to do with a public list of avatar keys, or even a passing relationship to anything to do with privacy in SL.

Just wanted to bump this question.
What would you like LL to do about the published avatar keys?

I just moved into a plastic bubble and am NEVER getting my hair cut again.

Hell, they could clone me when I am asleep!

I read an article today about the Marianas Trench and it's effect on peanut butter prices - I am now investing in Faberge' Eggs.

On a more serious level, I doubt Armstrong will prevail. As you said Tcoz, he gave up ownership when he had it cut. What the barber chooses to do with it afterwards is his business. I strongly doubt that when a barber is accepted to the state board he agrees to ONLY throw the left over hair in the trash. My guess is, if it was a person with long hair getting it all lopped off, that hairdresser/barber would have every right to sell it to a wig maker, or anything else he chooses to do with it, including selling it as souvenirs.

It must be nice to be rich enough to be able to afford to further jam our courts with such idiotic crap.

By the way; how do you think Armstrong got rich? I have a good idea, and it involves a lot of souvenir selling...

In closing, I would like to see you answer Schwan's question as well. Also, the Lindens have stated their position on this. Your issue is with them, not those who are doing that which LL has stated is allowable. If LL is not answering your messages, perhaps that is why. It may also have something to do with your tone - if it is anything like that which you have displayed in the forums - allusions to baseball batting crack dealers, Neil Armstong's hair, and the like, probably aren't helping much.

Good thinking. I am off to the Faberge' egg store myself.

Haven't you heard? There's a conclusive evidence that Faberge eggs and rising gasoline prices are connected! Armstrongs hair has been sighted having midnight meetings with Donald Trump.

Christ on the cross!

OK then, after the Faberge' egg store I am off to Vito's itallian market to stock up on sundried tomatoes.

(Thanks for the insider's tip )