"Malware" protection for open source clients

Bad guys do bad stuff on the internet and folks turn to malware protection programs for, uhh, protection.

Might it be possible to create some form of malware detection to use on third party SL clients to check for such things as secondlife name and password theft, illegitimate copying, sneakily sending off snapshots when it detects you aren't wearing anything but an Xcite attachment, and other such potential problems?

You could act preemptively and take your own pictures to give yourself the copyright. In Australia you only have to publish to prove copyright, there is no central registry, so if you send them to me I will take care of them!

/me takes tongue out of cheek

Things will probably go wrong eventually, but I believe that with so many educated players, and continuing to enjoy Linden oversight, any wrong will be righted and we should get back to safely enjoying SL.

/me stops being bombastic

A difficult one. Usernames & passwords could be hashed, making it difficult to detect such abuse even with a packet sniffer. Restricting internet access to Linden Lab specific domains seemed like a good idea when I read your message...but what's to stop malicious coders embedding secret commands in the IM system (for example) to get what they want? Hmmm.

The safest bet is just not to use third party clients. Download the main SL client, as it should be benefiting from any legit Open Source development anyway, while being controlled enough that it can avoid malware being added.

I agree with that, but the appeal of specialised third-party clients to specific groups is inevitable. As a single example: Many unique rendering tricks could be integrated into a client (from selective drawing to special visual effects) which would appeal strongly to the machinima community -- but those changes would be unlikely to find their way into the official client.

As I understand it, the modified source code must always be released with a new client, so any group with an interest in specialised viewers could probably do with trusted programmers on board to scrutinize and compile the code for them.

As for establishing trust in anonymous virtual worlds...oh 'eck, that's a difficult one.

I don't think the italicised portion is true at all. For instance a visual scheme for the client designed to be clear to people with cataracts in both eyes might not get any support in the main client because it falls too far down in the priority list and never gets implemented. The dual cataracts example is not an imaginary one.

"Source code should come with the program" - how does one know that the exe file you get is the code for the source code you get with it? Don't suggest compiling it to find out unless you are making a joke.

Bad stuff third party clients might do that is the same as common viruses, Trojan horses, etc. would get detected by normal malware protection.

I need to stop now, time to get ready for work. I'm just trying to find ways to keep people from needlessly avoiding use of improved or customised to server them better sl clients.

(Gee, it sure would be logical to have a special forum for open source sl discussion.)

Hrm, good points, what about plug-ins instead? A whole new client doesn't seem like the best way to change rendering for specific groups, what is really needed is broader system for plugins so that you can download just a new interface design or some filter to add on top of the default renderer. That way you can have a mods community with trusted programmers doing the screening of the mods, possibly on the Linden payroll or with something in exchange for the time it would take.
It also would hopefully encourage people to use more existing solutions, to reduce their plugin's size (so it can be verified much more quickly).

A joke? It was related to my point about any interested groups having programmers on board to scrutinize and compile the code for them.

It it the same with any other Open Source application. Either you trust the distributor of the binary or you compile it yourself. If you want to play safe, use the LL viewer only.

I forsee a potential business opening: Trusted Distribution. People willing to examine official and modified source diffs for malicious code, before making compiled copies available for $Ls. Use of the 'Trust' prefix would be controversial until reputation is acquired, of course.

Simply put, if you can't trust the person you got a client from, don't use it. This means that you should make sure that you know the client came from someone you trust, perhaps through cryptographic signing. If you can't trust the maker, you need to find a programmer or a programming team you DO trust and have them vette the source code for you. And if you can't do that, well, then you'll need to do without the features in question until LL decides to integrate those changes into the main client... after all, what is LL in this scenario but a group of programmers that we trust to vette source code changes?

You could also wait until a third-party client becomes popular and widely used. The more people using it without complaint, the more likely that it's not doing anything nasty behind the scenes, because someone will likely eventually notice. Also, the longer a client's been out, the more likely it is that someone will come along and look at the modifications to the source just to make sure everything's cool.

Personally, I expect that the "official" viewer will eventually become modularized, and to the extent that Linden Lab have the resources to manage a library of "sanctioned" modules, I can envision a safe way to deal with some of the more mainstream applications that would benefit from a copy of the official viewer, modified with a particular module. Two come to mind: Accessibility and Machinima.

Modules with a very high demand threshold could be pushed through the official LL distribution channel, while other "3rd party" modules would remain a "use at your own risk" addon.

Nobody would pay for compiled copies of a viewer, and it's illegal not to provide source and binary without the same rights as you yourself received them under. In short, the GPL says that this is illegal. You CAN sell them for L$, but you still have to release 'em for free.

And they're so good at it that some malware uses the anti-virus and anti-spyware and firewall software as their avenue of attack.

actually you don't "have" to provide the source code with the client, you have to offer a way to get it however, even if it means you offer to send it on a disk trough mail order only.

And yes you can make peoples pay to get your modified client.

I didn't suggest anybody would pay USD for a copy of the viewer, rather that an in-world niche might now exist for trusted programmers to examine third-party source code differences for a fee before compiling a viewer from it for their client. This was suggested because some groups will clearly find specialized viewers desirable, and the client is rolled-forward so frequently that it could be a lucrative market. Having repeated all that, it wouldn't be illegal to offer this service for a fee (I'm very familiar with the GPL), and obviously if the free source didn't exist it would undermine my suggestion entirely.

The programmer examining the freely available source is kind of the point.

You can sell if for USD as well, so long as the source is provided for free through some means (I believe you can charge shipping and handling if sending it by parcel post)

Yep. On the other hand, you can't stop somebody else recompiling the source and giving the resulting executable away, or selling it for profit themselves.

The source must be in some type of machine-readable form, and must contain everything necessary to allow it to build (such as Makefiles, configure scripts etc).

You aren't obliged to publish it on the net, although again, you can't stop a recipient of it from doing that. And you aren't obliged to offer the source to anybody who hasn't received the binary from you, which is how companies can modify GPL software for their own internal use without having to give the source code to anybody.

And further, if you modify the client to do something it didn't originally do, and don't release it to the public you don't have to release the code at all. The GPL forces you to release the code if you release the software, but it doesn't force you to release the software.