I think your way off target with chat encryption. I think you need to ask yourself exactly who are you protecting and from whom? There are literally millions of text messages sent through LL servers every day. Do you honestly think they actively monitor everything or even care? Even if they can read your IMs they are bound by their policy on confidentiality. So again, who EXACTLY are you protecting? You are protecting the griefers and the content thieves and the ageplayers and the teens on the grid who want to hide their crimes from the ONE ENTITY we have been begging and pleading with to do more to stop these people for years. If you REALLY are committed to making a viewer with the users in mind you'll get off the high horse of paranoia and drop the encryption. Unless of course those are the people you actually want as your users.

While I do agree ageplay and stuff like that should be severely monitored and banned from Second Life, I do like my privacy thanks very much. Do you think pedophiles are in SL using IM? What about griefers? PN and few other known groups uses IRC. Now what about we? I do not like having my chat monitored... Hell, you can encrypt your IMs on third party programs like MSN/Yahoo/Gtalk why not on SL?

Lindens Lab has never been crystal clear about what they save and what they monitor, they might be studying us and using data mining... Could even be selling our information through the Internet, I don't know, who trusts LL anyways? The same people who can't make up their mind about anything, each Linden says something different or have different ideas.

Now, let me ask, who is more paranoid ? The one who is encrypting chat or the one who cares about everybody being monitored and having their chat logs saved so they can finally live in a safe word?

Sorry, you make no sense, go use the normal viewer and leave Emerald alone.

1). There have been rumours of Linden Labs banning encryption.

Contrary to the emotional rantings of "possibly former Emerald user," the loss of encryption is unfortunate for those legitimately using it. For example, using the viewer on OpenSim hosted grids, where you don't know who owns or admins the region servers you connect to. There is nothing wrong with seeking higher levels of privacy than the default, and to say otherwise is simply ignorant.

2). Others think that Linden Lab might want to change or remove content import/export functionality.

While this is unfortunate for legitimate content creators who do not violate Intellectual Property laws, there are enough people stealing content that this needs to be addressed. One thing people fail to realize is that the permissions system is not a copyright licensing system. Full perms does not mean you own the content, or have license to move it off Second Life servers. When 90% of Second Life's full-perm content was created, none of the creators expected their content to be moved off-grid, and unless license is obtained from the creator for use outside of Second Life. LL is responding to the concerns of content creators who have not licensed their content for use outside of SL.

3). There is worry that Linden Lab will attempt to impose their own "moral code" on viewer features.

Does LL have a moral code? I've always believed that LL only acts when their own interests are threatened, and even then it seems minimum effort was the order of the day.

Perhaps this is (yet another) sign that viewer developers may want to consider building a ground up viewer which is completely free of LL's licensing? Second Life is only going to last so long before alternative grids & alternative virtual world hosts gain a bit more traction. OpenSimulator seems to have some seriously interesting stuff in the works.

I don't see why you're so closed to encryption, guy. I was going to say this as soon as I had read your post, but nitz said it first. If people were doing stuff like that, they would just use an external IM program, not SL. With no encryption, you'd have to be a retard to use SL IM for stuff against the ToS. The fact that you're even suggesting it shows exactly how well you think things through, as well. What's more, the fact that you're willing to give up Emerald NOW after it HAVING OTR for a few moonths, just seems retarded. Besides, you stopping won't stop anyone else from using Emerald. Personally, I think you should go back to normal viewer if all you're gonna do is be a hypocrite. Maybe then you'll see how much more Emerald really does for the community.

Its official LL are stupid

1. I like IM's to be PRIVATE. Anymore i just get my friends on MSN or SKYPE and talk to them on there unless I take the time to encrypt messages.
2. Back up is good. I've lost some of my builds before.
3. Ok. people offended by breast physics? Thats realism folks. cant take it away in real life unless you give a woman a steel bra. And RLV? good god do we need to get people to see the rest of second life. There is a SHIT LOAD of material that can be offensive to A LOT of people. do they ban that? I don't think so.
4. Completely understandable

All in all. LL is a love/hate relationship anymore.

I never used the encryption. I never saw the point. If that's the position the developers of Emerald want to take then they can have their griefer viewer. I'm done using it. If they aren't willing to work with the Lindens to keep tools that have a questionable legitimate purpose at best out of the hands of the very people causing most of the problems in SL then I'm not going to be a party to it any more. Let the griefers and the pedos use Emerald to their hearts content. And every time I see someone on it I will always have that thought in the back of my mind.

Ok, Prok, we know your point of view already, no need to troll the chicken killers' blog too!

