Tag: SL News

Linden Lab obtains right to sub-licence Havok engine

Posted on by Inara Pey

Linden Lab has recently acquired the right to sub-licence the Havok physics engine technology used within their Viewer. This has resulted in the Lab issuing new guidelines to third-party Viewer developers wishing to incorporate advanced Viewer capabilities developed using the Havok technology within their offerings.

The guidelines read in part:

The technology is provided in the form of an autobuild package ‘llphysicsextensions’ containing header files and the required library. This does not directly expose the Havok APIs, but a set of higher level interfaces specific to the viewer. Sources for the wrapper itself will not be open source. The llphysicsextensions package includes all features that use Havok (currently convex decomposition and features related to navigation mesh for pathfinding).

This move is already a subject of debate among TPV developers and the OpenSim community, because the sub-licence associated with the guidelines appears to place clear restrictions on TPV developers, notably in clause (b) of the Conditions to Grant, which reads:

(b) Sublicensee must require the Third Party Viewer to connect only to servers owned or operated by the Company; [i.e. Linden Lab]

So if a TPV developer wishes to work on both Second Life and OpenSim, they’ll have to look at options very carefully, as Maria Korolov points out in Hypergrid Business.

Within Second Life, there is concern as to what this may mean for some TPVs – specifically those utilising GPL rather than LGPL. Such Viewers appear to be effectively excluded from applying for a sub-licence. While this will not prevent such Viewers from accessing Second Life, it does mean that they’ll be excluded from using code that implements the Havok capabilities. The requirement for TPVs wishing to obtain a sub-licence being required to be publicly listed on the Third-Party Viewer Directory may also have a negative impact in some quarters.

The flip side to this, however, is that it means Havok physics will effectively be in the Viewer itself, which could pave the way to many new enhancements and capabilities within Second Life. As such, it is far to say that the move to sub-licence the Havok engine is less about LL attempting to restrict Viewer development per se (the apparent attempt to push out V1-based Viewers not withstanding), but rather to provide a means by which they can integrated what is effectively a closed-source, licenced product (Havok) into what is essentially an open-source project (the Viewer) without breaking the terms of their agreement with Havok.

The program itself is not available as yet, and discussions within the community are ongoing, with TPV developers aiming to seek further clarification from Linden Lab on possible impacts on their work – again, specifically where OpenSim support is concerned.

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Scanning for the SL scammers

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL has tended to have its share of scams over the years, running from the misuse of Account Debiting scripts (wherein an unknown object sends you a request asking to be allowed to take money from your account), through to quite involved and complicated data-scraping efforts as most clearly exemplified by the infamous RedZone affair of 2010/2011.

Recently, we’ve had two attempts at what amounts to phishing for SL user’s log-in credentials (and possibly other information). These attempts are focused on trying to take advantage of the Second Life name and the widespread popularity of the Phoenix and Firestorm TPVs.

SL Log-in Scam

This problem first appeared in March which people began receiving seemingly genuine information directing them to what appears to be the SL web log-in page, with a request to log-in to SL The site was actually a false page, geared solely towards gain people’s user name and password.

Lindal Kidd was one of the first to report this issue, alongside of covering the Account Debiting scam. Shopping Cart Disco also covered the issue, with an excellent piece on what to look for, complete with screen shots. More recently, the Phoenix / Firestorm team themselves blogged about the problem.

Phoenix / Firestorm Survey Scam

Over the Easter weekend, a new scam appeared using the lure of a L$ reward to tempt people. It comprises a message the can be received either in-world or relayed to e-mail (if you are offline), encouraging you to visit a website and “confirm your details” in return for a L$1000 reward. The following is a typical example of such a message (as I received today, relayed via e-mail):

The object ‘Second Life’ has sent you a message from Second Life: Happy Holidays Everyone! Get 1000L just for signing up here and confirming your email –http://bit.ly/????

Second Life is owned by FirestormRelease Resident

(Note that I have redacted a part of the URL short link to avoid any accidents with people copy/pasting it out of curiosity.)

This is a particularly insidious scam because it is using the names of SL’s two most widely used TPVs in order to gain a veneer of authenticity – notice the name of the avatar responsible for sending the message. This has prompted the Phoenix / Firestorm team to issue a cautionary Message of the Day warning, seen when logging in to either of their Viewers:

Multiple accounts are being used to circulate such messages – “FirestormRelease Resident”, the attribution for the message I received being just one. Indeed, when I contacted Jessica Lyon about this account name and location she replied, “I just got a bunch of those accounts shut down, however, if more show up please send me the SLurls to the objects and account names.”

