Second Life Griefing- “Raid Warning” Virtual War
Posted in 3D Social Networks, Attention, Second Life, Security by wayne.porter on November 16th, 2007 Following was passed to me from a trusted colleague. As with any coordinated attack in Second Life it may or may not materialize. I would recommend SIM owners being alert. If none of this makes sense to you then it is not a problem you have to contend with. For some reason this reminds me of my interview with the SLLA (Second Life Liberation Army). so long ago .They apparently have NOTHING to do with this “Raid”, and again this is a general warning. Take it for what it is worth…
ADDENDUM: Per the original author’s request I have redacted certain parts of the notecard, which is academic given this threat has passed.
=== PN Raid Warning ===
When :
* Friday, November 16th, 2007
* Starts at 17:00 hours EST (22:00 hours GMT, 14:00 PDT) and is
expected to last around 4 hours.
* Even after the raid is over, there may be increased levels of
griefing the rest of the day and the following weekend.
Where : (Redacted at Publisher Request)
Weapons :
* Expect :
** Choppah Man Cubes
** Lulz Turtles
** Grid Destroyers
** Push Guns
** lolcubes
** Shiny Fun Friends
** auto-cagers & auto-orbiters
Avatars :
(Redacted at Publisher Request)
Suggested action :
* Frankly, if your island is a target, your best bet is simply to bar
residents with no payment info on file from entering the estate using
estate tools. Leaving this in place for a few hours is probably the
best solution. The reason for this is that the PN have weapons which
will flood everyone at their target location with permissions dialog
boxes, which can only be cleared by the target relogging. This spam
can continue for as long as they are in the sim. So pre-emptive estate
bans of all unverified accounts are the only sure solution.
* If you can’t temporarily block unverified accounts, then you should
make sure to set your land to no build, and try to have some security
team members around to deal with problems. Estate managers would be
advised to listen to the PS group IMs to better pick up on the PN’s
new accounts. Bear in mind that nothing short of an estate ban (and
sometimes a relog) will stop some of their weapons.
* Contacting Kalel Venkman to request copies of the JLU signal for
your security team is probably a good idea. These signals can help
summon JLU who will file abuse reports and keep up good communications
with the rest of SL. Them doing this helps get these guys banned
faster, and can reduce the load on your admins.
Other notes :
* The PN have been contacted by “Wired” magazine, and will attempt to
record these raids for submission to Wired magazine. Their hope is
that Wired will do a story on them, and thus give them publicity which
will help their recruitment of new members. Obviously, this means that
you shouldn’t talk to the griefers, because what you say may end up on
youtube or in print. It also means that proactive blocking of
unverified accounts for those four hours or so is probably the best
bet. If they can’t attack the sims, there is no way they can claim the
raid is a victory. If Wired were to see that this raid fails, they
might not do a story on this at all, or better yet, might do one that
encourages LL to treat the griefing problem seriously.
Other things you can do to help discourage attacks like this in future :
* Ask LL to give us landowners the ability to block particles emitted
by unverified residents and their objects.
* Ask LL (or an open source developer, like Dale Glass) to patch the
SL cllient so that permission dialog spam is subject to anti-flood
controls, rather like texture or notecard spam.
* Head for http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-456 - log in, click
around, and start voting for anti-griefing proposals that would help
make your life easier.
* Encourage LL to completely block people connecting to SL via open
proxies and Tor. Currently it seems that the signup system for
third-party sites using the regapi system use less stringent checks,
which results in them being able to bypass some of LL’s security
measures that way.
Credits :
(Redacted at Publisher Request)
–LL means Linden Labs
Popularity: 7% [?]
This is a classic case of why you should not pubicize griefer notices verbatim, or merely follow the advice of anti-griefer groups (which can be even worse). I’m all for publicizing griefing attacks and the public’s right to know (some people believe falsely if you never publicize griefer attacks they will lessen), but this merely plays into the hands of the griefers.
First, it’s a distraction — the attacks in fact are always going on, there was one just like this last weekend and it requires no special ‘intelligence’ to figure out that they happen frequently. They also happen at places not only on this list, with griefing objects different than what is indicated. LL has even turned off scripts everywhere it seems which has completely paralyzed the grid, rather than leaving it to the discretion of landowners to do (which does little good on the mainland anyway if you have no-show neighbours or Linden land where this has not been done).
