News in Brief

There has been quite a bit going on lately in Second Life and the Internet. Too much to go in-depth for all of them, and some have been around for a few days. So here's some of the stories, in brief.

Facebook Hacked: Last weekend, Facebook announced fifty million accounts had been exposed and vulnerable by a "security issue" due to a "vulnerability" in the social media app's code. Although Facebook's owner Mark Zuckerberg insisted the problem was fixed, others such as Virginia Senator Mark Warner called for increased regulation to protect the public's privacy and security.

BBC, Mashable, Mark Warner Twitter

Net Neutrality Lawsuit: The US Federal Government filed suit against California earlier this week over the state's Net Neutrality law. Despite 200 businesses and trade groups asking them not to do so, last December, the FCC voted to scrap Net Neutrality protections. Several states responded by setting up their own net neutrality protections, California's being among the toughest. In the lawsuit, the Justice Department charges California's actions are a violation of the Constitution. In response, one of the people who wrote California's protections charged that the state's law was written in response to the Federal Government abandoning it's obligation to help protect public access to the Internet.

Petition at Change.org , ars.technica, Washington Post , The Verge, 

Internet Throttling Has Begun:  Adding fuel to the fire behind the efforts of California and others trying to bring back Net Neutrality protections was a report written about last month that confirmed major Internet Service Providers were already throttling Internet traffic through Youtube, Netflix, and other places. Verizon is already in trouble for throttling the communications equipment used by California firefighters while they were working to stop wildfires.

The Humanist Report , Bloomberg , The Guardian

Leaving Behind One's Avatars In Their Will:  Blogger Ryan Schultz, who writes about Sansar and other virtual worlds, recently announced that he might have cancer. In response, he says he will be putting avatars he made in his will so they can still be used after he dies. While people interested can contact him inworld, he doesn't plan on leaving avatars that took a lot of time, sometimes money, to make to just anyone. (first update) (second update) (third update)

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au

Star Trek RP Worries: A virtual recreation of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation was ordered taken down by lawyers from CBS, prompting worries from New World Notes' Hamlet Au that they might go after Star Trek roleplays in Second Life soon as well, despite an agreement several years ago.

Eurogamer, New World Notes, 

Second Life Sims Still Growing: In late August, the Newser noted that five of the past seven weeks then had seen an increase in the number of private sims. According to Tyche Shepard in Sept 23, the increases have been continuing "an additional 45 regions since 31st Dec 2017 , a 0.3% growth and overall the Total Grid has regrown to the the size it was in April last year." But a week later, he stated five sims had closed, bringing the growth back down to 40 sims and 0.2% .

Source: Virtualverse  Hat Tip: Daniel Voyager

Gossip/Slam Blog Owners Banned: New World Notes reported a couple weeks ago about the owners of a blog called "SL Secrets." The blog allowed anonymous users to make all kinds of claims about those they didn't like from copybotting to fat-shamming to catfishing to ageplay. From the point of view of content creators, it was a potential cause of lost revenue through charges of ripping off others in which the accuser would be completely unknown. The two co-owners were reported to have been banned by Linden Lab from Second Life citing violations for several sections, including 5.3 which Hamlet Au called "the nuclear option," stating, "We may terminate your Account if we determine in our discretion that such action is necessary or advisable to ... protect the rights or interests of Linden Lab, the Service community or any third party." More recently, the owners have decided to remake their blog to cover territory beyond Second Life, called "Virtual Secrets." The co-owners insist they're doing so to expand their coverage and not because of a lawsuit by Linden Lab to remove the "SL" part of their name.

Source: New World Notes

New Avatar Review Website. Some fans of furry avatars may remember "Second Life Avatar Review Files," or SLARF. It used to have a large database of reviews of furry avatars, but stopped updating in 2015, and is now accessible in the Internet Archive after being taken down from the net. Blau Rascon is now doing a new blog of avatar reviews: The "Second Life Avatar Index." Already, there are several reviews of recent furry and feral avatars.