LL is based in the united states and sorry to pee in everyone's wheaties but because of that they have to be able to access and read everyone's messages including IMs due to that "lovely" homeland security thing. You do all know they have software out there that scans for key word and phrases right? But Don't worry they are more concerned about finding terrorists not "sexual deviants."

As for them getting all prudish about and breast physics I find highly laughable given what the do allow us to make and use. As for restrained life I have no comment on since I will never use the thing and have no problem with it so long as it doesn't manipulate another avatar without first asking for consent. But it would be nice if Emerald offered an optional viewer without it entirely for all those who just don't want to see it or deal with. I don't use it so I rather it not take up however many bits it takes up, memory ect.

1). There have been rumours of Linden Labs banning encryption.
It doesn't matter if encryption is good or bad for any given person. When has LL been known to do anything other than what they want regardless of what's good or bad for the users?
If Linden Lab wants to scan/copy/read/store instant message conversations (which is what this is about, be it for reports to the govt. or not), they can do so, once they show they are a company that can be trusted. Which right now, a person would be pretty much stupid to trust Linden Lab. The wanna scan my chat to make sure I'm not making threats about the Messiah, fine, but I do not want some lazy Linden sitting back with his buddies on a Friday night reading peoples IM's for kicks just because they don't want to bother with keeping the servers running.

2). Others think that Linden Lab might want to change or remove content import/export functionality.
From a standpoint of preventing content theft, this is understandable, but the truth is the responsible will pay the price because of the irresponsible.

3). There is worry that Linden Lab will attempt to impose their own "moral code" on viewer features.
Of course they are going to impose a moral code. God forbid someone who has already cheated their way through the age verification system see realistic chest movement on female avatars. "it's for the CHIIILDREEENNNNN"

4). Obviously, features or functions for which most use cases would be harmful should quite reasonably be banned.
From a content theft point of view, can only say "about time" on this. But again, there will be a number of features that will be deemed "bad" which are useful, but will be banned because they are abused. Again, the responsible people lose.

We can talk about this stuff all we want, but in the end you know that Linden Lab is going to do whatever they damn well please. They are deaf to user opinions, they simply act like they care because so many people fall for it.

Some say the encryption has to go, others say it has to stay. But there are reasons for and against the encryption. Here is the thing the encryption is an option that those that are even more paranoid then others can use. Where as those that are not can turn it off if they wish. The main reason there are other viewers is because LL's Viewer has features that do or don't. To my knowledge Emerald has 3 features that I enjoy a lot while the LL's viewer doesn't. The double attachments, boob bounce, and finally the built in AO. The other features I don't really care for honestly because LL's viewer either has the same features dulled down or has something similar that it don't matter which I use.

So if anything Greenlife may think about talking to LL into how to get some of their features placed on the LL's viewer and they both can win in the end.

I don't remember any report about use of encryption being banned by US law.

But then, I am no US citizen, maybe someone could give me some light on this topic: about how all trade and banking activities having been banned from the american internet, and so on?

Homeland security is one thing, but somehow, I seriously doubt it went this far.

Obviously those who can't understand encryption are not in high dollar business with propitiatory intellectual assets to protect. LL sells SL as a business solution. Some projects are in the billions of dollars and data security, including text, is important.

Without proper communication safeguards, Sl can not be a viable business tool.

Of course, we can see that possibly former Emerald user and Definate former Emerald user are the same person...same last IP numbers. Makes me wonder who the real griefer is...Emerald users in-world, or Prokofy out-of-world.

And every time I see someone on it I will always have that thought in the back of my mind.

That's because you are an idiot. To make blanket judgments about people because they use a viewer which provides a feature that has perfectly valid uses screams ignorance. By your flawed logic, the claim could be made that anyone who logs into Second Life is a griefer or a pedo. If you aren''t going to use Emerald anymore, stop trolling the comments here then. Begone!

Linden Lab can start having a say on what viewers can be used when their viewer stops sucking.

I have a STRONG feeling the encryption thing is not all about blocking the lindens from viewing private IMs.
If anything it's to make it so other 3rd party people outside of the lindens can;t mess with the conversation.

Example will be 4 people.
Sammy user ~ want to talk to her friend they have not met in awhile.
Arica user ~ is the friend who is going to be spoken to
Billy Hacker ~ wants to mess with Arica and Sammy
Random Linden ~ is just doing there job.

Sammy talks to Arica telling about how she misses her and wants to hang out.
Billy intercepts this im and modifies it, so it says how much sammy hates arica and wishes she were gone.
Arica feels extremely sad and breaks up with her friend.
Billy laughs and continues on.
Random Linden just sees the conversation going badly but has no idea about this billy person.

