Automated Burglary

Ah but Mon Cheri, SL isn't an entertaining pastime. it's the next evoplution of the internet, (I wonder if Al Gore knows about this), the 3D web, whatever that means. Hopefully LL will change it's advertising accordingly.

would you like more cake?

Chocolate, please. With Chocolate icing. And a cup of coffee. Black. Maybe a little brandy in it.

Discrimination is wrong because it punishes people for what they MIGHT do instead of punishing people for what they have actually done.

Bots aren't human... their operators are. If one person only has a poor ability to paint, and another has a camera... is it right to pass laws and rules that tell the photographer they can't compete with the painter?

Bots are tools, extensions of people, not seperate entities. They allow people the ability to do things they could not do without those tools. IF what they do with bots breaks laws or rules then punish that.

Do not discriminate against potential... or you end up no better than the paranoid and unjust people that thought it was okay to lock up Japanese Americans.

Is this such an unreasonable concept?!

With your and others' help, I sure have.



I've already painted pictures of bots gone wild that I don't agree with, so you gain no purchase there.



I've never said that Privacy, Respect for Others, and Common Courtesy are bad things. I support and practice them reasonably well all the time. It is only YOUR TAKE on what YOU want that I disagree with. I find your position extreme, your arguments full of condescension and dripping sarcasm, and I want no part of it. Thanks, but I will wait for a more moderate (and considerate) point of view that I can work with and side with in earnest on the subject.



I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination, yet I have ZERO DIFFICULTY finding enough "privacy" to suit me fine. Thus, your narrow-minded interpretation of what I have said is beyond any further rational discussion of the subject.



Sounds like you need to actually read the Community Standards document yourself. There are 15 sentences in just the "Big Six" listing alone. Here it is; see for yourself.



So far, it HAS been manageable, because it is a very small part of the SL experience. You're asking to change essentially the "law" for EVERYone in SL. Further, you've yet to trouble yourself to come up with any real details on what it is you want outside of "I want Colette Meiji's Rules of Privacy for Everyone Implemented!". Simply saying "I want privacy" is not enough. The CS rules right now enumerate specific areas of concern with explanations sufficient enough to be actionable. Where are yours? Outside of dragging them out of you by countering your arguments, I don't really see anything of substance.



Definitely, and the more protests I see about taking away freedoms for the sake of Colette Meiji's feeling of "virtual privacy", the more obvious it is that I have to fight to keep the SL that I know and enjoy from being taken over by inconsiderate thugs.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see your stance as any more reasonable than you see mine, and at this point, I don't see us finding any common ground. Not that such matters to you, of course, so go ahead and keep posting; I'll be more than happy to continue being a counter to the presented mindset.

Deej-


I can't find the bug in jira.secondlife.com.

If you're able to duplicate the issue, you should report it!


Unrelatedly, it would be helpful if the following jira item got
more votes from people on this thread, it only has 15 so far:

"Allow residents the ability to sell an object to a single avatar"
https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-470

It's called "taking responsibility for your own welfare". It's a unique concept in many parts of the world, especially in first-world countries, where nanny states are bought and paid for with the blood and sweat of those who actually contribute to society.



Now you know. Cover thine own backside, as no one else is going to cover it for you (without being exploitive, anyway).



Yes, you won't be protected from yourself, nor protected from accepting someone else's blunders as your own. Like any tool in your toolbox, there are safe ways to use it, and there are unsafe ways to use it. Learn and practice proper use accordingly, and you'll do just fine. *shrug* I do. My friends do. My family does. Not sure why that is such a hard concept to grasp.



If you work in IT for a living, one would think that you would be considered a "tech expert" already, no?



Don't need a bot for that. If they are set FOR SALE, anyone can see it, if they bother to look.

Yeah, life sucks that way. Ignorance is bliss, until it bites you on the ass. Suck it up, learn, and move on with life. By the way, don't put your hand on the hot stove; you might get burnt, and the appliance and utility companies are not at fault for it.

Awww c'mon. we've all called those various help numbers for our computers, software, dvr's etc. Would you call some of those people "Tech Experts" ?

PS no offense meant to the OP on this particular tangent.

Yes, I would, considering I have been (and still am, to several companies) one of them.

What is your point, exactly? Trying to interject some levity, I hope.

I thought that was obvious. or is levity another forbidden concept in SL? As to your stated profession. I'm sure you are among those who can be classified a sprofessional. I just haven't been fortunate enough to get one such as you on the phone it seems.

I am sure you thought it was obvious. However, I don't read minds; don't claim to, and in the absence of further evidence (like smilies or emotes, attached to the specific points; wasn't clear enough to qualify, IMO), I make no assumptions in that regard about people with whom I am debating.

