Sorry Long time no update,
Recently there was an attempt to compromise my google account which I was recently notified of, supposedly the attack originated from Hefei, Anhui, China (60.168.115.215) but I am investigating further at the moment I suspect the source of the attack may be a proxy server or part of a botnet, unfortunately the notice was not very detailed and did not include number of login attempts that day nor how many locations just that was the attempt that was blocked, so I dont know if my password was guessed in 1 shot or over some time. All I know is login was prevented because googles geo location service detected the login being attempted from an unusual location.
Regardless the compromise attempt while I don't update often I suspect the target may have been this blog.
To others who run a blog similar to this one I suggest updating your password to something more complex just as I have done, I tend to vary passwords between services so it's only the password for my google account that had been compromised that I know of, however unfortunately the warning about the break in attempt did not include number of failed attempts from that source or number of attacks committed in a day, so its difficult to tell if my password was compromised via a "brute force" login attempt or via spyware, either way im taking precautions against both.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
User looking for Users who have info Compromised by VooDoo
[2012/07/30 18:33] Cyborg Renfold: just that it would be appreciated that people who have had two or more avatars exposed show contact
[2012/07/30 18:33] Treminari Huet: I adhere to the ToS and need a snippit that I can quote
[2012/07/30 18:34] Treminari Huet: roger that, may I quote that?
[2012/07/30 18:34] Cyborg Renfold: yes
Just a quick post this morning, it seems Cyborg Renfold is is looking for those who have had their personal information exposed or compromised by VooDoo, this includes Alternate Accounts, Personal information, Real life information, or anything that can be used to link any of that together with information you didn't volunteer to VooDoo. He was asking about for this information in the group "Greenzone Users" last night. While not someone I know in SL personally I thought it would be good to let my readers know he was looking in the group to get in contact with those who have had their information compromised.
If you feel any of your information has been Compromised by "VooDoo SL." "Monkey Wonder.", or any employee of them I just felt you should know that Cyborg Renfold is looking to get in contact with you regarding the exposure of your info. If you had your personal information compromised in any way by VooDoo or any of its subordinates and would like to know more please contact Cyborg Renfold.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Relay for Life in Secondlife Going on now
http://slurl.com/secondlife/RFL%20Hero/139/85/23
Every year I relay to help in the fight against cancer from within secondlife, The relay track walk has started today if your not familiar with Relay for life in secondlife come on down and check out the event, and show your support in the fight against cancer.
The event officially runs today and tomorrow and helps to raise funds for American Cancer Society.
Every year I relay to help in the fight against cancer from within secondlife, The relay track walk has started today if your not familiar with Relay for life in secondlife come on down and check out the event, and show your support in the fight against cancer.
The event officially runs today and tomorrow and helps to raise funds for American Cancer Society.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
What makes voodoo so special?
recently I had been looking through bixyls blog for articles on SL9B so I could get a sneak peak of whats there, I could get in early as a blogger but would rather not abuse their system of press to get in early, I decided I would wait until SL9B would open up.
I decided I would view back articles on bixyls blog as well when I came across an article on a controversy over a game called Byngo, which Linden Labs when they become involved in the controversy closed it for wagering.
http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/04/byngo-maybe.html
http://slnewserdesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/byngo-is-booming-again.html
Anyhow I took the voodoo issue into consideration with this and wanted to point at the gambling policy Linden Labs has against gambling:
From the current page:
----------------------
It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life® environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:
1. Rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner,
OR
2. Rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,
AND provide a payout in
1. Linden Dollars (L$)
OR
2. Any real-world currency or thing of value.
This includes (but is not limited to), for example, Casino Games such as:
* Baccarat
* Blackjack
* Craps
* Faro
* Keno
* Pachinko
* Pai Gow
* Poker
* Roulette
* Sic Bo
* Slot machines
This policy also includes sports books or sports betting, including the placing of bets on actual sporting events against a book-maker or through a betting exchange.
Linden Lab will actively enforce this policy. If we discover gambling activities that violate the policy, we will remove all related objects from the inworld environment, may suspend or terminate the accounts of residents involved without refund or payment, and may report any relevant details, including user information, to authorities and financial institutions.
----------------------
End of pages content
anyhow there is a list of games, but these games are just examples of what your not allowed to do as the statement before the list is "This includes (but is not limited to)" but oddly enough we notice some wagering games go on despite not being limited to that list, like VooDoo's sploders which get reported repeatedly but still continue to run on the grid with impudence.
many people running wagering based games such as that Byngo which was put in the link above, are forced to add an element of skill and decision making to be allowed however, what skill is needed to play a sploder such as the one by voodoo? you pay in, and hope for a bigger payout than what you payed in, its purely a game of chance, yet specifically card games where an element of skill is included such as blackjack, require much more skill and an estimating of chances to be allowed, if I was to make a blackjack table that accepts payments, the content would surely be destroyed and I would be taken off the grid, yet it is much more a game of skill than any sploder. Sploders are purely a game of chance, relying on a pay in, and a random chance of payout, they are quite comparable to slot machines. given that I would like to re-iterate on a previous incident.
I was attending an event at a place that has since gone called "park galleries of fine art" we were holding a fund-raising event for the relay in memory of a dear friend that had been lost to cancer, while attending the event someone sent everyone in the gallery an unsolicited advertisement via a notecard advertising the casino they had just opened up in the sim next door looking at whom the notecard came from, to my dismay I had spotted a casino building with 4 rooms each with "tipjars" which claimed you had a chance of being payed back double of what you payed in, in the room there were tipjars for 10L 25L 50L 100L etc each advertising the same thing. panning the camera through the casino I found in each room there were tipjars much exactly the same, I of course didnt take kindly to a charity event being spammed with ad's for illegal gambling and filed an Abuse report for wagering, towards the end of the event, a linden showed up I suspected what they were there for, and they flew then went into hidden mode where they were unviewable, I panned the camera back into the room where the illegal games were to see them removed, however the exact same game had remained present in all the other rooms and was not dealt with, it is unknown as to whether or not they were eventually removed because it was a closing event for park gallery and I never had reason to return. the games were removed because they were compared to slots in the abuse report, however many illegal games still remain on the grid, such as voodoo, and voodoo even gets away with sending out ad's and threats, really what makes them so special? Let's Speculate on that a moment!
I really feel its not about whether or not its a game of skill, many of the example games as to what is banned have a much higher element of skill than the games allowed to continue to run on the grid, I really feel the choice of whom is allowed to continue to operate wagering games more so comes down to how easily the game can be identified by law enforcement.
looking at someones SL screen seeing someone right click a floating object and it burst into particle effects even if dollar signs and what not, really isn't easily identified as gambling even if it gets posted on like a youtube video and heres why, nobody with an untrained eye who is unfamiliar with secondlife can tell whats going on or for that matter something that can be traded for real money, the linden dollars are being payed in, so to the untrained eye, it just looks like an odd goofy game. meanwhile if someone was to start putting blackjack out there, its easily identified as a game people typically play while wagering, really it seems the bigger part of enforcement on Linden Labs gambling policies is how easily law enforcement can Identify it.
for example if I was to go to a law enforcement agency and load secondlife on one of their computers, or brought a computer of mine to connect and show it off and demonstrate a complaint they would think nothing of the sploder system and think I was some crazy talking about some odd game, I would probably be in trouble for filing a false police report if I was to do such a thing just due to their lack of understanding of the game, however on the other hand, if I was to show a blackjack table, or something of the like, its likely the agency im complaining too, would see it as a typical gambling game, and would investigate to see if anything of value was being wagered as its online gambling.
the point is in short, I really feel having seen voodoo operate with impudence, while other games are shut down, its more about how easily its identified as a wagering game, than being a policy to stop illegal wagering.
