Automated Burglary

Bingo. You got it on all points... except the "people can't share your first life information" part. Linden lab can't save the people that share their RL data with people in secondlife, nor stop the people that aquire that data.

I've always considered secondlife a "public space" with eaves droppers, brats, shysters, cool people, artist, shoppers, ... more like a faire or carnival than a residential area. Mixed signals, wildly different ideas on what constitutes 'proper' behavior... and some how trying to co-exist with each other to some reasonable degree.

If that's pathetic... so be it. I merely think it's "different".

Some of us Naively beleive a world supposedly populated by adults would have a reasonble respect for other people's privacy.



A reasonable level of privacy is a LOT more than some posters think we should have in this thread.

The highlighted sentence was a good start. They just mess up later in the paragraph becuase they dont include other reasonable protections.

By pathetic I mean the lack of respect for other people's concerns.

Agree, Colette. We are seeing a case with ESC and its bungled searchbot where an appeal for ethical behavior and for observing sensible and reasonable community standards and conventions has failed. We have an entity that feels free to impose itself on everyone else in SL and unilaterally change the rules even when that demonstrably hurts other Residents. Judging by its behavior and that of its agents on these threads, it appears to believe that bad faith is the way to go, and its attitude toward Residents in general isobviously deeply contemptuous. Theirs is the view that they are the meatpacker and we are the sheep.

And so the question moves on to what Residents can do about it. Remember, there are worse malefactors out there than these bunglers, and they will come if the hunting looks profitable and easy. Learning to deal with this case may help build a sort of SL immune system to fight others.

First thing, this searchbot (and other such searchbots yet to come) needs to be put to sleep. It still has the capacity to hurt unwary Residents and it does little or no good. It seems clear that ESC has no intention of withdrawing it; I become more persuaded every day that ESC is using it to pull the wool over the eyes of corporate prospects with more money than due diligence. Linden Labs has its hands full just keeping this world functioning, let alone regulate this one-company meatpacking industry. And there is no-one else. So it is incumbent on Residents to take action on their own.

Decoy objects and other "false positives" will help render the searchbot database useless. Renaming all your rezzed objects with names that will be meaningless or misleading to others will do the same, and also help preserve whatever effective privacy we may still have. Banning ESC bots from sims will help by reducing ESC's ability to scan objects. Objects designed to pull in grifters can be salted with notecards or scripts that educate them on why this searchbot and their actions are wrong. Creating "for-sale" objects that will show up on the searchbot website as adverts for stuff you do have for sale may be an option that helps you, but it admittedly might further the alleged purpose of the searchbot. Keeping objects in your inventory rather than rezzed in SL may be a nuisance, but it is also an effective option. Boycotting SLBoutique, which is also owned by ESC, should convey a message.

Pressing LL for needed changes to its object-selling protocols is quite important.

Somebody who wants to start up an opt-in website for true sellers to post their wares just might do the most good of all - and it sounds like a good business opportunity for someone!

Additionally, people who have contacts at corporate prospects might like to tip them off that they should be doing some poking around on their own here.

Other effective measures posted here would be welcome.

The further question is, should ESC as a whole be dealt with in the same fashion? But perhaps that should depend on how the conduct themselves hereafter.

Bravo Har

Good idea Har - I'm removing my listing from SLB.

I'm considering removing my items from SLBoutique, but not due to this. Due to the fact that it doesn't work well.

Last night I put removed some boxes from my SLB vendor and put in new ones, and it erased everything from the site for those items, all the text and the pictures. It didn't do that on SLExchange. And in the past, when I've tried to change the pictures for items on SLBoutique, that just didn't work for random items - so in frustration, I just deactivated those listings.

In addition, a couple of months ago a friend notified me that he was able to look into my entire account there, without any password. I checked this for myself, and sure enough, I could look into accounts. I pointed this out to SLB, and they said they had forgotten and left something open, and fixed it.

I have always supported SLBoutique, and never criticized it, but since ESC bought it and took it over, it has had a lot of problems. For the first time last night, I considered just withdrawing from it. The thought of reentering all that information is just - you know, is it even worth it? I'd rather not withdraw, since some people do shop there (though I've always sold much more on SLExchange). I guess it will depend on if I feel like going to all the trouble of putting everything back in.

Anyway, now that ESC has brought forth their searchbot, with all its problems of a similar nature, I'm starting to think they can't really do anything well or right.

I will reply to Forsetti's post about the searchbot later.

coco

You seem ignorant of the existing opt-in websites "for true sellers to post their wares".



To repeat myself from earlier: It is unreasonable to expect everyone else to voluntarily abide by or even agree on identical levels of "reasonable expectations of privacy".

Either it is codified in law or it's open to interpretation. What one person thinks is exploitive another one will call competitive. What one thinks is combative, another will think is fair sport.

