Fifteen Years Ago: The Emeraldgate Scandal

 

Fifteen years ago early this month, Second Life's most popular then was collapsing, and the one that would replace it would be born as a result of it's demise.  In early and mid 2010, the Emerald third-party viewer had been the most popular one. But in August came a Directed Denial Of Service attack that was caused by computers using the viewer at the time, resulting in what came to be known as the Emeraldgate scandal. On September 1, 2010, Team Emerald announced it would soon be folding. Two days later, on September 3, former Emeraldgate member Jessica Lyon announced she had formed a new team and had made a new viewer "from the ashes of Emerald," Team Phoenix and it's Phoenix viewer. 

 

A few years later, the Phoenix viewer would be retired and replaced by the Firestorm viewer, the team having renamed itself Firestorm as well. Over the years, the team has faced a number of challenges large and small. And eventually Jessica would step down from managing on a daily basis. But Team Firestorm continues on. 

For more information, read the 2018 article on the subject, and an interview with then Firestorm team member Tonya Souther.

 

Bixyl Shuftan