BREAKING NEWS: Second Life Hacked, Iranian "Cyberwarriors" Claim Responsibility

 

 ** Update : April Fool's! **

 

If you had trouble staying online yesterday, or couldn't access the website, you were not alone. The website was down for a short time, and for some time afterwards hard to access. People were also crashing more often and having trouble getting back online. 

 

But that wasn't the only trouble. Whole sims were hacked and covered with Iranian flags. There were also signs with pictures of hot dogs & ham and pictures of dogs, with the international "not allowed" sign over them. 

 

*Addition*: There are stories of a few women whom when knocked offline and finally able to log back in found themselves wearing a burka and found themselves unable to remove it until they relogged using another viewer. 

 

A group of self-proclaimed Iranian "cyberwarriors" took responsibility, saying this was part of their fight against America. 

 

There has been no official comment from Linden Lab, though there were some comments from individual Lindens. To read them, head to the forum thread here.  

 

 

How To Second Life : A Guide For Those Who Are New - Part Two

Last week, Cyfir (Cyfiremmerich Resident) wrote some helpful hints for those brand new to Second Life. Today, in his second part of the series, he has some more tips for newcomers whom are familiar with the basics (and a few whom have been around a little longer whom haven't figured them out yet). One is the Caledon Oxbridge University area which is full of help for new residents. The rest are about the viewer's Preferences menu, which can help you get to more places and make lag less of a problem, the Search function, and how to handle griefers and trolls.

Read Cyfir's story in Extra.

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

Microsoft Pulls Plug on Experiment In Artificial Inteligence Quickly Gone Bad

It's a theme from science fiction that happens again and again, engineers either set out to create a fully functional artificial intelligence, or they accidentally do. And it isn't long before it spirals out of control, concluding humans are a threat and begins acting against them. But could this really happen in real life? After an experimental AI was made accessible to the public, it attracted the attention of Internet trolls. Their actions turned the chatbot from a teenage personality to one spewing hateful remarks in less than a day.

Read more in Extra.

Real Life News: Net Trolls, Internet Ownership, and Bitcoin

There's been a few things going on in real life news that have some impact on us in Second Life, or are least of interest.

An online survey by Canadian researchers suggested that Internet trolls are "prototypical everyday sadists." (CNN) This is something that would come as no surprise to some Second Lifers whom deal with griefers.

Last week, the US Department of Commerce anouced that it was giving up its control over ICANN, the organization that oversees the Internet's addressing system (BBC) (Popular Science). With the NSA's relentless spying on people's use of what they've been looking at online, this might seem like good news. But some are wondering if this move could end up leading to widespread censorship by governments over what people can see online (Breitbart).

The big thing in the news lately though has been Bitcoin, which made the news in Second Life media last year. Late last month, Mt Gox, one of the leading exchanges for Bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy and confirmed that it had lost over half a billion US dollars worth of the virtual currency (Wall Street Journal) (BBC).The result has been a steep decline in Bitcoin's value that some are wondering may be permament. While this was still fresh in the news, Newsweek announced that  Satoshi Nakamoto, a 64 year old Japanese American was the creator of Bitcoin (Newsweek). But Nakamoto denies the story, saying he doesn't even own an Internet connection (Yahoo), and has moved to "clear his name" (BBC).

Since then, other events on the world stage have taken the spotlight off these events. But no doubt more is to come in the following weeks.

Bixyl Shuftan