You can't enforce a common way of thinking on people, we can only punish those that break existing laws.

If this were a smaller community, we might be able to shun or blacklist people with some effect, but it's a huge tourist-based population where the resident turn over brings in a fresh sea of faces at a regular pace. Social pressure to conform is laughable... it'll be forgotten as if it never existed when the next generation of newbies steps off the boat.


If you want lasting change, it must be codified into law... AND it must be enforcible.



Or you can join Har in his mangle-worded attempt to criminalize people that are not breaking laws and look like an idiot. There's lots of idiots out there, you won't be lonely. Just wrong.

It doesnt need to be law - In so much that LL doesnt really make "laws" - They have rules.

The community standards need a few more clarification sentences reguarding Privacy to give residents some respect.

And there needs to be TOS regulation of how bots are used in conjunction with information reguarding Secondlife.

Which I stated way back in these threads on this issue.



Ahh so im an idiot and "wrong" if I have a problem with something someone does thats not breaking a law.

Thanks.

History is full of "idiots who were wrong" like that.

Jefferson
Washington
Susan B. Anthony
Martin Luther King
Stephen Biko

Your arguement confuses legal and "right".

Right and Wrong are independant of law.

Please allow an addendum here.

Interested entrepreneurial Residents who might like to start up an opt-in replacment website for the ESC searchbot site could be VERY helpful here.

For a fuller description of my first, modest contribution on that subject, please see post # 848, p. 57 (!) of this thread: /327/96/178132/34.html

This is one ball I'd really like to get going!

Quoting Colette Meiji in blue:
(me in red)

It doesnt need to be law - In so much that LL doesnt really make "laws" - They have rules.

for the purpose of brevity I was using 'law' to sum up tos/cs and relevant RL law.


The community standards need a few more clarification sentences reguarding Privacy to give residents some respect.

When you've convinced the lindens to change the tos then those clarifications will be relevant.

And there needs to be TOS regulation of how bots are used in conjunction with information reguarding Secondlife.


Humans should be bound by the same rules that bots are. Bots are merely tools or extentions of human activity. An action should be legal or not, regardless of the frequency in which the action is performed.


Ahh so im an idiot and "wrong" if I have a problem with something someone does thats not breaking a law.

No, but you're an idiot if you start calling non-fraud fraud, non-theft theft, non-grifters grifters, non-failures failures... and who knows how many other words he's mis-used to mean things they do not. I think more highly of you than that. This issue can be influenced by logic, reason, persuasion, sympathy, ... or raw mudslinging. Which do you think has the best hope of getting the lindens to change their minds?


Your arguement confuses legal and "right".

Right and Wrong are independant of law

"Right and wrong" depend on religion, culture, ethos... there can be no common definition of right and wrong to agree upon unless it is codified in enforcible law that applies to everyone. My point was that the notion of "right and wrong" differ from person to person. It is neither right (by my ethos) or legal (without law backing you up) to force someone to conform to your notion of right and wrong.

But that doesn't mean attempting to persuade or reason with someone to agree is wrong or illegal, which is why I persist.

I agree the terms legal/illegal are misused. There is no law in SL. I think the more appropriate term would be ethical. Your assertion that frequency has no bearing isn't true if ethical is put in place of legal. If someone holds up a plate of doughnuts and says, "free doughnuts, help yourself!", and everyone reaches for one, but one guy runs over, grabs all the doughnuts off the plate and leaves with them, That's not illegal, as the doughnuts were free. However it *is* unethical, as there were supposed to be doughnuts for all, and the greedy bastard ran off with them all. This is exactly what's going on. The Bots are running off with all of our doughnuts.

If you still don't get it, you never will.

Spare me the cultural relativism argument- There are more holes in exclusively Mores based ethics than in swiss cheese.

The core issue is that many/most people want their privacy to include more than just their in world conversations and RL information. They want some semblance of Private Property. Period

They want that,
however right now its vague and people will take advantage of anything thats clearly not pointed out in the Community Standards.

Meanwhile- the Lindens have all their bets hedged they make their TOS very specific to give residents no wiggle room - While leaving their CS as generic as posible to allow them to change enforcement on any topic at will.

On the Bots are people too thing -

Bot accounts should NOT be the same as regular resident accounts. Period. The Bot owner can have a resident account, sure. But there should be differences. Bots are just computer programs they are not Residents.

They weren't for all, they were for *any*. Small clarification. If they were for all, then there would have been enough for all.

Ethics and morals depends on your point of view. Are you going to go over to the homeless man who hasn't eaten in a week and wave your finger in his face, admonishing him of his poor moral fiber in grabbing all the doughnuts? Who is the more ethically-challenged in that case, hmm?

If the person giving away the doughnuts was concerned enough about it, it would be a simple enough matter to post a rule "one doughnut per person, NO EXCEPTIONS!".



