"Media on A Prim" Weakness To Griefing Discovered

 

 It seems the griefers have discovered an exploit in the viewer, and once again the people at Linden Lab, and Firestorm, have to take care of it. While it looked worse than it actually was, it did cause some worry.

A few days ago in the forums, the following was posted in the forums: "New Form of Griefing?"

Today I was at a rental office and noticed a few people hanging around the welcome area, thought nothing of it then suddenly and simultaneously my viewer (Latest Firestorm) opened up search and some offensive words appeared in the text box, as well as a "create new group" window, with some errors appearing on the screen. I quickly left and closed out all these windows.  It was quite a scary experience and I was only one click away from clicking the OK to create a random group at a 100l$ cost.

The post was made by an AmerAaron, who doesn't post on the forums often. And that wasn't the only incident. Earlier in the month, a Stenelaide posted about an incident at a music event.

So tonight I was halfway through my shift as a hostess in a live music venue and I suddenly crashed. I log back in and this mess pops up on my screen, on the singer's screen and on her manager's. A search bar with a nice statement, a friend request and a voice call to the singer. They also managed to block her on my behalf and they asked me to teleport to some random piece of mainland. The owner found two scripts that were dropped. That was awful, how do they manage to execute stuff on our viewer? Is that simple?

After several posts by concerned forum readers, there was finally a response by Whirly Fizzle of Firestorm.

... this form of griefing has been popping up over the last few days. It uses media on a prim (MOAP) to open those floaters on your screen.

If you disable media in the viewer, it will stop it.

Linden Lab issued an emergency ModalHotfix viewer to fix this on Thursday: https://releasenotes.secondlife.com/viewer/6.6.4.575022.html

Firestorm Viewer will have a new beta viewer out, hopefully tomorrow with the fix.
To pick up the Firestorm Beta, please join the "Phoenix-Firestorm Preview Group" & the beta will be sent out in the group notice.

This problem affects all viewers that don't yet have the Linden Lab patch. 

Whirly would go on to say the bug was more annoying than dangerous.

It's just a clever use of viewer media.

Though it seems very scary, all that can be done on unpatched viewers is open up any viewer floater on your screen when the media loads, plus enter custom text into the search window or TOS window etc.

Obviously I don't want to explain how it's done before everyone has the fix. I wish I could because then it would be less scary when you see what 's actually happening. All I will say is the media is not actually directing to an web page at all & it's actually using supported functions in the viewer. I'm surprised no griefer thought of using it this way before. 

 

So please don't worry - it's extremely annoying but ultimately harmless.

I suspect LL patched it quickly because it was causing lots of worry to those that had been hit with it, understandably.

 

 Checking the Phoenix-Firestorm Preview group, there was a new beta viewer that was released just a few days ago, Firestorm Beta build 6.6.5.68062. Checking further on the wiki entry, they had added some features related to the issue.

 

• Fixed media on a prim looping when it should not.
• Fixed audio from media on a prim (MOAP) begins to play if object is put into edit mode
• Fixed the Search floater opening without appropriate search results after performing a search from the NavBar

So it seems the annoyance is on it's way to being solved, though it may be some time before the feature gets put into an official viewer update.

Hat Tip: Cynthia Farshore

Picture by Stenelaide

 

Addition: story at New World Notes 

Bixyl Shuftan

General Warning

Although most of you probably know this already, I'd like to remind all: DO NOT ACCEPT GIFTS OR ITEMS FROM AVATARS YOU DON'T KNOW. There have been many scams going around the last few weeks where stranger avatars try to give seemingly attractive items away -- these are dangerous objects! They can often ask you for permissions to take lindens, or give control of your avatar to another. Others are griefing objects that will disrupt sims.

Do not accept these items.

In ROMA group by Angelia Rees

SLife and Times: Banned For Looking Odd

If you've been in Second Life for a while, you've seen avatars of all kinds. Some make an effort to stand out from the crowd. Others try to fit in. And then, there are those odd-looking avatars that look like the person didn't know how to design a look well. They're often newbies, though some are older. While often, these avatars are simply new, it's also the look favored by some griefers and trolls. When one such avatar found himself banned from a club before he took a few steps inside, he blogged about it. The result was a debate on just how should such avatars be treated.

Read more in People.

Cartoon of the Day

Someone once spoke about griefers, "They think they're the cleverest thing since bumper nuts, but nine times out of ten, they're the same-old, same old." One dropping by a certain club I was at was especially lame. While these weren't the exact insults tossed his way, what did get spoken was far more clever than what crudery he did.

And just why are most griefers either mishapen messes, or have something like TV set heads?

By Bixyl Shuftan

Responding to Readers: There's No Terrorism Here

By Bixyl Shuftan

I get a few messages in my email and Facebook about places that deserve a look, or concerns that the reader feels they need attention. With the five year anniversary of the death of Bin-Laden about this time, one certain email got my attention. The writer claimed there were Islamic extremists causing trouble in Second Life, his message containing part of a chatlog dated from mid-November.

Secondlife gamings sites are were the terrorist find kids and are recruiting; there is a need for actions.

[2015/11/15 09:03]  *****: Haha

[2015/11/15 09:03]  *****: Stupid Kahfir

[2015/11/15 09:03]  *****: Allah Ackbar!

[2015/11/15 09:07]  *****: Haha, continue playing your game little boy

[2015/11/15 09:07]  *****: Soon, your country will spills with blood

We need to close down Linden Lab, Head Quarters, 945 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA94111, as they are supporting terrorist by coving up that they do use the sites. and the terrorist attacks in the EU countrys could have been stop if they had took action.

