"Busty Belles" Club Wrecked, But Rebuilding

 

A few months ago, the Newser wrote about the owner of the "Busty Belles" club, Jodi Eyre passing away. Despite her loss, the handover and continued operation of the venue went smoothly. 

 

Talking to Frost Beam (JD013 Resident), someone on the staff with build permissions leveled the place when they weren't getting their way, "the co-founder ... nuked it, when we were waiting for them to make up there mind on a few issues." A couple days later, the situation was better, "Mostly needing the help getting stuff, like the beach back up and we have our GM working on building new rental homes. On top of the co-founder taking the building the club was using, he also took the clubs beach and all the rental houses which had some people living in them. ...  I wasn't expecting himm to take all the rentals (frown) That made me feel really bad for making people homeless.

"My GM Tiffany had to rush build the new building for the sets.  But I think we still need some for other parts on the club, like the beach and the homes." Frost was optimistic, "When a founder or co-founder up takes the building a club is in, that normally spells out the end of it. We are still here, still rockin, and always welcoming in people. I kinda of treat this place like my home, and my staff and patrons are like my family." One nearby dancer, Domino Sorbet Presley (DominoPresleyTS Resident), commented, "Yah good thing we had hurricane relief. Whether we are here or somewhere else we won't quit."

 

So Busty Belles won't go bust any time soon.

 

On a final note, later this month on the 18th, Busty Belles will host a Making Strides fundraiser, a "Pink Ribbon" event, starting at 6PM SL time.  

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

"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

Looking Back: The Closing of The SS Galaxy

 
It was seven years ago tomorrow, Sunday April 26, 2015, that a bombshell was dropped: the SS Galaxy would be closing down. It was a shock to both fans of ships & boats and explorers alike. The announcement was made in the ship's group by it's managing director DBDigital Epsilon. The Galaxy wasn't just any ship, but a *massive* structure that was three sims long with two water sims in front and back. So it was probably the largest structure ever created in Second Life, and certainly the largest known. It was also one of the first places the Newser wrote about.

There was much to do aboard this huge vessel. One could rent a room there for a while. And once there, one could stop by the ballroom for music and dance. And as Gemma once wrote, "You will find a myriad of places to visit between shows in the Zodiac. Play a little miniature golf, skeet shoot, fishing, or play a little basketball. There is a gallery with a featured artist, many shops to visit, and much more to discover for your extended visit." It was a place one could have a virtual vacation on, or just drop by time to time for individual attractions. A video made by Nika Dreamscape would show much of the ship and it's activities.

So why did the ship close? An investigation revealed that the ship had recently been sabotaged in a severe griefing attack. "We have had griefers before but not on this scale," one of the crew told me, saying what happened was the culmination of a number of attacks in recent days, tearing holes into the ship and mangling much of the deck and walls. So DBDigital spent "hours" on the phone with Linden Lab, only to be told he would be allowed one rollback for his sims, and then no more. Not one a day. Not one a week. One rollback once, and then no more, *ever.* And there was nothing they could really do to stop the vandals from striking again. Feeling he could no longer safely offer the cruise ship experience he had been giving, it was then DBDigital made the decision to close the ship. After eight years of operation, the great cruise ship would be having it's last call. For the remaining days the ship was open, longtime fans, and new admirers alike dropped by to enjoy it while they could, such as some impromptu fishing parties. Then on May 3, the ship was closed.

So why did the Lab tell the Galaxy they would only allow one single rollback and then no more? There was no shortage of people saying the Lab just didn't care about it's residents. It was also suggested that this was the result of a "hands off" policy with minimal involvement. And there was the viewpoint it was customer service cut back to the point it was seldom available. But it was more than just the Lab. After all, the incident had happened because of vandalism by griefers. "Griefing is a big problem, not just in SL, but the uprise of 'active sociopathy for entertainment' on the Internet is becoming a larger issue. Especially in the last few years as it has gained its own sort of culture, justifications, and communities dedicated to it." "... that was years of people's work, and God knows how many thousands of dollars. And some people felt entitled to go and trash that."

But it eventually dawned on the Lab they really goofed up. Just two days after my commentary on the ship's closing, a group of Moles and Lindens created a preservation group. And five days after that, DBDigital announced the Galaxy would be reopening soon, but under the ownership of the Lab. That was the good news. The bad news, "Sadly being under Linden Lab’s flag also means that none of the previous management or crew will be aboard in any sort of capacity.  I have also been told there will be no rentals or events.  This means she will not quite be the Galaxy you know and love." A few months later in September, the ship reopened. The ship itself was preserved. But there would be no cabins available to rent for a time. There would be no schedule of parties in the ballroom. In a sense, it was a museum ship.