Hardly. The indexer bot hasn't taken anything that anyone else can't take. You, me, anyone with enough desire can gather the same exact information. Land bots are another matter, as some of them are actually exploiting real loopholes in the system. Something which LL needs to fix far more than worrying about indexer bot woes.



Making condescending, patronizing remarks doesn't make it any easier to "get", regardless.

They can get it. Buy a sim, set it to private access, invite-only for everyone else, and they can have all the privacy they want, never leaving the safe confines of their own little world on 16 virtual acres.

The alternative is to continue living in cheap, plasterboard-walled apartments, where you can hear the neighbors doing everything, and they can hear you.

Lovely - the Rights only for the rich arguement.

There are no rights ever suggested, let alone guaranteed in SL.

If you have a problem with that, there's plenty of free tools out there to make your own competition to SL, and you can feel free to set whatever egalitarian rules you wish. It's your world, your imagination FOR REAL, after all, not the faux one presented by LL.

So are the rest of us gonna Eat Cake, Doughnuts, or Pie? Whatever it is, I need Sugar free.

Even more lovely - the if you dont like it, leave! argument.

I think Darien said Doughnuts.

Sure! People use it on me all the time. Just passing it on.

It all boils down to this: tolerance. If you find you can't tolerate it, then that is really your only option. LL is going to do what LL is going to do, your, my, or anyone's opinions be damned.

Yeah, it's a cynical way to live life, but eminently practical, and avoids ulcers and early death due to stress over stupid BS that isn't worth the hassle of worrying about to begin with.

Simply put, I don't WANT you to leave, but I would RATHER you leave than get so stressed out over this insignificant little "world", that it interferes with your enjoyment of your REAL life.

Well the way I look at it is this:

I think I should have some rights as a Resident. I think everyone else should too.

SO it seems we have hardley any. So where I see a lack- I comment. I comment to whoever cares to listen, some agree and some agree.

Im not going to change my beleif that we should have rights just becuase some people (including Linden Labs) says we cant have them.

Now - you are correct, this situation doesnt have the same weight as real life rights being violated.

But this is a Secondlife forum- and thus here your Secondlife resident's rights are pretty important.

Its just as important to how the world of Second Life works as what features were going to add, or how bad the lag is, or performance issues, etc.

You are right, this is not worth getting sick over. however, I don't think the statement that no one's opinions matter to the Providers is a valid one. They are listening. I'm sure there is one group who has their collective ears. If a path was taken that they didn't like I'm sure it would come to screeching halt. The question is do they ordinary residents matter less tp LL thatn the Big Money Boys? And if we see something we objects to, and want it changed, and maybe even get together to try and change it, why does that bother people so much? (Not necessarily you). I don't believe in the that's the way it is, there is no point in trying to do anything about it. Maybe the ideas presented aren't the best, but they are ideas.

You are right, this is not worth getting sick over. however, I don't think the statement that no one's opinions matter to the Providers is a valid one. They are listening. I'm sure there is one group who has their collective ears. If a path was taken that they didn't like I'm sure it would come to screeching halt. The question is do they ordinary residents matter less tp LL thatn the Big Money Boys? And if we see something we objects to, and want it changed, and maybe even get together to try and change it, why does that bother people so much? (Not necessarily you). I don't believe in the that's the way it is, there is no point in trying to do anything about it. Maybe the ideas presented aren't the best, but they are ideas.

You are right, this is not worth getting sick over. however, I don't think the statement that no one's opinions matter to the Providers is a valid one. They are listening. I'm sure there is one group who has their collective ears. If a path was taken that they didn't like I'm sure it would come to screeching halt. The question is do they ordinary residents matter less tp LL thatn the Big Money Boys? And if we see something we objects to, and want it changed, and maybe even get together to try and change it, why does that bother people so much? (Not necessarily you). I don't believe in the that's the way it is, there is no point in trying to do anything about it. Maybe the ideas presented aren't the best, but they are ideas.

The way I look at it is like this:

As long as I can log in, make things, sell them, spend time with my friends doing fun things together, I am happy. I don't need a lot of "rights", nor do I want lots of restrictions. I prefer to have responsible freedoms over lots of "safe" rules and restrictions.

As long as there are a fair share of rights for everyone, and no one person or group is more favored than another (think landowners versus aviators, for example; right now, aviators are completely screwed), I don't have a problem.

I also don't have a problem with things like the sheepbot having rights to the freedom to do what it does, as long as it is not exploiting the underlying systems to do its work, and doesn't directly interfere with my pursuit of entertainment, I don't mind it existing in whatever form it does.

I like to keep the SL platform open enough for innovative and lateral thinking in terms of creations; after all, that follows the spirit of "your world, your imagination" a lot more closely than "your rights; your control".