Had Sammy used encryption billy would not be able to intercept the conversation.

Now he is the last thing. i actually have it disabled on my viewer which means i could have this happen to me. but not enough people have emerald for me to find it useful. and i don't have Manny enemies.

Prok sits there and claims to be griefed yet s/he always uses such blanket statements that can't be backed up.

former Emerald and Definatly former emerald are the same person, same writing style, same blind and baseless blanket attacks.

Boy, now I have an ip range to ban from all my sites.

Prok continues to cause grief all over the web via his/her blog and evertying else. On linden labs only blog we've see him/her show that s/he is a bold faced liar, and s/he has made derogatory statements about our fighting men and women in the US, as well as the LGBT community.

And s/he claims to be 'transgendered' cause it's a woman in the first life and male in the second.

Nothing but an empty promise, loud mouthed, paranoid delusional person who to be honest, I think SL's average IQ would raise a good 10 to 20 points if LL just banned him/her.

Left wing, right wing, don't matter fundamentalist extremist are so far out to lunch they're never going to come back.

I bought her a shiny new tin foil hat for Christmas.

I am an Estate Manager, and I use emerald.

I use the invisibility system so I don't bother people, or get bothered while I am doing work in the sim, and need to be in a populated area.

I use the avatar Radar, to locate people who need my assistance, and to locate griefers in the act. I also use the moderation system to eject them without having to rummage through the menus for the correct buttons.

I have OTR active because I have an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) that I have with people I work for on scripting projects and build Consultation.

Besides the fact that I am normally suspicious of any service that can't keep their system client functional, let alone keep the unsavory element out of LL, when they show they want to cause issues, be it pedophilia, Griefing, Disturbing the peace, or just plain stalking.

I like the fact the system is usually between 125% - 200% better numbers in Frame rate, and process time than LL's stock client.

I like the fact that when something goes sideways, I have a safe assumption that unless LL borked something on their end, Emerald will be patched in short order.

To those who bash open source, right to paranoid privacy, and anything that isn't the status quo LL viewer, I say this.

If you don't like emerald, and the other legitimately useful viewers, compile one yourself,( or hire someone to do it), make it proprietary, and get LL to stamp 'cleared' on it. and let the market decide.

People go with what make their lives easier. If your viewer does that then great, people will stop using everything else. if Not, then the masses have spoken.


I, for one, will keep my green gem.


Sincerely,
The Player Of Sammy Han

everyone are the same folks who think tv should be changed for them even though they are in the minority. They are the kind of people who, rather than take their kids away from shows on tv or whatever, think things should change just for them. Personally, I dont care about encryption one way or another, I dont do a lot of chatting to people anyway but I dont see why its a problem if people want it. It seems that SL is catering to the wants of a few, more and more. What about this, I pay too. I own property too. Maybe they should have votes on things? With the money we pay to play or purchase shouldnt we have a right to say a little about what goes on? I think so. That is my opinion but thats all I have.

I stumbled onto Emerald, and I'm glad I did! Since installing Emerald, I have had fewer crashes, and absolutely NO problems TPing. I would HATE to have to go back to the LL viewer. Besides, if Emerald can make a viewer that does what it should, why can't LL?

I personally don't see any reason why a SL resident shouldn't be permitted to make a backup on 3rd party software. If you own it, and it's in your inventory, you should be allowed to back it up. I know I've lost enough inventory here.

As far as the encryption goes, I think it's pretty cool. You can even verify that you're speaking to who you think you're speaking to. That's a protection of my privacy that I'd hate to give up.

In regards to the advanced physics.... To suggest that it's inappropriate is simply asinine. We're all adults here [supposedly]. If you don't want realism in your avatar, simply turn it off. Quit moaning about it, already... It's just like the thing with the adult content. PGr's complaining about adult content. Sheesh.. According to LL this is the adult grid. If you go into a sim and something is offensive to you, LEAVE.

Oh well, guess I feel more strongly about some things than I realized. Sorry about going on and on.

I (who uses Firefox, OpenOffice and the like and has only one reason for not using Linux which is work-related) stumbled onto the Third Party Viewer "discussion" on the Second Life Blog by accident. After reading for an hour, I downloaded and installed Emerald and have been running it for a few days now, and I like it... Plus, I figured I have more in common with the chicken killers than the tinfoil-hatted person. Keep up the good work, and good luck with LL!