The closing of the SS Galaxy was one of several noted blunders and questionable moves by Linden Lab in 2015. But the Lab seemed to learn it's lesson. I never did hear of another place that shut down because the Lab told them no more rollbacks. As it turned out, there would be an occasional event at the Galaxy's ballroom, notably for the Relay. But for those who were fans of the ship in it's heyday, these would be just short reminders of what once was.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

A Resident's Request to Linden Lab About Griefers

 

Griefers have been a problem in Second Life almost since the beginning. They come in two varieties. There are those whom like to play mindgames and cause drama. And then there are those whom rely on more visible attacks such as mass image rezzers like the old "Mario Moshpit" attacks. The more persistent rely on numerous alt accounts. If one gets banned, they just use others.

Lately some friends of mine have complained about "dumbcube" attacks, a cube place in an area that's open build, and quickly makes numerous copies of itself, causing a great deal of lag. Among them is Shockwave Yareach, whom is active in both the Sunweaver and Caledon communities. He felt that Linden Lab should be able to do something about these pests.

"We are having problems with griefers," he told me, "And I would like to suggest to the tech Lindens ways to fix it." He brought up one way, "The technique used to attack is that ANYONE can shoot a gun with TempPrim bullets. Then the bullets change to NonTemp. It's just code. The fix is: Do not allow any code to set the temp property back to FALSE.  Ignore inputs of FALSE in setting prim parameters in LSL. Then temp prims (bullets) cannot turn nonTemp (and wreck sims). Takes no time at all for the server code to be changed to do that.

"Long term, why can't we ban people based on the MAC address of their ethernet cards?  Can't fake that." When asked why the Lindens hadn't been doing that, Shockwave wondered, "They haven't thought of it? I can think of no good reason a temp prim becomes nontemp.  There might be one, but it allows anyone to grief without consequences and gets around the defenses."

I brought up that there seemed to be less of the more physical kinds of griefing than in the early days of Second Life. Why might this be? Shockwave answered, "I have no way of proving it.  But games like Eve Online not only allow such griefing, but it's rewarded and expected.  Backstabbing and wrecking everyone else's good time is part of daily gameplay in Eve Online.  So I suspect all the Goons have gone there. Now, people being silly is fine.  Even people doing stuff that only momentarily obstructs others activities has its place.  But sim killing and physics breaking have NO place in any virtual world. And if you don't like someone, you don't have to hang with him on their sim.  Go someplace else.  No point in ruining others good day because you had a bad one."

Shockwave really didn't have anything else to add on the subject, "Just that banning people by MAC address would make it pricy to be a punk and harder to get around the bans."

Will griefers always be an inevitable part of Second Life like crashing and sim tier? Or will one day the Lindens find a way to deal with it? Time will tell.

Bixyl Shuftan

Real-Life Names Requirement Originally Considered For Sansar

In June 2016, Ebbe Altberg/Ebbe Linden made some remarks about Sansar that I originally heard as him thinking it might be best if Sansar required the use of real-life names. When the complete transcript was available, it turned out I had slightly misinterpreted the statements, and I retracted that part of my article. But questions over the matter continued. As it turned out, according to Tara Hernandez in a podcast hosted by TC Currie of "The New StackMakers," Linden Lab really did consider the idea that "no one is allowed to use a pseudonym."

"How do address that.," Hernandez spoke at around 20:30 in the interview about Linden Lab going over options on how to deal with griefing, "How do we address griefing in Sansar. One idea was, no one is allowed to use a pseudonym. There is no anonymity, and that way everyone will play nice, because we all know who everyone is ... (to Currie) you just winced. You can imagine the roar of outrage at this."

The interviewer's response was, "I'm sure those were men who were making this suggestion, mostly."

"Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment," Hernandez answered, "And you know, if you don't have to think about a particular issue that's forefront in your day to day experience, you just don't think about it. I chose a bear (avatar in Second Life) because I didn't want to have to deal with the implications of having a female avatar, right or wrong. ... So yes, I think women definitely, and also members of our queer community were like, 'Hey, we get what you're trying to do, but you might want to rethink that a bit because it's a safety issue. Stalking is a thing, virtual and otherwise."

