New Bot: The Estate Owners Fight Back!

I see names i remember from 2003 showing up in all sorts of odd places, which draws me to the conclusions i have reached and i stand by what i have said 100% LL has some very strange bedfellows and it is these people that i now see cropping up all over the place when something like this happens.

I love SL, but i hate the way LL rides and allows their friends to ride rough shod over the Resi's with no care for them atall, even the comments on the blog have been closed over the new abuse reporting handling, and its the weekend what a convienent time for the blog to break

But i think LL and others think the resi's are mushrooms the way we are kept in the dark and fed Bullsh*t constantly. But thats just my opinion based on all the factors i see around me and i always remember LLs dont care in reality about anyone on the grid unless u are one of the chosen few or are able to help LL in its quest for world domination lol

Peace

The sheer fact they had the confidence to design a spybot opt-out based system and knew abuses would be ignored by LL - Speaks Volumes.

Actually, the name this outfit chose for itself is beginning to speak volumes to me, It is looking more and more like they regard other SL Residents - and SL itself - pretty much the way meatpackers regard cattle - or, ahem, Sheep.

Seem to have a supply of Judas goats around too.

LL, however, has shown itself in other ways to be wanting to make SL better, however bumbling it may be. I'll hold them innocent until proved guilty.

I suspect ESC search could be quite more useful if they focused on cataloguing parcel names rather than objects on them. Processing content of page is useful for text-based media because the content carries most of actual data. When this is not the case, using name of parcel can be quite plausible alternative as it's owner-made short summary that generally reflects purpose of place in question.

(at least as far as commercial ventures go)

I dont think its the head in the sand that LL suffers from i think they are fully aware of all the implications of these bots etc, they chose to ignore them as imho they are im sure controlled by those with Linden connections, personally i totally agree with the OP and as soon as i get back in world i shall be taking more direct action and helping to fill the database with search results, this is no worse than the spam traps we used to leave for the spammers robots on the websites that filled their databases with useless information, as has been suggested, if LL dont give a hoot, its upto the Resi's to take action and be high profile about it, so others that follow will know what to expect if they pull the same stunts again with opt out schemes.

Hopefully this sort of direct action, whilst not against the TOS will send a clear message to ESC and others, that this behaviour will not be tolerated and hopefully they will rethink and make it opt in as there is nothing worse than a useless database filled with rubbish, LL has been encouraging the resi's to take control of their land etc. so this will be a good test for everyone and maybe lessons will be learnt and future comapnies will look at the impact of their projects on the community before releasing it.

The person that decided that this was a good idea should be sacked imho as any staff member that does this without thinking doesnt deserve a job, as they have potentially caused a lot of damage to ESC, that is unless ESC planned it this way all along, but i would have thourght that they would have learnt from slstats's last year when they pulled an opt out scheme on the resi's and remember even Torley i believe posted about it in a Linden forum backing them with the open letter from the owner, so maybe they just think that as it falls off the radar and from the forums it is forgotten by the resi's lol

Peace

It's a reference to a very well known piece of science fiction. The story that Bladerunner was based on: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

But Har's idea is a better one and more apt now

nevermind me. go back to sharpening your pitchforks.

You just bought land that had the "Include objects with sale" checked, but upon buying it, you find out that SL didn't transfer ownership of everything to you. You IM the seller who happens to be offline, the seller (not knowing about sheepsearch) naively tp's back over and marks the objects for sale at L$0 and leaves you an offline saying you can just buy them.

Maybe you were more aware, knew about sheepsearch and thought you'd be safe by adding Grid Shepherd to the ban list, after all that's what ESC tells you need to do to be excluded.

Grid Shepherd tp's onto the sim and scans it from a single parcel, happily ignoring your ban entry and putting up everything the seller marked for sale on ESC's site. The bargain hunters continually search the site for cheap items, tp to your house and snatch everything up. Oops.