How to Deal with a Scam Message

The important thing here is that if you are in receipt of such a message / e-mail either asking you to log-in to the SL website or which gives the impression it is associated with a valid group or organisation within SL (such as the Phoenix / Firestorm team as seen here), do not click on any link it contains or provide any information to the website you’re taken to if you do.

In respect of the SL log-in page, you can always test the validity of the page you are displaying prior to logging-in simply by looking at the URL. The genuine SL website log-in page will always commence with: https://id.secondlife.com/, regardless of whether you are trying to log into your Dashboard or the Marketplace or your web Profile.

SL log-in page: the real McCoy (click to enlarge)

If the URL for the page contains any other information than this, regardless of how “real” the rest of the page may look, then the URL is bogus; do not follow it. An example of such a bogus URL which was circulated last month commenced: “http://marketplacesi.altavista…..”.

False prophet – note the (made up) URL (click to enlarge)

Where messages appearing to come from established in-world groups or organisations are concerned, check the message carefully and if you have any doubts at all, contact a representative of the group / organisation to verify whether the message is genuine or not.

If you have followed any such link and supplied information to a website / possibly had something download from the website, then you should:

  • At the very least, change your account password immediately
  • If you believe the account has already been tampered with, contact Linden Lab and inform them of the situation. They may lock the account while they investigate. Note that you’ll have to supply RL information in order for them to release it back to you
  • Raise an Abuse Report if you have sufficient information on the perpetrator. Contrary to popular myth, LL do take Abuse Reports seriously and will investigate
  • Run an anti-virus / malware sweep of your computer.

In the case of scam messages relating to Phoenix / Firestorm, you may wish to inform Jessica or a member of the team, so they can continue to work with LL to get bogus accounts shut down en masse.

Linden Lab are working pro-actively on matters as well – not long after I’d informed Jessica about “FirestormRelease Resident”, a representative from the Lab was on-hand investigating the location being used.

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Premium Wilderness: a new experience

Posted on by Inara Pey

So, I’m browsing the Destination Guide, looking for a suitable place to cover in my “Virtual Destinations” series, when I come across a new set of premium-only regions labelled “Premium Wilderness”.

First look – the Destination Guide

The regions appear aimed at another Premium membership promotion, and to showcase some of the new pathfinding capabilities coming to SL. At the time I started my explorations, the blog post had yet to appear, so intrigued by what I’d seen in the Destination Guide, I read the byline in the Destination Guide Jump into the adventure that is the Premium Wilderness and set sail for adventure in this new experience – and jumped.

My first stop was Tapir – although as the six regions are all grouped together and have a common theme, you can start in any one of them.

I arrived on a small pier on the edge of a river. A click me sign provided me with the following information:

Welcome to the Jungle! Feel free to explore at your leisure.

Boat Ride:
Take a boat ride and enjoy the scenery. Just click on the boat when it arrives at the dock and enjoy the ride!

Explore:
Follow the paths, you never know where they might lead!

Interact:
Click on the things you see, you never know what you will find!

Sitting on the dock of the jungle: arriving at Tapir

There is a lot to click and play with – touch a multi-hued frog and it will hop around you and then lead you away from the pier…then disappear into the reeds at the edge of the river. There’s a boat that swings by which you can catch for a cruise along the river, or there are inner tubes you can paddle and diving kit for the really adventurous.

How you get about is up to you – walk, ride, swim – and there is plenty to see along the way, with the 6 sims forming a dense jungle-type environment complete with ancient ruins,  brought together in a very atmospheric mix – moreso if you can run with shadows enabled.

Ancient ruins

The experiences within the regions vary widely in content and use. You can, for example, meet a jaguar and play “fetch” with it, or wrestle with a crocodile, or play round-up with a herd of capybaras and corral them. There are also places where you need to watch your step.

Interestingly, when encountering things you can touch, you’ll often get a chat message, such as:

Acoustic Guitar – po: Look in your inventory for Guitar. It should be in your Object folder. Or click on the Recent Items tab at the top to locate it. Right click and select Wear. Right click and select Detatch to take it off.

One assumes this is for the benefit of those new users who have chosen to take the plunge and sign-up directly for Premium membership as a part of the promo offer.

Playing fetch with a jaguar

The regions appear to be intended as a social experience as well – there are numerous places for getting together and chatting / sharing. Some of the experiences are also geared towards sharing – the boat rides through the sims, the  Tahr racing on the beach or Tahr rides through the jungle, using, I assume, the pathfinding capabilities.

