EOTB: Multi-Factor Authentication For SL Accounts

 

Last Week, Linden Lab offered the residents "an additional way to protect your account." It was called "Multi-Factor Authenticiation."

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is now available to all residents on their accounts. MFA is an additional step to prove your identity before gaining access to sensitive information or actions on your account. It provides an extra layer of security to supplement your username and password. Widely adopted by many products, MFA is an industry standard.

How does it work? You can learn more about MFA, find out what you’ll need to do, and activate it in the knowledge base article!

You will need to take action in order to activate MFA. It is entirely opt-in. Go to accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status and get started! 

On how it works, the Lab would go on  to say, "MFA requires an authenticator app on your mobile device which generates secret codes (called “tokens”). When you log in, Second Life connects to the authenticator app to make sure the token you provide matches the one generated by the authenticator app." To turn it on, one would need to "Install an authenticator app on your mobile device. We do not supply this app or directly support any third party app, but we have tested Google Authenticator with this feature."

The blog post would remind people to change passwords on a regular basis, and state MFA would not effect how residents log into Second Life and MFA's protection was limited to the SL login. But in the future, it may be applied to other parts of Second Life such as the Marketplace. 

As was stated, to get started, clich here: https://accounts.secondlife.com/mfa/status

To read the blog post in full, Click Here. 

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

News and Commentary: New Terms of Service Spark Questions Among Residents

By Bixyl Shuftan

Logging into Second Life last night, I found myself presented with a new updated terms of service. The choice was pretty simple, sign if you want to continue logging on the Grid. Many of us just automatically sign without a thought. Myself, I read it, noticed a few things, and expected to hear about more before long.

So what was the result of this new TOS? In a couple groups, worried residents expressed their concern, as well as some IMs aimed at me. A few people asked me if Linden Lab would be doing away with Adult content. While it is true some people are jumpy every time there's a change, the recent blunder with third-party Linden exchangers has rightfully shaken the already shaky confidence residents have with the Lab.

There are two lengthy forum threads discussing the TOS, in the official Linden Forums, and Second Life Universe. Among the changes noted was the line "You are not our employee." Was this to limit the Lab's liability of the behavior of it's employees when on SL off the clock, putting in writing that they owed content creators and others who benefited Second Life nothing, or a possible defense against people who were tricked by residents pretending to be Lindens?

The general idea, at least among those not confused as hey, is that the changes were a "cover your butt" move to protect the Lab from additional possible legal complaints. One commented, "LL has a really good TOS in the sense that they have it in mostly proper order along with a lot of legalese that scares most people. There is always that one who isn't scared with money to either burn or feels strongly enough about something that will push it to the envelope (right or wrong) through the courts. But at the same time, loopholes galore all through out it because they just can't CYA everything."

There were no shortage of comments, including a proposed TOS by the former Pathfinder Linden.

If only if it were that simple.

Sources: Linden Forums, SLU Forums

Image credits: Daniel Voyager, Pathfinder 

Bixyl Shuftan

"Six Strikes" Internet Rule Likely Installed Monday

By Bixyl Shuftan

Internet Privacy activists expressed worry when on Monday February 26, the "Six Strikes" rule was set to go into effect. Devised last year, the rules involve the "Copyright Alert System" set up by the following Internet Service Providers: AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Under the system, copyright owners are supposedly alerted to people downloading their content without permission, and they can alert the ISPs to the people targeted by the system. The first alerts are warnings. After a few warnings come "mitigation alerts" which depending on the ISP results in temporary reductions in Internet speed, a downgrade in the service tier, redirection to a page for a period of time, or other measures. After six alerts, there are no more, but each supposed violation is recorded in case the matter is taken to court.





Critics point out that the system is imperfect, that in wireless Internet "hot spots" that an innocent user could potentially be tagged as illegally downloading even if he/she wasn't as open wi-fi signals allow for their IP address to be used by others. Also, there are methods for determined pirates to avoid the system, such as cyberlockers, streaming sites, offline swapping, and others. Then there are privacy issues. Electronic Frontier Foundation director Corynne McSherry called Six Strikes, "just a great big expensive system to snoop on and intimidate people" whom she felt were mostly behaving themselves. She called it's recording of violations, "a private copyright system, and it doesn't have the protections and balances that the public copyright system has." It has also been noted that the system's software to identify copyright violations was inspected and approved by a former lobbyist of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

In early 2012, RIAA was among those trying to get the US Congress to pass the SOPA bill, which alarmed critics who stated it's vague language threatened to shut down the Internet as we know it. It was in the months following it's defeat that the Copyright Alert System and Six Strikes was set up. It was supposedly to be enacted in late 2012, but was delayed by the damage from Hurricane Sandy.

Sources: The Guardian, Torrentfreak.com, Theverge.com

Bixyl Shuftan

CBS Cracks Down on Sales of "Star Trek" Goods in Second Life

Recently, Second Life Newser was contacted by a reader about a development in the Grid's science-fiction community. CBS, the owners of the copyrights of the "Star Trek" franchise, has been going after Trek items being sold in Second Life. We got in touch with one maker of these goods, in addition to a member of a sci-fi group, to see what has been going on, and how this will affect Second Life.

Read more in Extra.

Cartoon of the Day

By Bixyl Shuftan