Today’s Release Candidate Viewer (1.18.6.0) contains more important bug fixes and new functionality that we welcome your feedback on. As a reminder, Release Candidate viewers are optional updates that contain the latest round of bug fixes and/or soon-to-be-released new features. Please visit the test software page to download the Second Life 1.18.6 (RC0) Release Candidate viewer. Source code will be available for download shortly, too.
Changes:
- Age Verification (for details on this, please see Robin Linden’s post):
- The user interface for parcel and estate access has been clarified and improved.
- Added the ability to restrict access to parcels and estates to age verified adults.
- Removed the ability to *ban* access to Residents who have provided payment info or who have used payment info. We continue to support the ability to *allow* access to only those who have provided payment info.
- Login/Authentication
- We changed the way viewers login to Second Life. This was developed to support future anti-Fraud efforts. The changes are largely internal — apart from some minor cosmetic differences the behavior of the login screen is unchanged.
- For more information, read our public wiki article
- Crash Reporter
- The crash reporting mechanism has been improved. Following a crash, more useful information will be sent and reports should now take less than 10 seconds.
Bug fixes include:
- VWR-1627: Classified metrics are reset to 0 when the ad is updated
- VWR-1162: Land for sale includes L$1 parcels that are not actually for sale
- VWR-1125: Clicking Title Bar While Mouselook’d Repositions SL
- VWR-2483: the macviewer.xcodeprj file doesn’t create stripped binaries on Deployment or Universal
- VWR-2404: lossless texture compression on small textures not lossless
- VWR-2046: Focus is sent to menu/money/notification window
- Land owners can no longer delete objects belonging to others (but can still return objects)
- Positioning fixes for Japanese IME for fields where only ASCII is allowed
- Ctrl-Shift-W now works even if no windows have focus
- Fixed issue where avatar is stuck falling in place after login
- HTML login screen now functional again on Linux
- Floater sizing behavior corrected when viewer window is made very small
Please continue to report any new issues in the Issue Tracker and be sure to set “Affects Version/s” to “1.18.6 Release Candidate“. Your participation is welcome at our weekly (Wednesdays @ 3pm PST time) inworld bug triages, too!
Thank you for helping improve the viewer and the Second Life experience.
Official Second Life Blog 
“Removed the ability to *ban* access to Residents who have provided payment info or who have used payment info. We continue to support the ability to *allow* access to only those who have provided payment info.”
I have payment info used and I still think this is stupid. Why remove the ability? We can do it manually anyway, you’re just making it harder.
Your ‘age verification’ have a field to choose the verification method, but not any textbox where user can type their verification number itself.
Plus, it doesn’t seem to work well with the korean people. =X
Great work on these last updates. I’m loving the balanced approach you’ve taken here, with several bug fixes on every update but still concentrating a good bit on Windlight and Havok 4. Keep it up. I might even go premium. 😀
Why would you remove the ability to delete objects off land YOU OWN, i understand somtimes people rez stuff thats no copy, but they should be aware of that, they should be warned if they rez it…what if somone rezzes a ton of porn, or prim spam…….wouldnt it be less stress on the grid just to delete it instead of having to send ALL of that back to the person…plus somtimes the person wants the stuff deleted they might not want it back……..bad move LL
My 2 cents on age verification and the hinted consequences of not covering up naked cartoons in a video game.
BOOOOOOOOOOOO
2 thumbs down. Find a better way.
I am still getting contradictory statements from different Lindens about the reasons for this unnecessary change in the login protocol. I sincerely hope that this is merely normal confusion.
One bug that has been “Bugging me” and has failed to show up in any of the updates since July / August is still in this latest RC. The blue “Voice Enabled” icon still appears in my viewer on land which is NOT voice enabled at the Parcel level and is also NOT enabled at the estate level. It seems like a small thing, why can’t anyone fix this yet?
One other quirk with this RC – some of the viewer ‘floaters’ (camera controls, movement controls’) appeared on the logon page, making it awkward to get to the name and password fields. Aside from making it hard to get to the fields, I was able to log on ok. It’s jus wierd having the floaters appear before logging in.
Finally – nothing in the inworld profile to indicate who is verified and who is not verified? Or have I missed it? Are we meant to test the land restrictions? How can we test them if we can’t tell who is or isn’t verified?
Hi! I cannot open the support page by firefox, and IE cannot open the support chat. Please do something and make it work!
@4: Um, that’s just silly. They fixed a great bug, that’s not a “bad move”. Yes, *sometimes* it’s better to delete an object than simply place an object back into inventory, but if you don’t own the object, that’s not your call! LL giving anyone else the ability to destroy your property is just stupid. Good thing they fixed this.
@7 Atashi: I sincerely hope that nothing EVER gets into the profile to indicate who is or is not required to wear a yellow star.
@9 Gaius, @4 Eric: As of at least a year ago, landowners were already not able to delete objects belonging to others. If they attempted to delete a no-copy object, it was returned instead. This is just making the user interface match the reality.
@Cinos:
I think the reasoning behind it is that most landowners that do deny access based on payment info status do so only with “No Payment Info on File” residents. Why do that? As a way to help cut down on greifers. Which is perfectly fine for residential parcels, but being able to deny access through payment info doesn’t make sense for storeowners.
@9 Working at an island sim which holds a number of support groups, I don’t want to return things like evesdropping devices so that the avatar can just put them back again… if something is obviously left behind by mistake I return it – but if it’s obviously not legal for it to be there, like a bugging device left in the wall of a public meeting place (which has happened), I or any of the management team should be able to delete it.
I think it’s a bad idea to take this out.
@10 Argent: I’m not happy about where this is all leading either, I’m just trying to figure out how we’re supposed to beta test this gridwide beta. Do they figure we’ll just turn it on and wait to see if anyone complains that they can’t access a specific parcel / region? That’s just crazy, IMHO… there’s no way I’d ever turn this on without knowing in advance who it might impact, which means I’ll never test it.
Additionally, earlier blogs suggested that verification will somehow help us “Trust” other residents, and I don’t buy into that either, but I’m wondering how it will help us build this “Trust” they spoke of, if there’s no indication at all.
One more question has occured to me for the Lindens — I don’t see anything new listed in the LSL guide, has LSL been updated or have any changes been made in there as part of the IDV beta?
Hey Im not even able to login, the bottom part wich seems to be some HTML code can’t be activated somehow. LOL
What is the difference between the Release Candidate Viewer: 1.18.6 RC0 and the WindLight First Look Viewer: 1.18.5.74965 ? the “6” means that Release Candidate Viewer: 1.18.6 RC0 is newest and has more?
Best Regards,
shaq
P.S. – I like the old login screen better. Suppose something went wrong with the HTML login page. How would we login then? At least with the old login it would just be the fancy stats you won’t see, but the login entries can still be used.
It was my understanding from comments ages past that the changes being made to the login were to externalize it from the viewer itself. That way you’re never giving your login to the client program, and it therefore can’t be intercepted by an ‘evil’ version of the viewer. You are typing it directly into a web page maintained by Linden Lab, which theoretically should be more secure.
To test the age verifacation systym I set a small empty parcel to age restricted. I had a friend of mine (who has age verifided) try to enter it. She couln’t, it said for the parcel is restisrited to age verified. (she already is). It also asked her if she wanted to verify. It sent her to the age verify page which said that her age was already verified. LL needs to fix this.
