Bible spam?

Something very strange is happening on my island right now. A long bizarre biblical quotation occasionally appears in my chat window. It's green, so it's coming from an object. But there are no foreign objects in my 'Refresh list' list. Nothing under the surface patch, either.

It starts "VoG: Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate."Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. ... etc.

VoG is, of course, Voice of God. I think I have muted it successfully, but where the hell is the object??

Have you done all the Object Searches available to you? Have you Looked Underneath your land? Have you checked "Highlight invisible objects" under View? Have you tried Scanners like "Scan-Foo"? Have you set your land to Auto-return for any objects you and your group didn't place? have you examined all the objects you have purchased, and placed on your property since shortly before the first message to see if any of them have hidden scripts? Have you tried disabling scripts?
It helps if we know Fully what steps you have already Taken, that way we would know better how to advise you.

Angel.

If it's your island you should be able to pinpoint it with the debug tools.

World - Region/Estate - Debug tab, get top scripts, then in the 'script name' field type in the VoG and then click the filter button... you might need to hit refresh, I can't remember.

But that should give you the location and ownership of every object in the region with that name.

-Atashi

If an object IMs you doesnt it appear as green spam?

All they would need is your Avatar key?

Im sure someone knows the answer to that.

Ah good point Colette. In that case, if you get your IMs forwarded to email, if it tries to IM you while you're offline you'll get an email which contains the object's location - Region and coordinates - as well as who owns it, I believe.

-Atashi

It's in chat, not IM.

If it's set to spam IM, then it's probably not a targeted one, so no emails

Sadly, the only way to handle this is through the estate tools. Just remember to ban the person who left it!

When an Object IMs you I think you get it in your regular chat though.

How could an object send a non-targeted IM? For an object to send an IM it has to have your avatar's UUID / key, it can only send an IM if it has your key. It can't just send random IMs. I have objects that IM me and if I'm offline I get an email that includes the region, coordinates, and (I think) the owner (me).

Whether an object is chatting or IMing, it will appear in your chat window and be the same colour. Object IMs do not appear in your IM window because you cannot IM them back, but it is still an IM.

-Atashi

The Jesuits are greifing as apart of there Missionary Work Positions.

Yes Im assuming the object has the UUID key

which is easy to get.

I have a scanner that gives me everyone's UUID within 96 (or 64) meters when I click it. I used it at a club I helped manage it just collects dust in inventory now.

But it would be a simple matter for a would be spammer to fly around collect UUID's

Isn't there an object that could be set to detect a person in range, scan for the UUID, and then send an IM? I thought that I'd encountered this kind of thing before, but I'm not a scripter, so.. *shrug* I'd take me with a grain of salt on it.

I have vendors that are set to IM me specifically when an object sells and that goes to my email, too. I also have vendors that are set up to IM the person using them, so I'd assume it could be possible.

Ok now I understand what you mean - in other words it's just IMing whomever happens to be in its range, so it would probably not IM the OP when they're offline. Yes this is possible too.

But, all of these scenarios are solvable. If the spam is in chat, or the object is only IMing the OP when in range, then the object can be found by using either a scanning script/scanning object, or by using the estate tools as I described above.

On the other hand if the object is located in some other random region in SL, then the estate tools and scanning scripts won't help. But, the object might still IM the OP when they're offline, in which case the im to email would allow the OP to find out where the object is and who owns it.

-Atashi

Why don't you just accept that it is simply the Voice of God?

The Gods speak in a different chat colour. Sort of yellow/gold like lightning.

Or maybe that's not till the 1.19 version, I forget.



-Atashi

If it's in Chat, then you will only receive it If you are within 20 to 30 meters of the object (Unless it is shouting, then it will be within 100 meters of you) That would narrow your Search area Immeasurably, and with help from another person, you can "feel" your way closer to the object. Another thing that could make it hard to find is if it is a Micro-Prim. One Smaller than the .01 meter size. when talking about scripts, the size of the prim doesn't matter, it's what you can do with it.

Nice to see people have lost interest in the Goreans, the Furries, The Child Avs, and the Gamblers. There's a NEW Target in Town

Angel.

...and God is on your island - that means get it for sale on ebay fast, before He leaves.

Well if they have the Key ...

the script could wait till they were online ..

No foreign objects on the island, small or large!

A friend just told me he has heard of a relatively new griefer attack called Voice of God. Sounds like the same thing, although I don't have any enemies that I know of!

Distance doesn't affect it, as long as I'm within the sim I get the chat message. I'm now trying to detach all my attachments, one at a time, to see if that makes it stop.

It could be worse. The Voice of God could actually be using Voice. *And sound like a 14 year old, living in his Mother's Manger.*

Ok, If distance doesn't affect it, then it can't be in Chat, it's on an IM Channel. Now, How Often do you receive the Message, are You the only one who receives it, and what Objects have you received either by gift, or purchase that you have placed on the Sim shortly before receiving the first message? If the Script is hidden Inside an object you purchased then of course, the Object is yours, and it won't show up on Search.

Angel.

You're saying it only happens to you while you're on your island, right?

Abuse report is good in this case, I think. They have the power to look into it and see what's been going on. And if they're just going through a list of keys and spamming them, it's a global attack.

Thanks to everyone for your ideas and assistance. It remains a mystery, but at least I can mute the object so that it feels like the problem goes away.

I still think it's a chat message rather than IM, and I further think that the thing creating the problem (1) is an object, because muting the 'object' blocks the message; (2) is attached to me so distance wouldn't be an issue in chat, and (3) belongs to me (!) so it wouldn't come up on the list of foreign objects.

Why do people do these things? What a waste of time!

Thanks again for everyone's help.

It's strange that it happens only in one sim, though. If it's attached to you, it would be extra work for the script to check what region it's in (though of course it could). My guess would be it's a script in an object owned by the OP, rezzed in the sim, checking for presence with llGetAgentInfo(), which only finds the avatar if it's in the same sim.

Muting is a good work-around, though of course the script is still running on the sim, causing some miniscule amount of lag. (Well, until it enters that "Rez Replicas of Religious Relics" script state. )

David Icke hasn't signed up for Second Life yet.