Update on the Sansar Layoffs

Yesterday, the Newser reported on a number of layoffs in the Sansar team that included Kona Linden whom had been with Linden Lab for close to 16 years. While CEO Ebbe Altberg made a short statement in Sansar's Discord channel, there wasn't anything else from the Lab at the time. Yesterday afternoon, the Lab posted the following on the official blog.

There’ve been quite a few rumors about changes at the Lab and their possible effects on Second Life and Tilia. The truth is that we have made a few operational and personnel changes to ensure that we continue to stay strong for the next decade and beyond. This means that we had to say goodbye to a few employees, but at the same time we also strengthened our team by bringing back some heavy hitters who will help make Second Life better than ever.  

So, Second Life is still here and still strong. We’re continuing to invest in its future and you’ll see the results of our commitment this year as we roll out a new mobile companion app, new Linden Home themes, performance and usability improvements, and a number of other new features and enhancements. The ability to change names will be available in the next few weeks, too.  

These changes reflect our commitment to making SL strong for many years to come. To infinity and beyond!


There would be more. In the forum thread "Linden Lab CEO Confirms New Round of Layoff," Soft Linden would speak in response to "hopefully this means they'll have more time, money and effort to spend on SL"

100% what this was about! Second Life has THREE rock star graphics devs now, an engineer with a proven track record for asset optimization to make texture delivery and management fast and reliable, and so much more. The various teams will have more to say in coming months, or just watch the viewer and server release notes. Right now, some of them are literally re-learning to get dressed. They missed the era between Bento bodies and Bakes on Mesh. :)

It was a painful adjustment. But a lot of the old timers and hardcore off-hours SL users here believe these changes are important. It's part of the strategy for breathing many extra years of life into our favorite world.

There was some speculation of who were these "three rock star graphics devs" were. But so far, no confirmations. In any event, it seems much of the effort that was going to Sansar will be now focused into improving Second Life, at least for now.

Bixyl Shuftan

Eye On The Blog: "Information About Privacy and Security in Tilia"

Last Friday, Soft Linden, Linden Lab's Information Security Manager, posted in the Tools and Technology blog, "Information About Privacy and Security in Tilia."

A large number of you attended the Tilia Town Hall  last week. Aside from the many questions you had about how Tilia affects Second Life L$ and monetary activity, privacy was a common concern. Grumpity asked if I would answer a few of the questions about Tilia privacy and security which surfaced in the town hall and in our forums.

There were four sample questions and four lengthy answers.

Where did the Tilia team come from? And why should I trust Tilia with my personal information?
 

Soft answered, "The Tilia team is made up of people you previously knew as Linden Lab employees." He called the team "passionate about privacy and security," and that many had alts in Second Life and knew many of the residents there. They also promised, "the information you store with Tilia is never provided to third parties for purposes such as marketing, " and We won’t even provide that information to the US government unless we are compelled to do so through a legal process such as a subpoena or a search warrant."

 

Does Tilia change how my information is secured?
 

In short, yes. Soft stated, "Figuratively speaking, we locked the old vault inside a bigger, stronger vault." Of the 'new vault,' it "uses modern algorithms to encrypt sensitive information in a way that would require both enormous computing power and an enormous amount of memory for an attacker to crack… if they could even get a copy of the encrypted data. These algorithms are specifically tuned to defeat expensive decryption acceleration hardware." Their existing encryption technology was called "industry standard at the time."

It sounds like a lot has changed at once. Aren’t large changes risky?

Soft answered, "Tilia was designed with security and privacy as its primary considerations." They had people, "some of our key privacy and security practices and procedures," and that they pay a security company to attempt to hack into their servers to test the m.

What does Tilia mean for Second Life privacy and security in the future?

"We have many plans for Tilia," Soft stated. They are in the process of moving "additional forms of information ... Now that we have a new privacy and security foundation, we can extend the amount of information that enjoys this level of protection. If it pertains to your real life identity, we believe in leveraging Tilia protection wherever possible." It also mentioned their goals were ensuring, "compliance with upcoming privacy and security regulations."

To check the blogpost in it's entirely, Click Here.

Bixyl Shuftan

Linden Labs Acts Against RedZone

On March 2, Linden Lab moved against the controversial RedZone device. It was removed from Second Life Marketplace, as well as the in-world vendor, and stated it was in violation of their Terms of Service.

Soft Linden made the following post on the JIRA directed at RedZone:

Hey, all. I got the go-ahead to give an update on zF Red Zone specifically. Again, thank you for the ARs with specific info about violations. These have been very helpful for letting Lindens know what's going on.

Tuesday morning, we removed zF Red Zone from the Marketplace for a second time. We removed the in-world vendor distributing the item as well. We determined that zF Red Zone was still in violation of our Terms of Service and Community Standards.

We asked for removal by no later than today of all zF Red Zone functionality that discloses any alternate account names. That is, even if consent is asked, the service may not act on the consent. In addition, we asked for removal by no later than Friday of the interface for and any remaining implementation of the zF Red Zone consent mechanism because it does not comply with our policies. If these updates are not made, we will take appropriate steps to remedy the violations.

As before, we appreciate your help in keeping an eye on content. If you find that any merchant's product is not in compliance with our TOS or our Community Standards, please file an abuse report about the product. Do this even if you filed against a previous version. Include a specific explanation of what you believe is a violation, and ideally select and report the in-world object at issue in case it behaves differently than what's in the Marketplace. Before reporting, make sure you have first-hand knowledge of the issue. Support can best react if you explain specific steps to reproduce or confirm a violation.


The creator of RedZone, zFire Xue, naturally did not take the news very well, as evidenced by his response to a poster about Soft Linden’s statement on the RedZone forums:

Soft Linden did not say ‘zRZ contains malicious intent.’ It does prove that LL is easily manipulated by a flood of ARs. Consent is not allowed? Even if Alt names are not shown? So first alt names are forbidden without consent. Now consent is also forbidden? That's Linden Labs for you, the people who play politics rather then blocking copybot viewers or dealing with actual abuse ARs. All it takes is a flood of ARs now. Good times. (wink)

Tateru Nino stated on her blog that the inworld vendor was soon replaced, only to be taken down by Linden Labs again. She stated that Soft explained “specific conditions have been relayed to the creator that must be met before it can be reinstated. What those conditions consist of is not public at this time, to the best of my knowledge.”

Hamlet Au pointed out another statement from Soft Linden, stating that the Disclosure Section of the Community Standards page was updated, more clearly stating alts were not open to disclosure, “The key passage from the Community Standards now reads: ‘Sharing personal information about your fellow Residents without their consent -- including... alternate account names... is not allowed.’ "

This is probably not the end of the RedZone controversy. There was a picture on the JIRA of a blog post made by ZFire, saying if he was ever banned from Second Life, he would “privatize” RedZone by making it run outside the Grid, providing scripts for people, and accepting Paypal payments. But checking the RedZone forum, it was gone.

The RedZone units already bought and the RedZone service of sharing the blacklist of suspected copybot using accounts are still out there.

Sources, Dwell on It, New World Notes

Bixyl Shuftan