Request for LLGetObjectDetails respect parcel privacy settings
tracked
Duckie Dickins
Parcel privacy settings prevents avatars on other nearby parcels from rendering or hearing avatars that are on a parcel with "Avatars on other parcels can see and chat with avatars on this parcel" toggled off. LLGetObjectDetails should also respect parcel privacy setting so objects outside of the parcel are not allowed to get a list of attachments from avatars standing on a parcel with this privacy setting enabled.
This would essentially allow land owners to opt out of roaming bots gathering attachment data since there isn't a setting to disallow bots at the parcel level, especially for those who live on mainland.
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Spidey Linden
tracked
Issue tracked. We have no estimate when it may be implemented. Please see future updates here.
Darling Brody
I'm sorry but this won't work. The bots will simply move over each parcel one at a time above the ban-line limit. It wont stop the bots, it will just make them move around the region.
It is also worth noting that the viewer (and thus bot software) receives almost all of the information available to the LLGetObjectDetails() command because this information is sent to the viewer by the region, so restricting this command won't improve privacy, but it will create a scripting nightmare for group land, and many existing products will break as often happens when we add restrictions to the established behaviour of existing LSL commands.
What we need is a parcel level ban for avatars that are flagged as bots that will not let a bot enter a parcel at any height, and we need LL to detect and suspend accounts being used as bots that have not flagged themselves as bots.
The below link is for a suggested way LL can detect and enforce the bot policy on those bot operators who have not flagged their avatar as a bot.
Qie Niangao
Fatal to this proposal, however, the "see and chat" privacy restrictions apply at the parcel level but bots can only be preemptively excluded at the region level. This puts Mainland in a serious bind
especially
if this llGOD restriction comes into force because it would create a huge incentive for bots to visit individual parcels to collect as much data as they can before a script can detect and boot them from the parcel.On Estates, full region owners can just ban bots at that full region level, and the Lab has done so across all Linden Homes regions, so those locations have no use for this feature. In contrast, anywhere it would appear to be useful (individually-owned parcels mostly on Mainland) it creates this perverse incentive for more numerous and more aggressively parcel-invasive bots.
Unless a parcel-level preemptive bot ban is introduced at the same time, this proposed llGOD restriction will do more damage than good.
Peter Stindberg
Qie Niangao We regularly get rogue bot visits on our private estate, as well as on our Linden Home region.
I'm researching bots for 5 years now. I can tell a rogue bot from a legitimate visitor.
Rules, restrictions, flags etc. only work for bots that adhere to the rules. The rogue bots just ignore it.
Qie Niangao
Peter Stindberg Sure, but as you already said in another response, the proposal only applies to bots that one way or another have the AGENT_AUTOMATED bit set, so indeed it may not do much good. My point is that, by supplying (another) perverse incentive specific to parcel-level restrictions, it will actually make things measurably worse for a particular subset of SL land users.
Simultaneously introducing a parcel-level bot ban certainly wouldn't fix the bot problem but it would reduce the specific harm of this proposal.
Peter Stindberg
Qie Niangao We agree that the original suggestion is a bad idea. I thiiiiiiink we also agree about the rest, but have communication problems :-)
I
disagree
with "Unless a parcel-level preemptive bot ban is introduced" - since this would only work if all
parcels on any given region would use it, and if we only consider rule-following bots.But I think this is what you said, only in other words. All good.
Lucia Nightfire
I run an adult animesh service over group owned land. It involves several parcels, each set to parcel privacy. At an alarming rate of at least once every two weeks, it encounters a user who either tries to access the service while wearing a child avatar or a user who changes into a child avatar after they have been granted access. I use both llGetAttachedList() and llGetObjectDetails() and use the data to query a database of flagged content to either block access or send infringers back to my lobby and/or eject/ban. If I am ever unable to do any of this, I will have to shut down my service and sell my land.
hacker Resident
if the main point of this suggestion is to prevent bots from collecting data, i think it's better to address the root problem (bots and LL's poor bot policy) instead of changing something that could potentionally break the functionality of existing scripts
Peter Stindberg
hacker Resident As mentioned many many times before: Policies only work with the people who are inclined to follow them. Policies by definition don't work for rogue actors.
There is exactly
one
thing the Lab can do that would effectively curb the flood of (rogue) bots: Making signups harder. Which they won't do for obvious reasons, and which would be against the resident's best interest as well.The bots are here to stay. The good bots will abide by the ever tightening rules to the point where running a benevolent/beneficial/legitimate bot will make no sense anymore, the rogue bots will keep ignoring the rules.
The suggestion by Duckie Dickins is original and novel, and has a certain elegance to it IF the underlying premise - bots collecting attachment data - is true. But as hacker Resident says: It has the potential to break a LOT of legacy content.
The bots are here to stay.
Duckie Dickins
hacker Resident I was asked by Rider Linden to post this on Canny after I bought it up at tuesday's scripting/server SLUG meeting. He felt it might be a bit of a security hole and that i should create this request so it can be tracked.
Darling Brody
Peter Stindberg Attachment data can be collected by the viewer anyway because it is all sent to the viewer. Almost everything llGetObjectDetails() is able to provide to a script is visible to the viewer.
This proposal won't stop the bots, and it will do nothing to restrict the data they can collect, especially when the bots can move over each parcel above the ban-line height by exploiting the window created above parcels to permit aircraft to move freely over the mainland.
LL are in the best position to enforce compliance with their own bot policy using the region software to detect the distinctive behaviour of data-mining bots.
LL could also sue a few people for violating the bot policy. That will have a chilling effect on the illegal-data-mining community.
Darling Brody
Duckie Dickins It is a security hole, but it is one that is needed for scripts to function properly, and restricting this script function won't stop the bad bots, as I explained above.
Peter Stindberg
Darling Brody Oh, sueing them... interesting idea. I amend my earlier statement that there is only
one
thing they could do, and up it to two
things.