NSA – Ciaran Laval

The Drax Files Radio Hour episode 2 is largely a wonderful tribute to Osprey Therian, I’ll review it properly over the weekend. However one or two other items caught my eye. There’s more news on former Linden Lab employee Judy L Tyrer’s Ever,Jane MMO, set in the world of Jane Austen. The creators of this must be kicking themselves that #VictorianFacebook is all the rage this evening on Twitter, instead of #GeorgianFacebook, maybe they will save that for launch hey 😉

#VictorianFacebook *Prince Albert tagged you in a photo* Comment: VICTORIA ……”Not amused”

— OldSparky (@EunoiaEuphoria) January 17, 2014

However the really striking issue on this week’s Drax Files Radio hour is the claim that Andrea Linden called Rod Humble a fascist! The issue is tenuously linked to the NSA/GCHQ spying scandal whereby it was reported that spies had been in Second Life. The issue revolves around the off the record (OTR) messaging system that some third party viewers for Second Life have provided in the past and goes all the way back to 2011. The thing is, when The Guardian revealed the information around spying in Second Life, there was discussion about this feature in the comments. A user known as Ubermensch claimed:

“Second Life has its own internal OTR instant messaging system with its own encryption keys that ( allegedly ) not even the makers of Second Life are able to hack into. The keys are generated locally on the user PCs and ‘agreed’ on by those in an IM.”

There’s then some healthy discussion about whether this is true or not and the traditonal surprise that Second Life is still around. However it’s the OTR system that is the centre of the story, allegedly from Andrea Linden.

Continue reading “Did Andrea Linden Call Rod Humble A Fascist And Live To Tell The Story?”

Nobody does it half as good as you, baby you’re the best.

Second Life has long had strange issues, for example there is an issue known as “Prim drift” whereby a prim does not seem to be in the location where you last left it, or prims mysteriously seem to disappear and then reappear, it seems there may be an explanation for this!

The Guardian breaks the news: Spy agencies in covert push to infiltrate virtual world of online gaming. Allegedly, The NSA and GCHQ decided that they need to infiltrate The Horde in World Of Warcraft and human avatars in Second Life. Furries everywhere celebrate smugly at this news. This does possibly explain why The Horde seem to win more often than not in the Warsong Gulch battleground in World Of Warcraft.

Not surprisingly Linden Lab haven’t responded to The Guardians requests, The Guardian claims :

“Microsoft declined to comment on the latest revelations, as did Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life and former CEO of Linden Lab, the game’s operator. The company’s executives did not respond to requests for comment.”

However in the land of Azeroth, there has been a response :

“The California-based producer of World of Warcraft said neither the NSA nor GCHQ had sought its permission to gather intelligence inside the game. “We are unaware of any surveillance taking place,” said a spokesman for Blizzard Entertainment. “If it was, it would have been done without our knowledge or permission.” “

I’m sure that the NSA and GCHQ are delighted that their covert efforts went undetected by the GM’s in World Of Warcraft, I mean it would be far more embarrassing for them if Blizzard declared “Yeah, our GM’s knew all about it.”

However the article does suggest that Linden Lab were talking to the security services, indeed it seems Linden Lab tried to sell a use case of virtual worlds as being a place where you could observe the behaviours of non US citizens without leaving the USA. I’m sure those agents who quite enjoyed the idea of leaving US soil to observe the behaviours of non US citizens were a tad miffed about this, although wild speculation that they joined the PN or griefed sims with giant penises to wreak revenge over this suggestion have been strenuously denied. The article claims:

“In May 2007, the then-chief operating officer of Second Life gave a “brown-bag lunch” address at the NSA explaining how his game gave the government “the opportunity to understand the motivation, context and consequent behaviours of non-Americans through observation, without leaving US soil“.

Continue reading “Nobody Does It Better, Makes Me Feel Sad For The Rest”