I decided I would view back articles on bixyls blog as well when I came across an article on a controversy over a game called Byngo, which Linden Labs when they become involved in the controversy closed it for wagering.
http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/04/byngo-maybe.html
http://slnewserdesign.blogspot.com/2012/05/byngo-is-booming-again.html
Anyhow I took the voodoo issue into consideration with this and wanted to point at the gambling policy Linden Labs has against gambling:
From the current page:
----------------------
It is a violation of this policy to wager in games in the Second Life® environment operated on Linden Lab servers if such games:
1. Rely on chance or random number generation to determine a winner,
OR
2. Rely on the outcome of real-life organized sporting events,
AND provide a payout in
1. Linden Dollars (L$)
OR
2. Any real-world currency or thing of value.
This includes (but is not limited to), for example, Casino Games such as:
* Baccarat
* Blackjack
* Craps
* Faro
* Keno
* Pachinko
* Pai Gow
* Poker
* Roulette
* Sic Bo
* Slot machines
This policy also includes sports books or sports betting, including the placing of bets on actual sporting events against a book-maker or through a betting exchange.
Linden Lab will actively enforce this policy. If we discover gambling activities that violate the policy, we will remove all related objects from the inworld environment, may suspend or terminate the accounts of residents involved without refund or payment, and may report any relevant details, including user information, to authorities and financial institutions.
----------------------
End of pages content
anyhow there is a list of games, but these games are just examples of what your not allowed to do as the statement before the list is "This includes (but is not limited to)" but oddly enough we notice some wagering games go on despite not being limited to that list, like VooDoo's sploders which get reported repeatedly but still continue to run on the grid with impudence.
many people running wagering based games such as that Byngo which was put in the link above, are forced to add an element of skill and decision making to be allowed however, what skill is needed to play a sploder such as the one by voodoo? you pay in, and hope for a bigger payout than what you payed in, its purely a game of chance, yet specifically card games where an element of skill is included such as blackjack, require much more skill and an estimating of chances to be allowed, if I was to make a blackjack table that accepts payments, the content would surely be destroyed and I would be taken off the grid, yet it is much more a game of skill than any sploder. Sploders are purely a game of chance, relying on a pay in, and a random chance of payout, they are quite comparable to slot machines. given that I would like to re-iterate on a previous incident.
I was attending an event at a place that has since gone called "park galleries of fine art" we were holding a fund-raising event for the relay in memory of a dear friend that had been lost to cancer, while attending the event someone sent everyone in the gallery an unsolicited advertisement via a notecard advertising the casino they had just opened up in the sim next door looking at whom the notecard came from, to my dismay I had spotted a casino building with 4 rooms each with "tipjars" which claimed you had a chance of being payed back double of what you payed in, in the room there were tipjars for 10L 25L 50L 100L etc each advertising the same thing. panning the camera through the casino I found in each room there were tipjars much exactly the same, I of course didnt take kindly to a charity event being spammed with ad's for illegal gambling and filed an Abuse report for wagering, towards the end of the event, a linden showed up I suspected what they were there for, and they flew then went into hidden mode where they were unviewable, I panned the camera back into the room where the illegal games were to see them removed, however the exact same game had remained present in all the other rooms and was not dealt with, it is unknown as to whether or not they were eventually removed because it was a closing event for park gallery and I never had reason to return. the games were removed because they were compared to slots in the abuse report, however many illegal games still remain on the grid, such as voodoo, and voodoo even gets away with sending out ad's and threats, really what makes them so special? Let's Speculate on that a moment!
I really feel its not about whether or not its a game of skill, many of the example games as to what is banned have a much higher element of skill than the games allowed to continue to run on the grid, I really feel the choice of whom is allowed to continue to operate wagering games more so comes down to how easily the game can be identified by law enforcement.
looking at someones SL screen seeing someone right click a floating object and it burst into particle effects even if dollar signs and what not, really isn't easily identified as gambling even if it gets posted on like a youtube video and heres why, nobody with an untrained eye who is unfamiliar with secondlife can tell whats going on or for that matter something that can be traded for real money, the linden dollars are being payed in, so to the untrained eye, it just looks like an odd goofy game. meanwhile if someone was to start putting blackjack out there, its easily identified as a game people typically play while wagering, really it seems the bigger part of enforcement on Linden Labs gambling policies is how easily law enforcement can Identify it.
for example if I was to go to a law enforcement agency and load secondlife on one of their computers, or brought a computer of mine to connect and show it off and demonstrate a complaint they would think nothing of the sploder system and think I was some crazy talking about some odd game, I would probably be in trouble for filing a false police report if I was to do such a thing just due to their lack of understanding of the game, however on the other hand, if I was to show a blackjack table, or something of the like, its likely the agency im complaining too, would see it as a typical gambling game, and would investigate to see if anything of value was being wagered as its online gambling.
the point is in short, I really feel having seen voodoo operate with impudence, while other games are shut down, its more about how easily its identified as a wagering game, than being a policy to stop illegal wagering.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Voodoo SL Ad Targets Reveal some data is illegally collected
You may of seen in my blog that I had previously investigated voodoo for use of the media exploit.... and called the results of my personal investigation inconclusive due to finding some recursive elements in the stream, but being unable to determine whether it was the voodoo system or a stream that clubs had used in common....
if you havent yet you can read it here:
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/voodoo-blackmails-greenzone-users.html
after having visited some locations during my investigation and doing much as I could without breaking any gambling laws myself I decided I would click one of the sploders and it asked me to visit a page on the voodoo website.... using a proxy at the time I decided it would be safe for me to visit... upon visiting I was presented with the voodoo terms of service... I read over them checking for anything you couldnt legally put in the set of terms(I remember back in the days of zfire there was plenty of this)(though the whole thing is illegal anyways as it is part of a gambling product) and of course wanting to preserve my rights wholly and fully.... I never agreed to the terms Voodoo presented closing out the terms page without hitting the agree button
Something had been bothering me since and I think I got my answer.... it was an alternate account I visited in not listed in the greenzone users group.... but what had bothered me about voodoo having a set of terms was did they collect the verification data before or after your agreement? well the other night I got my answer... the alternate account I had visited the location of the voodoo system with... and "disagreed" with the terms I had read indeed recieved something from voodoo when all my other accounts which I avoid voodoo with like the plague had gotten nothing but threats.... the alternate I was investigating on received a notecard titled "Get free L$ from voodoo and get traffic to your land"
Obviously this account is in the voodoo database despite never having agreed to the terms.... so obviously voodoo collects its data on anyone visiting the page after having clicked the sploder.... before they've even clicked the I agree button
thus then.... VooDoo certainly does violate the business and professions code... exactly as zfires redzone did.
Also this invalidates all current agreements anyone may have with the voodoo Terms of service and heres why.... they are collecting a list of users who have supposedly agreed with their terms of service.... but are also adding to that list people who havent so much as clicked the agree button... in other words their list of persons simply implies consent... without having received the consent, as they collect the data just on a visit... and not on the clicking of the agree button, they have users that never agreed mixed in with users that have agreed mixed in the database of those whom have agreed supposedly... simply put for Voodoos terms to have any legal binding they would need to record only those who agree, not everyone whom visits the terms page and closes it out without agreeing.
Anyhow Ive made the main point I was going after in this post.... but there are other smaller points I cant look away from as well.....
they offer SL users a place to dodge around gambling laws further on in the notecard which I will display here... obviously they dont know what is and isnt legal as they say its a legal place to gamble outside SL, when legality of gambling is determined both by the living location of the gambler... and the locations of the service it takes place on and the location of the money being gambled
anyhow for those of you who havent seen it the advertisement goes as follows:
Start of voodoo Notecard
----------------------------
YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS NOTECARD BECAUSE YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED TO VOODOO NEWS.
If you would like to stop receiving News from Voodoo, visit the landmark below, and click UNSUBSCRIBE.
[]Voodoo SL Mainstore :: Unsubscribe
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOODOO SL ON MARKETPLACE: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/40780
At some point in time you have interacted with us in order to be subscribed to our news.
We wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of the ways Voodoo can help you in Second Life, and introduce some new things on the horizon in the near future.
Come and visit []Voodoo Vice City our cool new urban themed sim.
GETTING L$
--------------
VOODOO SPLODERS: Since it's inception almost 2 years ago, the Voodoo Sploder network has never stopped growing, with more and more locations appearing on our tracker and Sploder pots increasing, now has never been a better time to follow the Sploders in your spare time to earn some L$.