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You're somewhere public and run into a griefer, you decide you'll check back later when he's gone and tp home; or you met someone somewhere but quickly discover that person is just a bit too creepy or clingy and stalking/harassing you so you decide to sever the "friendship".

The griefer or stalker run over to sheepsearch, type in your name and apparantly you bought a candle that suffers from the "marked for sale, yet not for sale" bug. Both now have a landmark to your house and happily tp over to continue annoying you in the days to come.

Most web crawlers tend to store the sites they consume as well. Are you saying that it's fine for someone to make a copybot & searchbot combination, and send it all over the grid "archiving/caching" and indexing whatever it finds and noone should be the least bit upset about that? After all, Google both scans and stores sites and makes the cached version available, all in an auto opt-in fashion.

Ok.... Personally I have no problems with the Shepherd. Anything I set for sale I want to sell, so it helps bring my sale items to a wider audience...

I do understand your concerns in the scenarios above about setting an item for sale in order to transfer to someone Ceera, but if you put up banlines while doing it then there is no problem.... as even if the bot scans it (although surely it can't get into your parcel if you have the banlines up), anyone who might try to TP in to buy the item won't be able to because the banlines will stop them coming into your parcel... so no problem. Just use banlines for the few minutes that you are transfering stuff... problem solved.

None of this would have been needed had ESC acted in a manner thats condusive to good business practices online, they are a marketing company and should be grown up enough now to accept that opt out schemes are dead ducks and most often used by spammers etc. had they perhaps consulted the residents even on these forums before they released a beta version of this opt out scheme, im sure they would have had some good ideas and help, passed their way, now as far as im concerned they are dead in the water with this model and i hope that perhaps in future they think before they act, the idea is a great idea its just a shame they didnt put as much thourght into the release of this as they did with the coding of the bot

For every action is a reaction and im sure ESC will learn from this when the database is filled with rubbish. As of yet they havent even acted to pull the plug on it, even after all this fervour in the forums after the first thread, so as far as im concerned they deserve all they get and hopefully in the aftermath they regroup and do it right, but im sure the name will be not trusted in game for a longtime now amongst the Resi's.

But thats just my opinion as i go back to sharpening my pitchfork i hate shady business practices, irrespective of the company involved, RL or here and i will do everything in my power and within the TOS to ensure that as many people as i know, know about it and are aware of the options to ensure that it isnt allowed to get hold in here in the OPT OUT form it is in, as ive said previously i love the idea its the execution of the idea that is wrong so im not gonna pat them on the back, but its also not personal either as i respect the way Cory has put his side across in an cool manner.

Fact is ESC has cocked up and so far have done nothing to answer the questions raised apart from poor Cory who braved the flames to give his take on it, thats what gets my respect, not some cowboys, yes cowboys as a proper marketing company would have realised the problems that this opt out would cause and not gone down that road in the first place, so they either didnt think the product was up to much or from day one they have other ideas for it that will not allow it to operate in future as an opt in model.

I know we have been told the data is not worth much, well with SL in its present form i tend to agree but im sure in the future a robot such as this will be a valuable tool for collecting all sorts of data about SL and maybe even the resi's as more data about us becomes available as LL changes things around especially as its opt out.

So yes i do believe we should do as much as we can to ensure its failure in it's present form but perhaps support it if ESC change its operating system to opt in, but then i think ESC has caused themselves enough damage that people wont trust them so easily in future.

Peace

Banlines only restrict movement, there is nothing that restricts your camera. You can cam over to an access restricted parcel, or a parcel you're banned from and just buy anything. You don't even need to be on the same sim for this to work.

Whilst ban lines prevent the avatar from physically entering the parcel, they don't stop an avatar outisde the parcel being able to click on things, and purchasing them.

Matthew

Isnt the whole 'pitchforks and torches' stereotype originally from silver screen movies of Frankenstein?

I mean those villagers were right - he was Graverobbing and playing God with the body parts of their recently deceased relatives.

In the process he unleased a dangerous superhuman monster on the world.

