Talk About Surveliance

Privacy has become more of an issue in the last decade as people become more and more connected via the Internet. Shops have devices that know when you walk through the door and pull up your shopping profile to send special coupons to your mobile device. WiFi users walk or drive by your residence and see your home network, no "sniffers" required as they can just open the Local Network settings on most any device you can name and they see everything. On the most basic, lo-tech level, people not nearly as skilled as the legendary Sherlock Holmes can simply look at you to have a very good shot at summing up your personality based on your Old Navy shirt, Levi jeans, Converse All-Stars, and the white earbuds cable snaking into the jacket you bought at The Gap (you never wondered why Apple made the cabling white in a world full of black cables?).

Now imagine a crowded street where you simply had to touch a button on your eyewear to have tags pop-up over people's heads to show real names, preferred names, and something about a favored affiliation. And others can see the same information about you.

Maybe like on this crowded sidewalk (thanks, Wikipedia) pictured above.

It would look a lot like this scene from the Violet Infohub (SLurl) shown below.

Never thought of it as a privacy issue, did you?

Privacy Concern?

Just a few minutes ago I popped into Welcome Island Public3 (SLurl) where I was looking to see what changes might have been made based on the most current viewer. Soon, I have to start work on a Welcome Area for someone and I figure I might as well borrow from The Source. Upon exit, though, Main Chat showed that I might have had my privacy violated ...

[16:32] Teleport completed from Welcome Island Public3 (43,140,24)
[16:32] To teleport to locations like 'F R O S T', click on the Places button, then select the Landmarks tab in the window that opens. Click on any landmark to select it, then click 'Teleport' at the bottom of the window. (You can also double-click on the landmark, or right-click it and choose 'Teleport'.)
[16:32] To contact Residents like 'CC Columbo', click on the People button , select a Resident from the window that opens, then click 'IM' at the bottom of the window. (You can also double-click on their name in the list, or right-click and choose 'IM').

Some God-endowed script looked into my Landmarks list and grabbed a random site (Frost, which I featured on this blog last April) to recommend that I visit and then peeked into my Friends list and picked out a name (my brother, in this instance) of someone for me to contact. Which leads to a couple questions:

1. If I was a new resident, what picks would the script have made?
2. Isn't this a sort of privacy violation? Who I know and where I go shouldn't be open to the perusal of others.

If The Lab can do this, I'm guessing that someone else might be able to create a script that can do the same thing. Does anyone know what sort of security The Lab has on a Resident's stored information?

About Alts

Just yesterday I was given a gadget that lets me detect the use of Redzone, a system that identifies a Resident's Internet Protocol (IP) address in an effort to determine if an avatar is an alt of a banned Resident. Someone is assuming that common IPs mean that the same human is behind the keyboard of each. That strikes me as a potentially false assumption. The IP for my computer is the same for my iPad, my AppleTV, my neighbors, and for the guy in the car parked across the street surfing on the neighborhood's unsecured networks. So if my neighbor logs into Second Life and visits a Redzone-provisioned place where I am banned, she or he is likely to be banned, too.

Silly, I know, and I made the same observation as part of a (poorly written) comment on Tateru Nino's blog post about the Quickware product (apparently it is like Redzone). I also noted that my alts are fairly public. For those of you not up to speed on who I am in various places at various times depending on my various moods, here is a recap and a small surprise.

Uccello Poultry, my first alt, if you think of all my accounts as alts. Not to be confused with Uccello (Resident), a recent account I made to "protect" the name when the new avatar naming scheme was implemented. Ms Poultry is a polymorph but is usually human-ish and sometimes goes by the Display Name of Caitlin Peale or Uccello Peale (sharing a last name with my wife, Angela Peale), though at the moment she is Caitin O'Mygosh for the coming holiday. She is my oldest account and was started the day I turned 18 and could flee the Teen Grid. That avie will remain anonymous if only to keep my reputation cleaner than the sullied state it is in now. My avatar looks very much like the Real Life me, though with my most recent skin purchase I've adjusted the face a bit to better fit the texture.

Uccello (Resident) looks nothing like me, seldom appears on the grid, and has but one "human" form. Nearly 100% of the time she is some form of bird ... "Uccello" is Italian for bird. Flying in Second Life is a great way to relax and that is what I use her for. Sure, I can fly in all my avies, but she needed some purpose.

Usra Ostrich, also known as Mousra in Display Name and in spirit. She is my twin. We have identical hair, skin, eyes, shape, clothes, though she is most often a Loco Pocos mouse. This account was started to help safely explore aspects of my personality with the help of a Real Life therapist. Actually, that is why I started in Second Life, but there's a long story and not that important right now. What you should know about Mousra is ... well, nothing. She's me. Just a mini version. She has morphed in purpose over time and is more or less just for fun now (and not "fun" like most SLers mean it).

Zyx Flux, the first of my pixy alts. As noted elsewhere on this blog, this account was created to help win prizes from Lucky Chairs, but has since taken on a life of her own. She's child-sized and child-like, but is adult verified. I think of her as my landscaper as I'm focusing her inventory on items used to create garden environments. This is helping my main inventory stay in check. But I also love to explore the world with her. Others seem to delight in her presence and are more receptive to chatting. I guess her smaller size and unique appearance make her "less threatening" in some respects. She's not the sexpot that Uccello Poultry often appears to be so folks seem to relax more.