Tracker: http://tracker.vudu.sl/
VOODOO RESELLER: We encourage shop owners to resell our high selling products through vendors with a high comission to the shop owner on each sale.
Contest Board = L$199 on each sale.
Sploders = L$100 on each sale.
Anti-Bot = L$200 on each sale.
GETTING NOTICED
---------------------
VOODOO SPLODERS: Our sploders have a huge following, and the players are constantly monitored to ensure we have real individuals playing and not bots and multiple alts. Our Voodoo Sploder range has expanded recently to fit the theme of your location, and now we can create custom designs on request which vary in cost depending on complexity of the model.
Standard Voodoo Sploder - 4 Prims
Voodoo Club Sploder - 55 Prims
Voodoo Mannequin Sploder - (including texture changer) 4 Prims
Voodoo V-Engine Sploder - 5 Prims
Voodoo Rose Sploder - 34 Prims
Voodoo Rubik Sploder - 1 Prim
Voodoo Gaming Sploder - 2 Prims
BANNER ADVERTISING: Our website http://vudu.sl has extremely high traffic from all over the world, at busy times our server logs show up to 10 web requests to the website every second. Many of these visitors are already in Second Life, and they might be interested in your SL location!
Voodoo has a creative team who can make your custom web banner to a very high standard and your specification, each banner comes in 3 different sizes to be displayed in different positions in our website randomly, we charge L$1500 per week to show your advertisment to thousands and you can use your banner on other websites or blogs.
Contact the Support Team @ []Voodoo SL :: http://vudu.sl :: Cordia for more information.
COMING SOON
------------------
CONTEST BOARD V1.2 - The long awaited update to our anti-cheat Contest Board is on its way, we are cleaning up some final bugs before its release. Some massive improvements can be expected!
VOODOO SPLODER V2.0 - The new Sploder is a few weeks from release. It is a ground breaking update, with a complete script rewrite and running with up to 4 times more free script memory and many new much needed features such as groups/fees shown on the tracker, resume and re-add players after a restart, trivia bonuses, real-time web based configuration and control, and a lot more. The Sploder goes into 2012!
VOODOOSTORM VIEWER - There is no solid release date yet and will be several months, but Voodoo will be releasing a viewer based on Firestorm with a built in Voodoo Tracker and other integrations into our systems that will be useful to the Voodoo community, such as the new upcoming Voodoo social network and Casino. The viewer will be open source and follow Linden Labs TPV Terms of Service, and we will apply to be added to the official Third Party Viewer Directory.
VOODOO CASINO - As gambling and particularly Poker is illegal in Second Life, we have created a casino outside of Second Life servers in a legal environment where you can safely and fairly play card games with your friends in a virtual environment, and we've integrated it all into our viewer! It's great fun and really feels like a night out!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Voodoo Cats gifts!
Many cute kittens from Kittycats, visit our store!
Ocicats choco / Abyssinian / Siamese / Burmese / Russian / Chateau Cat / Love letters / fun flower / flower bun /
Begal / Snowshoe / detectable darling / American Shorthair/Love leopard
And much more.
Nice Furs / eyes / tails combinations.
WOW LOW PRICE 100L/ 170L/ 200L MANY CATS
Also Bidboard/raffle board/Spin the Wheel game !!!
Voodoo Cats in Voodoo Vice City: []Voodoo Cats
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cordia/124/184/22
We are also in Apache.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Apache%20Falls/135/103/21
THANKS!
-------------------------------
end of voodoo notecard
Anyhow first and foremost this shows that voodoo in the service of secondlife is a service that centers around gambling, and that alone I feel is more than reason enough Linden Labs should be banning Monkey Wonder with no questions asked... surely they've received enough abuse reports from people such as myself and many others that this is indeed illegal... the only reason I can think they dont is that voodoo's sploder system... isn't recognized by legal authorities as it takes place in a different format from games that are typically associated with gambling.... thus the difference in format skims under the eyes of the law and its not a truely legal system though accepted across the grid and is thus then ignored by Linden Labs... anyhow, point is that it isnt legal, it just isnt recognized and identified easily enough for law enforcement to go at it(do keep in mind despite being illegal secondlife in its earlier days was a gambling safe haven where in addition to sploders, slots and card games with wagering was common place... I really think Secondlife needs another visit from the FBI as the crackdowns seem to of let illegal wagering continue, so long as it is in a form law enforcement cant readily identify)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/outriders/2007/07/second_life_online_gambling_cr.shtml
http://news.777.com/2007-07/linden-lab-bans-gambling-in-second-life
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2007/07/27/second-life-cracks-down-on-virtual-gambling/
while the point of this post was made before getting into the content of the notecard itself there are a couple more things within that bother me... in particular the voodoostorm viewer and voodoo casino advertised.... I really hope this is some kind of joke, but the voodoo casino part drives home that voodoo is a business based primarily on gambling, like the sploders but it goes on to say gambling is illegal in secondlife... and then goes on to name a particular game to draw attention away from that really gambling is illegal in the states its run in, its illegal to do it with the money that has been put in the secondlife system... and its illegal in the locations that many of secondlifes users reside in, while it is currently unsaid how this voodoo viewer will facilitate the gambling(its most likely based on opensim) the methods I can think of are mostly illegal given the above first off is it a seperate grid with its own transaction system and own viewer? that would be legal only if the users were of legal residence to use it.... or does it log in to secondlife grid to get an L$ balance and transfer money based on who wins and loses, in which case it would be illegal as it would be transfering money on the grid for the act of gambling and still be using the secondlife grid to do so, just the money would be on grid the games off grid.... even though the game takes place off grid it would still be the use of linden dollars to do so.... regardless of the method the current policy Linden Labs approves or dissaproves of various viewers, and yes rejection does actually happen, before I got into blogging here I had read a open complaint from the creator of "PAR" viewer about their viewer being rejected because it was a plugin based system where the functionality was in plugins rather than the viewer itself, also aside from that this does not conform to the new policy as it provides a function to track a specific set of objects which effects the shared user experience by giving certain users an advantage in this game of chance which shouldnt be allowed anyway by using a certain viewer, regardless I wouldnt trust such a viewer created by someone so low on ethic to be handling my passwords, so there likely wont be investigation into how this viewer in developement works, even if not using it I dont even want it installed on my system..... someone that sends out blackmail and threats and slander to a discussion group and acts on them and excuses their criminal activity likely isnt past stealing passwords.
back in the old days of secondlife, back before Emerald when I first started hearing about SLurls I used to read all the updates about the viewer, one of the updates back in those days was that malformed SLurls on websites could make the viewer send user passwords to websites had been fixed.... while this bug has long since been fixed, it indicates to me a password saved in the viewer isnt stored in the most secure form.... its stored in a form that could easily be either set in another viewer(some viewers you can load seperately and they will remember the saved password from the other, and be able to login with it), I wouldnt want a piece of software like that residing on my system where it could retrieve such senstive data.
if you havent yet you can read it here:
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/voodoo-blackmails-greenzone-users.html
after having visited some locations during my investigation and doing much as I could without breaking any gambling laws myself I decided I would click one of the sploders and it asked me to visit a page on the voodoo website.... using a proxy at the time I decided it would be safe for me to visit... upon visiting I was presented with the voodoo terms of service... I read over them checking for anything you couldnt legally put in the set of terms(I remember back in the days of zfire there was plenty of this)(though the whole thing is illegal anyways as it is part of a gambling product) and of course wanting to preserve my rights wholly and fully.... I never agreed to the terms Voodoo presented closing out the terms page without hitting the agree button
Something had been bothering me since and I think I got my answer.... it was an alternate account I visited in not listed in the greenzone users group.... but what had bothered me about voodoo having a set of terms was did they collect the verification data before or after your agreement? well the other night I got my answer... the alternate account I had visited the location of the voodoo system with... and "disagreed" with the terms I had read indeed recieved something from voodoo when all my other accounts which I avoid voodoo with like the plague had gotten nothing but threats.... the alternate I was investigating on received a notecard titled "Get free L$ from voodoo and get traffic to your land"
Obviously this account is in the voodoo database despite never having agreed to the terms.... so obviously voodoo collects its data on anyone visiting the page after having clicked the sploder.... before they've even clicked the I agree button
thus then.... VooDoo certainly does violate the business and professions code... exactly as zfires redzone did.
