Uninvited camera probes
Last night I was standing outside my castle in Second Life, just goofing off, and I started to pan my camera to get some unique and bird’s-eye views of my personal property. Suddenly, the camera’s eye had made its way into a neighbor’s house! Nobody was home at the time, but I could see everything inside. I was an uninvited stranger, accidentally trespassing by proxy while my avatar stood innocently at a remote location, perhaps hundreds of square meters away.
I will never do it again, as I respect others’ right to privacy. And I emphasize: this was an accident. Nonetheless, I still find it kind of disturbing — the fact that someone could do the same to me, and spy on what goes on between my own virtual walls.
Why oh why is there not a feature created to prevent such a thing from happening? I think that at the very least, if you own land in Second Life you should be able to somehow block this type of privacy invasion. I mean, c’mon. We’ve sent robots to Mars. I would think that the technology is available.
For the sake of reference, here are the Disclosure standards from Second Life’s “Big Six” list of “Community Standards.”
March 15, 2006 12:20
Cam spying is not nearly as annoying to me as TP stalking - where someone looks you up on the map and can TP in right next to you, or a few meters away to see what you are up to, eavesdrop, etc.
There are a couple of nifty little tools that will help you keep an eye on these kinds of things. Remind me when we’re on together and I’ll give you a good one.
DC
March 15, 2006 16:19
Cool. One suggestion I received already is to get an avatar detector, which tells you if someone is lurking nearby.
March 15, 2006 22:12
Yep, that’s what I was going to give you. Tells you who is around, and how far away they are.
Also has some… personal protection features.