Tuesday, May 8, 2007

More on Identity Verification

More on Identity Verification
Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 2:25 PM PDT by: daniellinden

The introduction of verified age and identity in Second Life is certainly a momentous change — though many of the comments posted to the announcement have been positive, and this type of verification has long been requested by business owners and content providers as the most direct way to improve trust and safety in Second Life, it’s clear that there are several points of concern that need to be addressed:

Age and identity verification will be completely voluntary. Residents who choose not to verify their identity will have access to all PG and M (Mature) rated regions of Second Life save for those individual parcels expressly identified by their creators as containing adult content. Adult content flags on the Mainland will be parcel-based, meaning that unverified accounts will be restricted only from the specific parcels containing adult material, not from Mature regions in general. ‘Adult Content’ is that which is overtly, graphically, or explicitly sexual in nature or intensely violent.

Linden Lab will not store any specific, identifying information. We’ll keep less exact information as a way to allow Residents, if they should so choose, to share verified aspects of their identity with others in Second Life — ie, not an exact date of birth, but an age (over 30) and not a specific address, but a city and country. Such sharing will, of course, be completely voluntary. Our verification provider will assess the consistency of the provided information and return a match code; at that point, a Resident becomes verified. The entire process takes less than two minutes, and will be available internationally. Our verification provider, Integrity Services, will only use information to provide a match code.

Age and identity verification fees will be assessed only once, at the point of verification — there will be no ongoing monthly or maintenance fees associated with verification. A mechanism will be provided to extend a successful verification to multiple accounts. Premium accounts will pay a very nominal fee; less than L$10, perhaps just $L1. Basic users will be able to access the service at a higher, though still one time, price.

Age and identity verification will replace ‘Payment Information’ in-world. Credit cards do not provide an adequate means of age and identity verification, making real and robust age and identity verification vital. Land owners will be free to allow or disallow access to their owned parcels based on this verified or unverified status.

Linden Lab is committed to enabling the safest and most enjoyable experience possible in Second Life. The introduction of age and identity provides Residents with new tools to determine how they interact with the world, how the content they create is accessed, and allow for a new level of trust within in-world relationships.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Age and Identity Verification in Second Life

Age and Identity Verification in Second Life
Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 4:25 PM PDT by: daniellinden

We will shortly begin beta testing an age and identity verification system, which will allow Residents to provide a one-time proof of identity (such as a driver’s license, passport or ID card) and have that identity verified in a matter of moments.

Second Life has always been restricted to those over 18. All Residents personally assert their age on registration. When we receive reports of underage Residents in Second Life, we close their account until they provide us with proof of age. This system works well, but as the community grows and the attractions of Second Life become more widely known, we’ve decided to add an additional layer of protection.

Once the age verification system is in place, only those Residents with verified age will be able to access adult content in Mature areas. Any Resident wishing to access adult content will have to prove they are over 18 in real life.We have created Teen Second Life for minors under the age of 18. Access to TSL by adults is prohibited, with minors not allowed into the rest of Second Life.

For their part, land owners will be required to flag their land as ‘adult’ if it contains adult content using the estate and land management tools provided to landowners. This flag will protect landowners from displaying inappropriate content to underage users who may have entered Second Life. Landowners are morally and legally responsible for the content displayed and the behavior taking place on their land. The identity verification system gives them new tools to ensure any adult content is only available to adults over 18 because unverified avatars will not have access to land flagged as containing adult content.

We hope you’ll agree that the small inconvenience of doing this once is far outweighed by the benefits of protecting minors from inappropriate content. Further, this system will assist landowners in engaging in lawful businesses.

The verification system will be run by a third party specializing in age and identity authentication. No personally identifying information will be stored by them or by Linden Lab, including date of birth, unless the Resident chooses to do so. Those who wish to be verified, but remain anonymous, are free to do so.

Premium Second Life Residents will have access to the identity verification system for a nominal Linden Dollar fee as part of their subscription. Free-account owners (Basic membership) can pay a larger Linden Dollar fee for the service, can upgrade to Premium to access the system, or simply decline to verify their age and continue enjoying Second Life without access to adult content.