Also this invalidates all current agreements anyone may have with the voodoo Terms of service and heres why.... they are collecting a list of users who have supposedly agreed with their terms of service.... but are also adding to that list people who havent so much as clicked the agree button... in other words their list of persons simply implies consent... without having received the consent, as they collect the data just on a visit... and not on the clicking of the agree button, they have users that never agreed mixed in with users that have agreed mixed in the database of those whom have agreed supposedly... simply put for Voodoos terms to have any legal binding they would need to record only those who agree, not everyone whom visits the terms page and closes it out without agreeing.
Anyhow Ive made the main point I was going after in this post.... but there are other smaller points I cant look away from as well.....
they offer SL users a place to dodge around gambling laws further on in the notecard which I will display here... obviously they dont know what is and isnt legal as they say its a legal place to gamble outside SL, when legality of gambling is determined both by the living location of the gambler... and the locations of the service it takes place on and the location of the money being gambled
anyhow for those of you who havent seen it the advertisement goes as follows:
Start of voodoo Notecard
----------------------------
YOU ARE RECEIVING THIS NOTECARD BECAUSE YOU ARE SUBSCRIBED TO VOODOO NEWS.
If you would like to stop receiving News from Voodoo, visit the landmark below, and click UNSUBSCRIBE.
[]Voodoo SL Mainstore :: Unsubscribe
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VOODOO SL ON MARKETPLACE: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/40780
At some point in time you have interacted with us in order to be subscribed to our news.
We wanted to take this opportunity to remind you of the ways Voodoo can help you in Second Life, and introduce some new things on the horizon in the near future.
Come and visit []Voodoo Vice City our cool new urban themed sim.
GETTING L$
--------------
VOODOO SPLODERS: Since it's inception almost 2 years ago, the Voodoo Sploder network has never stopped growing, with more and more locations appearing on our tracker and Sploder pots increasing, now has never been a better time to follow the Sploders in your spare time to earn some L$.
Tracker: http://tracker.vudu.sl/
VOODOO RESELLER: We encourage shop owners to resell our high selling products through vendors with a high comission to the shop owner on each sale.
Contest Board = L$199 on each sale.
Sploders = L$100 on each sale.
Anti-Bot = L$200 on each sale.
GETTING NOTICED
---------------------
VOODOO SPLODERS: Our sploders have a huge following, and the players are constantly monitored to ensure we have real individuals playing and not bots and multiple alts. Our Voodoo Sploder range has expanded recently to fit the theme of your location, and now we can create custom designs on request which vary in cost depending on complexity of the model.
Standard Voodoo Sploder - 4 Prims
Voodoo Club Sploder - 55 Prims
Voodoo Mannequin Sploder - (including texture changer) 4 Prims
Voodoo V-Engine Sploder - 5 Prims
Voodoo Rose Sploder - 34 Prims
Voodoo Rubik Sploder - 1 Prim
Voodoo Gaming Sploder - 2 Prims
BANNER ADVERTISING: Our website http://vudu.sl has extremely high traffic from all over the world, at busy times our server logs show up to 10 web requests to the website every second. Many of these visitors are already in Second Life, and they might be interested in your SL location!
Voodoo has a creative team who can make your custom web banner to a very high standard and your specification, each banner comes in 3 different sizes to be displayed in different positions in our website randomly, we charge L$1500 per week to show your advertisment to thousands and you can use your banner on other websites or blogs.
Contact the Support Team @ []Voodoo SL :: http://vudu.sl :: Cordia for more information.
COMING SOON
------------------
CONTEST BOARD V1.2 - The long awaited update to our anti-cheat Contest Board is on its way, we are cleaning up some final bugs before its release. Some massive improvements can be expected!
VOODOO SPLODER V2.0 - The new Sploder is a few weeks from release. It is a ground breaking update, with a complete script rewrite and running with up to 4 times more free script memory and many new much needed features such as groups/fees shown on the tracker, resume and re-add players after a restart, trivia bonuses, real-time web based configuration and control, and a lot more. The Sploder goes into 2012!
VOODOOSTORM VIEWER - There is no solid release date yet and will be several months, but Voodoo will be releasing a viewer based on Firestorm with a built in Voodoo Tracker and other integrations into our systems that will be useful to the Voodoo community, such as the new upcoming Voodoo social network and Casino. The viewer will be open source and follow Linden Labs TPV Terms of Service, and we will apply to be added to the official Third Party Viewer Directory.
VOODOO CASINO - As gambling and particularly Poker is illegal in Second Life, we have created a casino outside of Second Life servers in a legal environment where you can safely and fairly play card games with your friends in a virtual environment, and we've integrated it all into our viewer! It's great fun and really feels like a night out!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Many cute kittens from Kittycats, visit our store!
Ocicats choco / Abyssinian / Siamese / Burmese / Russian / Chateau Cat / Love letters / fun flower / flower bun /
Begal / Snowshoe / detectable darling / American Shorthair/Love leopard
And much more.
Nice Furs / eyes / tails combinations.
WOW LOW PRICE 100L/ 170L/ 200L MANY CATS
Also Bidboard/raffle board/Spin the Wheel game !!!
Voodoo Cats in Voodoo Vice City: []Voodoo Cats
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cordia/124/184/22
We are also in Apache.
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Apache%20Falls/135/103/21
THANKS!
-------------------------------
end of voodoo notecard
Anyhow first and foremost this shows that voodoo in the service of secondlife is a service that centers around gambling, and that alone I feel is more than reason enough Linden Labs should be banning Monkey Wonder with no questions asked... surely they've received enough abuse reports from people such as myself and many others that this is indeed illegal... the only reason I can think they dont is that voodoo's sploder system... isn't recognized by legal authorities as it takes place in a different format from games that are typically associated with gambling.... thus the difference in format skims under the eyes of the law and its not a truely legal system though accepted across the grid and is thus then ignored by Linden Labs... anyhow, point is that it isnt legal, it just isnt recognized and identified easily enough for law enforcement to go at it(do keep in mind despite being illegal secondlife in its earlier days was a gambling safe haven where in addition to sploders, slots and card games with wagering was common place... I really think Secondlife needs another visit from the FBI as the crackdowns seem to of let illegal wagering continue, so long as it is in a form law enforcement cant readily identify)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/outriders/2007/07/second_life_online_gambling_cr.shtml
http://news.777.com/2007-07/linden-lab-bans-gambling-in-second-life
http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2007/07/27/second-life-cracks-down-on-virtual-gambling/
while the point of this post was made before getting into the content of the notecard itself there are a couple more things within that bother me... in particular the voodoostorm viewer and voodoo casino advertised.... I really hope this is some kind of joke, but the voodoo casino part drives home that voodoo is a business based primarily on gambling, like the sploders but it goes on to say gambling is illegal in secondlife... and then goes on to name a particular game to draw attention away from that really gambling is illegal in the states its run in, its illegal to do it with the money that has been put in the secondlife system... and its illegal in the locations that many of secondlifes users reside in, while it is currently unsaid how this voodoo viewer will facilitate the gambling(its most likely based on opensim) the methods I can think of are mostly illegal given the above first off is it a seperate grid with its own transaction system and own viewer? that would be legal only if the users were of legal residence to use it.... or does it log in to secondlife grid to get an L$ balance and transfer money based on who wins and loses, in which case it would be illegal as it would be transfering money on the grid for the act of gambling and still be using the secondlife grid to do so, just the money would be on grid the games off grid.... even though the game takes place off grid it would still be the use of linden dollars to do so.... regardless of the method the current policy Linden Labs approves or dissaproves of various viewers, and yes rejection does actually happen, before I got into blogging here I had read a open complaint from the creator of "PAR" viewer about their viewer being rejected because it was a plugin based system where the functionality was in plugins rather than the viewer itself, also aside from that this does not conform to the new policy as it provides a function to track a specific set of objects which effects the shared user experience by giving certain users an advantage in this game of chance which shouldnt be allowed anyway by using a certain viewer, regardless I wouldnt trust such a viewer created by someone so low on ethic to be handling my passwords, so there likely wont be investigation into how this viewer in developement works, even if not using it I dont even want it installed on my system..... someone that sends out blackmail and threats and slander to a discussion group and acts on them and excuses their criminal activity likely isnt past stealing passwords.
