Well I looked up secondlife marketplace today and did a search for redzone, it no longer shows, is this Linden Labs taking action finally? or a ploy by zfire xue to get the userbase off his back about privacy violations? you decide,I've seen things disappear from marketplace and users assume something was done about it for the content that was supposedly removed to be reposted, so user beware its too early to celebrate just yet.
Also today I viewed my blog and saw a user by the name of chef had left me a comment slandering me to be an alt of a supposed age player that I know nothing about, dunno how I defend myself against that being accused of being someone I know nothing about but it really goes to show what effectiveness redzone lacks I decided I would reply to them and point out their fallacy as I've been blogging against this redzone thing longer than this person they accused me of being has perhaps been banned, also as a result I contacted Mephitis Jezebel the owner of Aventity/Chimera regarding the slander her partner posted in my topic, and I will admit I did have a nasty choice of words against her but it was reasonable and to the point and the point was to notify her that if I was harassed by any member of Aventity any further I would be turning over an IC3 complaint for the violation, she did agree with me that the reaction of this user called chef her partner was inappropriate, and stated she got rid of Redzone soon as she realized it was a violation during the conversation with her there was a Vixen Resident who had a nasty attitude and was unreasonable so they've been muted as well as chef being banned from some sims we don't want Redzones HUD being used in. Anyhow I discussed the privacy violation with her and the harassment issue from her groupies and she apologized and stated about the removal of the Redzone orb and stated she hadn't used it for quite some time when someone else notified her of the violations. after the discussion she said she would be sending out a notice apologizing to her customers, I don't know if shes passing this apology to her customers on database, or her group or avatar makers guild or what but I asked for a copy of this apology and received a notecard titled "A public apology" as such I will Post a copy of this apology here:
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It's recently come to my attention that a lot of people are worried (and rightfully upset) at me for choosing to use zfRedZone (a security orb that advertises its ability to ban copybotters and their alts) in the past. The only reason I used this system was to prevent an onslaught of copybotters from continuing to target products at .:chimera:.. The zfRedZone orb was only rezzed for a short period of time, was promptly deleted when a few people told me it violated ToS, and hasn't been rezzed for months. However, I want to personally apologize to everyone who had been logged by this system during the time it was active. It was not my intention at all to violate anyone's privacy.
For a more in-depth understanding of what I'm talking about, I would like to forward you all to Treminari's blog entries regarding security systems such as zfRedZone.
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/12/aventity-chimera-uses-zf-redzone-which.html
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/07/spywaretos-and-legal-violation-in.html
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2010/12/zf-redzone-can-disrupt-secondlife.html
In closing, I want to reassure all of you that .:chimera:. and the sim it's located in (Ascendant) has not used zfRedZone for months. We do not use any type of loggin/security system, and never will.
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Anyhow she sent this to me and stated that she would be sending this out to others whether or not she has done it I don't know. As It's titled a public apology I assume its public and have duplicated it here, if your a past or current customer of Aventity you can choose whether or not to accept this apology and decide whether or not its sufficient. I'm not one for holding grudges except where its warranted like Zfire Xue, but I dunno if this is enough and while I was considering getting an Aventity white fox before taking notice to this in addition to some of their other well designed avatars, I've got mixed feelings for such a violation as when I first discovered Redzone on marketplace for myself considering the privacy violation and slander from her business partner, but it was my common sense that said it was illegal when I found it on Xstreet and lead me to researching it and finding it was in Violation of ToS 8.3 and BPC22575-22579. I'm still quite upset about the violation and Don't know whether or not I will return as a customer or not myself, I tend to collect lots of avatars and such, My hope is that Aventity at least shows better discretion in the future when using questionable countermeasures and that other content creators do the same, there are ways users can legally defend themselves from copybot clients such as reporting Piracy of their Content to the IC3 which is actually the FBI's internet crimes division and filing DMCA reports properly with Linden Labs, as avatar creators are copyright holders their rights are as the music industry has when they themselves sue over piracy, I do believe those who steal content should be held up to the same standards and strung up by the balls so to say with lawsuits just like the music industry does those who steal music, but also believe they have the same responsibility to defend themselves with legal means rather than this frontier justice style bullshit, and not take matters into their own hands making the situation worse for everyone else, I see zf Redzones spyware service the same as Sony did with their rootkits in a lawsuit which you can read about here: http://news.cnet.com/Sony-settles-rootkit-class-action-lawsuit/2100-1002_3-6012173.html as you can see there is such a thing as crossing the line and doing whatever you can to defend your product might not always be legal. I'm not saying you should go out and sue content creators who have used this illegal product, as their fears have been played on by zfire xue and they may or may not know what their doing is legal, but if their common sense doesn't say its sensible they need to learn and I would question their sense of ethics, and zfire xue is the operator of the database of this illegal service, so I really feel all responsibility for the privacy violations should fall on Him as he created and marketed this illegal product and is the one turning a profit from the exploit, also as a final note before closing, you content creators who use this product, really should think about it and consider my previous posts, It didn't protect Aventity as I stated in a previous blog post, it got me upset with them, and I'm sure I'm not the only customer they've lost as a result, and redzone is quite careless with the Bans it issues as you can see with the post about it disrupting service for UAE users, so your failing to kick copybots and kicking out legit customers which could potentially up your profits, but what I want you to consider is something most important of all which I will explain in more detail in a later post, by using redzone and settling for a half baked solution, your distracting from a legitimate and effective solution which may actually work by making others who might design a better solution settling for something less, so in essence, you really only help the copybot problem and put yourself at risk of upsetting and losing your customers. And as stated by aventity in this case “rightfully upset” customers.
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