Thoughts

While visiting the regions, I was surprised to see comments start popping-up in Group chats that were somewhat negative – including one that suggested the regions are a means for the Lab to “recycle” abandoned land, which strikes me as cynical.

In terms of presentation, the regions are very atmospheric – and I recommend a visit with shadows enabled if you can, especially if you are using Exodus with HDR  / Gamma Correction or Niran’s with its advanced rendering options.

In terms of experience, I have to admit it’s a mixed bag. The regions are immersive, and offer a lot to see and do – but there were some oddities. While accepting that this might be another example of the “publish-test-polish” approach seemingly beloved of Rod Humble – but it does seem odd that other new capabilities coming to SL are seemingly ignored. The game of fetch with the jaguar, for example, requires you accept a stick into your inventory each time you touch the jaguar – and one wonders why the capability to attach the stick to your avatar, bypassing inventory altogether wasn’t used. Particularly as you are repeatedly prompted to accept the stick from the jaguar after each throw, leading to a possible small accumulation of sticks. But this is a minor niggle in the scheme of things.

Overall, the regions offer an interesting diversion for those with a Premium account who might like to spent time exploring something a little different. So why not give it a try?

Parcel encroachment live across the grid

Posted on by Inara Pey

It appears that parcel encroachment is now active across the grid (with thanks to Nalates Urriah).

The feature, which allows objects encroaching on one parcel from another to be returned, has been rolling-out across the grid for a while, and was turned-on last Thursday.

The feature has some guiding parameters to help manage / control the return of objects, which should provide a reasonable level of control, including:

  • For private regions, the feature must be turned on at a per region basis
  • Return is based on an object’s physical shape, not its visible shape, so while an object may appear to encroach on a region boundary, it may not actually be returned orthat it may not appear to encroach, but is still returned. LL currently list the objects most likely to suffer such mismatches as:
    • Trees and grass
    • Sculpt and flexiprims (and, one assumes, mesh)
    • static objects using the llTargetOmega() feature — they appear to be spinning but are not spinning in the physics engine
  • “Estate content” and public works content (Mainland) is protected against return (so, for example, items on a parcel that are owned by an Estate Manager / owner will not be returned)

Phantom and Volume Detect objects will still collide for encroachment. At the time the feature was first documented (January 2011), cross-region encroachment was under development. Whether this is still the case is unclear.

Some of the details as to how the feature works – and how to enable it – may change when the wiki page on the feature is updated.

No blog post / forum post appears to be on the horizon to announce the change. However, those wishing to find out more may want to keep an eye on the wiki page for updates.

Code change impacts RLV functionality

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update 12th March: As can be seen from the comment from Trinity below, Brooke Linden has responded to concerns over this issue, and has confirmed that the code causing it will be rolled-back from LeTigre and BlueSteel this Wednesday (RC channel release window) and won’t be re-deployed until the problem is fixed.

Kitty Barnett reports via JIRA SVC-7748, that functionality related to the InventoryAPI maintenance project adversely impacts the widely used RLV / RLVa functionality within Second Life.

RLV provides a means by which, and under controlled conditions (the user “opts-in” to the process by clicking an acceptance button), a folder is created within the #RLV folder under MY INVENTORY. Items are then delivered into the new folder, wherein a script runs to attach the items to the recipient avatar.

While this functionality does have a direct use within the BDSM community, it can have uses elsewhere as well.  However, changes rolled-out to the BlueSteel and LeTigre RC channels this week as a part of the InventoryAPI maintenance project, have inadvertently broken the functionality – the required redirection to use #RLV doesn’t occur and the associated script fails – hence JIRA SVC-7748.

The degree of impact on RLV is debatable. As Marine Kelley states within the JIRA:

On a positive note, if LL decides not to do anything and leave things as is (i.e. in a broken state), the RLV could simply check what’s coming into the “Received Items” folder and move it automatically under #RLV if the name matches. This would be transparent to the user and would overcome this breakage. 

Nevertheless, it would be preferable for LL to ensure the functionality isn’t broken in the first place (as Marine herself goes on to state).

A potential problem here is that, despite Kitty’s own efforts to point out that Received Items itself is not the problem per se, many of the comments appearing on the JIRA are further critiques of Received Items rather than a discussion of the problem as identified by the JIRA itself.

As strong as feelings are around the subject of Received Items, what is more important here is that functionality that is key to a range of user expectations / desired experiences has been inadvertently broken within LeTigre and BlueSteel, and there is a risk that this could become more widespread if the fix is rolled-out beyond these two RC channels. As such, it is important that LL hear, read and understand the core issue itself (i.e. via use-cases where the update breaks things), in order for them to try to correct the matter.

