Stop the Peeping Toms / Camera Limitation

Implement this server side so a client couldn't block it...

Would be great for RP sims.

Perhaps a group option for allowing roles to circumvent this restriction, like the no build etc, on group owned parcels.

Counter proposal - Letting threads die after 3 months of inactivity.

The ease of use of the camera trumps the need to reduce peeping

Id love to see the ability to whisper at 5M instead of talk 20M though

cuase what you really dont want is them reading your chat.

Ok..I'll stop eavesdropping

I've never necroposted

Just outa curiousity, did Ariya Draken dissapear? As I can't find them in SL.... And!!! Client > Character > Show Look At ftw!!! XD

Musta got tired of being peeped.

Don't limit the camera view, speeds up checking out a sim (lag avoider), but maybe disable 'taking of pictures' beyond xxx meters of your Avatars actual position? as a parcel setting?

This reminds me a little of the way people fuss about seing the little simmies in The Sims naked on websites. I mean they're shapeless dolls. Is someone seeing your rather unrealistic looking avatar being moved around by a poseball - probably while your real self is cooking a dinner and not even watching its own avatar - is that really invasion of privacy? And the camera can't see your conversations anyway.

Sometimes I worry that people are identifying perhaps *too* closely with their avatars.

I don't know if i've ever encountered a peeping tom but i may have encountered a peeping Tomasina. I am concluding that my tight leopardskin pants were to blame.
I also am feeling that people take their av's too seriously but at times I am alarmed that my av hasn't taken a leak in nine months. My bellly is getting bigger and i fear that my bladder may explode. Where are the toilets?, and why do i have to pay for an additional attachment to relieve myself. Doesn't seem fair to me.

I identify very closely.

And you know what, if someone is watching me grind my scaly hips against someone else's tail, I'll kindly ask, "want to join?"

It's not even associating with your avatar too much. It's just the idea that someone is watching whatever it you're doing without asking. For me it's usually building or just chatting/larking around on my own land.

It's like if you're having a conversation with someone on MSN or your IM of choice, having people look over your shoulder at your conversations is incredibly annoying. Having to use group IM to keep from people listening in on a conversation you're having with people standing RIGHT NEXT to you is absurd. Or even just having people fly in on me while I'm building, and asking stupid questions or something. I have a self-coded security script, but it's purposefully quite slow to keep from being a lag-whore (it even slows down if no-one is nearby at all), I shouldn't need a once a second security script to be sure of keeping people out of my face.

I mean, we're PAYING for our land, and people have been asking for privacy controls for a long time now, we're desperately overdue for some sensible and useful privacy controls.

But you should use IM anyway if it's private. I can easily overhear my neighbours chatting even when I am just minding my own business in my house. How can you possibly tell if someone is innocently doing something 50m away, especially if you are surrounded by walls and cannot see people passing.

I'm glad you started this post. I also posted about privacy a few days ago. I really am hoping there's some way for dwellings to be made into instanced ones that are only accessible to people on the access list....such as group only or names you can add to a list.

Hey, that's not a bad idea at all. Haven't seen this mentioned before.

It will not prevent people from taking screenshots at operating system level.

I think the only true way to reliable privacy has to be at server level - what actually gets passed to the client. If you want the inside of your home private, then the inside of your home and any effects generated from within it must not be sent to anyone's client other than the people you added to your list. After all, that's how IMs work isn't it? They're not sent to the client to decide whether or not to print them on your screen.

Haravikk, you might be interested in my reviving of your old "Boundary Boxes" proposal thread for achieving privacy, in the light of recent events in SL -- Don't Feed the Slimeballs -- a Call for Privacy.

It's not really specific to any particular method of achieving privacy (as long as it's done server-side), and perhaps I should have posted it here instead, but I saw that thread first.

Morg.

Addendum; As BBcode is currently broken and traversing that link is unnecessarily painful, I'll just summarize for the benefit of this thread. We now *need* camera privacy to avoid Second Life being torn apart by snooping media. Paparazzi have it just too easy here with unhindered cameras, and as many of them absolutely hate SL, we can expect all of this to get very vicious.

Why not?

Because the OS is above the program. Duh. See that nice key on your keyboard labeled "Prnt Scrn"? It puts into the clipboard the exact pixel data currently being sent to the screen.

A more general point applies here as well.

Nothing that the client knows about can ever be considered secure.

This was the case even before the client was open sourced --- any perceived security of streamed assets was just an illusion. If the client holds something in its memory, even if it's deliberately obfuscated, then the owner of the hardware can always untangle it if he wants. And there is no shortage of hard-working and well-informed technical people to help untangle it.

The only effective way to achieve security is through clear separation: anything that is sent to the client must be considered public, and anything that is sensitive in any way and requires security must be retained on the server. No exceptions.

And that definitely means that if privacy is desired (and it definitely is, now that the paparazzi have their eyes on SL), then the relevant objects, sounds, and images must not be sent to all clients indiscriminately, but only to those who have permission to see them.

Morg.

There are features in the client menu that just let you de-render solid walls.

Also - who really gives a fig what cartoon images of them selves are doing? I think there are enought bug fixes to attend to without creating the opportinity for more.

Well I will gladly take lose of a little privacy in this social game over having limited view any day. I prefer to use my view to move around and see my surroundings quickly over slowly walking and trying to maneuver around prims.

1) Reporters with nothing useful to write, looking for scandal stories.

2) Politicians' research assistants, looking for dirt to use against opposing candidates.

3) Any of a million special interest groups, seeking ammo to use against their detractors.

4) Blackmailers, trawling for anything that sensitive people might want to keep private.

5) Industrial spies in both RL and SL. Like it or not, SL has become a businessverse.

Looks like you're not yet old enough to know what the world is really like. It's not a nice place. And with the addition of voice, SL is going to get even closer to RL, and nastier.

Morg.

I had no idea that all of our well known Politicians came into sl to have sex as avatars. Second Life just got a lot more interesting for me!

Those are all still fairly extreme, there are plenty of reasons for ordinary residents to want privacy:
1) People that want to build in peace/secret (e.g a revolutionary new product, or just no interruptions!)

2) People who just want to talk with friends right beside them without having someone butting in, or listening to the conversation. IM shouldn't be needed for this

3) People who just don't want others just wandering around their home as though they're welcome to. Even if you as the owner aren't online it's not something I'd want. I built it for me, and only those I choose to invite over should get to see it.

4) People who want to OWN their stuff, we pay for it afterall, and while it may be virtual, I don't put up a TV so that anyone can come and watch it, or sit on my furniture.

And thank you for mentioning my thread, I completely forgot about the thread! It's now available as a Jira proposal at this link:
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-99
And also is linked to a 'catch-all' privacy proposal in case you want privacy but are unsure about a specific implementation.