She would go on to say, "I'm happy to say that discussion prompted the change. ... I think officially it's been deferred." She did admit the idea of scrapping anonymity "came from the right intent," and went on to say Linden Lab "has a long history of inclusivity. This is the most inclusive company I've worked with."

Of her current avatar in Sansar, she spoke amusingly, "I'm kinda annoyed because I can't be a bear yet. It feels wrong somehow. ... My nickname is 'Baloo.' "

Source: The New Stackmakers

Hat Tip: Hamlet Au 

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

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

Hillary Clinton Group Claims Trump Organization Leader Banned

It's not yet confirmed, but it may be the beginning of the end for Second Life's most well known group of supporters of Donald Trump.

On the evening of June 30, a member of the Hillary Clinton 2016 group, who requested to remain anonymous, stated that there was a group notice that JP Laszlo, the leader of the Trump Organization and a few other Trump groups in Second Life had been banned by Linden Lab and their sim, "The Wall," had been confiscated.

J.P. (jp.laszlo), leader of the biggest Trump group in Second Life got banned by the Lab and their main sim was seized.  J.P. and other associates no longer appear in people search or in any affiliated Trump groups.

J.P.'s group has been well known to troll SL residents (including us) with their political propaganda and harassment tactics.  I guess Linden Labs had enough of it. :-D

The notice was given by Priscilla Cox (Prissycox), the head of Hillary Clinton 2016.

A search for JP Laszlo both using inworld Search and on secondlife.com proved fruitless. The sim was still online when I checked. While it was blocked to visitors, it had been closed to them under JP as well.

Of exactly why JP and others of the Trump Organization were banned, the informer doubted it was for anything done with the Clinton group, "they had done some minor griefing to the Hillary HQ nothing major really.  So not sure what precipitated LLs big move last night." She had heard of a griefing incident at Bay City not far from where they had a building. But when I later talked to Marianne McCann, she had strong doubts that the Trump Organization was involved or that even if this were it would get a permanent ban in response as the incident in question was minor. However in the past, JP and his Trump Organization were accused of taking part in the outright griefing of Bernie Sanders supporters, in addition to the pranks they admitted pulling, such as the Trump Wall. Hamlet Au of New World Notes basically called for Linden Lab to ban members of the group for violations of Second Life's community standards. JP denied his group was griefing, "We are not trolls, just political activists with a sense of humor and fun." But others begged to differ,

More information may come in over the next few days, but with JP's account removed, it's doubtful he will be coming back to Second Life. While no doubt there will continue to be trolls harassing people in Trump's name, it seems the largest group of Trump supporters has just been swatted down.

* * * * *

A visit to Lionheart Ahadi revealed that the Clinton HQ was no longer at the block it and the old Trump HQ had been on. It's owner Candace Larganta had earlier hinted it would be up until after the July 4rth weekend. But there was another Clinton building at
Lionheart Pumbaa (205, 210, 28). The Trump building by the old Trump Organization that had been across the street from it was gone to, though one biker bar did put up a Trump sign.

In real life, the primaries are over, and both Clinton and Trump are trying to unify their parties behind them. But a number of Republicans are reluctant to support Trump, and many "Berners" say they will not vote for Clinton reguardless of whether or not she gets Sansers' endorsement. In both Second Life and real life, it's been an interesting election.

*Addition*  Contacting JP Lazslo through his Facebook group "Donald Trump Still Thinks Your Waifu is S***," he confirmed that Linden Lab had indeed banned him and others in his group. He also made a short but to the point post on his Twitter account.

Bixyl Shuftan

Responding to Readers: Why Is Second Life Banned on Twitch

One of our readers, followed by a few others, posed a question on Facebook recently: "Why is Second Life Banned From Twitch?" For those who don't know, Twitch is a streaming service aimed at gamers. But not everything can be streamed on there, as one New World Notes reader commented in a letter she shared in which Twitch temporarily banned her for streaming Second Life. Taking a look at the Kotaku article cited by our reader, and the list given by Twitch itself, Second Life finds itself among some rather odd company with games such as "Battle Raper" and "The Guy Game," which involve lots of sex, violence, or both.

So why is Second Life on this list? Sadly, it has to do with the griefers and trolls.