And the chief beneficiary of this announcement is (Redacted), evidently, who is apparently once again trying to invoke the exaggerated fear of griefing, and a dubious “proof” of his “intelligence network” to style himself as the go-to security expert that everyone should “depend” on. In fact, his proposals always involve granting ever greater powers to himself and other large landowners and groups to even further control people, much like in his Capture Roleplay game. (Redacted), is the person who essentially destroyed the one democratic tool of Second Life that was surviving Linden control — the Feature Voter Tool, by “cleaning up” and helping to get it demolished and folded into a wildly cumbersome and ineffective JIRA device also controlled by a handful of security-state advocates.
Rather than being urged to go after the groups themselves and freezing them — they are not accidental kiddies, but a planned, organized conspiracy in SL and elsewhere on the Internet, and a very known quantity, not random griefing — LL is being told to create mass solutions that really hobble commerce. The “anti-spam” notecard give dialogue now is so daunting that many people refuse to click “yes” when new, even when you are trying to send them information they themselves requested, like a help card.
Some obvious things then are overlooked, like merely putting in a function “yes to all” and “no to all” for any action requests that residents could opt-in or out of. And there is already a fixed patch that removes the problem of how blue menus steal focus, preventing other actions like abuse reports.
Another effect of this announcement is to incite massive hatred and suspicion of unverified accounts, as if they are all griefers, when in fact many are merely non-U.S. and non-European, without ready ability to access and have work properly PayPal or credit cards. It’s particularly repugnant to suggest that griefers and security-state advocates could get their way with the Lindens and induce them to shut off in blanket fashion entire categories of users, i.e. those coming from third-party REG APIs (like CSI:NY or L-Word fans) or those coming on unverified, non-paid accounts.
In short, this is an obvious parallel to the very issues we face in real life with the war on terrorism, which also has the effects of removing many people’s civil rights arbitrarily.
Thanks Prok. Duly noted. No one forced or even asked me to post- I am responsible for it, so let’s not pass buck to someone else.
I did it on my own, and I will continue to follow security incidents in the space and publish as I see fit. I rarely publish anything, even though I do receive alot of intel about such attacks. e.g. KZOM
I note some of your properties are on the targeted list. I feel bad for ANYONE who is a target, but leaving the problem inside the SL community and not bringing it to the general security community at large means that we will all continue to endure attacks. Since I reach that particular segment, this is the start of more action to come from me.
I respect your right to disagreement but I will continue on my path.
best regards,
Wayne
[...] Wayne Porter Second Life Griefing- “Raid Warning†Virtual War Quote from the site - Following was passed to me from a trusted colleague. As with any coordinated [...]
Speaking of the land permissions, the defaults are quite dangerous for a normal user - IMHO merely setting “build for group, script for group” should deflect a fair share of junk…
I don’t know why you bother to “debate” her, them, Wayne, she, or they, obviously know a whole lote more than you do about everything. I was going to post about your little debate, but I don’t want people to think she, or they, are your typical Second Life user, much like we don’t like the typical depiction of us hillbillies in the media.
The alexa for her, their, site compared to the Herald is probably right, much like you, people try to defend themselves a few times and they either give up and move on, or they hang around and “grief” her, them, which explains the large number of comments.
It has been funny watching both of you try to educate the other, kinda like a head pounding competition on a metal wall.
Jimmy,
Why? Because it is there?
Prok has a kind part in her. I can sense it. She migth be possessed perhaps…I dunno
As for 300+ sorry, you should know better. Dig up a cast Sam and I did spelling out how simplistic it was to manipulate. Sadly that sort of metric cheats her “influence”- although she might think about “tone”…well she won’t…but I don’t control her.
She is stubborn. I just get out the lance to practice for the malwarians. It is like fighting with a drunk knight on a donkey hyped up on PCP (the donkey)…can’t beat em, just whack away at them for practice. In good sport of course.
Dalien working on a post about default perms…and I agree, but again maybe easier than CRM like “My so and so box won’t materialize”….
Rez, Tier, Prim…no wonder it requires indoctrination.
Tier? I climb those….I pay rent.
best,
Wayne
Wayne: I wonder whether preventing the customer support requests is the real goal behind… but it’s speculation. Maybe more that the permissions were quite buggy up to some point:)
Yes, it is always wise to contact us. With our vast numbers, we can take pride in having the ability to get any avatar, no matter how old or young, ejected from second Life. No matter what their offense, we can send in no less than a dozen JLU officers, who can combine Abuse Reports to speed up the Permaban Process. Have no fear, when we are there.
And I wear a big towel around my neck too, and pretend I can fly.
Come on, anybody who believes I’m really Kalel Venkman, raise your hand. I just posted this to show how ridiculous all this is.