I agree. land owners should ba allowed to ban anyone from there lands whether payment info is provided or not. and what if we want to delete some items belonging to a person and not others. surely the return option can only be used when all items are to be returned. this is impractical
also any idea when linden will increase the group allowance? 25 isn’t enough by far! would be nice to see that updated
Will any of the mentioned Release Candidate features/fixes come to the Windlight viewer and, if so, when?
Well, Linden Labs, you finally did it.
YOU CAN NOT LOG IN USING THIS RELEASE CANDIDATE FROM BEHIND A PROXY FIREWALL.
Why?
The SL client doesn’t support proxies.
This means that anyone at a company following “best practices” for firewall design, including the big companies LL wants to invest in the grid, have to go plead with their firewall admins to let them through.
I knew this was coming. I’ve told several Lindens that it’s going to break when they do this. They promised to take it up with the right people. And, guess what?
Sigh.
A bit confused overhere. The login screen has changed? I can’t find the password entry field the first time I opened it. Second time it appeared but the login screen looks like it’s not completed. Anyone checked this version on a mac?
With the ammount of ways to prevent underage people registering. Thinking along the lines of adult sites and site you need to be over 18 for you need to enter you credit card details to prove your age. EVERYONE is on a goverment file of some description. So Driving license, credit card number (in UK the National insurance number) and what ever other countries use. As soon as u enter these details BANG your identity is brought up.
So why the devil not do that. Have a drop down box on the REGISTRATION page with the ability to enter the details of your choice
* Credit card details
* Driving licence details
* Natioinal Insurance Number ( other form of ID in other countries)
* and something else which is connected to your personal details
This may also prevent the peadophile and other griefer sort of people registering and causing the rest of the keen players to have peace and have fun on SL.
Just a thought…but then I am only a player.. a pawn as it were and probably wont get noticed 😉
In my profile when I now look at my account info it says:
“Payment info used, Not” and that’s it. Which implies, Payment Info used ….haha not really!
I can’t scroll across to see what Not means. It can’t mean not verified because I’ve been verified for a while now.
where is the button?
also at the bottom right of the login screen it says:
Second%20Life%20Release%20Candidate | 1%2E18%2E6%20%280%29
@23: see VWR-1115.
Note One, totally white log-in info is a bit jarring…
I notice the warning of being on the Main Grid is gone.
meant to say where is the “preferences” button, but the word was removed after posting.
Why all the updates? Are you TRYING to ruin your business? I mean really!
Age verification at sign up. EASY
GAWD
oh did i mention you should reinstall and old viewer?
Viewer crashes constantly at log in screen, won’t even let me finish setting my preferences before logging in. Needs more work, maybe RC1 will solve this problem.
can you please move your servers offshore Lindens so the rest of the world doesn’t have to adapt to the pathetic bigotry of the american new moral right wing crazy christians…and I promise you it won’t help getting a democrat in the white house either…
Pingback: SecondLife begins adding Age Verification « I’m Just an Avatar
I can only agree with 33. I don’t want to start again another flamewar on nationality. But this game is supposed to be worldwide and as a european I think US morals are very weird. You can’t expect the whole world to take up US morals.
If LL was located in a muslim country would all female avatars have to cover their face? And if so would you still enjoy second life? I liked SL much more when their where no restrictions and sl wasn’t tied to one religion or law. I say also religion as the US is a county where religion is mixed with politics.
Age Verify…
Doesn’t work, at least for people in NZ using their drivers license, you need to get it to only list the acceptable forms for each Country, or have a list somewhere what is ok in each Country.
*wanders off wondering how he is going to age verify* (drivers license doesnt work, no national id card here, my passport is from another Country, etc etc)
yeah well fine how many times do i have to relog to get a direct voice chat that works (i am using the best stuff so skip that gambit wiseguys)?
wait, we can’t ban griefers from land we own now?
i dont understand this move, LL… are residents finally in check mate?
*begins work on an orbiter that can be quickly integrated into existing security systems via API*
Great,,log in after log in and cant get my money to load, cant upload, cant do crap,,this update SUCKS. Plain ans imple. How am I supposed to upload new items for customers that are waiting if you cant get the viewer updates to work right?
IT SUCKS,,TAKE ME BACK TO THE LAST UPDATE THAT WORKED FLAWLESSLY!
@36 and others… you don’t need to age verify. Unless someone convinces me this is a really great idea, I’m not going to.
Ok.. now the grid is screwed again.. money not loading, can’t upload anything, inventory items missing..
S.O.S. !!!!
How about a FIX!
New Login screen is missing several critical items.
1) Can’t see where I’m logging in. 3 unlabeled radio buttons.
2) No preferences button, how do i change this before logging in?
bad idea Linden Labs!
1st of all that does not work by me…
2nd:
Jeska Linden Says:
December 5th, 2007 at 4:04 PM PST
Hey everyone, the security certificate message was due to the link starting with “https” instead of “http” and has since been fixed -sorry about that!
and no statement to the other users that are angry?
it does not work… and till you LL fixed it all we can not enter regions who set that right?
yeaaw where is the post a few days before to notificate us? you forgot that or what?
well SL is anyway an ADULD GRID so why an age verification? There was a Teen Grid b4….
that is really stuipt im sorry….
please LINDEN LAB at least you could write a Statement to that!
wont work
its not needet
99% of all SL residents dont like it
IF YOU CONTINUE THIS THINGS…. YOU WILL HAVE SOON MAX. 30.000 USERS ONLY ONLINE…
many SL residents will leave SL… you dont even ask us what we want? we write an email with 400 people to support with ONE idea about SL what 99.9 % of users would LOVE! you only write “we are sorry that we are not able to do that at the moment please let us know if we can do anything for you” that makes real sence you dont think so? rofl
well everyone i asked would be happy about this idea (what i wont explain here now) but you dont care…
so LL one questiuon….. do you really care aout all the residents?
SL should be “MADE BY RESIDENTS – FOR RESIDENTS” or is that wrong???? well you better should listen what ALL OF THE RESIDENTS want here in SL and not what you want or what you think or like…. SL should be everything what most of the residents like…
or maby another stupit idea of me
did you ever thought about Fixing all the bugs before you add more and more and more features? well SL lags, crashes then came voice… sl crashes, laggs, unable to login, and there was Windlight… then SL laggs, SL Crashes, unable to connect to dns server, and IF u can login always… tp doesnt work, money is shown as loading and so on….. then came now the age verification….
WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO NEXT??? new features? really helpful lindens sure…. bugs getting more, features getting more, and bugs ever more the before….
and now an age verification that doesnt work by 40 – 50 % of the residents
do you MAKE the bugs only that you can work more?
really lindens i dont understand that
Is the Access for Verified only supposed to work? Because it didn’t.
Well, doesn’t work yet that I can tell once verified.
1) My profile says “Payment info used, Not”, same as unverified alt. Verified alt, didn’t change.
2) Set land access to Verified only before verifying alt, still got in.
Beta testing says…..
Borked
Ok, age verify stuff that’s great but what? when the nobody avatar be able to verify themself? how? and another stuff important for me…
ok, here come the insane question, With that new form of login/authentification, while be ever able to use -loginuri parameter and login in OpeSIM with newest viewer ?
Wooohooo VWR-2404 !!!
Hugs and kisses for this one to all of you.
You just made my life more enjoyable !
someone at SL pay attention to @41 lets get down to priorities we want reliability
“Hey everyone, the security certificate message was due to the link starting with “https” instead of “http” and has since been fixed -sorry about that!”
