give me a break….. is this true?
read on: Andromeda Media Group, Emerald City Blues:
http://cityofnidus.blogspot.se/2013/11/emerald-city-blues.html
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WTF!? Linden Lab in bed with Skills Hax?
43 Responses to “WTF!? Linden Lab in bed with Skills Hax?”
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It apparently is. And none of the TPV devs at the meeting even raised an eyebrow about it. She’s been working with Jonathan Yap for quite some time. And no one but mee in that meeting thought it was a problem. NO ONE. Mind you, she’s not working on a TPV, but on the official viewer.
And I agree with Will; this is a big deal. And no, I don’t want to hear any “second chances” bullcrap. She’s had too many of them and having her work on LL’s official viewer does a lot to destroy whatever good faith was left between company and community. Perhaps some people at the Lab think we have the memory of a Greek voter (i.e. that of a goldfish). But they’re wrong.
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I agree and if they let a hacker work on their own viewer I wont touch that viewer… i dont wanna be part of any DDOS sh-t or whatever…
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Every programmer is a hacker (and has to be one). The thing is, the gang behind the Emerald Viewer scandal was involved in activities that could (and, in my opinion, should) have them end up doing time – let alone the “slap on the wrist” that would be a permaban.
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yesh u are right, but I meant it as the first (#1. description of a hacker here;
Hacker (term), is a term used in computing that can describe several types of persons
1.Hacker (computer security) someone who seeks and exploits weaknesses in a computer system or computer network
2.Hacker (hobbyist), who makes innovative customizations or combinations of retail electronic and computer equipment
3.Hacker (programmer subculture), who combines excellence, playfulness, cleverness and exploration in performed activities
#wiki :O) -
What’s important is that people like Skills should *never* be allowed in Second Life again – or anywhere near SL code. I was also appalled by the fact that no TPV dev at the meeting even so much as raised an eyebrow when Jonathan Yap basically told us with no shame at all that he works with Skills.
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“Recently a partial transcript hit my inventory in SL” That made me giggle, Mona Eberhard aka dramawhore “slutrix” must be on a witch hunt again. FYI – despite what certain people like Mona claim, I wasn’t involved in anything malicious in Emerald, my allegedly permabanned account Skills Hax isn’t banned, there was no copybotting, i didn’t do no DDOSing of babyfur avatars, no IP Address and Password stealing or whatever other crazy stories these bored souls may come up with. Are you saying Jessica Lyon and all the other old Emerald members are hackers too? At some point she even claimed i’d be an undercover Linden alt, lol.
Gasp! Guess what – i have been working on viewers all this time, and gave out a lot of ideas and code to other devs, there is a very high chance you are using some of my code RIGHT NOW!
And Mona, there might have been no reaction to my name at that meeting, but i know for sure all the devs i know are rolling their eyes at your drivel. Oh, and btw, i don’t even know this Yap Dude.Kind Regards, Skills Hak
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For the record:
1. I have never developed anything that surreptitiously collects any user data. Unlike someone else involved in this discussion.
2. I have never sold stuff that claims to be able to identify alts and copybotters based on users’ IPs. Unlike someone else involved in this discussion.
3. I have never even thought of attempting to profit from others’ fears. Unlike someone else involved in this discussion.
4. I have never developed any system whose use of the data collected is non-transparent and most likely in violation of many countries’ data protection and online privacy legislation. Unlike someone else involved in this discussion.
5. I have never trolled the SL Universe forums or used sockpuppets/meatpuppets to try to pour derision against any criticism of actions like the ones listed in 1 – 4 . Unlike someone else involved in this discussion.
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Errrr, what exactly *HAVE* you done then? Besides wasting valuable time in open development meetings trolling for muck to rake and boring shit to write about?
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Again, what have YOU done for SL?
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I don’t answer questions to myself.
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Also, LOL at passive aggressive hominem slung from a nobody with bad teeth.
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With friends like you, Skills doesn’t need enemies.
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Now i see what your problem is.