The Emerald Team should be commended for their stance on these items. I've felt from the day LL posted their announcement that any complaint of theirs reguarding IM encryption had nothing at all to do with aiding content theives, and everything to do with losing the ability to tap their pencils while reading someone elses cyberchat/business talk after hours. Once Emerald gets the breast physics bugs and alternating login error corrected I'll be even happier. Great work guys.

I hate those folks that accuse you of being criminal just because you like to have some privacy. If I want to give someone my home address or phone number, I want to know that Johnny Stalker isn't going to get it too. I don't want to be harassed on email and other IM clients just to say "let's go where I can encrypt it to tell you this". And yes, I do have something to hide. I have my home address where my children are located. It's also for your safety because I also have a gun and castle laws, so it's PERFECTLY acceptable to shoot first and ask questions later if you come around after intercepting that information and putting it to use.

And by the way, how about if our government starts opening all our mail because a terrorist sent a letter outlining their whole plan? How would you like that? The minute you start curtailing MY freedoms because of them and criminals, the terrorists and criminals have won. So whether I ever use it or not, I want that option there. It's my right to have it there.

The whole objection I see to almost everything Emerald does is about "what if". What if some irresponsible person does something? Well, what if some irresponsible person robs someone on a subway with a screwdriver? It happened once. They busted THAT GUY, the rest of us still use our screwdrivers. A life lived in what if's is a live lived in fear and is not fun. If SL wants to play that way...OpenSim seems to be waiting at the sidelines, I'll be forced to check it out.

to where they don't have so many bugs I'm leaving SecondLife for good. Their large amount of rules pisses me off. I still find it funny when I got my account put on hold for a week for cussing in an argument between me and another guy. If I were a lil kid on teen grid then okay that makes sense, but this is adult grid and it's to be treated like real life, do you see cops throwing people in jail for cussing in real life? No. Oh and also, the argument started because I was defending a girl that the other guy was treating like crap, yet did he get his account on hold for a week? No. Since he was the first one to submit a ticket to LL saying I cussed at him I was the one instantly accused to be the bad guy when I was defending the girl.

Anyways that's my mini rant about LL, as I said, once the other grids like OSGrid or OpenLife (I like OSGrid more, OpenLife is following in SecondLife's footsteps toomuch) evolve more to where they can be used I'll be off SL for good. SecondLife is like the USA, a strict country that's trying to look like a free one, while the other grids are like how people want the world to be, true freedom. (Also note I live in the USA, and I'm not some USA hater, I just hate all the stupid laws they come up with at times)

Has anyone heard rumours about Second Life being banned by the Federal Government down here in Australia?
I have, & any form of internet filtering takes away our right to freedom of access, speech...in short Big Brother (in a socialist form) is at work.

All of these features (and others that may be a concern to some users) should be released in separate distributions with a cautionary note to be safe.

You're out to lunch, pal. The Linden blog post doesn't say anything you claim it says. It looks like they're primarily trying to crack down on malware viewers and viewers that violate the TOS. As for encryption, its an utterly useless feature and I turned it off. Do you seriously think Linden Lab gives a crap what any of us are saying in IM as long as its not breaking any laws?

Oh and by the way. If you could provide a credible source for these "rumours" of yours, that would be lovely. There certainly wasn't anything in that blog you linked.

There may be just cause for LL to worry about storing encrypted messages in the face of US Homeland Security requirements; others elsewhere have pointed to various commentaries on the matter, and it appears a legitimate concern...

....However, it is somewhat laughable that at the same time as wagging a finger at the likes of OTR, LL are trying to promote the grid AS A WHOLE (i.e. _not_ just their behind-the-firewall "solution") as a "safe" place for big business to come and use. Just take a look at Amanda Linden's "The time for Work Avatars....." blogrum post, or her even more laughable "Open Letter to Your Boss".

Thus, denying encryption while promoting a completely unsecure environment for carrying out "real" business would suggest that someone, somewhere within LL, is missing the point in things and getting the message wrong.

Again.

However much I DO like OTR I don't like to feature to be set as default ON after installation. A lot of people who use the viewer for other purposes do not know this is the case and are sending encrypted messages without even knowing about it. Could that be changed to be on OFF as default setting after installation? It's a bit of an overkoll if you are just talking chitchat and invitations to party's etc.

For the one that says go back to the normal viewer. You must be new in town
Do yo ureally believe the care what you type in your im? Do you honostly believe that LL will have files on every what ? So much millions of avatars? do not flatter yourself so much with the bullocks you spill.

Even with OTR (annoying feature of emerald if you ask me) nothing is SAFE. When i discuss business in im o dont care if a LL idiot will read it. Because any fool knows not to talk HIGHLY important business true a im chat!