O-O
Um, I hope this doesn’t mean what I think it means.
I’ve broken the tinfoil hat ranks by age-verifying my avatar. Can anybody recommend an “adult only” parcel/estate to see if inworld verification worked? Thanks!
@38 and other: YES YOU CAN BAN NON-PAYMENT AVATARS.
They just changed it so you can’t ban payment-info-on-file or payment-info-used.
(sheesh)
Pingback: Knowledge Base Article of the Week #7: Age Verification Beta « Official Linden Blog
What does Payment info used, Not mean?
I am verified.
I think I will stick with Windlight First look.. But thanks for offering
Are new ports needed for this web login bit? I’m not getting through.
@54: you need direct port 80 and 443. NOT proxied. They don’t support proxies. See http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-1115
No login with this RC Viewer possible.
I think it would be better you test more the new Viewer before you deploy them.
As i told some weeks ago, it would be better to test all things BEFORE you deploy it. It seems, you haven’t really learned.
One question – and i’m really curious about the answer – you know that providing the informations for verfication is illegal to the most european countrys? It’s forbidden by law (you remember, the same thing why you banned gambling, is forbidden in your country) to provide this informations over the internet – even if the verification company is NOT located in the EU.
You say, you have to obey EU laws and have to collect VAT, so follow all other EU laws and find a different solution to become the age verification. You can’t pick the laws you want and kick all other – oh, you can, because you did it all the time, don’t you?
I’m really curious if the EU becomes the VAT you collect – i will find a way to check this.
Ok, i will stop the complains, i can understand that you want to be on the save side. I can also follow that you want / need a age verification. But why you don’t follow other companies? It would be also a better idea to work with different companies, even for the european residents.
Finally: you will follow the laws, thats ok, but don’t force your residents to break the laws for the age verification.
Re. the “Payment Info Used, Not” thing, I edited the xml files for the profile floater and avatar panel and it does indeed exand to “Payment Info Used, Not Age Verified”. It displays this for my profile and every profile I have looked at so far. Note that I verified months ago and on the verification web page it says I am verified.
Look at the file “panel_avatar.xml” for more information.
@ 56 I’m sure the EU will get our VAT. No VAT was one of the big wonders on second life from me, because it seemed impossible as we use CC for payments. But i have to add that collecting VAT is only possible for products that are imported to the EU and as the VAT is collected on the land tier that means the virtual land is not virtually located anymore in the US but in the EU so we don’t have to care about US laws as those not apply to EU citizens as we pay VAT in the EU
@57
Thanks Atashi for this information.
Quote from the FAQ:
Will the fact that I am “age verified” or “non age verified” be published or made available to other Residents?
Other Residents will not be able to view your age verification status — for example, within your profile. However, if you are on a parcel that requires age verification, other Residents on that parcel (or having access to your location information) may be able to deduce that fact.
—————————————————————–
LindenLabs, you should fix it. Finally the login with the RC Viewer was successfully and i can see if other residents are age verified or not.
Is your FAQ a joke?
It still shown me one more time, that you don’t test your software enough before you deploy it. Even if it is a RC and the age verification is beta, this informations have never been shown to other residents.
Land owners can no longer delete objects belonging to others (but can still return objects)
For those complaining about this, you should be aware this was already the case. This change was made silently a LONG time ago, and for many months, the delete button has done the exact same thing as the return button
This is simply removing the delete button on other people’s objects, as it current;y does absolutely nothing anyway.
Pingback: Age Verification? » Kabalyero
LOL this stuff is hilarious.
First, Linden Lab cancels the “credit card” login requirement, supposedly because many people (especially oversees) can’t get a credit card.
So now they require AGE VERIFICATION. And what, these same people are supposed to be able to get THAT? And that requires what… a CREDIT CARD???
LOL LOL LOL.
“Removed the ability to *ban* access to Residents who have provided payment info or who have used payment info.”
So what does this mean exactly? Rather vague statement. Does that mean that land owners can no longer ban people just because they have payment info on file? Or what?
Not sure how I feel about all this, but up front, it seems like more tunnel-vision knee-jerk solutions to valid problems. Would appear to me that the age verification thing is nothing more than a smoke-screen for LL to protect their tails legally. “Hey, we have age verification in place! Beyond that, it’s the responsibility of our CUSTOMERS!”
Yup, sounds like more “blame it on the customer” tactics.
little bit of a tidbit for you guys, one democratic cadidate wants this to happen, hillary clinton, who has office in SL, im not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, but do you think that LL is being bought by the democratic party?
by the way, the “not” says “not age verified” the box on your profile just cuts it off
1. It is now impossible to log in using the main or First Look viewers. You HAVE to download and use this “non mandatory” release candidate.
2. The RC login page is nonfunctional if it is windowed and spread over two monitors in a multimonitor system.
What??? No changes to the horrid communicate window system. *sighs*
@63 we can all be glad that republicans have no office in SL!
Removing the ability to ban on payment info used refers to the check boxes at the bottom of the ban page. It really makes no sense, in a platform that wants to attract paying customers, to allow land owners to blanket-ban these paying customers.
It doesn’t mean that it isn;t possible to individually ban them, just no more collective ban.
They left the “Ban no payment info” button, which will keep out the free accounts, and therewith most griefers.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
The change to the login system is worrying. If people with proxied access are no longer able to log in that will cut out a whole lot of people. Most companies use filtering, caching proxies for port 80 and 443; other ports are usually NATted outbound.
Also, how can LL want the Linden Viewer to become the standard for virtual worlds, if it has a proprietary login interface that will not work with other virtual worlds (see OpenSim).
This also means that it will now be absolutely impossible to compile the Linux viewer without the llmozlib. Another few hours of compile time added to each release, great!
Sorry for the second post, but I forgot an important thing: I do definitely want other people to see I’m age-verified, and I want to see it in the profiles of others. Just like LL, I like to be safe in having an adult conversation and knowing I am covered legally, because reasonable effort to ensure that the person I’m talking to is of legal age has been made.
If you’re concerned about the proxy problem, vote on VWR-1115.
@Melanie: It should be possible to log in without llmozlib by sending the expected form response then reading the UUID you get in the Location: URL in the response redirect message for the login token.
@ 43 (chrisse Zabelin) and i bet that dont even read you hun. I said the same thing about fixing current problems first before adding new ones. Stop being power hungry. SL is getting worse. I just want to be able to login, see friends, my family, have fun, do shopping IF I CAN TELEPORT and HAVE MONEY SHOWING upload pictures, walk around without my pc spazzing on me every 5 minutes and stalling and NO this isnt my pc spec… it happens to my friends too. I have spent well over £100 on my pc with new gfx card and more ram to make it better. Sure it was ok for the first few days but then its getting worse again. MAKE SL BETTER first concentrate on one thing at a time. Sure i understand SL will have hicups as after all its just a gloryfied website, but please!! for the love god and for the love of SL residents, try and sort this HUGE mess and very BIG hole you are creating here before its to late. It really will come down to just Lindens playing on SL one of these days. I love SL dearly its a chance for me to escape mundane real life but I’m fearing I and all my friends and possible other residents are going to leave for another online world. What must the new residents think to all this. “Damn this sucks I’m leaving, why did i bother” more then likely.
So please please please LL listen to your residents, because at the end of the day, no residents, no Second Life!