Most every experienced Second Life user is familiar with griefers harassing people and trying to shock people with adult content, such as the obscene particle attacks that yours truly has witnessed at a few sandboxes. Unfortunately, not content just to troll people, sometimes the griefers post their dirty deeds on youtube. Plus there have been a few instances of live recording being interrupted by such griefings, the most known example being the "flying penis barrage" that happened when CNET tried to interview Anshe Chung, the noted Second Life Land baroness. So despite everything else that had, and has, been going on here from charities, to Dungeons and Dragons style roleplaying, to education classes, what Second Life is best known for to many who have yet to set foot inside and know about the virtual world only through what they've heard now and then through social media is that people use the place for "strange and weird porn."

Twitch would not respond when New World Notes tried to contact them, though Hamlet Au commented that they had a former employee of Linden Lab among their staff shot down arguments that Twitch was operating solely through bias, saying despite places being designated as G-rated, violent and pornographic content can potentially appear anytime and anywhere, "no matter what the region rating." But critics of the ban who are familiar with MMO survival gaming can always point to Rust, in which players start out nude, male characters with their genitalia exposed, and the game is not banned from Twitch.

Fortunately there are other options for streaming. Ciaran Laval pointed out one named "Hitbox," which did respond to questions about allowing content from Second Life, "We are more than happy to allow broadcasters to stream Second Life on hitbox granted they are responsible about the content being presented to the viewers. We don’t tolerate our broadcasters to present mature, sexual content that isn’t the intention of the game. ... we are okay with broadcasters streaming Second Life as long as it’s done responsibly."

But for the use of the more popular Twitch, the issue seems not up for discussion, which is a shame. Just as there's more to Amsterdam than it's red light district, there's a lot more to Second Life than just the shenanigans of a handful of trolls and griefers.

Sources: Twitch, Kotaku, New World Notes, Warcry, Ciaran Laval,  

Bixyl Shuftan

News and Commentary: Political Opposition Against Trump HQ Continues

Last week, the Newser wrote about the problems a group of supporters of the US Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was having with another group supporting the candidate Donald Trump, the latter admitting they were having a little fun at the other's expense, and some outright trolls griefing in the brash candidate's name, at times wondering if the two were one and the same. Since then, the incidents of griefing have continued, and are drawing attention from both Second Life media, and media from outside which has taken a renewed interest in the virtual world because of the political drama. One noted figure in Second Life media has stated things have gone far enough and it's time for Linden Lab to swing the ban hammer on the Trump HQ. But if they wanted to, could the Lab do so without alienating much of it's user base.

Read more in Extra.

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

News and Commentary: More on The Trump Wall

With supporters of two different US Presidential candidates from two different parties making their presence felt in Second Life, one for Donald Trump and another for Bernie Sanders, eventually there would be some kind of problem between the two. And a large problem it was, in the form of a section of wall erected by supporters of Trump towering over the Sanders HQ. Since it's appearance, I've talked to the leaders of both groups. Besides a difference in opinion on who should get the nomination, the two disagree about the intent on what the "Trump Wall" is about.

Read the article in Extra.

Commentary: Griefers and Their Damage

When I hung around Luskwood frequently a few years ago, the place would on occasion be hit by griefers. These days, it doesn't happen so much there, though these troublemakers are still an ever-present nuisance across the Grid. While most just do a quick strike and run, last week one new DJ in the community I call home inworld turned out to be an alt of a grieder known in some circles. He'd been lying low for a while, and once exposed he made troubles for hours until he was banned completely. Can much of anything be done about miscreants such as these in Second Life? Yours truly put a few thoughts down on the matter.

Read the commentary in People.

A Couple Humorous Stories (2007)

So what was the first article yours truly wrote about Second Life? It was when I answered a call from Second Life Newspaper for reader submissions, so I sent them a couple tales of amusing incidents. One was about an unexpected reaction to my brand now furry red fox avatar. The other was about giving a creep trying to freak out women his just deserts.

Read Bixyl's first story, originally published in November 2007, in People.

Commentary: The SS Galaxy's Closing

By Bixyl Shuftan

For nearly eight years, the SS Galaxy stood as an example of what could be done with Second Life. Spanning three sims, it was a full scale replica of a cruise ship with shops, pools, dancing hall, etc. and with a staff on board, it provided a cruise ship experience for those who rented a cabin. Now after all those years, it's gone.