Net Neutrality Scheduled to End June 11

By Bixyl Shuftan

On December 14 2017, the Federal Communications Commission voted to end it's protection of Net Neutrality. The decision came despite numerous advocacy groups, over 200 businesses and trade groups, as well as skepticism of the public at large. Among the corporations calling for it's continuation is Linden Lab, whose founder Philip Rosedale predicted "especially negative" consequences as Internet providers could easily introduce bandwith caps and by-the-megabyte billing.

The new rules did not go in effect right away  They had to be posted to the Federal register first. For some reason, this had not been done for over four months, provoking guesses as to why. But on Thursday May 10, the FCC stated in a notice that thirty days after the following day, or June 11, the new rules doing away with the Net Neutrality protections would begin. "These unnecessary and harmful internet regulations will be repealed," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stated.

So what happens next? There is a bill in Congress being pushed that if passed would require the FCC to keep the current protections. But while it needs only one more Senator to support it, it faces an uphill battle in the House. In the courts, more than twenty states have also filed suit to stop the FCC from repealing the present-day rules. Several states, including California and New York, are considering legislation enforcing Net Neutrality within their boundaries. But a spokesman for the FCC states such legislation would be illegal and would be challenged in court.

Gigi Sohn, an advisor to a former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler, commented that net neutrality's future will probably "stay murky" through the rest of the year.

Because of the importance of the issue of Net Neutrality, the Second Life Newser declared FCC Chairman Ajit Pai as it's "Man of the Year" for 2017 as we felt the potential harm of the disposal of these new regulations to Second Life outweighed the accomplishments of any one group of residents or any one accomplishment of Linden Lab.

Sources: CNN, Motherboard

Image Credit: Lanai Jarrico

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: FCC Votes to Scrap Net Neutrality Protection

By Bixyl Shuftan

No, the Internet isn't dead. But things will almost certainly be getting more difficult and complicated for many of us.

Yesterday on December 14, in a 3-2 decision, the Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal the rules it passed to enforce Net Neutrality.  Outside, the building, protestors called on the Commission to maintain the rules, and the proceedings were briefly interrupted by a bomb threat. The vote came despite calls to maintain the rules by Congressmen and women of both political parties, tech companies and other businesses, and thousands of individuals. Jessica Rosenworcel (D), one of the two dissenting votes, called the decision a “rash decision ... on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the law, and the wrong side of the American public. ... This is not good ... Not good for consumers. Not good for businesses. Not good for anyone who connects and creates online.” 

So what happens next? The attorney generals of several states have indicated they will or will likely sue to the FCC to reverse it's decision. It's probably the number will grow as nineteen state attorney generals appealed to the FCC to delay it's Net Neutrality ruling due to the huge numbers of online requests to repeal it being made with stolen identities. In the meantime, the FCC will be making final adjustments to the new rules, or the absence of, which will likely take a few weeks, and will take a few months to be official after being filed on the Federal register. After that, while Internet Service Providers will be free to throttle Internet access to all but favored customers, slow down or block access to websites and services of rival companies, or impose limits on broadband use that would result in huge fees or disconnection of exceeded. "The Verge" suggested for most customers, rather than obvious restrictions, they will see more subtle moves by ISPs to get a little more money from them, "that may initially sound good. But in the long run, they disadvantage upstarts that don’t have the money to pay up. ... we may not know what products and services we missed out on because they never made it through the mess." Philp Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab, was more worried that ISPs would be fairly likely to impose limits on broadband use.

It's possible Congress may pass laws of it's own to restore Net Neutrality protections. Wired reported that, "Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota) recently called for Congress to pass bipartisan net neutrality legislation. In 2015, Thune and Representative Fred Upton (R-Michigan) introduced a bill that would have banned blocking or slowing legal content, but limited the FCC's authority over internet service providers." While neither efforts got much of anywhere at the time, after the FCC's decision, there may be more of a sense of urgency, as well as a desire to calm down the voters whom emailed them about the issue.



