Extend estate bans to associated accounts, connections, and devices | ✨ Feature Requests

Extend estate bans to associated accounts, connections, and devices

tracked

Asher Nightfall

Hey everyone, I’d like to suggest this feature because banning someone should give a venue some protection against them coming straight back on another account.
I work at Actually Love, a dating agency in Second Life. Like other businesses and public venues, we deal with griefers who threaten to return on alts to keep causing problems. Recently, someone threatened to come back on five alternate accounts to harass our staff and visitors. Abuse reports have been filed, but so far we haven’t seen anything come of them.
My suggestion is that when an estate owner or estate manager estate bans an account, its IP connection and any accounts Linden Lab knows belong to that person are also blocked from entering the region covered by the ban. Linden Lab could also use device identifiers to help recognize accounts returning from the same computer, even if the IP changes. Accounts identified as associated later should be included, and known associated accounts should stay blocked when they change connections.
Linden Lab would handle this privately. Estate managers, staff, and other residents would not be shown alt identities, account links, IP addresses, or device identifiers. Those accounts would simply be denied entry. They could still log into Second Life and visit places outside the region covered by the ban.
I understand connection or device restrictions could also affect a partner, roommate, or someone sharing a computer. Managers should see a clear warning before applying these restrictions and be able to remove them without lifting the original account ban. They should also be able to allow a specific account as an exception if someone unrelated gets caught by it.
This won’t stop every attempt to get around a ban, but it would give us a better chance to stop repeat harassment. Staff could spend more time helping visitors and running the venue instead of waiting for the next alt to show up.

6 days ago

Alwin Alcott

your suggestion is going to solve nothing, a very large amount of people/accounts doesn't have a static IP .. or uses a proxy, it will shoot LL in the feet instead of solving a problem.

Asher Nightfall

Alwin Alcott
I understand that IP addresses can change and that people use VPNs or proxies. That’s why I’m not suggesting an IP address be the only thing used to identify someone. My original wording could have been clearer on that.
I’m asking Linden Lab to consider multiple signals they already have available when determining whether accounts are associated. It won’t stop every griefer, but even making it harder for someone to immediately return on an alt would help.

Laufiair Hexicola

Asher Nightfall yes in the same vein in how if LL restricts the main account, the alts go too.

Draco Seraphim

Yes please. LL needs to do something about all the harassment people do and their generic file an AR just isn't it.

Asher Nightfall

Draco Seraphim

Thank you. Abuse reports are important, but it can be frustrating when someone keeps returning on different accounts while you’re waiting for something to happen. I’d like estate managers to have another tool to help protect their regions in the meantime, with safeguards for innocent residents.

Draco Seraphim

Asher Nightfall its not even just that. They can by pass block with deeded objects and still harass you. Filing more AR don't do anything.

Asher Nightfall

Draco Seraphim
Yeah, that’s another problem that needs to be addressed. If someone can use a deeded object to get around a block and continue harassing you, then what’s the point of the block? And it’s frustrating when you keep filing abuse reports but the harassment continues and it feels like nothing is being done.
Maybe when someone is estate banned, there could also be an option to force return their objects from the region, including any deeded objects Linden Lab can identify as theirs. That way, they can’t leave something behind to keep harassing people after they’ve been banned.

Beatrice Voxel

This is where I see a legit need for AI - pattern recognition.
It's less about where an account comes from IP wise, and more about how it behaves.  What attachments does the avatar use?  What regions does it log into?  What accounts does it share things with?  What scripts does it run?
Griefers typically have a pattern, regardless of what account gets used.  If LL were to analyze that pattern, they could likely find most (if not all) associated alt accounts engaging in the same pattern.  The same goes for spambots, stalkers, and the like.
Yes, this brings up a big Privacy Concern with SL residents.  But, LL already has access to our inventories, teleport histories, chat logs, and whom we share things with.   It's not that we can't hide all of the above, we can only hide it from each other.  LL would have to ensure that their data crunching griefer hunter AI doesn't make its findings public.  
I would say that such findings should be encrypted, and only those specific humans with access would be able to open them.  By that I do not outsourced call centers or contractors. LL employees only, preferably directors or higher.

Asher Nightfall

Beatrice Voxel
That’s an interesting idea. Looking at patterns of repeated griefing or harassment could potentially help Linden Lab recognize what’s happening across accounts, especially when someone changes their connection or device.
My concern would be making sure similar behavior alone isn’t treated as proof that accounts belong to the same person. There would need to be safeguards, privacy protections, and a way to review mistakes. But I agree that any account associations should stay with Linden Lab and not be shared with estate managers or other residents.

Christi Maeterlinck

Excellent idea. Yes, as Bavid Dailey points out it's not perfect, but Asher's response suggests it can be managed to an appreciable point. I'm surprised that a block of this kind hasn't been implemented years ago. It's too easy to create alts for harassment purposes, as I discovered when someone dropped a self-renewing, in effect non-deletable self-replicating cube on my sim. I had to ask LL for a roll-back of the whole sim, which they kindly put into effect. Seems to be prevention, even if partial, would be better than an after-griefing cure.