**Rant over**
Hmmm. I’ve been here in SL since y’all had 30k total residents.
I tried:
My US passport (Issued years ago)
My State Identification (Also issued years ago)
My SSN’s last 4. (Uhh, isn’t it illegal to ask for any part of a SS#?)
I’ve only had one address.
Well, since I can’t verify, and neither can either of my business partners, we’re not going to set any of our land, where we ARE selling mature items, to identity verification.
Feel free to abuse report us, people.
Seriously. I want to see 50 people on our island, abuse reporting our content, just to fill up LL’s abuse report queues and stop them from dealing with more important issues.
We’re not leaving SL. If LL doesn’t like us selling our products with age verification disabled, they’re going to have to go the extra mile, personally contact us and verify us (we’re near san jose, CA, less than 50 miles from the LL HQ) and tell us to our face that we must turn on age verification. Until that happens, the world may feel free to drop by our sim, and purchase our products.
Come by and visit us!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Euphoria%20Island/121/122/411
You need more work on the age verification. I tried with both the las 4 of my SSN and with my drivers license…both failed and both are valid. You need to make sure the mess actually works before you even put it out as beta…..this is stupid and not good for business.
Two issues here after downloading the Candidate viewer.
(1) Why can I see my camera controls on my login page? lol
(2) Why isn’t the Preferences button available on the login page, or am I missing it?
Should I make JIRAs for them, or was this done on purpose?
Pingback: The Grid Live » Second Life News for December 6, 2007
Jay: preferences on the login page are in a menu now.
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Darien
“It was my understanding from comments ages past that the changes being made to the login were to externalize it from the viewer itself. That way you’re never giving your login to the client program, and it therefore can’t be intercepted by an ‘evil’ version of the viewer. You are typing it directly into a web page maintained by Linden Lab, which theoretically should be more secure”
I’m sorry but this is a dangerously misleading statement, and one which LL has made itself a number of time.
What you say is strictly true – if the client is launched in a logged on state from a logged on web session, it should prevent a malicious client from intercepting a username and password. However, you are still running an executable which has full access to your inworld account and has priveleged access to your computer. You are still at risk from a malicious client, and there are still ways it may still attempt (and even succeed) in getting your username and password.
The danger is that people will read statements such as the above, and be less careful than they should about third party clients.
On the other hand, this would open up whole new ways of tricking people into phisching sites (links on malicious webpages to sites in world which take you to a mocked up LL logon page to launch the viewer; e-mails of the form “you have received an IM in SL, please click to access your IMs” etc.
Anyway, there was a long list of concerns articulated at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Viewer_Authentication_Critique although it appears even Argent’s web proxy concern hasn’t been addressed!
Matthew
Good Bye sl, all i care about now is that i am getting a fair price for my land…Might look into this in 1 or 2 years again.
But my guess is, it won´t be here anymore or only populated by a few die hard lindens…
happy drowning
1) Does this age verification mean that a private company has access to all the national insurance (SSN), passport number, driving licence ( from age 17 in the UK) and credit card details of everyone in the world?
2) There is a huge furore in the UK at the moment due to the government tax authorities loosing two CDs with 25 million folks details such as name, bank and national insurance in the post. I might loose a credit card number and I loose a limited amount of money ( or the credit card company does), loose this identify information and whehey the bad guys can really have a good time!
The last thing I want is to send so much information over the internet!
3) What is to stop “little jonny” from borrowing his dads/mums/big sisters passport etc?
4) This is all so that we can play a game! Not prevent terrorism or protect the UKs/Frances/Germanys/Brazils/USA etc. national security.
5) If you see some perve acting outside of the TOS or law, report him/her, just as you would in rl. You can also remind them that they are traceable over the internet!!
Sorry but you can count me out on this one!
i’ve loaded 1.18.6 RC0 on my mac…
and the *connect* button doesn’t work – it doesn’t *push* and doesn’t connect at all – just fyi – quadcore powermac the latest intel based.
You’ve removed the ability to BAN residents if they’ve got payment info on file??? What????!!! I will NEVER upgrade to this viewer, because I want to be able to ban people I want banned for my own reasons and not be prevented from banning them if they’ve paid Lindens.
The whole age verification thing, if you will read that blog, is an excuse to hand over Residents’ info to a data mining company. For this, all Residents are now inconvenienced and have to adjust land settings and ban lists.
Way to go, Linden Labs. You really really want people to leave, don’t you. Not to worry, we will. I for one know I have very little future as a designer in an environment with pretty skies and super ugly avatars.
@83
You still can ban ppl.
I’ve tested the new Viewer. Ok, then Ban-Tag is gone, but the ban ability is still there – under the Access-Tab. For me it makes sense, but the age-verification not, because it didn’t work, not for germans and US either (and many other countrys too).
It looks like that LL hasn’t really tested the verification procedure.
Btw, where is the link with informations about the verfication company? Even if it is still beta, THIS informations are MANDATORY. Your obligated to provide this informations, because the verification procedure isn’t located at LindenLabs.
It seems you kick one more time the laws of other countrys. Let me tell you again, you can’t pick the laws you want to follow, if you want to follow the EU Laws, then do it complete and not only the VAT.
And also the Company for the verification procedure; i’ve read it at several sites that this company isn’t trusty, so why you don’t choose a different company with a better reputation?
I’m not complaining about the age verification, i can understand that you want to be on the save side, but i complain about the way you do it – thats the wrong way.
I have provided my payment info and you guys have it on file.. all of a sudden a few months ago, my profile went back to “NO payment info on file”!!! I submitted a ticket to support staff for months no action and no response.
so unless u fix the old prob, new features just add to the existing problems.
Well this time I can only join the general consensus:
A) your age verififaction methods are illegal for most people in the EU
B) I have tried all possible combinations for identifying myself right now, despite its doubtful legality, but got a “failed” each try. I did move in the last 18 months, but both my adresses will not work
C) How hard do you think it is for a child with an IQ above room temperature to take their parent´s ID card or whatever and verify the account?
D) Isnt a paypal account etc verification enough? imo its just as much a verification as a drivers license: both require you to be adult to own, and both can be obtained from parents in JUST THE SAME EASY WAY.
so please, LL, reconsider this. Im concerned about having to illegally supply private information to a patriot-act compliant company (the patriot act is basically an act which declares that human rights can be ignored if necessary), which also apparently does big-time information sales.
The system is not needed since there already IS a way to verify, and also it will scare away a lot of people. Besides, it has a 100% failure rate for me and I cant even USE it legally. So please reconsider and do away with it, thanks.
Well, I’m pretty impressed – NOT.
As a Brit living in France, it failed all my ID:
UK Passport
UK Drivers Licence
UK SSN
French SSN
French ID card
WTG Linden…
UK Driving Licence is a laugh: those things are valid until you are 70, so they should be on their database…
YOU LINDENS REALLY SUCK FOR TOTALLY AND OMPLETELY IGNORING THE QUESTIONS OF YOUR RESIDENTS ABOUT AGE VERIFICATION
I HOPE NOONE WILL FLAG THEIR PARCEL BECAUSE THATS WHAT YOUR DESERVE FROR TREATING YOUR CUSTOMERS CONCERNS WITH COMPLETE IGNORANCE
WHY DO YOU IGNORE US WHY ISNT THERE EVEN ONE LINDEN THAT CAN ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO HIDE FROM US?