So what does Ajit Pai, the Chairman of the FCC who wrote the proposal to dismantle Net neutrality think of the criticism? He responded to it with this video. a semi-subtle slam at the critics in which he grins at the audience while telling them of "7 Things You Can Still Do On The Internet After Net Neutrality." It's notable in the "Game of Thrones" clip the dragon flies right over Pai, and in the "Star Wars" reference he wears a dark outfit while wielding a lightsaber. Pai would almost certainly know that opens himself up to people doing videos of the dragon catching and eating him or Star Wars parodies of him being the new Dark Lord of the Sith. Maybe he thinks it's funny, feels it gives his critics something to hate besides the overturning of Net Neutrality protections, or both.

Hopefully the protections Net Neutrality once had will be restored soon.

Sources: BBC,  Ars Technica, The Verge, Wired, Av Club 

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Lab Issues Statement Supporting Net Neutrality

Net Neutrality has become an issue in recent weeks when the Chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, released a report calling for the repeal of laws protecting it. The result was numerous protests from individuals. But corporations and organizations have also joined the fight calling for Net Neutrality's continued protection. On Tuesday December 12, Linden Lab joined the number of businesses in it's support.

We at Linden Lab believe that net neutrality is extremely important. Lifting the FCC’s Open Internet Rules would not only jeopardize the experience of Residents using Second Life, but can also negatively impact all aspects of our online lives.

 

Later this week, Congress will vote on this issue, and we encourage Second Life residents to join us in calling on our representatives to preserve net neutrality. 

To that end, we have joined the “Break the Internet” initiative, and if you visit SecondLife.com or login to Second Life today, you’ll notice a pop-up tool (snapshot below) that makes it easy to send a message in support of net neutrality. Of course, if you’d prefer not to use this, you can simply close the pop-up and login as usual, but we hope you’ll consider adding your voice to this important issue.

"Break the Internet" is a page that offers a number of ways to protest the move to remove Net Neutrality, from calling local representatives and senators, to spreading awareness, such as the following video.

More on Net Neutrality: Over 200 Businesses Sign Letter of Support, Philip Rosedale Predicts "Especially Negative" Consequences

By Bixyl Shuftan

Earlier, the Newser wrote about the plans of the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai to dismantle regulations protecting Net Neutrality. To the ordinary Internet user, it may seem like a David and Goliath style struggle of thousands of little guys like him versus huge corporations. As it turns out, the little guys have some big guys on their side. On November 27, also known as "Cyber Monday," one of the biggest days of shopping online in the year, over 200 online businesses and trade groups signed their names to a letter to the FCC asking them to scrap Pai's call to end Net Neutrality protections. Among those on the list were Pinterest, Reddit, Tumbir, Twitter, and Vimeo.

Because of the open internet, a web developer can launch a business out of their own apartment, an aspiring fashion designer in Wyoming can sell clothes in Los Angeles, or a caterer can find new customers in their town. Because of net neutrality, consumers and businesses have unfettered access to one another, increasing competition and consumer choice.

Without these rules, internet service providers will be able to favor certain websites and e-businesses, or the platforms they use to garner new customers, over others by putting the ones that can pay in fast lanes and slowing down or even blocking others. Businesses may have to pay a toll just to reach customers. This would put small and medium-sized businesses at a disadvantage and prevent innovative new ones from even getting off the ground. An internet without net neutrality protections would be the opposite of the open market, with a few powerful cable and phone companies picking winners and losers instead of consumers.

And what would the repeal of Net Neutrality mean for Second Life? According to Philip Rosedale, the founder of Linden Lab, it would be very bad. In a post on Twitter, Rosedale reminded everyone that for many users of the Internet, where they live there's only one Internet provider, especially for high-speed Internet.

Many Americans have only one internet provider. Removing the requirement for net neutrality would allow their opinions to be biased by the provider. Unbiased information will become a privilege of the rich. This is against everything we stand for as a country.