It's been a while since a location with this kind of stature closed down. One place dear to a number of longtime residents was Greenies. Built by the group Rezzable, it gave residents a mouse-sized perspective of a huge family room and kitchen, alongside tiny green aliens. Rezzable would build a number of other sims, including Greenies spinoffs, but their giant rooms, called Greenies Home, remained the most popular. But in 2009, they announced they would be withdrawing most of their sims from Second Life, and soon only Greenies Home was left. Then in June 2010, it was announced their classic build would be leaving Second Life as well. A few people wondered if Rezzible didn't know how to budget money, keeping fewer sims up for a longer time. But the timing of the annoucement just days after Linden Lab laid off a third of it's staff sounded less like a coincidence to some and more like a lack of confidence in Linden Lab.

There was the Globe Theater which held a number of plays by Shakespeare. The reason this place closed was partially due to the discontinuing of the nonprofit discount for tiers. While one Linden was willing to talk about preserving the location, the Lab dismissed her, and the Globe's owner couldn't work with her replacement. And so she announced that the place would soon be closing. And so the Globe, along with a number of other nonprofit sims would be closed before Linden Lab finally reversed it's decision to end tier discounts for them. A number of residents grumbled they could only see greed as the reason the Lab had for ending it to begin with.

In the case of the SS Galaxy, they never had a nonprofit discount. And Director DBDigital Epsilon stated finances weren't a factor in the ship's closing, so apparenly their money situation has remained solid over time. So apparently they continued on smoothly, until hit with a series of severe griefing attacks. At least one of the attacks involved actual dammage to the structure. Exactly how they were able to manipulate the prims is unknown, possibly some kind of hacking. But for whatever reason, Linden Lab told them they would be getting one rollback and no more, and could not guarantee the attacks would stop.

Over a year ago, the Newser reported on the plight of the Junkyard Blues Club, which was hit by "sim crasher" attacks again and again, the griefers telling them they would keep on until paid off with money. The Lab wasn't much help. It resorted crashed sims, but that was all, the same avatars whom they filed reports against back within hours. Faced with the barrage, Junkyard Blues chose to limit access to group members, aside from a small area that anyone could go to and request a group tag from volunteers after being checked. It cut back on traffic, and revenue, but with the Lab's limited help they decided it was the only thing they could do if they wanted to keep off the griefers and keep the sims up, at least until they felt the heat was off.

Could the SS Galaxy have tried a similar "hunker down" stragegy, limiting access to those not in the group to the dock the ship was next to? What options the ship's owner considered is unknown, but in the end it was decided the ship could no longer provide the experience it had to the public. And so, on May 3 it was closed and offlined the following day. Second Life's largest build was gone.

One person I talked to felt the Galaxy could have done better. Ultimately it's the sim owner's responsibility to look after his/her sim, she told me, and making it accessible to the public means having to prepare for what could happen. But most of the blame fell on Linden Lab. How could they just let such a grand build of such a longtime customer fade away? Some residents commented that they didn't think the Lab even cared, perhaps not caring enough about it's product to know the ship existed.

Among the comments on Facebook was that of Luskwood founder Michi Lumin: "Linden Lab's biggest thing lately seems to be 'hands off' and no governance involvement. I've said for a long time that LL seems to, when presented with the blue pill or the red pill, somehow they seem to manage to find a third poison pill, and take that one instead. ... As far as the rollbacks go, LL has been trying to apparently 'cut customer service costs.' (Who would have known they had many.) - they basically don't want people requesting a rollback a day. 'One ever, zero tolerance' is the kind of overextreme ridiculousness that I'd expect from today's LL, unfortunately, though. They could just say 'well, rollbacks are hard for us to do, and we don't want to make them a common thing, so please be judicious when you ask for one' -- but they don't do that. I get their point, but they've again, between the good and bad way of handling something, found the *worst* way to handle it. I think it's ingrained in the culture, in the corporate cycle. I think some lindens 'on the ground' know this, (what few are left who interact with the community) ... but if you even look on glassdoor.com, the issue really seems to rely in the corporate vacuum of management, which probably doesn't even know what 'rez' means."

But it wasn't just Linden Lab that was the problem here. There were of course the griefers, "Griefing is a big problem," Michi went on, "not just in SL, but the uprise of 'active sociopathy for entertainment' on the Internet is becoming a larger issue. Especially in the last few years as it has gained its own sort of culture, justifications, and communities dedicated to it." She compared it to "swatting," in which someone makes a hoax call to the police to get them to raid someone's house, "a certain type of person will feel that it's OK to think that such things are hilarious. If this sort of 'lulz culture' was nipped in the bud years ago when it was starting in SL, we wouldn't have the sort of prevalence-without-acknowledgement that we have now."

