Automated Burglary

heh. I don't have high verbal acuity, so I was editing (and re-editing, and re-editing) my response above while you put your response here, and now what you quoted doesn't match what I said anymore.


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Reverse it, take L$ turn them into RL cash totalling over a certain amount (in the US anyway), and you owe the IRS part of it. Most other countries too, Germany to be sure because I read somewhere about Anshe having to pay her taxes.

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Please see that post I linked for the reasons I feel that SL is a facet of RL, and that it will become even more so with every passing day. If, after reading it, you still don't see my point, then we'll just have to disagree. No harm in that. People disagree all the time, we'd get nowhere as a species if we didn't -- in fact -- we'd probably still be clubbing rabbits and living in caves, if not.

Hehe, same here. I tend to edit a lot. Spelling mistakes and clarity usually.

Hey!! there is nothing wrong with living in a cave and having a good rabbit clubbing session, helps me pass my time and those dam bunnies get everywhere!

I prefer wigwams and deer!

Hi Robby, I didn't think I'd re-read many occurences of this and was under the impression there's a good few more than two instances, one stipulating it happened in mere seconds!
I'm merely reporting secondhand news

Here's my question:
If the bot is scanning the grid once every 24 hours, why does the website still have items listed for sale by me on one property I sold a week ago, and another property I sold a few days ago? Both lots are currently empty. If they persist in listing things for sale that are no longer there, this site will quickly be rendered useless.

A more sinister theory for you conspiracy bugs out there would be that the bot scans private islands where there are more likely to be high-ticket items being transferred for $0 more frequently. I highly doubt it, but I'm just throwing that out there, since people are talking about having items on PI's swooped within seconds of putting them for sale, yet my store on the old continent only has some of the currently for sale items listed, and items from my old store location are still listed even though they're no longer there.

Also, if folks have trouble getting the list to expand in the search results, try using a Firefox browser - the site seems kinda buggy in IE.

Edit: Woohoo, my post is at the top of a new page AGAIN! For the folks coming late to this LONG discussion, here's a link to the site we're all talking about: http://search.sheeplabs.com/core/

The fact that this scan-bot has a potentially good use does not excuse its actual harmful use.

I am not sympathetic with this being a beta-test. I am not an involuntary guinea pig. If they want me to beta-test their product to help them make money, they are free to contract with me to do so. Release it after the beta-test has revealed harmful uses, and fixes have been made.

I don't think Electric Sheep needs to be banned. As has been noted, Yahoo! wasn't. They need to be sued for the damages that their product has caused, like Yahoo!, for example (when their image search feature stored and published copyrighted pictures without permission). Or, in the absence of a lawsuit, otherwise sanctioned by, say, Linden Labs.

That was a great analogy though, to liked the search-bot to Yahoo!. The same sort of standards should apply to both.

If anyting, dis thread made me review my own stuff, showed me a couple items that I had that we set to sale (an should not have been), an allowed me to correct it. So, for me, this search was a handy, handy tool.

Mari

And that chair, that/s listed for $15, should be $30. I fixed that ages ago but the one I pulled out of inventory was old.

I'm more curious why the bot thinks that chair is on my neighbor's land.

Now if I could just make the vendors show up in my store!

Im wondering why the supporters of this bot do not consider it to be an invasion of privacy.

No Im not interested in the "You have no privacy arguement" If thats all youve got, then in my opinion you are just making excuses for unethical behavior.

Im interested in WHY a spybot coming in uninvited and scanning my objects every 24 hours is not an invasion of privacy.

Ive mentioned it twice and no ones bothered to respond. If I stood near someone's house and "editied" all of their objects and wrote them down on a notecard and passed it around, people would AR me for eavesdropping - why does this bot get a pass?

Even if I opt out - this box will still scan my objects, it just wont display them on Electric Sheep's website.

People might AR you for "eavesdropping" but it wouldn't get them anywhere, unless of course you were listening in on their chat, which still isn't ARable because all chat is public when not confined to IMs.

Why is the "You have no privacy" argument not valid? If you have no privacy, then your privacy cannot be invaded. You might not like what the bot does, but it can't be invading non existent privacy.

I think they made a mistake in making the system opt-out because of all the anger it stirs up, but I don't see it as the end of the world.

Winter, the bot was standing on your neighbor's parcel when it scanned your chair. It notes the correct coordinates in the sim because that is returned by the scanner. But it can't correlate the coordinates to the boundries of the parcel it is in. Which means it can NOT be banned, because it isn't setting foot on your property in the first place! It doesn't care if I have banned it from my own parcel (which I have). It will still list any for-sale items on my land for any individuals who have not explicitly opted OUT of their search. It DID list items on my land that were owned by my Partner, 24 hours after I had banned the bot from my land.

This is the thing that realy bugs me here. I can protect my own things, by opting out, because I am one of the fraction of a percent of SL users who has read this thread and knows the problem exists. I have opted out with all my alts, and I got my Partner informed and opted out too. But there are MILLIONS of people out there who don't even know this search is being performed. They have NO way to opt out.

So the search is roughly once every 24 hours? That could mean the next one starts 24 hours from now, or one second from now. And I can't possibly tell when, nor can I keep the bot away unless I own the entire sim as a private island and am willing to eject every person from the sim while I deal with a transfer of in-world content. Banning it from one parcel DOES NO GOOD AT ALL! Odds are it is not ON your parcel when it scans your stuff!