back in the old days of secondlife, back before Emerald when I first started hearing about SLurls I used to read all the updates about the viewer, one of the updates back in those days was that malformed SLurls on websites could make the viewer send user passwords to websites had been fixed.... while this bug has long since been fixed, it indicates to me a password saved in the viewer isnt stored in the most secure form.... its stored in a form that could easily be either set in another viewer(some viewers you can load seperately and they will remember the saved password from the other, and be able to login with it), I wouldnt want a piece of software like that residing on my system where it could retrieve such senstive data.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
VooDoo Publishes their blacklist
Today voodoo has published a blacklist of people they have deemed griefers, upon finding this blacklist I took a copy for record keeping reasons, this is a list of people their HUD will act against in the threats they made, not only am I on the list for sitting quiet in the greenzone group listening to discussions.... but also a reporter whom I passed the story along too who ended up on the list just for trying to get both sides of the story. Despite having interviewed Monkey Wonder Directly and having made their intention known through the interview no exclusion was made... to make matters worse, the page declares that this will be further integrated into their other products, so not only will their HUD systems be slandering members of a target group... so will the rest of their products eventually!
taken from the page excluding the List currently at time of the posting of this article(their page is subject to change but this is what is currently there):
Start of taken from http://vudu.sl/Help/SecondLifeGriefers
"""Some groups in Second Life exist only to attack and cause innocent people grief. At Voodoo we believe this behaviour is wrong and are taking steps to expose and limit the problem.
Our FREE Voodoo Tracker HUD has a new advanced griefer early warning system, which will scan the area and warn you if the land is owned by a member of these griefer groups, if one of them is nearby or there are any objects around you created by them. Get the HUD now and spot trouble early!
The griefer blacklist will be slowly integrated into other Voodoo products to maximise your security, and more griefing groups will be blacklisted as we investigate them.
If you find your name on a list below, it is because you belong to a group known for attacking people. Voodoo staff cannot remove you from our database, but our data is updated every 24 hours, so you will be removed automatically if you no longer belong to the offending group.
GreenZone Griefer Group
"Green Zone Users" Group in Second Life was created by Fart Admiral several years ago in an effort to protest against the Red Zone security system. Since the demise of Red Zone long ago, the group is used as an umbrella group for anyone wishing to attack others. The members of this group have repeatedly proven they will use any griefing tactic that comes to mind to achieve their agenda. """
End of message from http://vudu.sl/Help/SecondLifeGriefers
as we can see here its based on an automated system that adds and removes people from a list which is essentially updated by a bot(there aren't LSL calls that I'm aware of which gets lists of group membership)... and you can remove yourself from the list simply by leaving which if your really are a griefer your going to do anyways and be able to dodge around this system just like that(so common sense should of dictated to voodoo's creator this don't work, but obviously its more about an agenda so its more an "I don't care this wont stop an actual griefer, but it looks good for us" mentality much like zFire had)... So as we can see here... voodoo has officially gone from declaring themselves to protect you from bots.... to going on the attack against groups with the use of a bot, and this is simply an attack against a group of people designed to dissolve that group rather than protect innocents as its creator claims.
but remember the threats from voodoo? one of the points I had emphasized was that this individual was knowingly on the attack to damage legitimate SL businesses... the page starts off "Some groups in Second Life exist only to attack and cause innocent people grief. At Voodoo we believe this behaviour is wrong and are taking steps to expose and limit the problem." which is certainly a change in tone from the threat I as many others had received which included a line such as "We do however understand that there is a minority of legitimate business owners currently in the griefing group," where as voodoo had acknowledged that they knew of actual legitimate businesses that operate and have membership in the greenzone group... obviously its doubletalk... send a strong threat to a discussion group while slandering it as a griefing group... and put on a false sense of professionalism for your customers... obviously with the text from the threat... VooDoo committed this attack against the group knowing they would cause harm to innocents involved yet they claim to be protecting them....
Obviously Monkey Wonder the person that runs VooDoo has a very poor sense of right and wrong.... its right so long as he can profit off of the sploders.... and the so called free tracker HUD that directs their customers to the sploders... while slandering and libeling innocent people on the side.
Also making mass gridwide banlists really isn't an honest attempt at dealing with the griefer problem... the sims I hang around when we get griefer trouble it's either Hijacked accounts that don't last long carrying out attacks or new accounts which were created for the sole purpose of such, which usually promptly become known and banned in the target places. given as such griefing is generally a one shot deal per account the accounts being throw aways... a list of long term users is not about stopping griefing, its about an agenda and a vendetta against a discussion group.
Given these actions are obviously a vendetta comparing what is currently on his site, to the threats he sent out to the group, you can obviously see these are emotionally charged actions and are about carrying out an attack rather than solving a problem, if your a user of a voodoo product and reading this with concern and an open mind rather than bias, I encourage you to read my previous articles regarding VooDoo, and ask yourself if you really can trust the creator of this product having added new features solely for carrying out a personal vendetta. I especially encourage you to examine and compare what he wrote on his product page(whats currently there at time of this posting copied and pasted above) to the threatening blackmail notecard he sent to everyone in this group(published in VooDoo Blackmails Greenzone users)... Also if you believe the threat is something I made up to defame the product then please by all Means confirm it, Afterall the threat he sent out he sent out via an automatic notecard giver to every member of the group so it should be easy to inquire with several members of the group, and get several exact same copies of the threat Monkey Wonder of VooDoo has sent out thus making this extremely easy to verify for yourself.
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/voodoo-blackmails-greenzone-users.html
I am not a griefer.... but will likely stay on this slanderous list of accused griefers, as I would rather remain in the discussion group to further hear the talks of privacy issues and any new upcomming issues within SL than back down to the blackmail threats and criminal actions of this cyber-terrorist.
taken from the page excluding the List currently at time of the posting of this article(their page is subject to change but this is what is currently there):
Start of taken from http://vudu.sl/Help/SecondLifeGriefers
"""Some groups in Second Life exist only to attack and cause innocent people grief. At Voodoo we believe this behaviour is wrong and are taking steps to expose and limit the problem.
Our FREE Voodoo Tracker HUD has a new advanced griefer early warning system, which will scan the area and warn you if the land is owned by a member of these griefer groups, if one of them is nearby or there are any objects around you created by them. Get the HUD now and spot trouble early!
The griefer blacklist will be slowly integrated into other Voodoo products to maximise your security, and more griefing groups will be blacklisted as we investigate them.
If you find your name on a list below, it is because you belong to a group known for attacking people. Voodoo staff cannot remove you from our database, but our data is updated every 24 hours, so you will be removed automatically if you no longer belong to the offending group.
GreenZone Griefer Group
"Green Zone Users" Group in Second Life was created by Fart Admiral several years ago in an effort to protest against the Red Zone security system. Since the demise of Red Zone long ago, the group is used as an umbrella group for anyone wishing to attack others. The members of this group have repeatedly proven they will use any griefing tactic that comes to mind to achieve their agenda. """
End of message from http://vudu.sl/Help/SecondLifeGriefers
as we can see here its based on an automated system that adds and removes people from a list which is essentially updated by a bot(there aren't LSL calls that I'm aware of which gets lists of group membership)... and you can remove yourself from the list simply by leaving which if your really are a griefer your going to do anyways and be able to dodge around this system just like that(so common sense should of dictated to voodoo's creator this don't work, but obviously its more about an agenda so its more an "I don't care this wont stop an actual griefer, but it looks good for us" mentality much like zFire had)... So as we can see here... voodoo has officially gone from declaring themselves to protect you from bots.... to going on the attack against groups with the use of a bot, and this is simply an attack against a group of people designed to dissolve that group rather than protect innocents as its creator claims.
but remember the threats from voodoo? one of the points I had emphasized was that this individual was knowingly on the attack to damage legitimate SL businesses... the page starts off "Some groups in Second Life exist only to attack and cause innocent people grief. At Voodoo we believe this behaviour is wrong and are taking steps to expose and limit the problem." which is certainly a change in tone from the threat I as many others had received which included a line such as "We do however understand that there is a minority of legitimate business owners currently in the griefing group," where as voodoo had acknowledged that they knew of actual legitimate businesses that operate and have membership in the greenzone group... obviously its doubletalk... send a strong threat to a discussion group while slandering it as a griefing group... and put on a false sense of professionalism for your customers... obviously with the text from the threat... VooDoo committed this attack against the group knowing they would cause harm to innocents involved yet they claim to be protecting them....
