The strangest IM Conversation to date

So here I am outside the Avalon ballroom, in my purple dress when this guy walks up. He's on a free account, 14 days old. After a few moments, which I'm assuming was when he looked at my profile, he IM's me as follows:

[16:38] ** OTHER AVATAR **: HI SWEET
[16:39] Untameable Wildcat: Hello
[16:39] ** OTHER AVATAR **: HOW ARE U HUH?
[16:40] Untameable Wildcat: good thanks. Yourself?
[16:40] ** OTHER AVATAR **: I CAN LICK YOUR PUSSY IF U WANT
[16:40] ** OTHER AVATAR **: DO U WANT?
[16:40] ** OTHER AVATAR **: please let me lick your pussy
[16:41] ** OTHER AVATAR **: ???
[16:41] ** OTHER AVATAR **: huh
[16:41] Untameable Wildcat: I will switch it on for you
[16:41] ** OTHER AVATAR **: eh?

At this point in the proceedings I changed from my elven avatar in her pretty royal purple ballroom gown and masquerade mask, to my tabby cat avatar resplendent in biker leathers.

[16:41] ** OTHER AVATAR **: wow
[16:42] Untameable Wildcat: There you go... my pussy. Lick away :)
[16:42] ** OTHER AVATAR **: ma vaffanculo.....merda

And strangely enough that's the last I heard from him.

(according to google, his last comment was "Fuck you... shit") - I assure you, the feeling is mutual. Following Linden Labs guidelines I've removed his name before posting the conversation, to assure Vesper Jacobus' anonymity.

The cat is out of the bag

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6638331.stm

Second Life is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child abuse images in the online world.

The investigation follows a report by a German TV news programme which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children.

The police are now trying to identify the Second Life members involved.

Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors.

Unfortunately, they're obviously going about it the wrong way. Integrities name checks, by all account, don't work. One person who attempted to join bud.tv with their second life avatar name, a DOB that was over 21 and a genuine postcode that they obtained with a bit of work from multimap.com and the australian post office site was completely successful, despite the fact that the chances of someone with her second life avatar name living at the address she gave, born on the day she gave was practically nonexistant.

To all intents and purposes, Integrity appears to be a cover for Aristotle, a political database collection company in America. It is looking more and more as if they don't actually have access to all the databases that they claim to, which means that although they may make a claim they can indemnify Linden Labs according to US law - it's a big risk for LL to take. After all, if Integrity is a child-company (no pun about the current situation intended) then the parent company can let it collapse if it gets heavily sued, which means if it does collapse then LL may not have been indemnified after all, and can be sued - it may well collapse itself under such a burden.

Plus, there is a huge resident backlash building about Integrity, mainly because of the details they seek and their ties to a political database company. In a society where a prominant academic can be banned from flying for giving a speech critical to President Bush, there is a strong feeling that Big Brother is trying to get into Second Life, and residents resent this. If Linden Labs start making age verification mandatory, and the information Integrity wants is too intrusive, people will start leaving in huge numbers (assuming they don't just all use their second life avatar names, manufactured DOBs and genuine postcodes in different countries.)

We could well be seeing the last days of Second Life, which would be a real shame. They are in a tentative position legally, and could end up driving their own customer base away trying heavy handed methods of complying with the ever more intrusive and draconian laws that their virtual world touches on. Yes, of COURSE the paedophiles and child abusers were going to come to SL sooner or later, because their is no tracing and Linden Labs try to avoid interfering with residents land. Of COURSE they were going to set their land to entry-restricted by group. This is going to happen when you give people an easy avenue to do what they want. People will take it.

Then along comes your investigative reporter, who has spent a few months infiltrating these organisations, gets himself a group invite and suddenly it's front page news, and everyone is shocked and horrified about how "widespread" it is in SL - when it isn't widespread at all.

There has been no formal response from Linden Labs following the BBC's publication of the story. I will be interested to see what - if anything - they say... and where we go from here.

Wildcat in the news

For those who are interested, I'm on page 30 of the first edition of Metaverse Messenger of 2007 featured in an article about what Linden Labs can do about griefers. There was obviously nowhere near enough space to feature my proposals to deal with the problems, so as promised I'll say more about it here.

Many governments use points for drivers, to decide who has broken the rules to such a degree that they warrant a ban. Why can we not adopt this for Second Life? My points system would work as follows:

• Probation period: Most griefers can now create new free accounts and get straight to griefing. I propose for the first six hours of a residents "life" that the points penalties are automatically doubled.