So I have to ask again... Short of banning this type of search bot, or mandating that such bots MUST be opt-in only, or MUST respect restrictions that are set as "prohibit" by default... How can we safely transfer in-world, already positioned, no-copy content?

The answer is, we can't. Because we can't realisticly prevent the Bot from showing up and scanning us from another parcel while we are doing the transfer. Even if I set the price to a million L$, there is a gap there between when I check the "for sale" box, and when I finish typing in a price and close the dialog, where the price will ALWAYS be only L$10. And in that moment, it doesn't matter what I do, or how careful I am, or what the real value of the item is, the item can be stolen for L$10. And Linden Lab would just shrug and say "We don't get involved in disputes between residents".

I've opted out of this bot, and I am telling every friend I have that they damned well better opt out of it too. But what about the next one? LL needs a functional change, so this can't be exploited so easily. And they need to be willing to intercede when someone steals something for a few pennies that is clearly worth hundreds of dollars.

LL do need some changes.
Change the land options so land does not go on sale until an apply button is pressed. Change the item sale options so they don't go on sale till an apply button is pressed. Add an option to sell or give item to a specific user.

Until something like that is in place though, using sell as a way to transfer items is not safe, bots or no bots.

The fact they would AR me is more important than whether Linden Labs would do anything about it.

As to the recording chat - why is that not allowed if I have no privacy?






It continues to anger people becuase the supporters of the bot dismiss our concerns. They have referred to us as tin-hatters, chicken littles, paranoid and unacepting of technology.

I feel that you should never base your system bahavior based only on what you CAN do. All systems that infringe on others should take the concerns of other residents in mind.

The Botters in SL thus far have shown very little responsibility towards their fellow SL residents.

Does Linden Labs, in the use agreement or any of its advertising materials, make the caveat clear that: Second Life users have no privacy in Second Life.

If that's the case, I have no problem with the defense that "you have no privacy in Second Life."

If the argument is, "You have no privacy because I have the ability to take it from you without your consent," then it's flat wrong.

This is what I see. they make a very broad inclusive statement at the begining. Then only define it in limited ways - leaving them a lot of latitude to change their enforcement, like the rest of their Community Standards.

In fact its quite interesting that half of the paragraph following the portion I highlighted refers to people's first lives, not the statement they make. This paragraph would have gotten someone a "C" from a generous professor on an exam.

I personally think the entire Community Standards need to be rewritten. But as applies to this topic the paragraph needs to support the broad statement better.

Well then, the right to privacy is mine. If it is, then it cannot be taken from me by another party; I can only give it up with my consent.

The opt-out plan then doesn't recognize my right to privacy. It does not obtain my consent. I can only give consent through my affirmative, explict act.

Apparently, this Electric Sheep place thinks that they own my right to privacy, and are being generous to me by giving me a procedure to beg to have my privacy returned to me.

Thank you for looking that up, Colette.

The "privacy" that you have in Second Life is limited to:

1) Your definition of privacy in Second Life
2) The tools you have on your land to achieve #1
3) Any other creative way you can think of to achieve #1

Unfortunately, if neither #2 or #3 are effective in achieving #1, then your defination of privacy in Second Life needs revision.

EDIT: by privacy above, I mean "parcel level" privacy, for the purpose of discussing searchbot behavior, and acknowledge the previous quote of the disclosure clause of the CS.

It actually depends on the definition of privacy as used by Linden Labs, in the agreement between me and Linden Labs when I signed up to use Second Life. That's basic contract law.

I wouldn't jump so quickly to this conclusion.

First, you need to establish whether or not listing an item by name, creator, owner, and location, which has been marked for sale, on an off-world search engine actually represents a breach of privacy. So far, a few folks are pissed off, and claim that it is. This doesn't establish it as fact. There is zero in the disclosure clause that speaks directly or indirectly to this specific issue, so you surely can't rely on that for a solid conclusion.

Which is delibrately left vague.

The entire concept of Privacy gets 4 sentences. 2 of which dont apply to second life. Thats really dam vague.

For a world where "SUPPOSEDLY" 5 million are signed up and over a million log on every month - I think we could stand to have a better description.

In my opinion scanning all of my objects on non commercial land is an invasion of my privacy.

None of anyones dam business what objects I have rezzed that arent in one of my stores.

I always thought that finding a way around being banned from parcels was against the TOS. If you ban the scan bot, but it scans your property anyways isn't that techincally finding a way around being banned therefore against the tos? Just because you can sit on a prim and enter the parcel, getting caught can result into being ARd, then depending on the whim of the Linden who finally looked at the report, given a warning/suspension/ban.

At the very least they should have done some logical forethought and made the beta 100% opt-in given the gravity of potential issues. Of course heavily advertising the beta and the plans of eventual default opt-in after the bugs had all been worked out. Espeically until they figured out a clear and working way that anyone who doesn't want to be scanned at all can fully opt-out.

Interestingly enough, using the search engine, I found a number of my copy, mod, NO TRANSFER items for sale by some individuals. Some had items that they had purchased somewhere and the original was set for sale. Another individual had no idea how or why my name was appearing on her items that she was creating...with my script and animation. I asked her to stop selling items with my name as creator and I filed a bug report, but not sure how much good that will do.