“never sold stuff that claims to be able to identify alts and copybotters based on users’ IPs”
Could you please quote me where i said i am able to identify alts or do anything with IPs? Thanks!“attempting to profit from others’ fears”
Does stirring drama with wild hacker claims count?As for the rest of your points, i’d like to forward you to the now *sigh* 3(?) year old page: http://www.gemini-cybernetics.net/CDS/faq/index.html
Skills
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Furthermore, Skills calls me a drama whore, while she herself employs ad hominems, subterfuge and other low-brow tactics, as can be seen in this thread. Keep digging, Skills. But in the meantime, could you tell us if Tateru Nino is participating in a witch hunt against you?
http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/2010/12/14/questions-for-cds-operators/
Honestly now, Skills, how do you comply with data protection legislation? How do you handle the data collected? How do you handle instances of false positives?
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**snore**
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Also, is Crap Mariner participating in a witch hunt against you, Skills? Or Will Burns, the person who made the original post? You get called on unsavoury things you do, and you immediately start seeing conspiracies and witch hunts. And when you can’t provide real answers to the criticism, you start the flippant remarks. You know, I’ve observed your behavioural pattern in many places. Guess what? I’m not the only one who’s not impressed by your antics. As a matter of fact, no one is. I’m going to rest my case here. As for you… You’re following Prokofy Neva’s footsteps in seeing (or, to be more precise, inventing) conspiracies and witch hunts against you.
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You say you “cannot disclose” what data you surreptitiously collect. Still, that doesn’t comply with the ToS.
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apparently skills has been banned from commenting on here, interesting!
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Al H Skills is not banned in this blog. Absolutely not. No one has been abusive so why would I ban anyone?
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Skills I have nothing against you as a person. You and the rest of the old Emerald team may be white as snow nowadays. The problem is that the team has a reputation and when u get a bad reputation its not easy to repair. People will always look for the cracks…
It is rather Linden Lab who has the responsibility here. Ponder if they were a bank instead and hired the bank robbery when he came out of jail after serving time. Ya he may be clean and tidy but how will the customers and employees react? Will they trust him? Will they feel safe? I dont think so.
A viewer is sensitive stuff, everyone knows that. A lot of us keep money linked to the viewer with ability to access our credit cards. I have friends who have had their accounts hacked and robbed. We leave our passwords in the hands of the viewer team….
The team behind the viewer has an enormous power. They can open ports, turn off your firewall and a lot of other bad stuff in your computer. They can install trojans and use your computer in a DDOS attack. A DDOS attack can wipe out defence systems, banks and whatever. I dont want my computer to be part of an attack financed by North Korea trying to mess up our civilisation.
So Im asking Linden Lab, Is this a wise move?
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A DDoS attack is basically mostly an inconvenience, not something that would get most internet security experts too worried. It cannot wipe out anything; only make it inaccessible for some time – a few days, maximum.
Regarding passwords now, there are ways for someone so inclined to gain access to where they are kept, and there are ways to defeat the encryption. But there are also ways to prevent and/or stop such attempts. The problem is when the software itself is designed to eavesdrop on your sensitive data. That’s when things become really ugly. Mind you, many accounts get hacked because the various services fail to take even basic measures to protect this sort of data, and also because many users employ extremely weak passwords.
Now, regarding people’s code contributions: I believe LL carefully vets each and every code contribution. After all, they have the manpower to do this and they have been known (at least in the recent past) to put things through extensive QA (see how many months of testing it took before SSB/A was deployed grid-wide).
Let’s get back to the first passages of your comment: it’s a fact of life that someone whose name has been involved in something unsavoury will be viewed with suspicion afterwards – don’t forget that people (especially in Second Life) do think in absolutes: black/white, good/bad, with very little in between.
Can someone reform, though? Yes. This means that someone who did something wrong (or even something seriously wrong) in the past may very well have seen the error of their ways and changed direction ever since. This places a burden on two sides: one side is those looking at the person in question. They need to accept the fact that they may very well have changed direction. The other side is the person in question, who will have to earn others’ trust, and this is an uphill struggle, albeit not necessarily an impossible one.
