RedZone stopped from displaying alts

From  JIRA VWR-24746 a very welcome statement:

Soft Linden added a comment - 02/Mar/11 12:58 PM
Hey, all. I got the go-ahead to give an update on zF Red Zone specifically. Again, thank you for the ARs with specific info about violations. These have been very helpful for letting Lindens know what's going on.

Tuesday morning, we removed zF Red Zone from the Marketplace for a second time. We removed the in-world vendor distributing the item as well. We determined that zF Red Zone was still in violation of our Terms of Service and Community Standards.

We asked for removal by no later than today of all zF Red Zone functionality that discloses any alternate account names. That is, even if consent is asked, the service may not act on the consent. In addition, we asked for removal by no later than Friday of the interface for and any remaining implementation of the zF Red Zone consent mechanism because it does not comply with our policies. If these updates are not made, we will take appropriate steps to remedy the violations.

As before, we appreciate your help in keeping an eye on content. If you find that any merchant's product is not in compliance with our TOS or our Community Standards, please file an abuse report about the product. Do this even if you filed against a previous version. Include a specific explanation of what you believe is a violation, and ideally select and report the in-world object at issue in case it behaves differently than what's in the Marketplace. Before reporting, make sure you have first-hand knowledge of the issue. Support can best react if you explain specific steps to reproduce or confirm a violation.

.........

Thank you Soft Linden. I now feel a lot safer when it comes to LL's attitude and ability to stop any threats to our privacy.

Thanks also to all those that have worked so hard to make this happen. All the GreenZooners, No2RedZoners and SLU posters (I am a lurker) that have spread information and fought to keep calm and reasonable in an inflamed debate. And a special thanks to Theia Magic for working so hard to make sure no one was accused unfairly and that no one got away with lying their way into the list of greenlisted stores.

Anyway I hope that this is the end of the alt disclosure. That RZ changes into a device that bans griefers and copybots and nothing else. That zFire Xue himself decides to remove names from his database and let it all be over. The hole in the media functions are still there, but that will probably be acceptable if Phoenix includes the option to agree or not agree to be connected to a specific URL (even if masked a bit to protect media stream providers). It would be great if we all could get back to some normality again. 

Almost normality. We have our own tragedy on Fort Serenity with the inworld search engine not showing us when mature is checked. It may lead to us having to give up one of our three sims, Fort Serenity Ranch, that Major McCaw has landscaped into a beautiful western world. That really hurts :(

Getting my faith back

Oh I know I've been here before. But I just read Dusan Writers blog where he has interviewed  LL's new CEO, Rod Humble, and now my hopes are back up again for the future of Second Life. 


Listen to this little gem that is like an answer to all worries that LL doesn't care about our privacy:


"Privacy is extremely important for anyone putting themselves out there, expressing themselves, or expressing a side of themselves through an avatar. People don’t want other people to connect the dots from their avatar to their real life person – or even, for that matter, to an alt. One of the ethical obligations we have is to protect people’s privacy."


The whole interview gives an impression of someone with an intuitive understanding of the miracles of Second Life - from that first prim you create -  and that it has potential to grow into so much more. Read the full interview here: Dusan Writers interview with Rod Humble, CEO of Linden Lab.


I'll stop worrying about SL now. Tomorrow I'll get some machinima done :o)


And btw - if you haven't already voted for the JIRA's to stop RedZone and it's likes to be able to exploit the media functions:


Add options to selectively limit media sources to limit IP discoverability
RedZone Security violates TOS, exposes private information and is being misused

Actually it's best to watch them since that is the way LL knows we think they are important. I know it's a mess with all the emails you get every time someone posts in it, but in this case it may be worth it.

Warning - Alt avatars in Second Life™ are now being connected to your main account and published

If you visit or have visited a store that has the tool RedZone your alts will be public knowledge. I've yet to see a store announce that they use RZ, but it is widely spread and now they have a HUD version so they can go around and scan for our IP and place a cookie on our computer even when we are on our own land.

By all appearances Linden Lab condones this device. As a matter of fact judging from the aggressive attitude with threats of banning from the JIRA, when this was reported as a bug, I assume they even support the use of it. I'm most certainly not a lawyer and I do worry what this means for if someone finds a way to connect our RL information to our accounts. If LL don't risk a lawsuit over it I'm not sure they would act on that either. 

If it wasn't for the fact that RedZone is (so far) highly inaccurate, alts would already be rendered useless if you want to use them for privacy.  That will probably be fine tuned out sooner or later, so if you want an alt to have a chance to be private, don't bother. And if you already have alts with a somewhat shady second life, delete them.

I consider the identity of my alts private data. I don't care if they are totally innocent or not. It's MY choice who I share that info with. The people who need to know who my alts are already know.

Here is a publication of some of the stores that does NOT use the RedZone device if you want some safe shopping: Safe stores

Needless to say we don't use spyware in Fort Serenity Waterfalls Store and our sims Fort Serenity, Fort Serenity Ranch and Wiladma Island  :o)