I did some Googling onthe company that owns the verification service. Among the things they do it provide a service for politicians to spam potential voter using voting rolls? I’m sorry, I’m an informatics and journalism major (working on becoming a computer journalist) and, well, that and what a quick Google search of “John Aristotle Phillips” (the CEO of said company) makes me think this is a Bad Idea.
I bet dollars for donuts that it’s not just EU law, but also many US states that disallow the use of drivers license numbers for this kind of use. With at least 51 drivers license providers in the US (including DC) and probably hundreds of actual laws covering that information, you better make sure you don’t violate my rights as a Hoosier for this quagmire of age verification. If it become required and John Aristotle Phillips’ company is involved, I may have to bow out of this crazy experiment and take my money to, say, Turbine. Lord of the Rings Online is awfully fun.
I think i’m gonna get out my C&¤ and start playing Boulder Dash instead of SL.
I’m not either a big fan of giving my personal ID info to an outsider that is not even from my own country or not a proper covernment ran authority.
And guess what i have no payment info,and probably never will have. Way to go LL you should know that everyone in the world is no able to pay for this fun,and everyone with no payment info is not a minor or a griefer, so why the limitations?, wait iknow US laws that are no concern to people in other countries.
There are people who pay and still act like brats to make peoples SL a living hell,and if i understood correctly i can’t ban them as admin cause they have payment info LOL!.
One more thing, i think this is going to be like the infamous WOW (which i’ve never played, lucky me!), NO PAY NO PLAY very soon for us “regular” peeps.
Oh something more the enjoyment factor is gonna drop radically, i’m quite sure about that.
“Thats all folks”.
thats wasnt hard. easy to verify. easy to flag my land as adult. I am not to sure how this will “protect” anyone. They will just move off the sims onto the mainland.
So now that people are IDV’d with a code attached to their avatars. Sounds like a way to track a persons movements,see what kind of sick things that make them tick, as well as see who they are.
I have nothing to hide so go for it. The only thing I see that could be a problem is the confusion of what has to be flagged or not.
Should just make everyone do it so we all have a level of “trust”
And get rid of the confusion of what should be flagged or not.
This is the adult grid so unless your under 18, What do you have to hide? To buy a pack of smokes you need ID, to buy booze you need ID,to go into a bar, you need ID.
I am already verified enough when I gave my CC info. In my country minors cannot get a CC. I will not give out any personal data to anything that isn’t LL. I don’t care about adult cr*p anyway so it’s fine for me.
I was writed this thing down like 5 times while my browser is crashed, the internet frozen and I’m full of this so I keep it short.
I’m all against this, LL shuld do a VOTE of this ‘Age-blablabla” and after that if YES is more than make this thing 1st priority in registrateing to get PPL know they HAVE to GIVE out their personal information not for those PPL who already in this game and makeing them upset for this, if NO comes out forget about this thing and press DELETE on this thing.
I say everybody this is all about to force us all to leav…..
Well LL, keep up the worse work! My SL experiance getting worse and worse, ty all!
PS.: Removeing the ability to BAN?!
Cool LL letting griefers free to grief all the way around of SL cooL!!
Nah this is mutch more than unacceptable, this is bad!
LOL … LOL …
Tried just the age verification …
Copy paste of answer afterwards
Quote
The information that you provided did not match available public records. This can occur if your information has changed recently. If you moved or changed your name in the last 18 months, please try age verification again with your prior address or name.
Please also try using a different identity document. Many countries use multiple identity documents, for example, a passport, driver's license, or national ID card. Please make sure that you've selected the proper country name.
If you are still having difficulty verifying your age, or would like to learn more about the beta release of Age Verification, please read the FAQ on the Second Life Support Portal.
Unquote …
1. Legaly my information was right ….
2. In belgium ONLY the national identity Card is a legal document NOT the drivers licence or other document … and as goodwill have tried them all … Driving Licence number and even … my Rijksregisternummer (=social security nr in the US ) … all with the answer above
3. Belgium has 10 provinces (didn t see any in a dropdown menu) so even my zipcode with or wothout B (for Belgium) has NO EFFECT
4. DEAR LINDEN you will never get my Credit Card number … (don t trust you a bit … sad to say)
Can i get for once a reply from you …. pls
So dear Linden Back to the drawing board pls …. and a BIG RED A—– for you
Or is it … I dont dare to think of it or dream of it…… to get rid off all those other pesty nationalities????? Just US in Sl would maybe be a dream ….
Interesting Research Hara on the verification company. In the USA this isn’t the first time this has come up…AT&T (et.al)’s wire and email tapping is the current buzz, …unerased computers sent to prisons, and before that it was the “Do Not Call” registr, where people VOLUNTARILY gave their information, under the guise of being protected,, which btw is up for 5 year renewal so you have to do it all over again. Before that it was the Lexis Nexis database (which still exists, blocked or not)… It’s amazing how MUCH of this information is already out there… Add to that how many times when you use a CC the company COULD take your info if the employees were dishonest. Getting this worked up over a single company is the tip of the already melting iceberg…
*sigh*
I am on the new viewer right now with my land access tab open I have the following options and can check each one.
-Allow public access, residents who have given payment info to linden labs and age verified adults. You can still choose to allow only payment info on file people only to get rid of griefers.
Nothing new other than one more option to check. No big deal.
One other question. Other than making a person teleport onto a flagged parcel to prove they are of age. Why not show at least in the profile if they are verified or not? I can understand not showing a person private info. But knowing at a glance if they are for real or not would be nice.
This RC is first one ever which I cannot get to work. At all. It crashes as soon as I get to login screen and it cannot even successfully send its crash report.
All previous versions have worked fine, but not this one.
Ok im tired of these series of small updates. Ive been looking forward to the havoc4 and windlight for a very long time. I personaly and i think i speak for alot of people want to see these thing that Lindens clams to be working on get finish. Your team of programers are working hard on the small things but not on trying to make this Second life viewer able to competing with other Cleints out there. I want that I candy and no lag. dangit man 😉
@79
Thanks for the reply, Matthew. Yes, I realize there are still many ways to circumvent the new login. Thats why I used the some carefully chosen words such as ‘theoretically’ and ‘should’. I have a personal motto, which has served me well throughout my life: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” If someone wants your info badly enough, they will get it. So always take every precaution you can to make that as difficult as possible. 🙂
These new versions remove the small Lag and Bandwidth indicators that were located in the upper right corner of the viewer. Why would Linden’s remove these tiny indicators? Because of a self-important search team these useful indicators are replaced by a useless search block.
My ISP bandwidth varies quite a bit during a session–or is it Linden’s networks that vary? To get maximum performance I would adjust the Preferences, Network Speed, based on those two tiny indicators raising or lower Network Speed as necessary to cut lag.
Torley’s video shows us what Linden considers the replacement for these two tiny and useful indicators–the Statistics Bar and the Lag meter. Both of these things take up viewer screen space. Thus to keep them open interferes with your SL experience. The tiny Lag and Bandwidth idicators used no viewable space and were there all of the time.
I personally solved the problem by going back to version 1-18-4-3. Whats the use of all of the fancy stuff if performance is lousy?
To vote to bring back the tiny and useful Bandwidth and Lost Packets indicators VOTE at http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-3156
This article’s link to the support Jira doesn’t link to the support Jira for this release, and I’m lost on those things.
