Fancy a new viewer?

It hasn't taken long for the open source community to rip the Second Life viewer to bits and learn how to modify or even delete the bits they don't want.

Nowhere is this more evident than the BDSM community. Marine Kelley's new viewer is a variant that works with scripts available for free from her shop, designed to compliment her existing range of, erm, toys. The viewer reacts to the scripts by removing items from the menus and pie menu that appear when you right click the avatar. It's aimed at "hardcore" BDSM players (though how you can be hardcore when it's your pixellated avatar that's getting the whipping, not you) who want that little bit more realism. Drop the script into a ballgag, and you can't speak through that ballgag on the open channel. Not 'can't speak by mistake', but viewer-enforced can't speak at all. Drop the script in a set of cuffs or other restraints, and the "detach from avatar" options all vanish. If you get locked in, you're locked in, and you can't get out from this viewer.

It's an interesting new development, certainly far from anything Phillip Rosendale ever dreamed, and I can see similar developments coming in the not too distant future. Just today the furry community was polling its membership about disabling scripting and building to anyone outside their group; the next logical development from that might be a viewer that has an identification string that an in-world item can ask for, and sends home anyone that doesn't have the FurLife Viewer. I can see it coming, and it wouldn't be too hard to do.

Of course, this makes a mockery of age verification, since viewers will be able to ignore parcel flags, which makes you wonder why Linden Labs are still talking to Integrity at all. More ominously groups might be able to use it to keep themselves underground and away from the prying eyes of law enforcement, but that's technology for you.

The pandora's box of Open Source Second Life has been opened. I wait with interest to see what it lets out!

Prokovy goes off on one again

It's been interesting from time to time to see what recognized antagonizer Prokovy Neva thinks of various things going on in Second Life, but even I was surprised by her rant about the Agelock system I talked about in my last blog entry.

His [Benjamin Sycophanske, a favourite ranting target] latest gushing excess is of a new ugly and vicious system called AGELOCK. I'm not surprised that this awful new invention on the SL landscape comes from Allana Dion and Jamie David, as we know from long, long exposure to their manipulations, power-plays, and shenanigans on the old official LL forums, Second Citizen, and on this blog, that they are hugely aggressive and persistent.

When I spoke to Jamie David initially about Agelock, he seemed pretty proud of it but definately didn't come across to me as 'aggressive'

So a list of adult consumers with their avatar names and RL birthdates will be in the hands of one of the most aggressive and persistently nasty BDSM types in Second Life. Maybe the BDSM community won't care -- they like abuse, and maybe even this kind of RL abuse of their privacy. But as it spreads, and begins to be used by any club, or any rental, or anybody who just wants to be free from the plague of kids harassing and griefing you, it could become the device of choice, as it advertises being "better" than Integrity by not taking your RL name and drivers' license or Social Security number.

Hey, give me Integrity *any day of the week*. They are a real-life registered company with a business reputation and a bottom line to fulfill and a board of trustees. If I fear they've abused my trust in taking my info, I can protest -- with lawyers, by getting Congress involved, by getting the media on it. I can't do that with these anonymous avatars in Second Life!

And this seems to be the crux of the matter. What the extremely long rant boils down to are two essential points:

1. Nobody should touch this because it doesn't have the official "Prokovy Neva seal of approval" - mainly because she doesn't seem to like the authors, rather that whether the idea of the agelock system has merit or not.

2. Because Prokovy Neva trusts Integrity/Aristotle, so should everyone else.

With the latter part of her comment, I actually laughed when I read the part about complaining to congress. Integrity/Aristotle provide detailed information to congress, why the hell would they take any notice of someone's complaints?

Let's take this extreme example of how the information that Integrity collects could be harmful in the real world, and I have SPECIFICALLY steered clear of politics in this so that Prokovy has no excuse to label me a "lefty".

Let's says that I've given my detailed information to Integrity for age verification. They put it all on their database. But let's face it, Integrity is a data mining company - that's what they do, that's how they earn their money. So without telling me, what's to stop them also collecting information from second life that would be freely available, such as the groups that I'm in.

So for arguments sake let's say they do that, and find that I'm a member of a BDSM group in SL. That information then also goes down not only against my avatar name, but against my real life name.

Now in this little fictitious scenario, a BDSM hack magazine comes to Integrity hoping to drum up business, and buys a list of people who are members of BDSM groups. Shortly afterwards, editors are found to be peddling paedophilia, the place is raided by the police and FBI and gets shut down. In the raid their computers get confiscated, and subsequently datasearched. Now the legitimate law enforcement agencies find my RL details on the computers and suddenly I'm a suspect. Not only that but when I try to get a job that requires a background check, this gets flagged up and I'm turned down, and I don't even know the reason why.

Now, in this case the law enforcement agencies have got hold of my details doing their legitimate work - but those details should never have been there. I didn't give Integrity permission to resell those details, or our fictitious magazine permission to buy and use them. ALL of that happened behind my back.

