Does LL support theft from content creators?

As we all know by now, some Lindens have worked directly with LibSL, and even after the fact, there seems to be very little, if any, fallout from this latest disaster ... at least from Linden Labs. Furthermore, I'm not aware of any case wherein LL has acknowledged any responsibility whatsoever for resident losses.

So I think this is a legitimate question, under the circumstances.

Q: "Does LL support theft from content creators?"
A: They've officially stated that it's against the ToS.

Q: (paraphrased) Is LL an accomplice in the crime of creating a tool that violates the ToS?
A: The tool itself isn't a violation... improperly using the tool is.

To make a feeble analogy:
Guns aren't illegal...
But in many cases shooting them is.
Why not make owning or making guns illegal?
Because then only criminals will own or profit from guns.

Yes, I know, it's silly.

You know - LL also supports GRIEFERS! I just learned about this tool they were involved with called LSL that also have been used to crash the grid! What about the children!

LL do not support biggotery if i remember

They don't care. They are too busy danicing around wearing hats made out of your money to bother doing anything that might help the content creators responsible for paying for SL.


They supported LibSL knowing full well exactly what sort of IP theft would result from an open source client. The current incarnation of CopyBot is a simple UUID trick... as soon as they finish reverse engineering things a whole lot more will be possible.

This is part of the inherant design of SL - to display something in the client, the client needs to know everything that affects it's appearance. Trivial to use that data to create an object of your own, really.

If the libSL project continues the end result will be a nice, fully functional interface... that has simple and reliable tools for theft built right into it.

I also utterly dislike the combined efforts of both LL and LibSL to play things down, by sacrificing a figurehead that possibly comes in through the back door again. But there's nothing one can do about it. The majority of the community seems to support the open source effort, since it may help the platform as a whole.

I personally take a different point of view on this: I'm LL's customer. If a supplier doesn't deliver what he promised, I couldn't care less if the quality flaws of the wares help his company to grow and prosper, long-term. The ware is flawed, period. I didn't get what I paid for. But the lack of competition helps a supplier to get away with everything.

Hm... one would think the open source community has no reason to be fond of a monopolist. But then, I also thought a company selling a DRM system, among other things, would take a different stance on reverse engineering.

And, of course, the implemented backup and/or theft tools can be changed by every scripter to their personal preference. Everyone can program some nice new features and remove possible limitations.

What I personally wonder about, in addition: will an open source client also submit a hardware hash, currently LL's only way to identify a user thank to the open account registration? If so, couldn't that hash ID be easily faked? How effective is banning griefers then, for LL as well as for land owners?

You can alter the hardware hash already. Should be as simple as [something I'm not going to post here] but I'm not willing to be banned to test this.

I think it has been said roughly 15 minutes after introducing hardware hashes, that it's pretty easy to circumvent.

I know how easy it is. But in the future SL, where Linden Labs won't protect my rights any longer and trusts the residents to govern and police themselves, I would like to be able to ban a griefer or potential thief. I don't think anyone will take the effort to open the computer case and replace any hardware only to be able to teleport back to my land with an alt. At least the time spend on that will give the banned person enough time to cool off and rethink their motives. But I'm not satisfied with the current solution that allows someone to log in with an alt and be right back after a ban.

If LL won't protect me long-term, I need better tools. The hash ID is just a suggestion. I'm sure they will think of something much better in the end *smiles innocently*

According to the Town Hall, I think Phillip wants libSL to know everything that SL engineers do. If libSL has to circumvent anything... it's bad.

Taking that stance into account, here's my only suggestion...

Tell libSL for the next version of SL the extra login data "X" will be appended to the login packet on the client (and also verified on the server). The "X" changes with every release. It takes 5 minutes to program.

How long will it take to circumvent... 0 seconds (they already know it).

That doesn't matter. What matters is that a client hack doesn't work across multiple versions of the SL client. I think it would be less profitable for someone selling a client-hack... if they had to get their customers to update a CopyBot version with each SL update.

You know how much people bitch already about having to download a new client each time from LL servers. At least make the person selling client hacks have to put up with some bitching of their own... it's the only suggestion I have left since LL is determined to keep the relationship with libSL that they have.