The identity verification system will not impact Second Life Grid performance , and since it was developed and is operated by a third party, does not impact the development work we’re doing to address performance or stability issues.

The system will enter beta testing shortly and be rolled out Grid wide in mid-May.

Age Verification Q&A

1. What is identity verification?
Identity verification is a system that makes efforts to establish proof of age for each Resident on Second Life. Second Life (the “World’) is only available to adults over the age of 18.
2. Why do we need it?
While each Resident asserts his or her age upon registration, we want to insure that minors do not inadvertently access Second Life or have access to adult content in- world. In addition, age verification provides an additional layer of trust for in-world businesses and Residents.
3. How will it work?
Residents will provide a few simple details about their identity – generally, name, date of birth, and address. US Residents will be asked to provide the last four digits of their Social Security Number, while non-US Residents may need to provide a passport or national ID number.
4. Do I have to submit to age verification?
No. You need only provide age verification if you choose to enter areas in Second Life that have been flagged as having adult content. Going forward, estate and parcel owners will be required to flag the presence of adult content on their land. Access to that area will then be restricted to age-verified Residents only. Flagging adult areas provides notice to adults that content contained in the area may be objectionable to them. Age-verification provides an added layer of protection against minors who have gained unauthorized access to the world.In addition, anyone wishing to gain access on the Teen Second Life will be required to submit to age verification.
5. Why are you doing this now?
The growing popularity of Second Life gives rise to the need to add measures of security so that Second Life remains a safe environment for all Residents.
6. What documents do I need to prove my age?
Exact documents may vary depending on your country of residence but may include:
Passport
Driver’s license
Name
Address
National ID number, such as a Social Security number
7. I’m outside the US. Does it work the same in each country?
The exact information required for Identity verification may vary from country to country, but the system works in generally the same way around the world.
8. What types of activities in Second Life will require age verification?
Access to areas that Residents and businesses have flagged as containing adult content will require age verification.
9. Who will need to verify their age?
Anyone wishing to access adult content will need to verify their age in advance. Just like going into a bar – you need to prove your age.
10. What if I’m under 18?
Minors are not allowed in Second Life. Please access Teen Second Life to enjoy Second Life if you are under 18. Only Residents between the ages of 13 and 17 will be allowed to access Teen Second Life.
11. What if I want to remain anonymous?
Residents over the age of 18 can still remain anonymous if they wish to remain in areas of the World that do not contain adult content. Age-verification will only be required at this time for access to adult content. Anyone wishing to gain access to Teen Second Life must all be age-verified.
12. What if Adult Content is not Flagged
We require that adult content be flagged. If Residents and businesses attempt to violate this rule, we expect that such behavior will be reported by the community. Although we want to limit age-verification processes to adult content and Teen Second Life, in the event we encounter abuses of self-regulation, Second Life may have to require age-verification throughout the world. We hope that does not happen.
13. What personal information will you store about me?
Linden Lab will not store any personally identifying information about you as a result of the age verification process. We simply record that your avatar is age-verified.
14. Do I have to pay for verification?
Premium Residents will access the verification system for a nominal fee (L$10) as part of their subscription. Basic users will be charged a larger fee to verify their age, can upgrade to Premium to access the system, or simply decline to verify their age and continue enjoying the areas of Second Life that don’t contain adult content.
15. Do I have to verify each avatar I use?
Each individual will be able to associate their age and personal information to a limited number of accounts.
16. As a parcel/estate owner, how do I flag content as ‘adult’?
Land-owners will find a check box in their land management tools that they will be able to check if they have adult content on their land.
17. What is defined as “Adult Content”
We trust that common sense will prevail. As a general rule, “Adult Content” is any content that is explicitly sexual or excessively violent in nature.
18. What happens if I don’t flag my adult content?
We believe that most landowners will want to take steps to prevent underage Residents being exposed to adult content. All content creators and businesses are morally and legally responsible for their activities. We strongly advise landowners to take advantage of these tools to prevent inappropriate use by those who may have accessed the adult grid using fraudulent information.Land containing adult content which is not clearly marked as such, will be easily identifiable by the community, which can either raise concerns directly with the landowner or with Linden Lab via the Abuse channel.While Linden Lab is working to ensure Second Life is restricted to adults, the burden of responsibility lies with the parcel and estate owner for the content displayed and activities offered on their land. The identity verification system provides the means to protect both visitors and landowners alike.
19. When will this be rolled out?
Internal testing is underway now, with a limited roll-out expected to follow by mid-May.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

In loving memory of my dear friend Clair Glitterbuck, rest in peace sweet lady. Claire Glitterbuck passed away on 4/30/07. Keep dancing lady.