As it turns out, there's no record of the name the reader gave in the Second Life database. But to me, this looks less like a terrorist, and more like a troll trying to stir people up. There wasn't a record of the person who mailed me earlier; when I asked him about it, he told me the Lab wouldn't listen and banned him.

As it turns out, Federal agents have investigated Second Life. as well as World of Warcraft and other MMOs, after concluding they were "potentially 'target-rich environments' in which suspected terrorists 'hide in plain sight.'" (Techdirt article) But "experts and developers of games like these have found no evidence that terrorists are using their services to communicate or recruit new members." “For terror groups looking to keep their communications secret, there are far more effective and easier ways to do so than putting on a troll avatar.”

It is true that supporters of Islamic Extremism have been on Second Life before. A few years ago, there was a place in the Jordan River sim supporting Hamas with many displays of pro-Hamas propaganda against "the Zionists." But eventually the sim vanished. While there are are places in Second Life built to attract Arab users, such locations are the scene of people engaging in idle chatter and games and not terrorism.

So no, there is no ISIS in Second Life, unless you mean builds of the Ancient Egyptian goddess of life, or perhaps an "Opposing Force" group for a combat sim (somebody has to be the bad guy in one).

Sources: Techdirt

Bixyl Shuftan

"Massive Griefer Attack" Reported in Caledon

Jo Yardley reported yesterday of a "massive griefer attack" on the Caledon steampunk community sims, and other spots on the Grid. The above picture was taken with an SL Go viewer, "With my regular viewer I doubt I would have been able to even take a single step." The picture shows a mass of what one commentator called, "tortured torus prims," whose physics added to the lag.

One of the administrators of the Purrfection sims was called to deal with a reported case of griefing, but it was delt with in minutes.

Jo Yardley suggested the following responses to a griefer attack

1. Alert Linden Lab (if live chat support happens to be online…)
2. Go to a place in your sim that is HIGH up, most attacks don’t reach very high and with your draw distance set to very low, lag might be a lot less at high altitude, from here you can take further steps without drowning in lag porridge.
3. It is a good idea to create a landmark for this spot so you can teleport here from outside the sim.
4. In the region/estate window turn off ‘Allow Public Access’, this will remove all visitors and keep new people from arriving, giving you some peace but also keeps the griefers from returning.
5. In the debug tab disable everything, this may bring down lag as well and may stop the griefers toys from working.
6. Return the griefers objects.
7. Restart the region(s).

In most cases this will help, but of course it depends on the situation and the type of attack.

Judging from the comments, the attacks seem to be over, at least for now.

The Cornfield: An Old Region Renewed

A few weeks ago, Linden Lab introduced "The Cornfield" game to Second Life. Based upon the prison sim of old Second Life where those accused of breaking the rules were detained, here the griefers truly are monsters whom exist just to harass players and be blown away by them. Gemma Cleanslate recently took a look at the game, and wrote a review. So what did she think?

Read Gemma's article in Places.

Hacked

Earlier this month, a warning was sounded in the Angels and Sunweaver groups. Brandi Streusel, one of the more popular members, noted for her "Brandi's Panties" line of outfits, had been hacked. An amount of Lindens were swiped from her account, a number of items on her were compromised, and the most visible example of what happened, Castle Mousehold was wrecked. The possessed avatar deleted about half the place.

As soon as she realized what was happening, Nydia sounded the alarm in the Sunweaver and Angel groups, in addition to several other groups, urging the account be barred from their places until it was confirmed she was back. And above all, not to click on links she was sending out.

As you all probably know by now, Brandi's account has been hacked, I have banned her where I could, but not before the castle was destroyed, right now...our home is gone. I have asked Rita for a roll back that should fix that, as for when we get Brandi back ….I don't know.

Unfortunately, someone else did click on a link sent by the hacker before word got around, Dusk Griswold. So word went out about the second hacked account, warning that if they clicked on anything sent by them, "you need to change all your passwords NOW, and anything your account is linked to."

If  you are ever sent a website link that tries to be something from Second Life.  Make sure that it is actually from secondlife.com

This   http://markettplacefree.altervista.org/index.html   IS NOT from Second life.  Never click on a link, or log into a page that isn't an Actual Second Life web page.  If you're not sure,, be safe and just don't. 

Eventually, Brandi and Dusk were back. Linden Lab didn't give Brandi the Lindens she lost back, and she had to go through her inventory to examine what might have been compromised. But the sim rollback was carried out and the castle restored. Dusk reported the hackers tried to rob her, but the Lab took care of the details.

Just wanted to let everyone know LL has restored my account after the hacking incident. The person first tried taking all my Lindens, then buying Lindens. They did succeed in making a few small transactions on Paypal, but they have been notified, and I should get credit for those. The Lindens they took from me here have been restored, and all my passwords have been changed.  

And so the hackers were stopped. Thanks to the community spreading the word, no more found themselves locked out of their accounts. But this was a warning to all about "illicit links and the problems they cause."

" …. people will understand the peril they put themselves in if they don't take 5 seconds to simply check links. They can lose everything and not even be here for it, everything including their own financial holdings. A hacker if they can get your account and log in, they can get access to your personal money line account numbers, and that leads to things far far worse than this world. I know... it's happened to me. I fought tooth and nail to get everything back … "

Words of warning to listen to. And of course, a reminder if one suspects anything funny, don't hesitate to change your password.

Press Pass Media also wrote an article recently on the subject of phising scams (click here). 

Bixyl Shuftan

Cartoon of the Day: Why Griefers Hate Furries

Behind Bronyville’s Fall

Recently, the Bronyvile sim (and its sister sim), home to a community of pony avatar fans, were taken offline by Linden Labs. The result was the pony fans without a virtual home, and a number of rumors flying around. Xymbers Slade researched into what was going on, and talked to one pony about the view from inside.


Read more in Extra.