I was just trying to send a postcard, but could not, because my e-mail address couldn’t be entered. Now, I’m in one of those lags, where I can’t TP without crashing, and the RC doesn’t have a preferences button, by which to log into a sim directly.
isn’t it already so that we can flag our land as mature content, i.e. for adults?
isn’t is that the main grid should be open for adults only anyway?
i will keep my land open for all residents as I am able for myself to ban childish people of any age or rude people or whomever I don’t want to have there for sevaral reasons
not to speak even aobut the vendor you choose for age verification
but, it is voluntary, of course: for the moment, you LL just want to introduce that idea to us step by step until we get mro used to it and accept it without complaining, so easy to see through your strategy
How odd. Using the release candidate I open my profile. I dont see a new field for verified or not but where it used to say “Payment info used.” it now says “Payment info used. Not” I assume it is saying “Not” verified even though the website account info when I click “Age Verification” it says I am already verified.
Looking at other comments here I see this is a feature that is not working properly yet. I certainly wont test this at my crappy little club.
(BTW we are hiring)
The Following has NOT been addressed:
What is the garuntee that this third party will
respect the privacy laws and NOT store he info unless
requested?
Is LL Monitoring this third party? Why should we
entrust our privet info to a third party we know
nothing about?
What about security? how securer is this third party?
Who do we hold accountable if a security breach occurs
at the third party?
What about third party credentials?
I believe we have the Legal right to view those too.
What garuntees do we have against Identity theft?
I refuse to submit any of my privet info to The third
party until you guys address ALL my concerns and
questions regarding this issue.
I do NOT feel safe nor secure releasing my privet info
to a third party I know nothing about.
How much do free accounts have to pay? what about
those of us unable to get a credit card for what ever
reasons or can’t access pay-pal?
Also it’s illegal in some countries for an online virtual world to
require a users social security number for any reason.
Linden Labs WILL be held accountable for any problems that occurs as a result of ID theft, grid security breaches resulting in ID theft, Security Exploits resulting in ID theft,
Any problems that occurs with this third party in regards to out Privet info.
Until LL has publicly addressed these issues I REFUSE to submit any privet info or take part in LL’s Age verification project. I simply do not feel my Privet info is safe nor has LL made any acceptable garuntees that it is truly safe.
Also it’s illegal in some countries for an online virtual world to
require a users social security number for any reason.
lol this is the only blog open, but qLinden said that LL doesnt keep info… but does that also count for the third party? they mine data!
I, personally, would like to see three things happen out of all of this;
1) A Fair and honest way of AVS. As a webmaster past present and future of adult websites (dont give me your moral speeches.. its a waste of breath.. they SELL) i can tell you FIRSTHAND there are MORE than enough AVS’s out there that do a VERY GOOD job at a VERY reasonable cost. And heres the thing that most people dont understand about them. MOST of the ones i know have NO AFFILIATION with the government except as record bases for congress. THATS IT!!! AVS is a BUSINESS! THEY CANNOT BY LAW SELL YOUR INFO.. OR YOU CAN SUE!! No one is going to come steal your trailer, its ok!! Honestly.
By US laws, i HONESTLY dont see how LL has gotten away with it for THIS long!! PPLLEEAASSEE step it up and give us a good AVS before some 14 yr old comes to my sim, has sim-sex with a furry, and his parents come after me and you for beastiality.. shutting the doors to SL forever!!!
1a) How about adding a gender to the AVS?!?!?! …(yeah.. im REALLY going to tick off the voice and AVS haters on this one..) BUT DAMNIT!! im sick of hiring “the worlds greatest lesbian stripper” only to find out 4 months later its some 40 Yr old virgin!!! REALLY!! ITS ANNOYING AS HELL!! I, for one, would LOVE to see a way for LL to impliment a gender verification to SL as well.. and i think there are MORE THAN enough people out there that would agree if you polled it!!
ok.. sorry bout the rant there..
2) Im not sure where all this “payment on file” / “ban from sim” thing is going… but if youre saying i can no longer ban an AV from my sim, kick , or any other misguided thing because they have verified IN ANY WAY…. ummmmm… ok.. ill just say this… THEY WERE BANNED FOR A REASON TO BEGIN WITH!!! I dont care who they are in RL.. i just dont want them on my sim!!! (im sooo hoping i got that one wrong)
3) .. and this is a pretty big one… REALLY annoying….
IS THERE ANY WAY WE CAN LIMIT THE RESPONSES ON THE BLOG TO JUST ONE!?!?! When issues like this come up.. I get REALLY tired of wanting to say something .. only to find out someone had to take up 20 posts to flame and argue with someone.. or just randomly put their 30 cents in by jumping in on the conversation 15 times…
@4, @13, @56, @jabroni iposttoomuch, @the guy who said…
WITH A LIMIT OF 150 POSTS, AND YOUR AVERAGE “ONLINE NOW” OF 30 – 50,000… i hardly see it as fair that some jemoke can post 20 times, and other people dont even get a chance to talk!!! I would LOVE to see the blog turn into something useful where players can express their opinions about what is going on in SL, and LL actually HEARS a good percentage more than they do now.. but thats mission impossible when all you ever hear from is the same 40 people with a cap of 150 posts.
.. just my thoughts
H.H.
Yes, two jira reports before typing in the user name…
@ “#82, Tressa Beaumont Says: December 6th, 2007 at 2:52 AM PST”
i had the same problem, but i found out u can login if after u enter your password u press Enter while your cursor is still inside the password text field.
A means of verifying age from the creation of the account already exists, with credit card or Paypal account. Yes, it’s imperfect, but the alternative LL is developing is going to have all the same flaws, even after it’s debugged and reliably functioning for 90% of the International Community. Linden Labs is asking us to put sensitive information in the hands of an organization that has shown questionable conduct in the past, whether or not they’ve cleaned up their act expects us to take bigger risk than necessary or reasonable, for a measure that’s no better than what they already have in place, if they were to implement it with full responsibility.
That means getting some ID verification on EVERY account from the start, and not permitting thousands of free, unverified alts to artificially bloat their userbase, which is not a wise or responsible strategy in the long run…LL, it’s going to bite you in the @ss, haven’t you gazed down the road far enough to see that coming?
Now it may sound reasonable to some of you to simply not verify, whether or not you produce or consume patently mature entertainment. But I’m running an adult RP sim on land properly labeled as ‘Mature’, based on explicitly erotic and violent literature, giving all guests sufficient prior warning about what they’re likely to be exposed to.
There are only so many precautions I can take, but one that I won’t take is to make the choice to take away legitimate adult guests’ choice whether or not to give up their info to a third party, and I won’t alienate the international guests for whom this process is both illegal and buggy. And I also won’t support a policy that will result in the ghettoizing adult entertainment, particularly for a policy that claims to want to clap hands over the eyes of the children after recklessly permissive account creations made this a mess in the first place.
@13
If the use of such objects is against the EUA(and I believe it is), then the obvious solution to this problem is to leave the object where it is, alert Linden Labs about it and ask a representative to come and remove the object and investigate the person for breach of EUA.
Which, frankly, seems like a much better solution than just deleting an eavesdropping object and hoping the person doesn’t just rez a new one. I’m fairly certain that there aren’t many no-copy eavesdroppers, though I personally haven’t seen one, so I don’t know. It just seems like a silly thing to make no-copy.