And this is my main sticking point with the Integrity/Aristotle scenario. I agree with Prokovy to a point, that the government wouldn't need to buy that information off me because they already have access to it, but it's not the government I'm worried about. This is the flaw in Prokovy's main argument, because she claims this as a reason Integrity should be trusted. It's Integrity selling my details to anyone who comes up with the right amount of cash that is the major concern, not whether the government gives a crap about the details (because chances are, they don't).

Which is why alternatives need to be found. I've already said I don't think Linden Labs will go for this, but we do need some viable alternatives if we're going to stop them using Integrity. And I'd far prefer if the proverbial genie gets out of the bottle, all a company being able to harvest is "Untameable Wildcat claims she's over 18 and claims this as her birthdate" than detailed information that also contains RL details being available to the highest bidder.

Age Verification - The Residents Strike Back

Walking around SL earlier on I was given an item by an anti age-verification group I'm a member in. The item is called Agelock, and it works by combining a security orb type script with an offsite reference script.

Visitors to land with Agelock running on it will have their names scanned against a database Agelock keep, which contains just three pieces of information about an avatar. Their name, their date of birth and the magical checkbox they've agreed to check that says "Yes, I'm over 18." If they refuse to give this information, they'll be asked to leave. If they haven't left within two minutes the security orb part of the script will cut in and eject them using the teleport home option.

This again shifts responsibility to the individual avatar, rather than the land owner, and asks for nothing more than the same kind of "good faith" agreement that has been held binding for viewing adult content sites on the web.

As such, I think it's a good idea. I also think that Linden Labs won't go for it. Or at least won't abandon their own plans to use Aristotle/Integrity for age verification.

And I do still have a real issue with Aristotle/Integrity. For a start, I can see a million ways I could cheat the system. I hold a photocard license within Canada, but because of a change of address I actually have two licenses. And when they changed my address they failed to put the correct information on the new address, but since misaddressed mail gets put on the windowsill in my apartment block to be sent back in bulk by management, I still picked up the new license even though the details on it are wrong.

According to their site, the information required in Canada is first name, last name, date of birth, postcode and telephone number. Well, let's see now. I can go out to a store, buy a prepay phone and give false details to activate it, so that's no proof. I can make up a first name and last name, so that's no proof, and as long as my DOB is convincing how do they check it? As well, since I recently moved and could quite easily use my old postcode (even assuming I didn't use the net to look up a valid postcode and use that) so those details could be false too.

Which essentially leaves them with the checkbox that I effectively ticked when I agreed that yes, I was over 18 so they could go ahead and verify me. All the other details might be false. What kid do YOU know that can't worm that information out of an adult given the opportunity?

What I AM providing with the Aristotle/Integrity method is statistics for them to sell to political entities, who could use them anyway they damn well please. All I'm effectively doing for Linden Labs is allowing someone else to say "She's telling the truth" - which itself, to me, implies that Linden Labs by default will assume I'm a liar, this despite the fact that they have my credit card information and have successfully billed it in the past.

There is effectively no difference in the information Agelock is asking and the information Aristotle is asking, except Aristotle ask for much more information and advertise that they collect this specifically to sell to political entities. I would be extremely surprised if with my recent immigration and the chaos that the lost paperwork entailed, Aristotle/Integrity could get a perfect answer on me... but I'm certainly not willing to give them an opportunity to then sell that information to the highest political bidder.

To close, let me link a video that is actually published by Integrity for the purposes of drumming up business selling the information they are planning to use Linden Labs to collect. It's quite frightening just how much they are prepared to pimp out the information they get.

Agelock is a nice system, but I can't see LL using it. Integrity is not. Judge for yourself if you think your information is safe with them.

Still alive / pet peeves

Yes, sorry about that folks, but I'm still here.

And I finally got my email working again. You can email me at my first name @ e-c-t.ca - there, spammers, try and work THAT one out! This does mean, of course, that you NEED my first name to send me email... but then those that know me, know what it is.

I was talking to someone in SL earlier on today, and they asked me my one biggest peeve about other people in SL. I had to think about it for a time, but I did find something jumped out and hit me.

As those of you who know me realise, I am a roleplayer. I consider myself a good one, too. Which made me thought of something that always makes me role my eyes. I've never understood it.

Why some roleplayers seem to NEVER use the /me command.

MSN has it. Second Life has it. Hell, even the parlour chatroom has it. Most IM'ers use it without a second thought, especially if they've used IRC at all. I use it all the time, finding that it adds more (IMHO) to a roleplaying scene to see "Untameable Wildcat looks surprised" Than "Name: I look surprised" To me, that breaks the realism of the scene. When I'm on SL I like to some extend to BE Untameable Wildcat. She's a reflection of my Geminiic personality and therefore fun to play... so why - and this seems especially true for guys who want sex - do people lack the ability to use the /me command?

In the old days of paper and pencil roleplay, admittedly one had to use the first person when they spoke to the GM about their character - but this is the internet, it's kind of more advanced... surely if you can work out how to sit on a poseball, you can work out how to use the /me command and talk in the third person. It ain't rocket science. Being able to pose realistically in text, not just with poseballs should be a fundamental part of good roleplaying. You should master it if you're going to call yourself a roleplayer. Not doing so is my pet peeve of the month.