In conversation, Relay for Life DJ Madonna Daehlie (madonna.milena) felt similar, "What in the hell is wrong with people? I'm not sure I've ever been to the Galaxy. I don't do the ritzier places much anymore. But that was years of people's work, and God knows how many thousands of dollars. And some people felt entitled to go and trash that. ... I have, throughout my life, encountered far too many people who just voluntarily turn off their brains. They clearly have brains. They work right. They just are more than happy to throw the transmission into neutral and not think. And, sadly, a growing number of them who think things like morals and compassion and decency are signs of  'weakness.' "

For the owners of locations of which public access is key, the downfall of the SS Galaxy is a clear warning, Linden Lab cannot be counted on to bail them out if they're ever in the crosshairs of a persistent griefer assault. So if the Lab won't help someone under assault by these virtual malcontents, what then? There is the option of calling a neighborhood watch group with access to anti-griefng tools, such as the Green Lanterns. There is the "hunker down" strategy, turning off public access until one is sure the griefers have given up. There is also the option of limiting what access the public has to a space, such as turning off scripts, though there is still the danger of hacking.

One side affect is some people will probably be more inclined to be wary of those they consider strange and unfamiliar. For instance one owner of a venue aimed at a Furry clientele was inclined to keep a careful watch on any normal human avatars entering the place unless they were with someone he knew. And for newcomers, already a few places won't allow a new avatar to enter. The number of such locations may grow, making the experience of a newcomer already frustrated by trying to learn how to go about life on the Grid even more frustrating. Not good news for Linden Lab, which has always been trying to get new people to get on Second Life.

And then there is how Linden Lab itself is regarded. Since Ebbe Linden came in as CEO, Linden Lab has regained much of the public's goodwill that it had lost over time. Now once again, the Lab is looking more like the incompetent, uncaring, beast residents branded it in the past. Their decision not to help the SS Galaxy will haunt them as people make the decision whether or not to get new sims, and take a chance with the upcoming Next Generation Grid, "You've already proven you don't give a rats patootie about people in one virtual world. What makes you think we'll believe you're any different in another?"

*Addition* One week after this was written, it was announced that Linden Lab was assuming ownership of the ship in prepatation to reopening it. But there were no plans for further events or cabin rentals.

Bixyl Shuftan

SS Galaxy Closing Attributed to Griefing

Last Sunday, it was announced that the SS Galaxy, a huge ship spanning three sims, would be closing soon. That one of the largest builds in Second Life, if not the biggest, was coming to an end got no shortage of attention. But some stories began going around about the reasons for why the decision was made to abandon ship. So yours truly went to the Galaxy to talk to some people of the team behind the ship.

Read more in Extra.

Griefers Strike at Sunweaver Estates

On Saturday night, the Sunweaver Estates were the target of griefers. The incident took place at Club Cutlass after the party in which those still around were pummeled by flying drumsticks, which continued to chase them if they retreated. There was also a huge chicken bucket seen at the club, and something was uttering a racial slur.

Sunweaver Space suffered a griefer attack with self-replicating "chicken drumstick" noisemakers  multiplying all over the sim.  Their owners, ... , have been banned from the sims and the objects returned.  I *think* I got 'em all, but everyone check your parcels for unwanted/unknown objects, and I strongly suggest making sure your parcels are set to "group only" for object rezzing.

The objects were delt with by several locals with estate powers to clean up such objects.

"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.

Word on the Street: Hack Attacks

Lately, we've been hearing of a number of groups passing out warnings of people getting hacked after checking a link posted by a friend, which ends up leading to disaster. They usually go something like the following.

*WARNING* Multiple hacking going on in SL today and it involves Market Place. your "friend" will send you a link to market place, you log in giving your name and password and your are hacked. They immediately change your password and then send the same invite to all your friend's....DO NOT follow any links to Market Place today whether the offer came from a friend or not. LL is aware of it and have shut many accounts down today.

These warnings aren't just idle threats.  Some months ago, one of the residents of the Sunweavers was the victim of a similar hacking attack. So be careful about what links  you click on.

Commentary: Scripting and its Corruption

Today, Theonlyjohnny Resident has scripting on his mind. But not just any scripting, but the kind done for ill. Theonlyjohnny talks about how scriptors with bad intentions can do things such as teasing people with games with no prize, and worse such as sim bans for trivial reasons.

Read Theonlyjohnny's commentary in Design.