Chat Bug Detector

Can anyone please help me with this one? I've seen products that can detect and mark a chat bug so I know it's possible. However, I'm usually pretty full on attachments so I'd like to make my own script that I can drop into an existing attachment. I've searched high and low on the forum but can't find any information about it.

My investigations seem to indicate it uses a combination of sensor scan for active object and then checking to see if the object is a "zero mass" object. I'm not sure how to create a zero mass object or check for one.

My thinking on this is that it would create a lot of false positives if you didn't do both checks but also miss a lot if you did. Any help on the topic would be greatly appreciated.

There's nothing special about an object that is a chat bug. It could be a tiny, invisible, "zero-mass" (whatever that is) prim, or it could be inside of a wall or chair, or anything.

For most things, if you own the land, just use your About Land dialog to search for questionable objects/prims and return them. Make your land no-build, and no-object entry, and also no-script. Have your conversation. Feel pretty secure in the knowledge that you probably aren't being bugged.

There's no guarantee, of course, and even less of one with a script.

So from what I have just read, there is a thing that can bug your chat's?
What ever you type someone else will get it recorded?

Yes, and it's super easy to do. However, I'm pretty sure IM's are safe, so there's your protection from bugs.

Unless you're discussing super secret stuff and you have reason to believe someone would spy on you, why would somebody bug your place?

Well in my case I own a club and it's really inconvenient to disable object entry and scripts. Some guests like to use their own dance huds and others like to use the type of poofers that need object entry. As to why someone might want to bug the club, well there's lots of competition and some club owners are not above bugging a competitor for ideas and names of people they'd like to poach.

As I understand it, they use llSensorRepeat to find scripted ("active" objects, then llGetBoundingBox to see how big they are, and if they're zero or tiny size report them as potential bugs. There is unfortunately no way in script to see if the other script is actually a listening script, or not.

One can set auto-return to 1 minute, though it isn't that hard to make a chat bug which respawns more frequently than that and thus is proof from that measure.

Apart from that, and turning scripts off, and banning people who are likely to be dropping chat bugs or recording chat... there isn't anything. But then, well, it's only chat in a club, really; how much sensitive information is anyone going to be able to get?

Just two rules to remember to make life easier for the paranoid:

1)Never, ever have senstive conversations in chat. Don't try using some tool to switch to a different channel either, it can still be snooped. The only secure means of communication is using IMs.

2)Never, ever do anything that you don't want other people to see unless you own a private island and you and the other party/parties are the only ones anywhere on the island. Anyone can uncouple thier camera and see as far as thier video card will allow. In other words; people can see you from 500+ meters away and you will never know that they are looking.

Thanks for all the practical advice. I did actually know all those great hints. I'm not normally worried about it but there was a time not too long ago I discovered one because a guest had on of those chat bug detectors that rezes a marker over the bug. While I'm not hiding anything the idea that someone would place a bug miffs me so I'd like to be able to detect them myself.

However, as I said in the opening post, most of my attachment points are usually in use. We women love our outfit attachments . Also since I've become fairly good at routine LSL tasks I thought I'd like to try making one and just needed some advice on how to proceed. Thanks Yumi, your reply was helpful in getting started. If any other scripters out there know how it's done and could help me out I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

Mystitool uses the term "bugs", but in fact it reports all scripted objects it can find, regardless of size, and subject only to the limits of at most 96m and at most 16 objects found.

I've found some decent chat bug scanners which seem to work well, but as to reverse-engineering them so you can integrate into an existing attachment--why not contact one of those creators, and hire them to do that for you? I'd think they wouldn't charge much, and you'd then have a working scanner that doesn't require extra leg work.

They do have some false-positives, as noted in this thread; some poseballs or any script which listens on channel 0, I believe, will be picked up and marked as a possible chat bug.

Best solution, I still think, is just to turn rezzing off though that means an inconvenience for users. It will also cut down on griefers' options, another security concern for something like a club.