Perhaps the movie references earlier peasant uprisings, most famously The French Revolution. Those people were oppressed and starving.

Wonder how that became such an insulting reference?

The implication with the current reference being an elitist one of course - "you are poor uneducated unwashed villaigers that destroy what you cant understand"

While I understand its so widely used people dont examine what they are saying - Reinforcing an elitist notion isnt exactly exemplary.

All you who are pressuring ESC to change know that they don't give a damn about us right? They get their money from real world companies in large stacks of unmarked bills and they do nothing but exploit the community and the people actually in the world without giving anything back to the SL community.

While this may have been said before, but I forget what I read after 15 pages. Wouldn't the best solution be to be able to sell something for a price to a single person just like land is? Or even better, be able to set things at different prices to different groups or people?

Think someone said something similair in the other thread.

It depends on which problem you are trying to solve.

The issue of transfering items by sale it would seem to me your idea would help.

All I'm suggesting is that people take some time to take a deep breath and offer reasoned, rational solutions and suggestions. I ask that anyone who wants to tear down ESC, to make an attempt to contact ESC directly with polite and calm suggestions. I also challenge people to think about the SL protocol. Perhaps there are changes that LL should make to limit the scope of what others should be able to "scan" either manually or with a bot.

For instance:

1. To prevent people from buying objects not intended for them, LL should add a way to sell an object directly to someone else rather than setting it for sale for everyone.
   
2. As for privacy concerns, people should again suggest to LL that there could be better ways to make the objects of a parcel invisible to anyone not on that parcel.
   
3. For ESC, perhaps they should only list items found on parcels that are found in the directory rather than every object for sale on every parcel.

When dealing with any company or individual in SL, it's best to contact them directly with your concerns politely and give them a reasonable amount of time to respond to your concerns. I really don't think that happened in this situation.

I get such a big kick out of a post saying that ESC does "nothing but exploit the community" from a guy whose signature line advertises a T-Shirt idolizing the act of stealing people's passwords and breaking into their private data through social engineering.

Wow. Just.... Wow.


.

This is a pretty good post I think - I dont agree necessarily but its well thought out and well written.


Although Ive been called Unreasonable by others (not Keiki) - I dont feel my opinions are all that Irrational.


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-Id like reprecussions for people who dismiss privacy concerns by using bots.
-Id like any system based on opt-out/spybot to fail.
-I dont want Electric Sheep to fail. Just their thoughtless "searchbot" system.

On an even larger scope I would like the TOS/CS rewritten to ensure that Bots will be run Responsibly.

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If course I realize privacy is largely uneforcable. So are speed limits.

I realize that people will run Spybots and other Intrusive, Uninvited bots anyway.

>>It doesnt mean LL needs to give Tacit (and reportedly active) approval.

I think 3 days since the first thread is time enough for ESC to do something about the mess they have caused, especially given the fact that ESC is well aware of what is going on and have contributed to the threads. So far i have not seen anyone being irrational but more fed up with the way LL allows certain companies to do this sort of thing as has been pointed out. Couple that with the fact ESC as good as hid the opt out sign on the island, i imagine to make it harder to opt out as this was there intention from the start to run an opt out service based on this factor alone imho, it doesnt take a rocket scientist to read their site and comments etc. on various blogs to see that they are more concerned with their corporate customers and the info they can supply them, than the residents here.

As far as changes that LL can implement im sure, that as u have been here sometime you understand, that LL is not going to stop this behaviour nor will it stop bots and they have even advertised another opt out service as u will be aware as it was in ur time here and they have also said they want the residents to take action themselves in these cases, so that is what i feel is happening here and all i see here is the residents taking action against ESC and the only effective way that we as individuals can group together and take on ESC is to render their database useless by filling it with information that has no value and thats all we can do within the TOS. Maybe then they will talk and do something like make it opt in.