Monday, April 30, 2007

Second Life version 1.15.0 Issues

Second Life version 1.15.0 Issues

Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 5:07 PM PDT by: michaellinden

A big part of the 1.15.0 release was a revamp of the systems behind the Group (and Conference) IM mechanisms, moving from a single server to a distributed set of systems. Obviously, this migration didn’t go without a hitch.

This bug summarizes both the problem and the pain pretty well:

We have fixes for the following issues undergoing testing internally, and they should be deployed early next week. Unfortunately, to deploy them will require a short grid downtime (20-30 minutes). Once we have tested the fixes, we will announce a time for this update.

  • “X has left the session” is not seen when someone has spoken then left the group IM session
  • “X has left the session” message sent when it shouldn’t
  • Group IMs take up to 5 minutes to get through to you after a teleport.

There is one more case that will unfortunately require both a server and viewer update. We will evaluate the timing of releasing this based on feedback - kicking everyone off the grid for 1-2 hours and requiring a new download is not something we take lightly, and while the problem is irritating, we don’t want to make the cure worse. The issue is:

  • ”Group chat IM reopens and error is received when attempting to send a message after user has closed group chat session”

Please report additional issues seen in the 1.15.0 release at our Issue Tracker [ http://jira.secondlife.com ].

We anticipate making an optional viewer update available within the next week or two with many accumulated fixes.

Our apologies in advance for the inconvenience, and our thanks to the Residents while we continue to improve Second Life।


(Blog comments are; open)

Thursday, April 26, 2007

[DONE] Problems with Login and Website

[DONE] Problems with Login and Website

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 1:43 PM PDT by: michaellinden

12:01pm - After yesterday’s update, we had reports of some problems in Second Life subsequent to the version 1.15.0 update — issues with land transfers, logins, IMs, and the LindEx.The land transfer problem was quickly fixed; but to apply the other fixes, we needed to shut down Second Life for about an hour (or so), starting at 10am PDT on Thursday, 26 April. No new client download was required.

The downtime ran until just after noon. Very sorry about that!

KNOWN ISSUE: a remaining problem will cause Residents to not get group IMs/conferences for a minute or so after teleporting. The engineers are looking into this issue. - Michael Linden

[Updated] Problems with Login and Website

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 1:43 PM PDT by: michaellinden

1:43pm PDT - We’re currently experiencing login issues; our engineers are actively investigating! Updates will appear here.

4:40pm PDT - The update has increased traffic between parts of the system, which has
contributed to the login load and web site issues. We’re working on a two-phased approach to reduce the traffic and to bring additional resources online. - Michael Linden

10pm PDT - We’ve had reports of some problems in Second Life subsequent to the version 1.15.0 update — issues with land transfers, logins, IMs, and the LindEx.

The land transfer problem has been fixed; but to apply the other fixes, we need to shut down Second Life for about an hour, starting at 10am PDT tomorrow morning (Thursday, 26 April). There won’t be a need to download new client software after the Grid comes back up.

Sorry for the inconvenience; the engineers are busy making everything better! - Michael Linden

10:30am - Alas, due to slow “world shout” messaging, the downtime today will run from 10:30am to 11:30am. Sorry about that! - Michael Linden

11:28am - Hmm, bringing up the Second Life servers slower than expected; we should be allowing our Residents back in at 11:45am. Thanks for your patience - Michael Linden

[Updated] Problems with Login and Website

[Updated] Problems with Login and Website

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 1:43 PM PDT by: michaellinden

1:43pm PDT - We’re currently experiencing login issues; our engineers are actively investigating! Updates will appear here.

