Fellow residents, is search without probable cause acceptable?

A question for the resident community:

Say you are with a friend, inside your quaint little prim house. For privacy's sake, you've drawn the curtains shut as well.

In the meantime, someone decides to search your home via camera, search bot, or scanner. They are on the lookout for broadly offending content but without any form of probable cause to search.

Is such a search grossly violating our community standards, and perhaps violating your basic rights?





Protection from unreasonable search is vaguely known as the fourth amendment of a faded bit of paper known as the United States Constitution, and strangely, it also appears in the micronation of Caledon's avatar rights declaration of Feb 07.




Mr Kapor, when you wondered out loud at Davos what 'avatar rights' might be, well, freedom from unreasonable search sure seems to fit the description.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_and_seizure

You've started a very big question here, Desmond. Good for you.

[/me gently caresses faded piece of parchment with Fourth Amendment on it...starts looking for same in TOS and CS]

I dont feel its acceptable.

I think people should at least have a expressed wish from LL that their Second Lives remain private in their private areas - even if such a thing isnt technically feasible.

However doesnt sound like were going to get it.

I don't know if it is against the Community Standards since they seem to be in question, and I don't know if it is in violation of any rights in SL since no one can seem to agree upon that either, but it is something I will not tolerate. Anyone snooping in my private home, on my private land in the name of morality or making SL safe will be repaid 10 times over any grief they may cause me. Stay out of my business. If you are that civic minded, join your RL Community Watch where you can do real good. "Don't bother me , and I won't bother you".

i reckon were less like 'netizens' and more like cattle and have no rights at all.
seriously

Is it acceptable? No, not in my opinion. Can I stop it, no, not really. Do I have any recourse against anyone doing it, no. :\

We can be given at least the illusion of privacy if LL would just warn people that snooping will not be tolerated. police public areas all you want. But I agree, I don't think they have the will or the fortitude for that.

Yes - they are leave intolerance provisions in even though they admit they cant enforce them. Why cant the same be said for Privacy.

If they want to "Set the tone" for tolerance.

they should "Set" the tone for privacy.

Depends who's doing the searching...

If LL wants to do it: I'm not thrilled about it but I won't object.

If it's somebody from Crusaders for an SL Without Apples group: No, get the hell off my land, you freaks.

edit: /me did not vote - it's just too broad of a question. I don't, for example, see anything wrong with somebody indexing objects on a parcel that's been listed as retail..

I can live with that.

Brenda, I think you confused TOS with Community Standards.

Desmond, this is a great idea, why don't we as the "Community" tell LL what our Community Standards are?

I don't know where LL gets off telling us what they think the "Community Standards" are when they make so little effort to communicate with the community.

There are some great ideas here in the United States Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The "indictment" against the King of England (A bill of particulars documenting the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties.), contained in the Declaration of Independence sounds remarkably like the way Linden Labs treats its "Community".

If interested you can read it here on the Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence

The concern is with search of private spaces, not privately owned spaces designed for public access.

Perhaps there is a question of what defines a store -vs- a private area.

Generally though, a giant 'Welcome to GridMart' sign and vendors might signify the one, and a 'Private! Get off mah lawn!' sign might signify the other...

i m in ur house watchin ur pr0n

For obviously-private areas, I'm tempted to say that nobody except the owner and their guests (and LL) have any business being in the area or examining the objects in that area.

I still think there's too much context that needs to go into the answer, though. If my adult hedgehog partner and I am in our burrow making little hedgehogs, I'm probably not too interested in seeing other people around. If we're hanging out at the pool, just lounging around and chatting I really have no problem with random strangers coming by and saying hi. Maybe they like our build, maybe they're just exploring, maybe they're new & lost or have questions - I see people like this all the time and they're not unwelcome.

Or maybe, back to your original question, they're looking for stuff to AR. People who are doing this aren't really welcome in my home and I'll punt their butts if I catch them and will probably AR them if they get righteous on me - I understand well enough what LL is saying and I don't allow anything that will get the police involved or get LL angry with me.

So how do you tell the difference? How can you tell if the stranger floating a couple parcels away looking in your direction is a decent person out for an explore or one of those Apple haters? Or maybe they're just stopped there because they had to run to the bathroom and aren't even looking at your land...

Actually, there are a few things available now, and it may be possible to get some more.

Available now:

Go to Client menu at top of screen>Character and click on Show Look At. The focus of any avatar viewing the scene you are in (including yours) will be marked by 3 intersecting lines. If you see more of those than should be viewing your scene, you have found a spy. You can face his crosshairs and /wave at him until he gives up and goes away, or perhaps acquire a Rude Gesture or two to use. You probably will not be able to identify him/her/it to tell them what a sicko they are. In any case, if you are looking at the screen, you know when someone unauthorized is engaged in "unreasonable search" with you present.

Keep rezzed objects you wish to maintain privately in inventory and rezz them when you want to use them.

You can spoof any spybots sent out for this purpose by relabelling objects with camouflage names and perhaps creating decoy objects, if you choose.

Keep chat in IM - or use an outside talk service like TeamSpeak or Ventrilo, which allow password-protected talk channels and are untouchable by LL or anybody else in SL.

The usual tactics: opaque walls, lockable doors, banlines and/or security orbs, to block all but the more determined and skilled cam-viewers.

For some, being a nomad, with no land to spy on, is a viable option.

If you do identify a snoop, AR the sick creep. Every time.

Reasonable privacy is a nearly universal human need that is too little respected in SL at the present time, and LL is needed for some fixes:

Examine whether it makes sense to remove the option "Disable Camera Controls." I do not see what legitimate purpose is served by enabling any random snoop to cam-view across entire sims or multiple sims. If there is one, fine. If there is not, a JIRA recommendation seems in order.