Obviously Monkey Wonder the person that runs VooDoo has a very poor sense of right and wrong.... its right so long as he can profit off of the sploders.... and the so called free tracker HUD that directs their customers to the sploders... while slandering and libeling innocent people on the side.
Also making mass gridwide banlists really isn't an honest attempt at dealing with the griefer problem... the sims I hang around when we get griefer trouble it's either Hijacked accounts that don't last long carrying out attacks or new accounts which were created for the sole purpose of such, which usually promptly become known and banned in the target places. given as such griefing is generally a one shot deal per account the accounts being throw aways... a list of long term users is not about stopping griefing, its about an agenda and a vendetta against a discussion group.
Given these actions are obviously a vendetta comparing what is currently on his site, to the threats he sent out to the group, you can obviously see these are emotionally charged actions and are about carrying out an attack rather than solving a problem, if your a user of a voodoo product and reading this with concern and an open mind rather than bias, I encourage you to read my previous articles regarding VooDoo, and ask yourself if you really can trust the creator of this product having added new features solely for carrying out a personal vendetta. I especially encourage you to examine and compare what he wrote on his product page(whats currently there at time of this posting copied and pasted above) to the threatening blackmail notecard he sent to everyone in this group(published in VooDoo Blackmails Greenzone users)... Also if you believe the threat is something I made up to defame the product then please by all Means confirm it, Afterall the threat he sent out he sent out via an automatic notecard giver to every member of the group so it should be easy to inquire with several members of the group, and get several exact same copies of the threat Monkey Wonder of VooDoo has sent out thus making this extremely easy to verify for yourself.
http://treminarisecondlife.blogspot.com/2012/04/voodoo-blackmails-greenzone-users.html
I am not a griefer.... but will likely stay on this slanderous list of accused griefers, as I would rather remain in the discussion group to further hear the talks of privacy issues and any new upcomming issues within SL than back down to the blackmail threats and criminal actions of this cyber-terrorist.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
VooDoo Acts on its threats to harass greenzone users!
Well it would appear that Monkey Wonder the creator of VooDoo anti-bot has acted on his threats to harass and defame the greenzone discussion group, earlier today upon signing into secondlife the greenzone group was discussing the latest action and group notice... I made a brief inquiry as to where the information came from and was informed it was a Group notice, in the group "VooDoo Anti Bot" which is open to free enrollment, which I joined briefly and viewed the back Notices, I found 3 notices for today... two of which pertained to the issue and appeared related to the threats and appear to reflect VooDoo's creator acting on his very threats.
The Group Notices are as follows:
Notice1:Voodoo Tracker HUD2.5
New tracker HUD is available FREE from vendors and Marketplace.
NEW Sploder player personal status & rank information button in the menu.
NEW Griefer early warning system.
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XPLODER-Voodoo-Sploder-Tracker-HUD/1661951
Notice2:Announcement
Announcement :
===========
New Voodoo Tracker Hud 2.5 is now available in our main store --->
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morenci/225/245/23
and on Marketplace as well --->
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XPLODER-Voodoo-Sploder-Tracker-HUD/1661951.
***New sploder player personal status & rank information button in the menu.
***New griefer early warning system.
Enjoy & have fun,
Voodoo Team.
=========
The Group Notices are as follows:
Notice1:Voodoo Tracker HUD2.5
New tracker HUD is available FREE from vendors and Marketplace.
NEW Sploder player personal status & rank information button in the menu.
NEW Griefer early warning system.
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XPLODER-Voodoo-Sploder-Tracker-HUD/1661951
Notice2:Announcement
Announcement :
===========
New Voodoo Tracker Hud 2.5 is now available in our main store --->
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morenci/225/245/23
and on Marketplace as well --->
https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/XPLODER-Voodoo-Sploder-Tracker-HUD/1661951.
***New sploder player personal status & rank information button in the menu.
***New griefer early warning system.
Enjoy & have fun,
Voodoo Team.
=========
Monday, April 16, 2012
Voodoo Blackmails Greenzone users
There has been an ongoing controversy within the greenzone users group... many suspect some of voodoo's products to violate your privacy much in the same way redzone did... some members herald it as the second redzone while others are indifferent to it, Don't know what voodoo products are? their a couple of blacklisting products related to sploders and clubs, there are a couple of articles about them on both sides of the controversy which I feel provide an accurate assessment as to what voodoo is:
http://forcemesilverspar.blogspot.com/2011/08/voodoooooo-magic.html?zx=434fbb899ab14566
http://www.examiner.com/second-life-in-national/voodoo-anti-bot-detection-software-police-protection-for-bingo-traffic
anyhow there is a debate as to whether or not it's functionality is redzone like, like on forceme's blog voodoo sploders need their users to check in which includes being sent to a website to be checked out which users can opt out of by simply not playing the sploder... however the voodoo anti bot product there is some debate as to how it works(such as some suggesting it uses the media loophole if you don't voluntarily verify), voodoo's description is there are bot hunters that go around using a series of tools(undefined tools created by them and third parties) to determine who is a bot and who is not.
further blowing this controversy out of control the creator of these products "Monkey Wonder" has been kicking the hornets nest on a regular basis, joining the group chats of greenzone users, and harassing its members, I remember one time lecturing him about not appreciating being slandered over a few outspoken people within the group.... less than a week later I could see what I hate to say was completely disregarded with more slander and libel against the group
of course it don't help that the greenzone HUD alerts its users to the presence of a voodoo sploder like it would any other redzone like system, however the notification only goes to the wearer of the greenzone HUD, so based on what side of the controversy regarding voodoo products they believe, they can take it or leave it when they get an alert as to a voodoo product being present...
After getting tired of seeing Monkey Wonder in the group chat harassing the members I decided I would myself test the voodoo products for a media exploit... My finding's were similar to Forceme's in the above blog... and I decided the results were inconclusive....
I visited several locations that included voodoo products at the time... this is some time back early on into the controversy... but I had a difficult time finding enough for testing despite the products claimed popularity at some locations, I did find attempts in media to send to a specific IP and port number... the locations had matching IP's but varying port numbers.... and some locations had different URL's... unfortunately due to finding few locations I was unable to rule out what I did see recurring as the possibility of another products that sets media URL's such as a harmless shoutcast DJ board.... so thus then I decided things were inconclusive and would need to be tested another time before coming out and saying voodoo is harmless... or as some suspect a redzone like product.
of course on and on since then there have been several more incidents of Monkey Wonder kicking the hornets nest getting the group in a stir and the argument between greenzone and voodoo escalating as a result... I participate in the group Greenzone users not to hear him harassing the group members... but so that I can watch the group chat a short period of time, oftentimes as many people as there are your not the first to discover a problem so its nice to login and hear chatter of stuff like "NCSA alt detector" created by "NCSA resident" after the disbanding of the redzone system... Obviously a redzone like spyware system where the creator is trying to Impersonate the National Cyber Security Alliance... due to group chatter and LL being informed as a result that little scam didn't last long... and It's very very rarely I chat in the group unless there is some chatter that is radically different from my research or I have questions to ask... but nonetheless I participate in the group as a listener as if something else like Redzone, NCSA or quickware etc comes out... it's very likely to get the chat in a stir where I can hear about it.