4:40pm PDT - The update has increased traffic between parts of the system, which has
contributed to the login load and web site issues. We’re working on a two-phased approach to reduce the traffic and to bring additional resources online. - Michael Linden

10pm PDT - We’ve had reports of some problems in Second Life subsequent to the version 1.15.0 update — issues with land transfers, logins, IMs, and the LindEx.

The land transfer problem has been fixed; but to apply the other fixes, we need to shut down Second Life for about an hour, starting at 10am PDT tomorrow morning (Thursday, 26 April). There won’t be a need to download new client software after the Grid comes back up.

Sorry for the inconvenience; the engineers are busy making everything better! - Michael Linden

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Second Life Down

Must be update day।Second Life is down and all comments on the official blog are closed. I'm personally getting error message telling me to re install the SL client. Unfortunately I couldn't get the SL page to load. My SL client finaly loaded the new version but I am stuck in "Loading" hell.

I am sure many ppl are fustrated and as they cannot comment on the official blog or web...as always feel free to comment on this blog site.

Cat

Support Update

Support Update

Wednesday, April 25th, 2007 at 10:55 AM PDT by: cynlinden

During our transition to a new support system, there are a few temporary measures to keep in mind when contacting support. The new support system will provide many improvements, including a greatly expanded Knowledge Base and a support solution finder that will be easier to search, far more user-friendly and vastly comprehensive than our existing resources have been.

For problems with Billing..
Email to billing@lindenlab.com or call one of the following numbers during PST business hours..
1-800-961-6851 (US and Canada)
(00) 800 722 00010 (UK)
(0011) 800 722 00010 (Australia)

For technical and in-world support issues..
To request a region rollback, first read the following:
http://secondlife.com/knowledgebase/article.php?id=101

Then make the request using the Rollback Request form. To inform us of a crashed/down region, once it has been down for at least 30 minutes, please use the Down Region form.

Region performance issues should still be reported via estate services (concierge) for estate owners, and by emailing support@secondlife.com for mainland Residents. It is worth making clear that we do continually monitor the grid for region performance problems and we do respond to any problems that we see, in fact the majority are fixed before they are reported to us.

Many other technical or in-world support issues can be addressed through the following support resources..
http://secondlife.com/app/support/inworld.html and http://secondlife.com/app/support/support.html

..or by phone during business hours..

1-800-961-6851 (US and Canada)
(00) 800 722 00010 (UK)
(0011) 800 722 00010 (Australia)

Governance/abuse issues including grid attacks..
It is important to realize that although it may look the same, the way that abuse reporting works on the back end is very different now. To understand more about how the new reporting system operates and what you can expect from the governance team, see this post: Changes in Abuse Reporting

Regarding support response times..
When you submit a ticket to support, you are currently being added to a queue that does not distinguish between inworld help and regular technical support. From this point on you will be sending your issue to a better triaged queue that will have more people working it – and therefore better response times will result. If you need help inworld, those folks will be able to provide it to you through the ticketing system, therefore if your issue requires inworld help - they can respond accordingly. As we move to the next level for support, tickets will be filtered to the correct staff more accurately still, which we expect to greatly improve the support experience and response times.

For those “Help, I am stuck!” questions..
Many of the questions in Help Request have been from new folks who are stuck or confused in one way or another. Volunteers inworld will still be able to help those people right away.

Concierge team coverage..
The concierge team will shortly be expanding its current phone coverage to cover UK office hours. We have grown the team to 8 full time and 2 part time members and are moving towards 24/7 coverage as rapidly as we can. Jack will blog more about the progress of the concierge team soon.

As we work to upgrade and improve our support services, we greatly appreciate your patience and understanding going forward.

- Cyn

Downtime for Wednesday: Second Life 1.15.0 release - In Progress

Downtime for Wednesday: Second Life 1.15.0 release - In Progress

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007 at 4:51 PM PDT by: michaellinden

As we mentioned before, Second Life will be unavailable tomorrow, Wednesday, April 25 from 6 AM-12 PM PDT for the version 1.15.0 release. A viewer update will be required.

You can test-fly the new release on the Beta Test Grid.

Update @ 5:30pm - by Joshua Linden

Final release notes for 1.15.0 appear below the fold…

Downtime Status Updates - Wednesday - by Joshua Linden

7:00am - The release is in progress. The grid is currently shutting down. (Yes, it takes a while.)