• The system is based around 10 points. Sanctions begin at 3 points, then 6, then 9 and finally 10. Points lapse at the rate of 2 per hour. Automatic suspensions lapse after 12 hours.


• Residents may "warn" other residents ONCE per twenty four hour period.
  


• In order to "warn" another resident, a resident MUST enter a description of what that warning is for. (if they try to leave it blank, the system asks if they want to abandon the warning). The warning may be set to be a minimum number of characters to eliminate someone putting in a few dots. Warning texts are visible to Linden Labs employees as a right-click option on a resident. Warnings stay on file for two weeks, and may be brought up by Linden Labs employees investigating abnormally high numbers of warnings or suspensions, or reports of consistant abuse.


• Each time a unique resident "warns" another resident, the warned resident's point total increases by one. Probationary residents may not warn other residents until they have been "alive" in Second Life for six hours. (that's six hours online time) - by the time they've been around for six hours they should know enough to judge, and this would effectively eliminate griefers subverting the points system as a tool for griefing.


• After 3 points (three warnings from different residents) the warned resident loses the ability to run scripts. Any scripted items cease working. The resident becomes unable to equip scripted items. Unscripted items such as clothes may be equipped normally. The resident receives a popup notifying them they have 3 points against them, and that they are now being sanctioned.


• After a further 3 points (the resident now has 6 points against them) the resident becomes unable to 'talk' on the general channel. They may IM normally, and be IM'd, but anything they "say" only has a whisper distance, thereby stopping them flooding places like the welcome area. It wouldn't stop them from communicating, anybody standing right next to them will be able to hear them, but it would stop textflooding and textspamming. They receive a further popup warning them of this.


• After a further 3 points (the resident now has 9 points against them) the resident loses the ability to enter or teleport to private land. Access is restricted to Govenor Linden lands; the roads, welcome areas, intro island etc. They receive a popup box telling them that further harassment will result in a temporary removal of service.


• If they should receive a further point, the system boots them immediately with a popup telling them they are suspended for 12 hours. The system will no longer accept login requests from that resident until 12 hours have passed.

There are a number of major advantages to this system that I can think of. Primarily:

• Griefers can't use it themselves. Probationary accounts can't warn. The vast majority of griefing is done by people creating a free account with the express intention of griefing. If they can be warned, but can't warn themselves for the first six hours of the accounts existence, they're gonna get sick of it pretty quick and go elsewhere.


• Linden Labs only need to get involved if someone constantly gets banned, or if there are reports of the system being abused


• The requirement to enter text describing the reason for the warning will allow Linden Employees to quickly spot patterns that may indicate the system is being abused


• Probationers can get sanctioned at 2 warnings and booted at 5, cracking down on those who create accounts purely to grief.

If anyone has any comments, I'd sure like to hear.

Welcome Area Thoughts

There are two main questions that I get asked when I'm standing in the welcome area and have my "I help people - let me know if I can help" tag on. The first of which is "Where can I go to grief?" (although it's never quite put that way - it's always termed 'shoot people/throw bombs/kill people/fight') and the second of which, from those on free accounts, is "How can I get money?"

With regards to the first question, I generally refuse to offer any suggestions. I tell them that Second Life isn't about killing people and blowing things up. Normally they either become abusive (and get reported for it) or just ignore me.

With regards to the second question, I tell people about camping. Camping, for those new to second life, involves going to an area where the owner has set up special scripted chairs. These are normally casinos or clubs. For sitting in the camping chairs you can get paid an average of 3 lindens per 10 minutes. Yes, it's not much - but what do you expect for nothing? If you're on a paid (or 'premium' account) you get pocket money every week; several hundred Lindens - but if you choose a free account, and don't put any "real money in" then you don't get simply given any free in-game currency. You have to earn it or be given it by other residents, or buy it yourself (free accounts can still buy Linden Dollars using a number of different methods, credit or debit cards or even paypal.

The internet is a fascinating place. I think people get to used to having something for nothing, particularly those who've grown up used to being able to download music and films for free. I'm not in favour of banning free accounts in Second Life, but it is important that those who use them recognise they don't have an automatic entitlement to either the free account or to be given in-game currency. It's particularly upsetting to either see people begging in the welcome area, or to get a mouthful of abuse because you won't give people lots of game currency.

Heh... just wanted to kick this blog off gently. Next tuesday I'm in the Metaverse Messenger newspaper having a rant about Support, of which I'll say more in a future post. In the meantime, welcome to my ramblings.