Contacting ESC individually is a waste of time imho as they have not responded here when they had the opportunity and i for one totally agree that this course of action that has been suggested here is is the right thing to do, as anything less will, im sure be a total waste of time for the people here. Hell we cant even get LL to respond to important emails what hope have we with ESC.

I think with something of this magnitude 72 hours is plenty of time to cease and desist and we all know thats not going to happen, so i think its great we as individuals can group together on the forums, while they still exist and before they are taken away totally, to formulate a plan of action then carry it thro to send a firm message to ESC and others of their ilk that their behaviour is not acceptable and we will as residents do everything in our power to ensure that they take notice and the only way we can do that is by giving Grid Shepherd lots of data to collect, maybe when their databse is useless as a tool they will rethink and come back with a better plan that will benifit the community as a whole.

Now wheres my pitchfork

Well, I have been trying to discuss those ideas and solutions for some time now, Kiki, including in this very thread.

As far as I can tell, the rationale for making it opt-out was that no one would opt-in, and/or they couldn't tell anyone/everyone about it, so they couldn't get started on it unless they opted everyone in.

I have pointed out that SLBoutique and SLExchange are doing pretty well and people opt into those. The ingame Search also works quite well, considering the number of sales we get from it and how that number went down when it was broken, and that, too, is an opt-in thing.

I've said that content creators such as myself would adore putting their things in a free search engine.

At this point, a test run HAS already been made with everyone in it whether they want to be or not, and the kinks have already been noted.

In addition, the word is getting out (through us, not through any effort on ESC's part) that the search exists.

Therefore it seems to me that rather than talk further about the fact that they put everyone on it without their knowledge, it would make sense just to go ahead and start a new version, this time making it opt-in.

Everyone would be happy; there would no longer be privacy concerns; and the people who opted in could be responsible for such mistakes that do appear, just as I took responsibility to see to it that the innocent iindividual who had my item be removed from the list. We would then have a search engine that actually serves the SL community.

I have been discussing this calmly and rationally for quite some time now, since before this thread, and in other venues. But in order to have the discussion, more of the ESC people need to actually participate in it with us.

coco

I think this may be the most ridiculous statement in this entire thread.

Just because the employees of ESC have formed a RL company that makes RL money, they are somehow exploiting the residents of SL? I don't know any of the sheep personally, but I do know that most of them have been very active in SL for years. The main reason that most of them are now part of ESC is that they were (and are) active, productive members of the community.

My private sims are jsut that, MINE. It is my private property and not property of Linden Labs. As far as I would be concerned a bot coming to my land without invite and scannign my sims could be construed as trespassing and illegal information gathering, Surely im not giving anyone rights to post my name or my locations to my sims.

If infact this is ESC intentions I would think I have a fair legal case against them in real life, those legal charges off hand would be...Invasion, Illegal information gathering with intent to sell that information. Just that alone can shut them down quicker than bat guana hitting the cave floor. I dont feel Linden labs could OR should do anything with reguards to private islands as its not thier property, but I do think that its up to Private sim owners to legally enforce no tresspassing zones whether thru banning of direct warning to ESC. I don't think banning is appropriate since we as Sim owners only have 300 spots to put into the ban list and not a single spot should be used on a bot

Here's a small peice of fair waring for anyone who will want to also send this warning to ESC

To whom it may concern

As of this day, Saturday April 20th. I am formally issuing a warning to Electric Sheep Company, DBA ESC.



DO NOT trespass on any privately owned sim owned by SL Avatar named ___________ with any avatar associated to or affiliated with Electric Sheep Company



DO NOT engage in the activity of information gathering for any purpose by any Avatar in any way affiliated with or associated to Electric Sheep Company



DO NOT post any information relating to _____________________ or any assets held by ________________ including but not limited to simulator location, prim based items, scripts or any assets of any kind.



Consider this fair warning, your associates and affiliates and any presence in SL controled by Electric Sheep Company are NOT welcome on these simulators.



Any infraction can and will result in legal action.



YOU ARE NOT WELCOME



SL Name: ______________________