Release Notes for Second Life 1.15.0(2) April 25, 2007
=====================================

Changes:
* Improved Help menu with links to additional resources
* ‘Add as Friend’ button added to Profile
* Added buttons to the IM window to scroll to the first and last tabs
* Added parcel flag for Mature Content
** Parcel searches use the parcel rating instead of the region rating
* Share With Group checkbox is cleared after object is deeded to group
* Groups list window taller and resizable
* Residents are now notified if they are the only ones present in a group IM or conference session
* Rating system removed from Profile
* Group Search improvements
** Searches are done against the full text of the group, including charter
** Search index is updated daily; new groups may take 24 hours to appear
** Clicking on a group found via search still shows up-to-date information
* Alpha textures sorted more accurately
** Example: the hollow inner surface of a sphere will no longer draw on top of the outer surface
** This change may cause content using alpha textures to appear differently
* Larger debug beacons (View > Beacon)
** You can now set the beacon size in Preferences -> Adv. Graphics (Range is 1-127)

LSL changes:
* LSL Wiki browser embedded in the viewer
** When editing a script, select a keyword, then select Help > LSL Wiki Help. in the Script window
* New function: string llStringTrim(string src, integer trim_type)
** STRING_TRIM_HEAD: trim all leading spaces in src
** STRING_TRIM_TAIL: trim all trailing spaces in src
** STRING_TRIM: trim all leading and trailing spaces in src

Notes:
* LSL Wiki is not editable from within the Second Life viewer
* PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_ALL_OBJECT_ENTRY and PARCEL_FLAG_ALLOW_GROUP_OBJECT_ENTRY flags were added to llGetParcelFlags()/llSetParcelFlags in a previous release, but not documented. These will now appear correctly in the script editor.
* On systems with ATI Mobility X300/X600/X700 graphics cards, when upgrading from a previous version of Second Life, sound may be disabled on the first run of the viewer. It should function correctly on the second run.
* HUD objects may temporarily appear in the wrong position following a region crossing.

Bug fixes:
* Removed First Land filter in Search
* Improved performance of inventory operations
* Improved recognition of some processor types
* Fixed About Land reporting the wrong parcel when teleporting between estates
* Fixed a source of stalled Pending Uploads
* Fixed Texture Repeats Per Face rounding incorrectly when tabbing between fields
* Fixed objects appearing in two places while moving in editor
* Fixed a client crash with some mobile ATI chipsets
* Fixed button images when first running SL
* Fixed selecting group roles not updating UI
* Fixed avatar names not appearing when Show Avatar Names Temporarily is enabled
* Fixed New IM showing (nobody) for group names
* Fixed task email failing between regions
* Fixed broken embedded landmarks when editing their notecard
* Fixed a case where you could not modify your modifiable object
* Fixed attachments disappearing a minute after teleport
* Fixed ability to set Mature on parcels in non-Mature regions
* Fixed saving changes to notecards in contents
* Fixed HUD positioning guide misaligning when UI Size changed
* Fixed a case where no-copy objects could be lost during rez
* Fixed textures in windows only stretching horizontally
* Fixed texture animation rotation changing when Flip is enabled
* Fixed erroneous ‘User has left this session’ messages
* Fixed display bug with a cube with Path Cut Begin/End set to .150
* Fixed disappearing alpha HUD prims
* Fixed menu bar processing keystrokes when moused over
* Fixed detached IM windows not resizing
* Fixed animated textures when using llSetColor, llSetLinkColor, or PRIM_PROPERTIES
* Fixed HUD object movement when logging in at a no-script area
* Fixed HUD objects not loading new textures
* Fixed HUD objects becoming invisible the first time they are attached from inworld
* Fixed ‘IM All Contacts In Folder’
* Fixed a viewer crash in the name cache
* Fixed Undo resetting position only on root prim
* Fixed Texture Picker search not showing results
* Fixed IM window reverting to default size
* Fixed overriding stand-up animation freezing you in place
* Fixed Appearance mode showing back of avatar
* Fixed: VWR-14: Inconsistency with reading binary data in llpolymesh.cpp
* Fixed: VWR-45: trivial patch, initialize variables
* Fixed: VWR-94: Buffer overflow in decoding image.
* Fixed: VWR-97: Several iterator bugs in llmessage
* Fixed: VWR-100: Messages form OpenJPEG only in debug mode
* Fixed: VWR-109: Characters from fallback fonts don’t scale properly
* Fixed: VWR-123: OpenJPEG meta decode, Second Life patches
* Fixed: VWR-130: llimagejpeg.h remove jinclude.h
* Fixed: VWR-144: HUD and possibly other alpha touch area problems
* Fixed: VWR-188: Patch: Refactor options handling in SConstruct
* Fixed: VWR-198: Missing line of code in source on FFSAVE_WAV
* Fixed: VWR-200: money(); events in a linked sets fail to trigger
* Fixed: VWR-261: lldir_mac.cpp @brief description is wrong