Well as of recent I as well as many other users of the group received a blackmail message threatening us:
[15:14] Voodoo Notecard Giver owned by Monkey Wonder gave you 'WARNING: You, your land and creations BLACKLISTED' ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morenci/210/252/22 ).
Anyhow the notcard content was as follows
(((Start of Notecard)))
Dear Greenzone griefing group member,
Following mass defamation, griefing, propoganda, scamming and false abuse reports initiated by members of Greenzone griefing group recently on a scale never before seen in SL, Voodoo has taken the decision to protect our customers and other residents of Second Life from your activities.
Greenzone once had a legitimate purpose in Second Life, protecting the privacy of residents from systems such as Red Zone.
Red Zone is long gone, and Greenzone now operates more like the Anonymous hacking collective. The moderators have lost control, and the group is now a leaderless organisation that anyone with a grudge can join to attack others in the name of Greenzone.
Voodoo produces an extremely popular free Sploder tracking HUD which is owned by thousands and used everyday by many people, we have a user base of over 40,000 avatars. The next version of these HUDs, to be released imminently, will announce any nearby Greenzone griefers in local chat by name, along with any land owned by these griefers and any objects created by them. We believe your creations and land are not safe as you are a member of a group well known for griefing.
We do however understand that there is a minority of legitimate business owners currently in the griefing group, who joined long before Greenzone was hijacked by trouble makers. Due to this, we are allowing 12 hours for you to leave the group and avoid any damage to your business.
Voodoo has been at the forefront of SL security for many years and we take it and peoples privacy very seriously.
We do not wish to become ememies of any group, but we simply cannot tolerate people who choose to attack or scam others.
Thank you for your understanding and please make the right decision.
Monkey Wonder
Owner of Voodoo SL
(((End of Notecard)))
I Personally had a neutral stance on voodoo products up until now, even though sploders are an illegal gambling product under the SL ToS and California Law the state Linden Labs is headquartered in... I personally have no interest in gambling... but many other users do and despite Linden and State Policy sploder systems are such miniscule small scale stuff and are so common across so many different clubs they are generally widely accepted despite not being legal... but I am starting to see the reasons for these laws personally even though its something I personally avoid... you get sore losers... then you get controversies like this over tools like this... anyhow regardless of the gambling element and the bot protect which as forceme truthfully put... a ban list of anyone voodoo dont like.... we can see obviously this is a very emotionally influenced notecard... and it threatens to blacklist members of greenzone not for what the bot protect product targets.... but because their members of a group....
the general message of the notecard I feel is leave your discussion group or I will do something very bad to you... obviously meant to coerce people into leaving which is the very definition of blackmail
From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blackmail
"to force or coerce into a particular action"
obviously I'm getting a sense of that a extortion scheme which seems to be quite common around the gambling scene go figure the sploder problem has been ignored and it has exploded into threats...
anyhow onto the threat which you've probably seen in the the notecard that slanderously and libelously and falsely describes its recipients such as myself it appears that he claims he has 40,000 users walking around with HUD's related to his products, and the next version of these HUD's is going to via Public chat slander members of the greenzone users group such as myself... a very different action from what the greenzone HUD does which is only bothering its wearer about a potentially unsafe object... the Voodoo Hud is supposedly going to be updated according to this notecard to say in public chat that someone such as myself is a griefer when were around...
to put this in perspective.... while the greenzone HUD bothers only its owner.... the voodoo HUD's are going to bother everyone in the vicinity of the wearer according to this... to slander someone that is nearby the HUD
Obviously this will all happen if you don't submit to Monkey Wonders threat... even worse yet is Monkey goes on to acknowledge there are business owners in the group and that they have 12 hours to leave to avoid damage to their business... so he acknowledges he will be doing something to damage your business out of his maliciousness for a group you may participate in...
Given this while I felt it debatable whether or not Monkey Wonders Voodoo fell into the spyware category.... however given these threats based on someone that operates an emotionally charged blacklist to quote forceme's blog """Really... this should not be called "Anti-bot" but rather "Anti-anyone we Voodoo people don't like""" I really feel voodoo has crossed the line from having a service that was of debatable stance... Into a service that can be accurately described as Malware...
this is also specifically prohibited under the secondlife terms of service section 8.2 "You will not post or transmit prohibited Content, including any Content that is illegal, harassing or violates any person's rights.", "(v) Post, display or transmit Content that is harmful, threatening or harassing, defamatory, libelous, false, inaccurate, misleading, or invades another person's privacy;"
In the case of voodoo this would be harassing content as it is designed to single out certain people... and transmit to those around them falsely that they are a griefer, and also aside from that the very notecard sent out was threatening to the group members so whether or not the action is taken, I really feel for me the debate as to whether voodoo is a malicious product or not is over... with this recent action from the voodoo group and violating the above action... I find voodoo's products to be content that is harassing and violates the rights of those around it... as in section 8.2 of SL's ToS... also I as per subsection V I find it to be harmful, threatening harasing defamatory libelous false inaccurate as well as misleading... the notecard itself threatens a users rights to participate in the discussion group and exercise their thus then first ammendment... so yes the voodoo system does infringe upon actual rights of users of Secondlife.
http://forcemesilverspar.blogspot.com/2011/08/voodoooooo-magic.html?zx=434fbb899ab14566
http://www.examiner.com/second-life-in-national/voodoo-anti-bot-detection-software-police-protection-for-bingo-traffic
anyhow there is a debate as to whether or not it's functionality is redzone like, like on forceme's blog voodoo sploders need their users to check in which includes being sent to a website to be checked out which users can opt out of by simply not playing the sploder... however the voodoo anti bot product there is some debate as to how it works(such as some suggesting it uses the media loophole if you don't voluntarily verify), voodoo's description is there are bot hunters that go around using a series of tools(undefined tools created by them and third parties) to determine who is a bot and who is not.
further blowing this controversy out of control the creator of these products "Monkey Wonder" has been kicking the hornets nest on a regular basis, joining the group chats of greenzone users, and harassing its members, I remember one time lecturing him about not appreciating being slandered over a few outspoken people within the group.... less than a week later I could see what I hate to say was completely disregarded with more slander and libel against the group
of course it don't help that the greenzone HUD alerts its users to the presence of a voodoo sploder like it would any other redzone like system, however the notification only goes to the wearer of the greenzone HUD, so based on what side of the controversy regarding voodoo products they believe, they can take it or leave it when they get an alert as to a voodoo product being present...
After getting tired of seeing Monkey Wonder in the group chat harassing the members I decided I would myself test the voodoo products for a media exploit... My finding's were similar to Forceme's in the above blog... and I decided the results were inconclusive....
I visited several locations that included voodoo products at the time... this is some time back early on into the controversy... but I had a difficult time finding enough for testing despite the products claimed popularity at some locations, I did find attempts in media to send to a specific IP and port number... the locations had matching IP's but varying port numbers.... and some locations had different URL's... unfortunately due to finding few locations I was unable to rule out what I did see recurring as the possibility of another products that sets media URL's such as a harmless shoutcast DJ board.... so thus then I decided things were inconclusive and would need to be tested another time before coming out and saying voodoo is harmless... or as some suspect a redzone like product.
of course on and on since then there have been several more incidents of Monkey Wonder kicking the hornets nest getting the group in a stir and the argument between greenzone and voodoo escalating as a result... I participate in the group Greenzone users not to hear him harassing the group members... but so that I can watch the group chat a short period of time, oftentimes as many people as there are your not the first to discover a problem so its nice to login and hear chatter of stuff like "NCSA alt detector" created by "NCSA resident" after the disbanding of the redzone system... Obviously a redzone like spyware system where the creator is trying to Impersonate the National Cyber Security Alliance... due to group chatter and LL being informed as a result that little scam didn't last long... and It's very very rarely I chat in the group unless there is some chatter that is radically different from my research or I have questions to ask... but nonetheless I participate in the group as a listener as if something else like Redzone, NCSA or quickware etc comes out... it's very likely to get the chat in a stir where I can hear about it.
Well as of recent I as well as many other users of the group received a blackmail message threatening us:
[15:14] Voodoo Notecard Giver owned by Monkey Wonder gave you 'WARNING: You, your land and creations BLACKLISTED' ( http://slurl.com/secondlife/Morenci/210/252/22 ).