Yes, I do work in IT for a living, however I had some expectation that this "next generation 3D world" would have some precausions in place to somewhat protect the less tech savvy (or in my own case I'll admit it, lax attitude towards security concerns) from unknowingly getting ripped off through a loophole in the system.

I'm thoroughly aware of the concept of self-reliance and individual responsibility. I don't need anyone's condescention, thank you very much.

Well it appears that SL indeed mirrors the laissez-faire attitudes so prevalent in our society today. If you get ripped off, too bad--stupid you for not knowing better and protecting yourself...even if you had no idea you needed to.

Someone remind me why this "game" is fun and why I'm paying to play it please?

And btw, if I needed a lecture on personal responsibility I'd just turn on terrestrial radio and listen to some of the right wing talking heads. However, I partake in SL in order to escape that noise for a bit. Seems I was mistaken for thinking that I could...

I do agree that I don't want SL to become a LL micromanaged Nanny State, some may be espousing, nor do I like the Wide Open Wild World that others may want. I'd like to see it soemwhere in the middle. One thing I have made my mind up on. I don't like sheepbot, what it is designed for, how it was implemented, what it can do. I will not use it, and will take all action I can to make sure it doesn't affect me. Likewise I don't care for ESC, their business practices, or the way they handled this matter from the start. I will take all possible action to assure I do not have any dealings with them in the future.

Without intending to sound condescending... you should know that no one can answer that question for you. At least, not without knowing you rather well.

For me... it's a blank slate upon which I can experiment, tinker, play, create and share.

For other's it's a place to retreat from some of the limitations of RL.

It's not for everyone though. If you're not enjoying it, try something else for a while.

I will say that enough time in secondlife will absolutely take all the fun out of 'crafting' in more traditional "mmorpgs". By comparison, that's coloring in someone else's coloring book.

I think the question of how to balance privacy and freedom and what if any rules LL should create is a very important one. It relates to what Community Standards ought to be, which is something that ultimately ought to reflect a consensus of what the Residents want and need. No unanimity, because that is clearly impossible: Just read this thread! But a consensus. We can feel a consensus here that theft is wrong, even though thieves will not agree. We can feel a consensus that SL needs a larger zone of privacy than the present loose rules and the existence of long-distance camera views and other forms of intrusion presently allow - even though griefers and voyeurs and others who want to exploit the vulnerabilities of Residents will not agree. What formal rules, if any, are made to protect that consensus needs to be hammered out. Probably, Residents will have to defend themselves.

I don't think we have a consensus about bots - yet. Probably, we should look at bots on a case-by-cae basis. They exponentially increase the ability to perform some act, and obviously come into existence when doing that benefits someone. That could possibly be good for everyone else - or extremely bad for everyone else, depending on what the bot is and what use can be made of it. Take the ESC searchbot, for example. It is the problem this thread is dealing with, after all, and it is here, today, not just some hypothetical case.

Are we better off with this bot or without it?

If you are a grifter, you love it; you get to snap up items the unwary have left lying about for little or nothing, and feel smugly superior in the knowledge that you are the successful predator and they are your hapless prey. If you are a griefer, you probably like it; it creates a possible chance of using it on somewone you want to grief, if they let their guard down for even a moment. If you are ESC, you evidently love it too much: It exposes ESC's serious incompetence at designing such a thing. A bot supposed to enable buyers that finds inadvertently for-sale objects but misses the overwhelming majority of for-sale objects because they are sold from vendor devices makes its designer look like a damned fool. It has also inspired ESC to defend it in ways that make all too clear the exploitive and contemptuous attitude they feel toward other Residents - hardly something any exploiter wants to become generally known among those it wants to exploit. Best guess is they need it to do a snow job on corporate prospects with big wallets and feel they have to press on with it at any cost. Be that as it may, it exposes them to the terrible risk that those corporate prospects will figure out what they are doing. But still they love it.

Since it fails utterly at its supposed purpose of enabling buyers to find for-sale items they want, it is hard to think of anyone else who would like it - other than someone who wants SL to be more troubled and endangered than it already is. Or maybe a thread troll.

On the other hand, if you are someone who owns or rents land and puts objects on it, you despise this bot, because it puts your property at risk any time you overlook the for-sale box, or engage in a complex build where the for-sale function is a necessary workaround, or when a bug in the game or maybe a sim reset turns the for-sale option back on without your consent or knowledge. If you are a builder, you despise it even more. If you wish for a modicum of privacy you despise it even more than that, because it scans every object in SL and strips away the wisp of privacy you formerly had just because it was foremerly so cumbersome and impractical for busybodies to do that to more than a very few by hand. If you are one of those persons burdened with things like compassion for unwarned new Residents (a character trait exploiters sneer at), you positively hate it. If you care about the success and future of Second Life and you recognize that it will tend to discourage or drive away newcomers and possible newcomers who hear about it, then you want to get rid of it as quickly as possible (I am in this category).