So yes, just go through the official channels like you are supposed to, and the problem will be dealt with, and probably more effectively. =)
Meh, yeah. The fact that LL isn’t requiring verification to even log into SL tells me they aren’t really serious about it. After all the TOS doesn’t say “those under 18 can’t go to Adult-flagged parcels”, it says you must be 18 or older to use the grid at all. If LL isn’t going to use this technology to enforce their own TOS, then why should I go out of my way to inconvenience those LL is letting onto the grid?
Pingback: Alterverifikation bei Second Life macht Fortschritte — mrtopf.de
Please, post the sources of the viewer on the Wiki…
What is it that you people are NOT getting?
Linden Lab crosscheck your information with a company that ALREADY has all your records. Whether it is in safe hands with Aristotle or not is another story. Please stop the “oh my privacy!” nonsense.
There are more important things to be focusing on such a GRID reliability, better communication and make Linden Lab test their software before release.
How about i can’t even get the new 1.18.6 viewer to log on… and now my old viewers keep crashing and the whole thing is kind of a nightmare… i have roleplays to attend to, people and obligations inworld as well as things to buy for myself and others >> all of which i would hope LL would enjoy/support… but well, with this viewer, forget it i spent the whole of yesterday and a few hours this morning grimly trying to stay ingame with multiple reboots… so yes, before we try to verify, might we try to actually stay on track and keep people ingame and able to move/buy things and exist in SL with some level of stability
Pingback: Age Verfication In Second Life « Second Life Rocks
Fix the search… it is really hurting my business.
I went from 20-30 sales a day to 2-3.
I used to make around 400 USD a month and now I feel like im making more from referrals and stipends (WTH?)
The current way is hurting so many people can’t you roll it back?
The catch with this current way is you have to be rich to stay rich…
How can new folks ever hope to catch up. You need to shell out hundreds of thousands to make it in the classifieds and campers to even be on the front page. It’s really counter productive and soon people wont be able to keep their sims open because they wont be found.
Roll this search back until you have the quirks figured out to make it a fair search engine.
I wanted to add that with RL companies coming to SL at a somewhat fast rate (faster than any before) these folks could buy up all advertisement and traffic via camping with somewhat light pocketbooks for these companies. These companies would easily shell out thousands of dollars to advertise their items and RL business, which is not really a good thing.
Something to think about
quoting from http://www.gridgrind.com/?p=228
“Michael Linden: “You can certainly use other systems, with or without also using “mature” flags, sure.”
Prokofy Neva: “but what is the liability for a landlord who has not checked off land as containing graphically sexual or violent content, and then a tenant puts out this content and is AR’d? Will LL go after the landlord over his ownership of the land or the tenant for ownership of the content?”
Michael Linden: “Neither. It’s “strongly encouraged” and “voluntary“. “
Please note the bolded statements. Flagging your land as adult and blocking unverified visitors is completely voluntary regardless of content. Someone could come along and abuse report you if they wanted to, but there is no consequence, there is no punishment, it is NOT required. This is in Michael Linden’s own words.”
Id like to know is this really true? will there really be no consequences if we choose not to flag? no deleted or blocked acounts, no abuse reports forcing us to verify if someone sends an abuse, no taking our land from us, or other reprimands?
please give us a honest answer lindens..pleasee? because from the blog and the help files i could not find this information!
Pingback: What if I’m under 18? » Kabalyero
I think after 3 years of premium and owning several islands I will go non it seems to an old player that this is just another load piled on us by lindfagle labs in an effort to protect themselves the registration is a joke pick ant known human on the planet living or dead and receive your validation. Come on LL do something with respect this is a joke the game does not function your silly shower curtain will pierce it as soon as some one with the where with all decides to take the corporate structure on again proving using boiler plate does not work what in the hell do you pay your legal staff for, eating donuts?
You supply no direct information on this subject but ask us to turn personal information over to a data minor. I have instituted a program to determine how safe the information transmitted to the data minor is and when I receive the first hit with the data supplied I shall know then you will. Again you must think that we were all born yesterday I again urge you to explore alternate solutions and begin to act like a reputable company. Many here expect that at least from you. And Philip what’s the deal with putting a software creator on the firing line A normal CEO CFO CTO would step to the front and expose himself to the firing line tsk tsk After all you are responsible for all of this are you not
Pingback: Second Life Residents To Get Calls From The Real World « A comfortable review of news dropping from the metaverse
Blurring the boundaries: When real laws and virtual worlds collide
Second Life. Global online phenomenon. The future of the Internet. The Metaverse from the book “Snowcrash”. Whichever way you look at it, this hugely popular online persistent world, which has attracted over 6 million signups from around the globe since its inception 4 years ago, has taken the world by storm. Whether it’s the attention it has been grabbing by attracting huge corporations such as Nissan, Coca-Cola, IBM, Visa, Toyota, American Apparel and Reuters to open a ‘presence’ in-world, or the fact that over US$1 million of transactions takes place in-world between users each day (putting it roughly on a par with the GDP of South Africa), barely a week goes by without Second Life being in the news somehow. During April 2007, a cumulative total of 18,135,548 hours was spent online in Second Life, with between 30,000 and 40,000 concurrent users at any one time.
However, in the last week, it’s been in the news for a whole different reason. “Report Mainz”, an investigative news programme on German TV network “ARD” recently discovered evidence of a child pornography ring operating within Second Life. Initial investigations presented to Linden Lab, operators of Second Life, showed images of an male adult and female child avatar (operated by a 54-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman respectively) engaged in sexual activity. Further investigations by ARD unveiled images that were claimed to have been located in Second Life showing real world child pornography.
Unlike many other online environments, all content in Second Life is created and uploaded by its users. No material is checked unless it is reported by another user to Linden Lab for investigation as breaking some part of the Community Standards. Whilst most players enjoy this freedom to build their own world, with that freedom comes responsibility – and, as this article shows, sometimes that freedom crosses legal boundaries .
Under the Community Standards clause of ‘material which may be considered broadly offensive’, Linden Lab took immediate action and banned the two accounts that were shown as partaking in adult/child sexual activity. The news report [1], which featured an interview with Robin Harper, Linden Lab’s Vice President of Community Development and Support, shows her visibly shocked upon being shown the images, and although the commentary is overdubbed in German, clearly saying “those are not avatars” (at around 5 mins 50).
The images of real children have, however, been handed over to a state attorney in Halle, Germany. Despite several requests, at the time of this writing Linden Lab have not been provided with the location and/or names of those involved in distributing the real images by the TV company or state authorities, which would enable them to take the necessary action in getting this material removed.
One of the greatest attractions of Second Life to many people is the ability to customise every part of your avatar and the environment in which it operates, rather than being tied to a set amount of activities, items and places to explore through ‘level grinding’. This open-ended nature is a large part of what has made Second Life so popular. Many people use this freedom to explore various facets of roleplaying – for example a large Victorian/Steampunk themed area of land known as “Caledon”, and a group of Star Trek fans that have built a replica of the USS Enterprise and operate Starfleet Academy training programmes.
However, another popular roleplaying activity in Second Life is what has become known as ‘ageplay’, where a player takes on the form of a child avatar. This has many facets; often to become part of a ‘family’ (a concept that proved popular in The Sims Online, and is indeed a main feature of the Sims series of offline games) or simply to be ‘different’ and express perhaps a missed childhood in a therapeutic manner. Much of this form of ‘ageplay’ is totally innocent and really quite fun – however it is unfortunate that a small group of individuals whose tastes have instigated moral and legal debates have given this whole group a bad name. It cannot be stated too clearly that not all ageplayers are paedophiles, and that there is a big distinction between “general ageplay” and “ageplay involving sexual activity”. Several residents have suggested new terms for innocent general roleplay as children, such as “Family Play”, in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the minority that partake of sexual activity.