Rollback and some other support email delays from Sunday

Rollback and some other support email delays from Sunday

Monday, April 23rd, 2007 at 11:11 AM PDT by: cynlinden

Our support emails were delayed Sunday and some of them are just now hitting the queue. This means rollbacks and other information sent this weekend are just now getting seen to, but we are racing through them pretty quickly. If you requested a rollback and it didn’t happen quite yet, don’t despair, the team is hard at work processing those requests.

Thank you for your patience!

Friday, April 20, 2007

Inventory reliability patch deployed

Inventory reliability patch deployed

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 5:57 PM PDT by: Torley Linden

We’ve just deployed a new dataserver patch, which should make certain inventory operations more reliable — this is intended to be an interim fix for problems when you buy something inworld (either directly or from a vendor) and the item doesn’t appear in your inventory. This patch is server-side and doesn’t require you to download a new version of Second Life.

This fix may also help with a known issue where inventory transfers fail in regions with poor performance (low time dilation and Sim FPS). Our developers are looking into the root cause for a longer-term solution; things should be better in the meantime.

(Note that this isn’t related to the previous announcement of group IMs not working, which has to do with the userserver).

Thursday, April 19, 2007

[UPDATED] More problems with Search, teleports, map, etc.

[UPDATED] More problems with Search, teleports, map, etc.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 8:08 PM PDT by: Torley Linden

[5:05 AM PDT] Unfortunately, we’ve been having more troubles with the database affecting search and related features in the last hour. And again, we’re been doing recovery processes until we can tackle the deeper causes of this issue. Seeing as how this continues to flare up every few hours, it’s frustrating to us as it is you, and we’ll keep you updated on the longer-term progress we make with this and other Grid issues.

[2:05 AM PDT] Teeple Linden just broadcast this inworld:

ALL-CLEAR: Thank you for your patience during the service slowdowns of the past hour. If your inworld L$ balance is incorrect, a quick relog should fix it.

[1:52 AM PDT] Things have settled down once more. We’re keeping on an eye on it and will jump back into the fray if anything else happens during the night.

[1:22 AM PDT] We just did some emergency maintenance to stabilize the database; fixes will take a few minutes to propagate (like before) and you should see Search and related functionality returning; we’re going to look at the logs in closer detail to determine why this recurred.

[2007-04-19 @ 1:16 AM PDT] We’re in the midst of experiencing the same problems as earlier. We’re investigating right now.

[8:30 PM PDT] Inworld experiences are feeling much better again.

[8:19 PM PDT] Recovery processes have run. Symptoms are clearing up right now, you should see things return to normal in several minutes.

We’re currently working on database issues resulting in various problems like Search not working, L$ balances not showing up, teleports failing, map not loading, etc. This should be transient and subside shortly — we’ll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience and sorry about this.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 8:08 PM PDT and is filed under Grid Status.

Linden Lab Blog Comments Open

Hi there some of you know me as Cat Cotton or Martin Magpie in the world of Second Life.

Linden Lab' official blog often times has comments closed on their blog. I will be reposting daily the posts that have comments closed. Allowing ppl to openly post their comments; in response to Linden Lab. I personally feel its wrong of Linden Lab to not allow ppl to comment on their blog thus often times forcing the user to post comments to other blog posts that are not on topic. I hope everyone enjoys the ability to post comments on this blog.

Cat