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.”

“Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident –including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident’s privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.”

3 Comments

  1. Comment by darkchyld on March 15, 2006 12:20 pm

    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

  2. Comment by Noche on March 15, 2006 4:19 pm

    Cool. One suggestion I received already is to get an avatar detector, which tells you if someone is lurking nearby.

  3. Comment by darkchyld on March 15, 2006 10:12 pm

    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.

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