There may be other ways to modify the code to allow inviolable (except by LL, which owns the servers) reasonable in-world privacy - a subject worth exploring.

"Unreasonable" is such a subjective word....

It IS reasonable for LL to search for offending keywords in data that is not restricted. (ie: listed parcel descriptions, profiles, etc)

Does that make it okay for LL to search for offending keywords in text or object names that are partially restricted? (on parcels with ban lists) Or completely restricted? (on private sims).

Such exclusions would likely require additional effort on the part of LL to deliberately avoid searching some areas... is it reasonable to expect exceptional, uh, exceptions for specific content so that it doesn't get subjected to 'unreasonable search' ?

Me personally, I've hidden things that are meant to be found, anyone is welcome to search for whatever they can find in my areas....

I'm more concerned about the other half of "unreasonable search".... the "unreasaonble seizure" part. My attitude there is: Look all but don't touch. You break it, you pay for it.

No I know the difference Between TOS and CS. The original question asked if it was a violation of Community Standards.

I use that all the time for both machinima and building.

How would a bot determine what you were doing? Why are you doing something you know is against TOS in an area where it's possible for someone to see?

Why do you assume there is such a thing as privacy in SL? It's like posting something on the internet and "hiding" it by making the text the same color as the background.

AND what about the non-US residents that don't have a 4th amendment?

Your question is simplistic.

It's one think if you are nude sunbathing on the front lawn, but if your prudish neighbour has to move your bathroom curtains to get a clear view of you, that seems to qualify as a criterion of unreasonable search. Perhaps a crime in its own right.


As an aside, this all possibly relates to the Bragg case, too.

Did Bragg have any business in areas generally understood to be unreleased, unfinished, and private to the Company? An open question I won't get into, here.


Anyway, it's pretty clear I'm fairly biased on the rights issue, quite transparently so, but what matters is the bulk of all our opinions, not mine.

Forget about the bot, how do *you* interpret what my avatar is doing at all?

Sure, I may look like a vampire to *you*, but what *I* intend to portray is an orthodontic irregularity to the American Association of Dentistry Convention in Second Life.

I'm not talking about anything to do with service terms. I'm asking what our community standards are.

Let's say someone in Powastan doesn't like sculptie apples, and chooses to single them out as broadly offending content.



The question is this:

Are the bulk of the paying customers of Linden Research Inc. in general agreement with the United States 4th Amendment?

Or Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

Or all other nations who see unreasonable search and seizure as a violation of their rights?

Yes, the question is very simplistic. Basic, even.

Follow-up thought.


"Unreasaonable search" is something that defends us against authorites, not each other. "Others" have to call in the authorities to "put a stop to the badness" or whatever it is they snooped and found. They don't have the power to force someone to change on their own.

If the authorities foster a culture of "whistleblowing" by reacting/over-reacting to every busy-body's cry of wolf it will become a very intolerant place. The authorities, however, have limited resources and need to pick wisely among the complaints they choose to follow-up on.

The ToS was phrased reasonably well to not encourage narcs/whistleblowers... but the recent blog post seems to have undid much of that.

Keep in mind, if someone complains to LL about inappropriate content/conduct, and they search to verify the claim... they already have probable cause, which makes it "reasonable search" not "unreasonable".

Whistleblowers suck. The best option is likely for LL to flat out ignore them. Yes it means that AR's will likely go un-checked, but griefers come and go on their own anyway.

Forgot to answer this point...

Historic precedent.

For example, we have PG and mature areas. Unless all mature sims within a 2 sim radius of a PG area have to be PG also, there *is* some expectation of privacy and always has been.

One can't, for instance, make a giant, ah, offending pillar just 1 meter away from the border of a PG sim, in full view. But there sure wasn't a 1/2 kilometer restriction on same.

Also, it doesn't matter what I assume. The question is: what standards does the community hold?

Is there a presumption of privacy in a locked down sim?

Is there presumption of privacy in a skybox at 4000 meters surrounded by a 1km cloud of 100 Psyke orbs?

Is there a presumption of privacy whilst changing your avatar clothes within your own prim house, even in a PG area, or are you subject to an AR if you show a little bit of skin long enough for a peeping tom to get a screenshot?

If the bulk of your activity is in an IM or if I come in in the middle of a conversation and don't know the context then I couldn't interpret it. If I were to assume you were doing something wrong and AR'd you then LL would see that there really isn't enough info to go on and drop the issue. If I did this alot then they would start suspecting me of crying "wolf" all the time.



How many dental enthusiasts live out their passion in SL? Come on now!



Wait, what exactly are you asking? You're kinda all over the map here.



Are these sculptie apples created with the intent to do obvious harm to others? Are these nazi apples?? You're being a bit ridiculous here.



It's also an irrelevant question because a video game isn't neccessarily subject to all laws of a country. You're getting SL twisted with RL.

We have no real rights in SL other than what LL decides through the TOS (which we all know they need to clear up) just as we don't necessarily have the same freedom of speech and assembly on private property owned by someone else. They can choose to kick you out at any time!

LL has entries in the TOS stating they can revise it at any time. They could change the TOS so that you could only make items as advanced as what 1903 had to offer.

My answer to whatever your question is trying to ask is that there IS no true privacy in SL since you are going to a publicly available server to do whatever you're doing.

If you want legitimate privacy then unplug your internet connection.

I joined second life to escape the real world.

Last thing I want is soo many changes emposed on second life that it becomes exactly the same as the real world.

Whats next.. ban flying because that would provide a viewpoint that affects privacy *rolls eyes*