Zyx (Resident), the bigger, more adult version of the previous avie, was born to preserve the name, much like Uccello (Resident) was created. But unlike the bird avie, she's become a complete entity unto herself. In Real Life, I am a rather butch, mousy, plain, quiet lesbian that practices not-standing-out in a crowd. In Second Life, Zyx (Resident) is my fashion model ... the sophisticated, confident me, that exudes a calm womanliness without pretention. But she's still a pixy and plays the role to the hilt. Magic is at her soul. Here is her debut on this blog.

Torii Heron, my very first alt after coming to the main grid. Notice her name is a form of Bird Bird like Uccello Poultry? Yes, I was on a streak. For a long time Torii was an asian woman then she became a fish, but lately she's a bird, like Uccello Resident, befitting her name. Originally she was created as per The Lab's suggestion in the first book on our world (don't buy it, it is dross, but you can see it at Amazon) to make an alt to store excess inventory or to back it up. This was going well until The Lab's servers decided to ruin my life one day by trashing the inventories in all my accounts, including Torii's. I've not really had the heart to cancel her account, though, partly because her name is so cool. No picture of her here but if you really want to see what she looks like, peek out your window. See those winged things flapping about?

Delicate Quandry, one of two alts I share with my Real Life brother (CC Columbo in Second Life), is the surprise I mentioned ... this is her first public outing. Several people know that she is me (or my brother) and henceforth so as to make it clear who is "behind the wheel" I'll make arrangements. She came about partly because the opportunity for a cool name came up, but my brother needed a female alt for modeling and I wasn't giving him my password so we decided to share. Likewise, he has a male alt that we share for the times I need one and to keep me out of his account.

Mystery Woman (not her real name) is another surprise. Not sure what to do with her yet. One person other than my brother knows her, but for their privacy I won't reveal Mystery Woman's name. She is sort of a "get away" alt, like many folks have ... an avie you use to be anonymous. I keep her solitary with no one but "family" on her Friend list and she doesn't socialize, that includes cybering. She could be the reason that systems like Redzone exist as I've used her to "spy" on griefers that have bothered the Isle of Lesbos and for similar activities.

So, those are the names. Ban away. Second Life is a big, big place, and I'm sure I'll find some place other than yours to visit and spend my money. But do me the courtesy and tell me I'm banned, please. It could all be a misunderstanding.

Click Here for more of Tateru's posts on the topic of Alt Detection.

PS: There is one more alt ... but I don't have permission to mention her as even a post-script ... ooops.

Privacy Settings in v2.5 Viewer

Web-based profiles are now the standard as The Lab has released their v2.5 Second Life viewer (Web) and an important part of the new profiles is privacy settings. When you open your profile in-world (not on the Web, oddly enough, unless you go to this page while logged into the Second Life Website) click the Privacy Settings button next to your name (see pic) and you'll be taken to another page where you can set whether just your friends, just Second Lifers, or anyone with Interwebs access can see your groups, your picks, and your classifieds. If you don't use the Official Viewer, your profile is still on the Interwebs unless you say otherwise. Access your profile via the viewer as described above to set your preferences if this is an issue for you.

Can SL and RL truly be seperate from each other?

Here is the Mix'n Match blog swap (Web) post from Stuart Warf of The Insane Life of Stuart Warf (Web).

When I was assigned this topic of "Can SL and RL be truly kept separate?" My instant reaction was to say that they can't be separate. In the current state of technology it is hard to keep something like SL and RL separate. But then it dawned on me that my situation isn't entirely the same as others in Second Life.

Now there are many reasons why somebody would want to keep their Second Life separate from their Real Life. A simple example of this could be that the person just wants their right to privacy. There are multiple reasons why an avatar would want privacy though. Someone could have a high profile job in some area and want Second Life as an escape without anyone finding out who they are. Some companies do have policies that require them to say who they work for in their contract which can cause all sorts of issues and see it fitting to just not mention who they are in order to maintain a simple life and escape.

In todays digital climate it's hard for someone to keep their real life identity a secret once they have revealed it, thanks to things like Google. So people who are aware of this decide to just keep their real life information separate from their virtual life.

Another way in which SL and RL can be separate is via roleplaying sims where you can act out a different life as a character and interact with a world. Examples of this could be the fantasy world of Avillion or the Star Wars world of Little Mos Eisley.

However there are many beinifits to not keeping SL and RL separate. Depending on what you do outside of the virtual world, you can be more open about who you are as a person in reality. A great example of where this typically happens in social networks like Facebook. Social networks like these can help you get to know your SL friends more and maybe even make new friends.

Other ways to interact with other avatars are microblogging websites such as Twitter and Plurk. Not only can these services give you another communication window into peoples lives.

When I look at who are probably the most open of avatars in Second Life I think these people are the podcasters, bloggers and active community members. Podcasters love to talk openly about things which says to me that they are also open in Real Life about their Second Lives.

Personally I think that SL and RL can be separate if you really try it but you limit yourself to what you can do in the virtual world. What I mean by being limited is that you miss out on a lot of the things you could enjoy in the world. If your trying to cut your real life off and be someone totally different in Second Life then ultimately it won't last forever. You can easily not tell people your in Second Life in real life but that can cause problems and that's why I figured that when I entered the world, I'd talk about it to friends and family.

Another thing that I've found while being in the virtual worlds is that aspects of it changed me in real life. I have become increasingly confident towards people (and I know that this has also happened to friends on mine in Second Life as well) and I truly believe that because of things like this that SL and RL cannot be separate.