Denial

Access denied. Scripts shut down. Particle griefing. Replicating objects. Permissions bugs....Annoyance.

It was a rough weekend for SL. Grid security remains suspect as efforts to keep the grid off-balance have begun occurring on a regular basis. The daily maintenance of the world must be getting more difficult as Lab resources get burned up responding to grid crises. The Lab fostered rapid growth in the user base and the overall size of the SL economy. Along with this came magnified concerns. There are business people that feel a noticeable sting from prolonged service outages. Of course, many active users are frustrated with their experience lately, from the most casual avatar to the largest content providers.

What next? The official Linden Blog makes poses some interesting solutions.

There have been many suggestions regarding the regulation of scripting and we are in fact looking at technical options which will allow only ‘trusted’ Residents to fully utilize LSL across the grid. It is planned that “Trusted” Residents will be clearly defined, and there will be processes in place (not all payment oriented) to become “trusted” if your account currently falls outside of that designation. Other ideas are still being explored, and as part of that exploration we’ll be reviewing the many comments that came into the blog today. (Please forgive us if we don’t answer each one.)

I don't feel great about this. I suppose I am supposed to be happy that The Lab is at least making an attempt to get a handle on things, however, this doesn't seem like a real answer. Limitations of this nature certainly may make these griefing incidents more difficult, but I don't think it eliminates them. Really, though, I can't say without more detail on the definition of "Trusted" and how this would get implemented. At first pass, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

The first steps we are taking will help us to lessen the impact of the attacks on the majority of Residents. Wednesday’s release contains the first round of code changes to begin the mitigation of the attacks. In addition, we’re reviewing all processes and documentation to make sure we handle any attack as efficiently as possible.

Finally, we will be meeting with Federal authorities tomorrow to share information we have to date on the attackers. It is not our intention to allow these people to destroy Second Life and everything that we have built together.

Typically, there are a lot of words that don't give much in the way of detail. Perhaps this is another layer of security, thereby making it harder on the offenders by not advertising the prevention methodology. However, it does little to allay the considerable concerns that are growing amongst the residents. I'm not sure The Lab's recent reputation can carry this without a more detailed plan of action. That said, the best advertisement for the success of these changes would be a weekend free of trouble.

What of the Federal Authorities? Notification to the Feds is something LL should do and something they have alluded to before, if not explicitly stated, as being their policy regardomg this type of malicious service interruption. No real news there. Any significant results from Federal intervention would be a new development worthy of discussion, however.

We'll all have to cock on eye out for SL's immediate future. It should be interesting, if nothing else. Though perhaps not the way most of us want it to be.