Asher Nightfall

Christi Maeterlinck

Thank you for sharing that. Having to roll back an entire region because of a griefer is exactly the kind of disruption I’m talking about. I know this suggestion wouldn’t prevent every incident, but if it helps stop someone from immediately returning on another account, that gives venues a better chance to protect their staff and visitors.

Christi Maeterlinck

Asher NightfallAbsolutely. Good wishes for your suggestion, and I hope LL implement it along with their work on their BUG-230907.

AlettaMondragon Resident

So eventually hundreds of people that have nothing to do with your griefers would be banned because they use the same VPN. Great idea. As for the associated accounts based on any kind of identification, that belongs to Linden Lab only and alternate accounts must not be shared with other residents. If names would end up on your estate ban list automatically, you would be able to find out who is whose alt, and that is against the rules. Other than that, this is a quite feudalistic attitude that if you own a region or several, you want more and more power to yourself.

How did a dating agency manage to make enemies anyway?

Spoons Delcon

AlettaMondragon Resident considering how much some people have paid for their digital land and that they own it outright, why is this a bad thing to want controls over who can access it? I personally own a open rez public region on mainland so it isn't like you have nowhere to go. Not to mention all the LL public land

Asher Nightfall

AlettaMondragon Resident
I understand the concern about people sharing a VPN or connection, and I agree that an IP match alone shouldn’t automatically get someone blocked. My original wording could have been clearer on that.
I’m also not asking Linden Lab to put associated account names on the estate ban list or reveal anyone’s alts. They would handle that privately. I suggested warnings, exceptions, and the ability to remove the added restriction because I know unrelated people could be affected.
And as for how a dating agency “made enemies,” public venues don’t have to do anything to attract griefers. Someone threatened to return on multiple alts to harass our staff and visitors. I’m asking for another way to protect the people at our venue, not access to anyone’s private information.

AlettaMondragon Resident

Asher Nightfall If LL actually had the means to identify people that try to circumvent region/estate bans with alts, do you think banned pedophiles, griefers, etc could come back with new accounts all the time? Other than that, I get your point, but there's also the other side of this: a landowner is not always the victim of abuse. Some use their places for abusive things, and some estate owners also try their best to harbor pedos (I will explain this in a more detailed reply to Spoons later). Giving them a tool like this would be a godsend, they're already close to being able to do their things without having to worry about getting reported. If they can make sure they ban a few people that seem to threaten their ageplay dens or whatever, and then they don't have to worry about their alts either, you gave them the perfect tool to get away with anything. (This is why I mentioned the feudalistic point of view earlier.)

Asher Nightfall

AlettaMondragon Resident
I understand your concern, and I agree that not every estate owner would use this tool for the right reasons. But estate owners can already make their regions private or restrict access to certain people and groups if they want to hide what’s happening.
Someone could also witness abuse in an open region and then get banned. That’s why people should still be able to report a region after being banned, and Linden Lab should be able to investigate regardless of its access settings.
At the same time, Second Life has gone too long with griefers being able to make an alt and come right back to spam and harass people over and over. Venue owners and staff deserve better tools to protect their visitors and keep griefers from driving people away.
Any tool can be used properly or misused, which is why safeguards matter. I’m hoping for a balance where venues can protect themselves without giving anyone a way to avoid being reported or investigated.

Bavid Dailey

Whole college halls are just one example where hundreds of people may share an IP address. Any restriction based on IP addresses is thus impractical

Asher Nightfall

Bavid Dailey
That's a fair point, and I actually addressed that concern in my original suggestion. I understand that colleges, workplaces, and households can have multiple people sharing the same IP address.
However, this isn't about blocking people based on IP addresses alone. As Linden Lab pointed out in their response, they can look at multiple identifying signals, including IP addresses, hardware identifiers, payment information, and other forms of account fingerprinting, to help determine whether accounts are associated. An IP match by itself shouldn't automatically mean someone gets blocked.
Linden Lab also confirmed that a similar feature was previously suggested under BUG-230907 (Invisible Temporary Estate Bans) and has linked my request to it. They specifically acknowledged my suggestions about warnings, exceptions for people sharing connections or devices, and identifying associated accounts over time.
The goal is to give estate owners better protection against repeat harassment from people returning on multiple alts, while keeping account associations and identifying information private. That's also why I suggested giving managers the ability to remove these restrictions or allow exceptions without lifting the original ban.
I agree that innocent residents shouldn't be caught in these restrictions, but that's exactly why using multiple signals and having proper safeguards would be important.

SL Feedback

updated the status to

tracked

SL Feedback

Thanks for taking the time to write up this request—your goal of stopping repeat harassment via alts (without exposing any private account-linking details to estate staff) matches a feature request that was raised previously.
We found a duplicate in Second Life’s previous bug tracking system (the Jira archive): BUG-230907
 (“Invisible Temporary Estate Bans”). That older report covers the same core idea of using Linden Lab–visible identifiers (IP/hardware/payment signals or similar fingerprinting) to temporarily block associated alt accounts from re-entering a region after an estate ban, while keeping those identifiers and any account associations private.
Because this was already brought up in the past, we’re marking your post as Tracked
 and linking it to BUG-230907
 so your details (including your notes about warnings, exceptions for shared households/devices, and ongoing association updates) are captured in one place. We don’t have an ETA to share, but please keep an eye on future updates as this area is reviewed.