all the cameras watch the accidents and stars you hate, they only care if you can bleed

Tossed up two new links on the sidebar. There are scores of people asking for donations in world for Japan relief, and I'm not trying to compete with that--but if you're here, and you feel the urge to flip a few bucks their way, Direct Relief International comes highly trusted for Japan. And above that, Haiti Relief is still on the ground in Haiti, helping the country rebuild. (With all major buildings still under construction, a recent virulent outbreak of cholera, and more than 300,000 dead...yeah, it's going to take a while.)

As long as we're talking virtual donations, Gaia Online apparently forced the fundraising cap up on the site's donation efforts. They had originally pegged a high mark of $10,000--that's US dollars--but the donations came in so fast in such numbers that they hit $50,000 before they knew it. Sales of special fundraising items are still ongoing.

Meanwhile, AltDetector Resident--one of the minds behind QuickWare's AltDetector Pro--has been summarily banned from SL along with the objects, scripts, and the like--which are probably also going to be globally stripped from the asset server, along with any remaining RedZone bits.

Anyone else? I think, based on Soft Linden's actions, alt detection is No Longer Cool. (Not that it ever was.)

So, now that it absolutely doesn't matter in the least, where were we in the RedZone Thread of Doooom?

Boy Lane:

"Sorry Zidonuke Ghost, you overstepped a number of times.

"You close relevant issues that are not in your responsibility.
"You call people you don't like names.
"You pretend/hack into, to be a Linden who can assign roles to Jira tickets (Soft Linden) and you try to scare people in taking appropriate action "If you reopen this here, your Jira privileges will be revoked."

"Unless you are a Linden hiding behind some fake account, this is a slap into the face of everyone concerned here, including Linden Lab and Oz."

I quoted pretty much the whole of this comment because it's so apt. And following that was this bombshell:

Psyke Phaeton:

You can learn all about Zidonuke here:
https://twitter.com/#!/Zidonuke
including things like:
"@ZaphaelXaron I operate in a very narrow grey area that appears to keep getting me in trouble. But I will not stop my security research."
"All 200 Alts just got banned."
"Filed 75 Support Tickets for my most important alt accounts. Filing another 50 tickets for the vaporeanbots."

And this was another entire passage from the comment. I mention that because I'm reading through his stream now. How about trying some of these comments on for size:

@Zidonuke:
I'm going back into security exploit finding in SL. I just learned of some amazing things from people. Also the fact that I earned money.

@Zidonuke:
I have discovered a new way on how to trap copybotters based on a pretty neat method. Visiting a copybot related website = ban on my system.

@Zidonuke:
SL Bigbrother is coming once again. Deploying zidobots across the grid to track and record agent keys, region location, and local position.

@Zidonuke:
And so, Linden Lab shall burn. Goodbye Joe Miller. Now... Only if @soft will quit LL. If he leaves, I lose all faith in that company.

Yeah. Sounds like a definite asset to keep around in SL... :/

There was a lot more back-and-forth bickering at that point, but then guess who showed up again?

Soft Linden:

"Zidonuke, stop monkeying with this issue.

"'No one at LL can remove RedZone because the policy to make it illegal doesn't exist in their eyes.'

"While it's true that it relates to policy and that this often makes response slower, nobody at LL has said anything like the above. You asked and I gave you the same answer I've given anyone else who wrote a security ticket: I've made sure several key people understand how it works and what privacy issues are involved. Until they have approved a response, no Linden could or would make any statement about the company's position."

Way to step up and tell Zidonuke he's wrong. Woot!

And I may or may not return to this, but this feels like a great place to stop:

Argent Stonecutter:

"Regardless of whether it's legal or not, it's creepy as hell, and it's far more of an invasion of privacy than cameras in malls since those don't tie into a government issued RFID tag shared by friends and family. It utterly astounds me that anyone can defend it."

Pretty damned much.

We live in a universe where companies sell our ages, our habits, our locations, our dating profiles, our surfing history, what we buy and what stores we buy in, where we choose to eat, our insurance information, our medical information, and our credit scores. All of this is up for grabs to the highest bidder. For the most part, we know about it--or at least we should.

But in Second Life? Maybe it's part and parcel of an entire population that has no clue, but people just don't expect to be hacked inside a game. And it scares a lot of us when we find out we have been. We feel a distinct loss of control, and we suffer a definite loss of faith in the people who run the game.

Frankly, the Labs don't have that much ground left to lose before there's nothing underneath them but air. Here's to Soft Linden changing that perception, in a big way. He's already made a great start.