Talking to Hamlet Au of New World Notes, Rosedale explained more, "The end of net neutrality would be especially negative for high bandwidth services like SL and High Fidelity that are delivered by less powerful companies. I would not be surprised to see providers with no competition simply re-introduce by-the-megabyte billing for 'non-premium' services, taking us all the way back to the stone age of AOL and other early online services."

Second Life can be quite a "bandwith hog," to quote the starter of a 2007 thread from the SL Universe forums in which one person stated his Internet plan's bandwidth allowance for a month only covered slightly more than three days of use. With this in mind, it's fair to say the end of Net Neutrality would strongly affect a number of core residents. For users who spend a lot of time here whose Internet provider ends up putting a strict bandwidth limit with high charges for going over,  this would mean paying more, perhaps significantly more, for a higher level of use, or severely cutting their time here.

On another note, an article by the Washington Post reported that "hundreds of thousands" of emails to the FCC about Net Neutrality were likely fake. An article in Hackernoon stated that there were more than a million fake messages to them calling for the repeal of Net Neutrality, concluding that only three to four percent of the total of comments they had received were probably real.

Sources: The Verge, New World Notes, Twitter, Ars Technica, SL Universe, Washington Post, Hackernoon

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Net Neutrality at Risk

The issue of "Net Neutrality," the idea that Internet Service Providers treat all data the same and not intentionally restrict it for the purpose of making money, came into the news recently when Chairman Ajit Pai of the Federal Communications Commission released a plan that calls for the dismantling of laws protecting it. Pai called current laws "heavy-handed Internet regulations." But the response has been a number of protests from ordinary Americans to columnists and more. Among them is Mark Fischback, better known as "Markiplier." Usually, he does gaming review videos. But he did one asking people to move to protect Net Neutrality.



It's difficult to see how the end of Net Neutrality would help anyone but the big telecom industries, who would then be able to choke people's Internet access in order to make more money to themselves. They could deliberately slow access to all but designated "fast lanes" that they would charge more for. They could deny access to certain platforms, such as Skype and Discord, in order to steer people to using their own. They could slow down, or even deny access to certain games and websites.

Looking back, there is evidence they would do just that. In 2011, MetroPCS moved to charge different rates for Internet access. In 2012, AT&T moved to block Apple's application Facetime from it's users who didn't pay for an expensive plan. In 2013, Verizon went to court to repeal Net Neutrality regulations at the time, saying they had the right to treat traffic unevenly.

This is more than just slowing down movie and video downloads and making some online first person shooters unplayable to certain users. The free flow of data that Internet Neutrality provides allows for small online businesses and entrepreneurs to start up easier while a "throttled" Internet could choke off these new companies before they start.

What to do? One can write their Congressman and/or Senator. There are also petitions one can sign, sign as the one at petitions.whitehouse.gov/, and change.org.

Hopefully, the proposed dismantling will itself be dismantled.

Sources: Popular Mechanics, Wikipedia, New York Times, The Verge, Gigaom, 9to5Mac, change.org, whitehouse.gov

Bixyl Shuftan  

Commentary: Support Open Internet Rules: Net Neutrality and What It Means

By Lanai Jarrico

On April 26^th, 2017, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a plan to undo the 2015 rules that implemented net neutrality by reclassify internet service providers as common carriers and reversing Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 in favor of paid prioritizing.  

This plan will be voted on by the FCC - May 18^, 2017.

What is Title II & Net Neutrality?

 

Net Neutrality is essentially the pipeline via the internet, meaning your cable internet, LTE wireless (phone) internet or however you are receiving information via the internet. 

 

Internet providers are not allowed to arbitrarily choose favorites in terms of the content that you consume.  For example, if you like to use a particular search engine and your roommate or family members’ likes to use others competing search engines.  A search engine they use could have the power to pay your internet service provider to choose what you use.