Some slers find themselfs so important in this whole privacy thing, same as asking someone were he/she from "that rl not sl" get going of the grid. Youre in a community here, if i shake you hand rl iyou dont say "my name classified !" such a BS!

But heeij that my opinion!

Plain and simple, there's a reason why we have been given the ability to determine who can and cannot find us on the map. For a third-party client like Emerald to come along and allow any anonymous John or Jane Doe who wishes to, to bust right through that and find anybody within 4096 meters of their location, by name, and opt to teleport to their location, without their permission? Totally wrong. Sure estate managers have a legitimate reason to do this. The vast majority of the accounts in SL, though, have absolutely no legitimate reasons whatsoever to have this ability.

To choose to allow anybody who so chooses to do so, to stalk anybody they please, with absolutely no option for the person receiving their unwanted visits to refuse to even allow them to arrive in the first place, is misguided, at best.

This feature needs to be seriously reconsidered.

I have seen this accusation being made against this feature so many times, and always questioned it. Well, today I went out and tested it with two of my avis, one with land privileges and one without, not even being part of the group. I set up my first avi high up and then from another part of the sim outside of my control, tried to tp to my first avi with my second one. As I suspected, things work in a very predictable ways.

one of three things will happen, and they all depend on the Landing point and TP routing settings of the land/parcel in question. If tp routing is set to a landing point with set coordinates, and tp routing set to "landing point" the avatar trying to tp to the first one, will only get as far as the landing point. if tp routing is blocked, the tp will fail altogether. If tp routing is set to "anywhere", well, surprise surprise, my 2nd avi finds it self next to my first one.

This whole so called debate about the evils of third party viewers seems to perpetuate a lot of hearsay and rumor, that no one bothers following up on before jumping on said bandwagon. Reminds me of that "horse's teeth" parable.... too much reliance on heresay, and none on empirical experience.

So, in short, for all those who do not wish to have their privacy intruded upon, check your "tp routing" settings for your land.

Ok i have just had a conversation with someone and they stated that LL are definitely going to be stopping all third party viewers, including emerald.
Im hearing this more and more, certain people just out and out hate all
third part viewers, especially emerald it seems.
But then nobody ive spoken to seems to care about this new HXO Life
http://www.youtube.com/user/Sinux3AiAn

I seriously doubt LL is going to ban the use of 3rd party viewers, since they are the ones that open sourced the viewer in the first place. They really pushed this whole open source thing, and very publicly, so to admit it was a mistake now would be a bit embarrassing to Linden Lab.

You mean like the Open Space Sim fiasco last year? 5,500 OS sims just disappeared while many of their "owners" took a powder from the world in disgust?

That kind of embarrassment? How about LL's entire handling of Adult Content and the migration to Zindra fiasco?

This is a company with a history of being completely untrustworthy, who will praise its customers while at the same time slapping their faces and insulting their intelligence. That kind of embarrassment?

Or how they talked to something like 9 merchants who never suggested listing fees on XStreetSL but now listing fees they are a'comin' kids? Why else have a "Roadmap"? To get from here to there? And now merchants who sell on it are vowing to inactivate and remove their listings and some are even going further and boycotting it altogether (meaning they won't BUY on XStreetSL at all either!) You mean that kind of embarrassing?

SL isn't being taken seriously by business. SL is viewed as a piece of crap by serious businesspeople. Why? But the answer is simple! They keep putting lipstick on the pig in the hope no one will notice it's a freakin' PIG. The serious problems with the Grid and asset services remain unfixed. Not a single function of it acts as it's supposed to. But LL has managed to fly those facts past us. Business -- not so much. LOL You mean that kind of embarassment? LOL

This is a company that can't open its freaking mouth without embarrassing itself. Next it'll be Torley Linden shows you "Ten Fun Things To Do Now That Content Creators Have Fled Second Life!"

Do you know if there is a way to remove names I have logged in under. There are a few I'd like to remove. (logged as a friend to help them with their inventory)

Eternus replied to to your post on Modular Systems to (Login Screen) which you are subscribed to.
Eternus Wrote:
without the password and a successful login i dont know how to remove a specific name, but in Windows XP if you want to nuke the whole list and start over, the file is by default at Cocuments and Settings Application DataEmeralduser_settingssaved_logins.xml

This sounds great but I can not find that file. even with a search of my computer. would an unistall, reinstall work too???

not sure why that omitted the slashes. But the key file he or she was taling about was saved_logins.xml

Can anyone tell me what to login to in the, Ctrl Alt G, in order to login into Openlife grid?