Robin Harper of Linden Lab stated on a recent blog entry [2] about the allegations, “Linden Lab has absolutely zero tolerance for depictions of child pornography within Second Life. We were outraged to see the images that ARD showed us, and will cooperate fully with any legal authorities that choose to investigate the individuals involved in such activities. Child pornography is, of course, illegal and as such is a breach of our Terms of Service. It goes without saying that anyone engaged in this activity will be permanently banned from Second Life, and subject to legal consequences.”
One aspect that the various media coverage seems to have ignored is that anyone who has spent any time online will be aware that there are sexual predators out there taking advantage of the anonymity of the internet – and that this problem is most definitely not a “Second Life” problem by any means. There are many documented cases of problems on MySpace [3] and various chatrooms where those under the age of 18 have been ‘groomed’ by adults with less than wholesome intentions. Even in ‘World of Warcraft’, having created a female dwarf Warrior (right), within 5 minutes I was approached in private message by another user stating “u r hott, wana make out?” The fact that I may not have been female, let alone actually interested, clearly didn’t even cross this person’s mind.
Back in June 2006, the decision was made by Linden Lab to remove the ‘credit card verification’ step from its account creation process, enabling anyone to explore Second Life and completely disregard the age limit if they so choose. At the time, a large portion of the community decried this move as irresponsible – whilst another group praised Linden Lab for fulfilling its perhaps whimsical dream of ‘access to all’. Whether or not those against the move will be proven right, or whether this is merely an isolated incident, only time will tell. Whilst certainly there is a lot of ‘adult material’ to be found within Second Life, much stronger – and certainly in many cases less legal – material can be accessed much more easily on the internet by anyone with a credit card, and it must be remembered that the majority of viewings of pornographic material are actually when the user has specifically gone searching for it.
A recent, apparently unconnected, announcement [4] [5] [6] from Linden Lab was its intention to introduce a voluntary verification scheme for users to be able to verify themselves as over 18 via a third party service, in order to access areas labelled as containing ‘adult activity’ by the landowners. Whilst some form of verification, mostly in order to keep underage players (who should not have been there anyway) away from inappropriate material, has been asked for by many players for a long time – especially since the removal of verification – this has been met with mixed reactions from some residents who feel that such verification is intrusive, and concerns have been raised in many areas about sharing personally identifiable information such as passport, drivers license or social security/ identity card numbers internationally, especially in countries such as Canada where it is prohibited by law to do so. Whether or not that announcement is connected with the forthcoming opening of the official “Playboy Island” remains to be seen.
Recent statistics [7] available for April from Linden Lab show that currently only 29.49% of Second Life players are from the US; the remainder being from elsewhere in the world, including 10.37% from Germany, 7.76% from France and 6.25% from the UK. Even Antarctica is represented in the statistics with 0.04% of signups! Clearly, for such a global operation managed as one simultaneous environment, it is very difficult to enforce US laws and cultural norms on the 71.51% of the playerbase that is from the rest the world.
Under American law [8], digital images that represent children engaged in sexual activity, but where no children are actually involved (such as an avatar operated by an adult, or photoshopped) are not considered ‘child porn’. However, German law does not make this distinction.
As nobody ‘owns the internet’, in activities of any kind where international boundaries are crossed, there is naturally a conflict of whose rights take precedence, as recent investigations regarding online gambling have shown. The US Court of Appeals [9] ruled in November 2002 that the Federal Wire Act prohibits electronic transmission of information for sports betting across state lines, but affirmed a lower court ruling that the Wire Act “in plain language” does not prohibit internet gambling on a game of chance. This is, however, an ongoing argument [10].
In discussions on a number of community sites, a number of US based players have shown concern that their ‘rights’ are being taken away by Linden Lab taking actions based on the laws of another country in taking a stand against ‘simulated’ child pornography, with the thought being “what, or who, is next”?
As Second Life has drawn in many large real-life corporations to have a ‘presence’, as well as attracting musicians like Suzanne Vega, Duran Duran and Regina Spektor to run live concerts in-world, there is also a concern that these allegations could cause some organisations to rethink their presence and leave, or put off new companies from setting up a presence. Gwen Stefani recently lost a multi-million dollar sponsorship package with Verizon [11] because her opening act, hip-hop star Akon, was unwittingly involved in a simulated on-stage sexual act with a girl who turned out to actually be 15 and had used fake ID to get into the ’18+’ event – even when things are not actually really your own fault, ‘guilt by association’ can often be just as damaging to you or third parties
One popular opinion amongst many Second Life players is that, consenting adults, in the privacy of their own home, should have the right to undertake whatever behaviour they wish, as “roleplay”, and that the authorities (usually the US government, although in this case Linden Lab) have no right to interfere or implement restrictions. However, the installation screens on “World of Warcraft”, whilst explaining the various realm and play style options available, states that roleplay servers are where players are “expected to act out their character as though he/she really exists”. Anyone who has spent any time roleplaying in a tabletop Dungeons and Dragons game, for example, would agree that their character is very much ‘real’ to them. Whilst there are, naturally, various degrees that people take their roleplay to (the fully user customisable and immersive environment of Second Life perhaps allows this to a greater extent than many other online worlds), the boundaries of ‘real and virtual’ can easily become blurred, and can have real life ramifications – such as the Chinese gamer who stabbed and killed a friend who sold a rare sword that he had let him borrow in an online game. [12]
Naturally, the investigations, both by Linden Lab and law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe are ongoing, and as such very little additional information is being released about its progress. However, in the modern world where media sensationalism rather than a balanced view is what makes headlines, it would be only too easy for Second Life to become known as ‘the place where they have child porn’, which would most likely result in its demise. The story has been spread across many media outlets around the world, including the BBC [13], Reuters [14] and the New York Times [15].
So what can the average user do, in any online environment, when they come across things that are clearly illegal, or at the very least questionable in nature? The simple answer is to report it and let the company that operates the game handle it. Most games have a function where you can send a question to support or report problems. State clearly the location, the name(s) of those involved, exactly what has happened and why you believe it is a problem. Remember that nobody has the right to make you feel uncomfortable at any time or for any reason online, especially when involving real world laws being broken.
The majority of players come online to escape the pressures of the real world. Whether it is in Second Life building a replica of a local landmark, in World of Warcraft slaying demonic beasts, or in Toontown collecting jellybeans… it should always be fun. Having fun also involves being, and staying, safe.
For more information, there’s a great guide on simple ways to protect yourself online here.
ajdown@jp
Stratics Second Life Portal Manager
This Veta Viewer does not correct a problem I’ve had since the last ‘official’ release of SL. I can not teleport sim to sim without SL logging me off and disconnecting me – every single time. I also can’t upload any type of file of any size. I use a Mac, but have a friend who uses Windows, and she has exactly the same problem. She has complained but is also being ignored. I was hoping these problems would be corrected with this Viewer, but they have not.
Some important things have gone unoticed. The verse in the new testiment bible”we are one body shaken together ect” has changed to a shorter frase in a planet wide time warp.
The secret government has captured genuine angel spirits with alien technology that keeps them in a magnetic cage for years. Be prepared to see angel traps along all the sidewalks. Cast your vote against this.