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Some of the Firestorm team are ex Emerald team, so I think there may be some crossed wires at play here.
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That’s why I don’t trust Firestorm. Or ANY third-party viewer. But with what Will Burns has revealed, I’m having second thoughts abt the official one too.
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All code accepted by Linden Lab goes under strict review, in part because of the emerald scandal.
This is a drama-storm in a tea-cup, but allowed to escalate it could easily turn into something that would be used to pressure (or grant an excuse for) linden lab to close the TPV program.
Everyone needs to chill out, take some deep breaths and get some perspective.
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Close the TPV program? That’ll be one of the best decisions Linden Lab will ever make. They should only allow trusted people make plugins for the official viewer isntead.
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What has mona “slutrix” ebenhardt ever done for sl besides troll for blogging content at user groups?
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What have YOU done for SL besides post flamebaiting comments on this blog? And also, with what your saying, your effectively telling us that the ppl from SLNewser who attend meetings are doing something wrong. And that bloggers like Nalates Urriah who attend the meetings and keep us informed are doing something wrong.
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LOL Nalates Urriah, really?
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@Ciaran true, there are…
@Han Held, whaa drama? We are only having a conversation :) -
way to make yourself look like a complete moron, mona
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The post that was reblogged here was written by Will Burns, not by Mona. So, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Also, while you claim Mona is on a witch hunt against you, there are many prominent people in SL that are anything but friendly to you and what you do. Take Crap Mariner, for example. Now, you may be a very talented programmer, but you must admit that some things you’ve done in the past have damaged your reputation. Guess what? You only have yourself to blame. So what do you do? Instead of saying what any sincere person would say, i.e. say something like “that belongs in the past, I’ve made some mistakes and I’m starting from a clean slate”, you cry “persecution” and start accusing others. I’ll put it politely. You’re doing yourselff no favors at all.
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Mona has been sending around notecards to stir up some drama.No clue what ‘bad things’ you are referring to, “anonymous”. I get so much positive feedback on my various projects in SL, i could certainly not care less about some attention seeking blogards. You are seriously bringing up halfassed blogs from 2010 of people who haven’t done the slightest research on who i am or what i have supposedly done, to prove your point? How about you grow some balls, use your real name and state facts?
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so, u r using ur REAL NAME? I mean, ur REAL REAL NAME? or is ur friend whose been flaming here for u using his or her real name?
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my friend? you mean pretty much the whole SL opensource developer community who is laughing about this? i used my real name above till it stopped working btw.. anyways i guess we are done here judging by your spelling , ta ta!
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“The whole SL opensource developer community”. If they’re all like you and if they’re all your friends who “spontaneously” came to your aid, then the user community (without which none of your opensource buddies would be internet famous) will have to think twice about whether they want to trust TPVs and their developers.
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way to go, skills. so, the likes of tateru nino, crap mariner etc r “attention seeking blogards” who write “halfassed blogs”
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I don’t see them winning any pulitzer prizes for journalism, so yes, those blogs suck ass.
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A clarification came from Jonathan Yap, which I quote verbatim:
“I have never worked with Skills Hax, only some time ago seen the results of a study done on how settings are accessed.”
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*shrug* Actually, my work helped two different stations win local emmy awards for journalism. But I find awards and all that crap annoying and boring. Real impact is harder to measure.
But at this point, your handle is a punchline. Just as Prokofy Neva’s name is, or M Linden, or Arabella Steadham’s.
As long as Linden’s code review process is what they claim, safe, right? But if they’re desperate enough to enlist the services of a known abuser, can they be trusted to properly review and test their code?
Here’s hoping that git diff does its job, eh.
-ls/cm
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Here we go again: “Known abuser”… what exactly did she do wrong, except working on a free software project that turned sour because of of two other individuals? Surely you got the facts to back up your claims, being an award winner and all that.
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lol local emmy
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