Anyhow the notcard content was as follows
(((Start of Notecard)))
Dear Greenzone griefing group member,
Following mass defamation, griefing, propoganda, scamming and false abuse reports initiated by members of Greenzone griefing group recently on a scale never before seen in SL, Voodoo has taken the decision to protect our customers and other residents of Second Life from your activities.
Greenzone once had a legitimate purpose in Second Life, protecting the privacy of residents from systems such as Red Zone.
Red Zone is long gone, and Greenzone now operates more like the Anonymous hacking collective. The moderators have lost control, and the group is now a leaderless organisation that anyone with a grudge can join to attack others in the name of Greenzone.
Voodoo produces an extremely popular free Sploder tracking HUD which is owned by thousands and used everyday by many people, we have a user base of over 40,000 avatars. The next version of these HUDs, to be released imminently, will announce any nearby Greenzone griefers in local chat by name, along with any land owned by these griefers and any objects created by them. We believe your creations and land are not safe as you are a member of a group well known for griefing.
We do however understand that there is a minority of legitimate business owners currently in the griefing group, who joined long before Greenzone was hijacked by trouble makers. Due to this, we are allowing 12 hours for you to leave the group and avoid any damage to your business.
Voodoo has been at the forefront of SL security for many years and we take it and peoples privacy very seriously.
We do not wish to become ememies of any group, but we simply cannot tolerate people who choose to attack or scam others.
Thank you for your understanding and please make the right decision.
Monkey Wonder
Owner of Voodoo SL
(((End of Notecard)))
I Personally had a neutral stance on voodoo products up until now, even though sploders are an illegal gambling product under the SL ToS and California Law the state Linden Labs is headquartered in... I personally have no interest in gambling... but many other users do and despite Linden and State Policy sploder systems are such miniscule small scale stuff and are so common across so many different clubs they are generally widely accepted despite not being legal... but I am starting to see the reasons for these laws personally even though its something I personally avoid... you get sore losers... then you get controversies like this over tools like this... anyhow regardless of the gambling element and the bot protect which as forceme truthfully put... a ban list of anyone voodoo dont like.... we can see obviously this is a very emotionally influenced notecard... and it threatens to blacklist members of greenzone not for what the bot protect product targets.... but because their members of a group....
the general message of the notecard I feel is leave your discussion group or I will do something very bad to you... obviously meant to coerce people into leaving which is the very definition of blackmail
From: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blackmail
"to force or coerce into a particular action"
obviously I'm getting a sense of that a extortion scheme which seems to be quite common around the gambling scene go figure the sploder problem has been ignored and it has exploded into threats...
anyhow onto the threat which you've probably seen in the the notecard that slanderously and libelously and falsely describes its recipients such as myself it appears that he claims he has 40,000 users walking around with HUD's related to his products, and the next version of these HUD's is going to via Public chat slander members of the greenzone users group such as myself... a very different action from what the greenzone HUD does which is only bothering its wearer about a potentially unsafe object... the Voodoo Hud is supposedly going to be updated according to this notecard to say in public chat that someone such as myself is a griefer when were around...
to put this in perspective.... while the greenzone HUD bothers only its owner.... the voodoo HUD's are going to bother everyone in the vicinity of the wearer according to this... to slander someone that is nearby the HUD
Obviously this will all happen if you don't submit to Monkey Wonders threat... even worse yet is Monkey goes on to acknowledge there are business owners in the group and that they have 12 hours to leave to avoid damage to their business... so he acknowledges he will be doing something to damage your business out of his maliciousness for a group you may participate in...
Given this while I felt it debatable whether or not Monkey Wonders Voodoo fell into the spyware category.... however given these threats based on someone that operates an emotionally charged blacklist to quote forceme's blog """Really... this should not be called "Anti-bot" but rather "Anti-anyone we Voodoo people don't like""" I really feel voodoo has crossed the line from having a service that was of debatable stance... Into a service that can be accurately described as Malware...
this is also specifically prohibited under the secondlife terms of service section 8.2 "You will not post or transmit prohibited Content, including any Content that is illegal, harassing or violates any person's rights.", "(v) Post, display or transmit Content that is harmful, threatening or harassing, defamatory, libelous, false, inaccurate, misleading, or invades another person's privacy;"
In the case of voodoo this would be harassing content as it is designed to single out certain people... and transmit to those around them falsely that they are a griefer, and also aside from that the very notecard sent out was threatening to the group members so whether or not the action is taken, I really feel for me the debate as to whether voodoo is a malicious product or not is over... with this recent action from the voodoo group and violating the above action... I find voodoo's products to be content that is harassing and violates the rights of those around it... as in section 8.2 of SL's ToS... also I as per subsection V I find it to be harmful, threatening harasing defamatory libelous false inaccurate as well as misleading... the notecard itself threatens a users rights to participate in the discussion group and exercise their thus then first ammendment... so yes the voodoo system does infringe upon actual rights of users of Secondlife.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Scammers...
Got a couple of articles I plan on doing soon regarding a couple issues on the grid but until then.....
Recently there has been a scam going on, I heard rumors of it and a very specific URL, but theres always some sort of scam going, but however I hadn't even realized how big this one had gotten until a friend of mine got hit by it!...and had their account hijacked.
anyhow a scammer or group of scammers have recently been using free web-hosting websites that get you a free webpage, their URL is designed to be disguised as secondlife marketplace by cramming "secondlifemarketplacee" where you normally see the www, in a URL followed by the URL of the webhosting service such as my3GB.com with various address extensions.
Anyhow not only are they trying to get you to login to their website using your secondlife login and password, but they are harvesting passwords too and logging into the accounts of those whom they have hijacked the accounts of and asking people to do stuff like look at a specific item and not say what it is, but its like ooh you gotta login and see this!... the problem is their messaging people in the friends list of the hijacked account, so messaging from people you may trust! so if the URL looks suspicious but it came from a friend... chances are your friends had their account hijacked and have fallen for this scam... don't fall for it too.
Anyhow safety first before clicking any sort of link on secondlife, emails, or chat applications, you should always look to see where the URL goes too... you should also be familiar with what websites linden labs officially uses for secondlife, last I checked, My3GB.com was not one of them
Anyhow secondlife marketplace is located at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/ if the Main URL varies any from that chances are its a scammer trying to harvest data and it might not be your friend logged into that account!
Update:
A similar article is on SLNewser which I encourage readers of this post to read as well as I really feel the incidents are directly related:
http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/04/phishing-scams-target-phoenix-firestorm.html
Recently there has been a scam going on, I heard rumors of it and a very specific URL, but theres always some sort of scam going, but however I hadn't even realized how big this one had gotten until a friend of mine got hit by it!...and had their account hijacked.
anyhow a scammer or group of scammers have recently been using free web-hosting websites that get you a free webpage, their URL is designed to be disguised as secondlife marketplace by cramming "secondlifemarketplacee" where you normally see the www, in a URL followed by the URL of the webhosting service such as my3GB.com with various address extensions.
Anyhow not only are they trying to get you to login to their website using your secondlife login and password, but they are harvesting passwords too and logging into the accounts of those whom they have hijacked the accounts of and asking people to do stuff like look at a specific item and not say what it is, but its like ooh you gotta login and see this!... the problem is their messaging people in the friends list of the hijacked account, so messaging from people you may trust! so if the URL looks suspicious but it came from a friend... chances are your friends had their account hijacked and have fallen for this scam... don't fall for it too.
Anyhow safety first before clicking any sort of link on secondlife, emails, or chat applications, you should always look to see where the URL goes too... you should also be familiar with what websites linden labs officially uses for secondlife, last I checked, My3GB.com was not one of them
Anyhow secondlife marketplace is located at https://marketplace.secondlife.com/ if the Main URL varies any from that chances are its a scammer trying to harvest data and it might not be your friend logged into that account!
Update:
A similar article is on SLNewser which I encourage readers of this post to read as well as I really feel the incidents are directly related:
http://slnewser.blogspot.com/2012/04/phishing-scams-target-phoenix-firestorm.html
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