Moral relativism is a wonderful thing: You can talk your way into putting the right to exploitor steal on the same moral level as the right to resist exploitation or keep your pproperty. This case demonstrates why moral relativism needs to be considered an academic exercise and not allowed serious standing when making policy in the real world - meaning SL too, now that it is part of the real world.

So for this bot, the case against it looks overwhelming and the case for it, unless you are an extreme moral relativist indeed or else a crook at heart, looks hopeless.

Oh, I forgot, you can take the Darwinian stance: What confers an advantage on you is good, and what creates a vulnerabilityfor you is bad. The reason I forgot it for a moment is that the analysis is so trivial in this case: This harmful bot creates a vulnerability for nearly everybody in SL, and in SL itself, and it is vulnerable if we choose to take action against it. So let's kill it.

That was sarcasm.

I'm obviously here because I enjoy it and there's a ton to enjoy even with all the glitches and drama...

And for the record, I'm not in favor of turning SL into a father knows best state. I just think if there are issues that affect residents like this, there should be some kind of information made available so we can try to protect themselves. And through these forums that info is now available.

It actually has a lot of protections in place to protect the "less tech savvy", and they are adding more all the time. This isn't about a "loophole in the system". You put out a set of objects and left them set FOR SALE. I mean, it's not exactly a hard thing to see; most times, when people rez stuff, they put it in edit mode to place it exactly on their land. The first page of the edit dialog has the FOR SALE info on it RIGHT THERE. If you didn't bother looking at it, who else is the more responsible party for leaving it set? It's not like it set itself (yeah, people claim that it happens, and maybe it does, but that an issue to take up with Linden Lab as a BUG).



I'm sorry; I didn't really mean to come off that way; certain others here have put me in the "bite, then think" mode a bit. I have had to deal personally with people who refuse to take responsibility for stuff in their lives, and do everything they can to make someone else (sometimes me) responsible for their own foibles. Kinda annoys me at times.



I don't think there is any place where you have other people participating where that isn't true. Like it or not, every "community" has those who have no qualms bending you over for a buck. There's no way humanly possible to technically prevent all potential abuses. As such, no one should ever be so naive as to think they have no need to protect themselves.



*shrug* It is not my job to figure out why you are here. If you aren't enjoying yourself, you're doing yourself no favors by staying and paying for unhappiness.



As long as you partake in a shared world with other people, there will be those who share your views, and those who don't. It's just another form of naivety to think otherwise. Besides, no one is forcing you to be here; you don't have to read the forums, or even my messages, if you don't want. You can continue living in and "playing" SL blissfully ignorant of my (or anyone else's) existence.

I was refering to the disclosure section which refers to privacy - which I and Others had refered to just today a handful of posts up. Which is - 5 sentences.



I think ill let the rest of this post -

stand for itself. *yawn*

You cant discriminate agaisnt a computer program.

But you can discriminate against the USER of said computer program. Even bots have users. They don't spontaneously spring into existence on their own.

But don't let the facts get in the way of your little crusade here.

Requiring a user to run his bot accounts calling them bot accounts isnt discriminating againt the user.

It would make a bot tracable. The legitamate ones.

Sure it is. You are creating one set of rules for one set of users and keeping another set of rules for everyone else.

If that's not discrimination, I don't know what else could be.

"Double standard", maybe?

Why, in your mad rush to obtain privacy for everyone, would you require people to reveal how they are using their accounts? What business is it of yours? A "bot" user isn't "less than human", despite your depictions otherwise.

A friend of mine uses a chat bot on his alt account as a test of an IM<->SL chat gateway he has been working on. What business is it of yours (or anyone's) to know how he is using his alt?

Becuase it would allow the regulation of bots - which will become an issue at some point -

There would be nothing stopping a bot user from having a normal Resident account.

We don't need "bot regulation" any more than we need "client regulation". As much as I despise landbots that use exploits in the system, regulation isn't going to detect them, let alone stop them. Closing the exploits will.

As such, let's focus on real solutions, not "feel good" fluff which won't do anything but punish legitimate users.

um whats the "lets", you basically have already stated publicly im completely unreasonable.

Besides the fact that youve stated that this bot is not a problem and neither are other similiar scan type bots coming down the pike - therefore from your stance no solutions are necessary.

So why not say "lets focus on telling people to watch their stuff - there is no problem"?