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Benja Kepler added a comment - 01/Sep/07 12:43 PM
This would turn around the 'restricted content' approach, i.e. if you haven't verified your ID as being 18+, you won't get to see restricted content parcels, either in sim, or in searches.
Benja, can you clarify? Does that mean that this feature is now present but for restricted content only at this time?
On the issues of limiting camera access and such to parcels, ie visually spying... Different solutions have been discussed and "promised" for many years but nothing ever happens on the subject, from LL's side. I can only assume they don't much care, becuase it doesn't mean money, or new flashy features (which inderectly mean money). It seems LL do not this important, no matter how long the issues have been discussed, and how much community support it holds. There's always at least one post on the forums about this, and new ones keep cropping up like mushrooms.
How hard would it really be to add some server code, and parcel options like this?
With a ban line up, so people can't enter, this would mean you could just decide to stop streaming chat and avatars to people outside for a while, and voila - let there be privacy. No streaming - no spying. Simple as that. Furthermore... A REVERSE functionality, restricting streaming of OUTSIDE content to people inside the parcel, could give people back their homes after the horrible neighbours move in. Usually, I'm suggesting LL stop development and just fix the problems they already have first, but in this case I'm willing top make one huge exception. The main reason I'm supporting greater parcel control, over 3d-privacy zones and similar, is that this would offer flexible control - not just on/off, ability to reduce lag on your own parcel (who wants a casino next door with 50 campers?), give you privacy in your house rather than a boring sky-box (for those of us with a lovely beach-side property we paid L$80,000 for) - AND it's probably one of the easier solutions to translate into actual CODE. Would be nice to actually hear from the Lindens on this, and get a straight answer, instead of the usual cut-n-paste policy answers. Emi Privacy is indeed a very real problem within SL, for anyone who doesn't have the money for a private SIM.
"Disable Camera Constraints" has its legitimate (and sometimes indispensible) uses, but this feature has become very widely known and effectively means that anyone within 512m can spy on you. There is no way to block this, and the only way to even know that one is being spied on is to constantly use "Show Look At" (which is ugly). I am not a techie, but it seems (as Beware says) that this must be done server side. To elaborate: Ideally, parcel owners would have a simple feature such as "Allow Camera Constraint Disabling". This would allow the "Disable Camera Constraints" feature to be used (by "All" or "Group", just like "Create Objects" etc.) This would correspond to RL privacy, where people can see the outside of my house, or look through open windows, but not enter my house to spy on me. However, I suspect this is both technically difficult as well as ineffective because of the existance of alternative viewers. Whatever the solution is, LL must recognize that this is a pressing business issue for the following reasons: (1) The absence of any privacy whatsoever, even within walls, is one of several issues that makes home ownership in SL unattractive, particularly within the mainland zoo. By providing privacy options for homeowners, I believe that SL could increase home ownership, where it makes money both directly (on land) and indirectly (by stimulating the home building and furnishing economy). (2) The age verification issue is obvious. What is the point of marking parcels as mature if anyone within 512m can see everything? Fixing this is a prerequisite for LL to create a safe environment where PG and Mature can coexist within 512m of each other. (3) Scandal-mongering journalists or others with dubious intentions don't have any business spying inside people's homes either. While I would hope that most journalists have the ethics not to do this, there are surely those who would. Instituting privacy along these lines might help LL to avoid sensationalist media scandals. Beware's proposal may not be perfect, but I can't think of anything better. Mercia. Any solution which relies on impeding or somehow restricting the user's camera is simply n ot going to happen. It will be useless at ensuring privacy, and largely pose problems ffor legitimate uses.
Also, it's a bit off topic. THe proposal at hand here, is simply not having the server send data on the parcel, which is the only way to get privacy. Personally, I think it could work rather simply. One checkbox. Enable cloaking. When enabled, all those who have acess to the land, will see inside it. Therefore, if the land is public access, this setting will do nothing. This will prevent people walking into things they can't see, generally. All those who do NOT have access, will see an empty parcel from which they are banned. The outward appearance should simply be a totally empty parcel, with banlines around. This includes anyone explicitly banned, or where the access list is enabled, anyone who is not on it, or not a member of the land group. Those inside the parcel should be able to see anything outside it freely, because the issue here is privacy, not ignoring nuisances, which is a seperate issue, and covered by things like VWR-1017 Those outside of a parcel that they cannot see, would be completely unaware of any of the following: Sounds In addition, spatialised chat would not leave the parcel, preventing chatspies on the edges. Now, something to note. I think scripted sensors/llGetObjectDetails SHOULD return data on avatars in these parcels. This allows the problem of permissions to be sidestepped. If this were to be blocked, then every time someone runs a sensor, it would need to check it's owner against the acess list of the parcel a detected av is standing in. And the ban list. Imagine a worst case scenario, full ban and acess lists, in a parcel with many people. An agent scan would have to check each and every one of it's 16 results against two lists, 300 elements long, AND check if it's owner is in the land group, before the data could be passed back to the script. And this check would have to be done regardless. It would cause a nasty gridwide slowdown in sensor functions, and seems like it would be unfeasible. Things are farther convoluted by the possibility of an object being owned by a group. Lastly, something I'm not sure about, is overhanging objects with their centre in the cloaked parcel. Should they be visible externally or not ? without blocking sensors, the whole feature is completely useless, as you can sense for avatars, as well as objects. so you know who's there, and what they're doing, in what kind of theme. the fastest way to deal with this would be building a cache of parcels nearby which you are, or aren't, allowed access to. this does not have to be carried over to other sims. if this can not be done, the next fastest way would be to speed up the ban and access lists with a hashtable.
objects coming out of the parcel will have to be either visible, or not colliding outside the parcel, or completely not allowed. Surely SVC-599 is a duplicate of SVC-205?
The in-world privacy pocket (SVC-599, SVC-205) was brought up in the forums. There's two variants: one in which avatars and objects are not allowed into the parcel at all, and the other in which the parcel forms a separate collision group and you can't bump into things in it... instead of bouncing off ban lines you'd pass through it like a phantom... the only thing "real" in the parcel would be the terrain. Some people objected to it on the grounds that a zone like that would be a place that stalkers could hide. Kelly Linden objected because it would break the consistent world view... two people a meter apart would have completely different views of the world, and someone crossing the parcel boundary would seem to disappear. My own objection is that it makes the use of "ban lines" more attractive, and they're already a huge problem for vehicles. In-world physical access controls creates huge chunks of space that are invisible vehicle-eating force-fields. The phantom zone variant and the private zones (parcel basements) in SVC-1138 are an attempt to avoid this problem. |
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parcel cloaking