 

Internet companies should not have the right to pay your internet provider to slow down their competitor search engines and choose which ones run faster.

Title II net neutrality prevents Internet Service providers (ISPs) from limiting or manipulating the choices you make online. It also creates a level playing field so that larger companies cannot undermine small companies before they can grow and expand.

 What does it mean for internet users like you if internet neutrality is not enforced?

It means that you basically will have no control over your internet due to your provider choosing favorites because they are getting paid more by one competitor over another. For example in terms of a virtual world resident, if you like gaming on your favorite platform *coughs* Second Life *cough* and another virtual platform that may not offer the same options you like pays your provider more. It will slow down (LAG) your choice and give faster service via an internet fast lanes on the other competing platform. *GASPS*

If it matters to you to have open internet freedom, the FCC is taking public comments and will write rules to either reinstate open internet or damage our internet freedom.

  Go to www.gofccyourself.com and be part of restoring internet freedom and the unfair targeting of small starts ups. It is a direct link to the FCC proceedings page. Under 17-108 “Restoring Internet Freedom”, select express and fill out the form.  

 

Comment directly to Ajit Pai, the chairman of the FCC that you specifically support strong net neutrality backed by Title II oversight of Internet service providers.

Everyone who has a following such as a blog, social media outlet or any other way to spread the word should get involved in this movement and share this post!!

May 18^th is fast approaching!

To everyone who believes in and participates in net neutrality, thank you for supporting open internet freedom.

Lanai Jarrico
Title II: Communications Act of 1934 http://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/1934new.pdf

 

Reprinted with permission from the Second Life Enquirer

SL Video: "The Drax Files - Avatars for Net Neutrality!"

(Click Here if the video fails to load)

Lately the issue of net neutrality has been heating up again, with the idea of access to the Internet as a level playing field at stake. Draxtor Despress did this Second Life video on the subject, "While we might not be able to get rid of all lag in Second Life we most certainly should raise our voice in the battle for the net. So: residents [also the ones outside of the US] please visit http://www.battleforthenet.com and fight the good fight!"

Net Neutrality Under Threat: Court Ruling Opens Possibility of Paying More or Slower Internet

By Bixyl Shuftan

For years, the prinicple of "Net Neutrality," that Internet Service Providers and governments should treat all data on the Internet equaly has governed how people go about online. People can download all information at an equal rate of speed instead of being offered different tiers of speed for different fees. But recently, there was a court decision that means trouble for supporters of this policy.

In 2010, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) enacted a set of rules based on the Net Neutrality idea. But on Tuesday January 14, a US Federal appeals court ruled that the FCC had no legal authority to enforce them (link). The court stated while the government can oversee crucial services like telephones and electric power, the Internet isn't a crucial service. The FCC is expected to appeal the ruling.

The ruling opens the way for Internet Service providers to start charging customers more of they want to continue to download and surf at the speed they've been using. For those who don't pay more, the company could slow down their service. Consumers could also pay more as media sites like Netflix are charged more for using lots of bandwith, and they react by passing their costs down to their customers. Gamers could find themselves tacked with a "bandwith charge."

So why not switch to an Internet Service provider that isn't charging more? For many consumers in the US, that isn't an option. Unlike say Britian where people have a choice between a dozen or so Internet service providers, many places in the United States operate under a monopoly by a single ISP.

Financial talk show host Clark Howard compared the situation to the toll roads in early 19th Century America. People complained loudly over the fees charged, and eventually the tolls were lifted. He felt it would be much the same if Internet fees were to go up as a result of the ruling. Chatting with Valkyre McGill in Second Life, whom in the past wrote for Acceler8or magazine, felt any "nickel and diming to death" from excessive charges by Internet Service Providers would be met with new encryption, and other technologies that would allow users to get around "the current centralized web model" and make the ISPs less relevant than they used to be.

Sources: CNN, CNN Money, BBC, Clark Howard, Forbes,  Acceler8tor,

Bixyl Shuftan