Given it is the weekend, it will likely be a while longer before any response on this matter is heard from LL – which also gives people more time to submit specific examples on the issue that outline the problem. It’s also worthwhile pointing out that LL are prepared to reconsider proposed actions – as has been demonstrated around the concern relating to llGetAgentStatus (which Oz has indicated is on-hold as a result of the number of clear-cut use-cases received), and have shown a willingness to re-think elements of Received Items based on constructive feedback from users.

Oz discusses TPV Policy changes

Posted on by Inara Pey

On Wednesday March 7th, Jessica Lyon of the Firestorm team sat down with Oz Linden to discuss the recent TPV Policy (TPVP) changes. Originally Oz had asked to appear with Jessica on the last Phoenix Hour, which is normally co-presented by Jessica and Phaylen Fairchild, but it was decided to hold-off on any appearance for a more focused presentation.

That Oz made the offer again speaks highly of his desire to engage openly with the community on what has become something of a sensitive (and in some cases incorrectly viewed, given the way it has been wrongly portrayed as stopping “any” innovation within TPVs) issue, and his willingness to try to provide further clarification on the changes and the reasoning behind them.

I’ve included a summary of the discussion on the following pages. As it is somewhat lengthy and potentially subject to “tl;dr” (shame on you!), I felt it better to provide my own thoughts on the discussion up-front.

Oz in conversation

While listening to the discussion I was also seeing Twitter comments appear on my screen relating to the posting of the interview video and was – to be honest – surprised at the negative tone of some of the comments being made. Overall, I felt the Oz was open and direct in dealing with the questions and statements directed at him, and he did much to fill-in the blanks. And before anyone starts on the, “But he’s only an employee” tack, I very much doubt that he was in any way speaking in isolation or sans the support for his management. As such, this is precisely the kind of engagement we should be applauding, even if the message may not be entirely what we want to hear,  and which LL should be seeking to undertake more regularly.

Some have complained that we “don’t know” any more following the discussion than we knew at the start. To them I’d actually ask, “What more do you want to know?” The boundaries of the TPVP changes have been given better definition – indeed, Oz has provided clearer definitions here, and prior to this meeting. Unless LL produces a set of stone tablets detailing every case, it’s hard to see what more can be said – and it should be remembered that tablets of stone can be as dangerous as having a broad definition. Things do cut both ways.

Sure, what has been said previously, and is said in this discussion, doesn’t provide any safeguards against any fear of how LL might at some point in the future choose to interpret the TPVP – but really, this is an unreasonable expectation. No-one can predict what tomorrow may bring much less a time eighteen months or two years hence, and it is unreasonable to expect any company to give guarantees where the security and growth of their business is concerned. At the end of the day, SL is LL’s business first and foremost – and I applaud Oz for being so frank on the matter of the business / platform relationship – and as such they can change the rules howsoever they like; as such the hammer could be dropped on TPV activities with or without the use of such a policy.

However, I think it fair to say Oz is being sincere both on a personal level and as a representative of the company when he says that LL is not looking to end TPVs, but wants to enhance and grow their working relationship with TPV developers. While it is clear from the phrasing of some of his answers that LL would like to see their effective market-share of users increase in terms of Viewer use, it would be a mistake to attribute the TPVP changes to purely that motivation. It’s fair to say that if that was the goal, LL could conceivably achieve it simply by removing the majority of their Viewer development back behind the curtain, leaving TPVs forever in a catch-up situation.

Nevertheless, the risk of stifling innovation is still there, howsoever small a part the “shared experience” has played in TPV development, simply because of the concerns TPV developers have around the whole aspect of having ideas and proposals accepted by LL as Jessica expresses in the video. This is something that LL need to remain attuned to and seek to demonstrate they will help and support TPV developers when and where they do see an opportunity for developing a shared experience capability that isn’t on LL’s radar or to-do list.

Some will most likely remain dissatisfied with the results of the discussion, which is a shame. While the proof of LL’s commitment to developing and evolving the TPV / LL relationship can only be judged on whatever occurs going forward, there is currently no reason to take what has been said at anything less than face value.

For my part, I would say that Oz’s openness and his candour in dealing with the questions and concerns relating to the TPVP changes is to be welcomed. I hope he does take Jessica up on her suggestion of future discussions of this kind, and that we may yet see LL encouraged to participate in other such opportunities to address user concerns on various matters as openly and directly in the future.

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