2009 June

Proposed ISP filtering allows surveillance of journalists, citizens, politicians

June 29, 2009 By Tateru Nino

Should Senator Conroy’s proposed ISP filtering come to fruition, it concentrates extraordinary powers on whoever is to actually run it. It allows the surveillance of the Internet activities of Kevin Rudd’s children, the journalists at News Limited, or the government’s perceived political opponents (or its own members), or of anyone.

At will. Without cause. Without warrant. Without oversight.

Whether or not you agree with the filtering plan’s goals, this one thing should give you pause: your web-browsing history, and the web-browsing history of every Australian is available to some as-yet-unknown party, from the moment mandatory ISP filtering is switched on.

Sure, the contractor who provides the filtering service, and who maintains the systems will doubtless have all sorts of NDAs. But if someone in Rudd\’s family browses porn from The Lodge, for example, then there\’s considerable potential for leverage and extortion, because the contractor could obtain that data at will, even if government officials themselves could not, by law, obtain it.

Because filtering systems are logged. Filtering providers are, in fact, very keen on logging. Whether a request is blocked or allowed, the fact of it is recorded. Filtering providers use it to assess how well the system is performing. Individual user addresses are at times monitored from the logs, and some of that data is processed by humans to identify new things that should be blocked, or to see how people are attempting to defeat the filtering.

Whoever is providing and controlling the filtering gains unprecedented political power. Want to know what the journalists at a particular newspaper are up to? Scan the logs for their network addresses and check out what they’re reading on the Web. Ditto for other politicians. Or for anyone of interest, from parliamentarians to cleaners.

The potential for abuse here is absolutely appalling.

All you have is the word of people that these secrets won’t leak or be abused. Won’t they? The preliminary filter lists have already leaked, and contain quite a number of things that are far beyond what we’ve been told would be there. Our trust has already been violated even during the trial phase.

It’s only a matter of time before someone uses this data for their personal or political advantage.

And we, as a nation, are making it all too easy for that to happen.

Filed Under: Australian News, Government policy, Law and virtual worlds, Op-ed, Politics

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

June 29, 2009 By Lowell Cremorne

1. TechRadar (UK) – The evolution of virtual worlds. \”Stitching Facebook and MySpace into a 3D environment might not seem like the most exciting project in the history of gaming, but a handful of intrepid gaming companies are wondering if social gaming is going to be the next huge, very profitable thing. The logic is simple – not everyone enjoys blowing up friends and enemies when they go online, or obsessively assembling a vast arsenal of ultra-weapons and superhuman skills. While World of Warcraft and its medieval and science fiction beat-\’em-up and shoot-\’em-up siblings have questing and wizarding locked down, the popularity and momentum of social networking suggests that there\’s serious money to be made from friends and fans. But is this really gaming? And does it matter?\”

2. The Economist (UK) – The avatar will see you now. \”THAT people undergoing medical procedures should give their informed consent might seem simple and uncontentious. But what if a patient has a mental impairment and his doctor does not have time to ensure he understands the proposed treatment? Those who try to look after the interests of such people say that, in practice, hard-pressed hospital staff often ask leading questions and the “consent” obtained is thus far from informed. A team of researchers led by Suzanne Conboy-Hill, a psychologist at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton, England, reckon virtual environments could provide the solution. \”

3. Revolution Magazine (UK) – UK start-ups out to prove virtual worlds are back in fashion. \”NearGlobal and RealLife could be among the next wave of virtual worlds to receive hype of Second Life proportions after securing venture capital funding from Ariadne Capital. The two UK companies have received unspecified amounts of funding from one of the UK\’s largest digital investment firms. Ariadne\’s cheif executive Julie Meyer said that the company became convinced of the potential of virtual worlds only where the user has a purpose, rather than several existing virtual worlds where the experience is casual.\”

4. IT Business Edge (USA) – Catty Thoughts on Job Recruitment via Second Life. \”Like many folks, I find it tough to focus on work on Fridays. It\’s an even bigger challenge than usual today, thanks to the Goverment Technology story sent to me in response to a call for sources for an article I\’m working on about job recruitment via social channels like Facebook and Twitter. The story, datelined September 2008, describes how the state of Missouri hired a developer for its Department of Natural Resources via a recruiting area it created in Second Life. Have trouble seeing the humor? The money quote, from Missouri CIO Dan Ross: \”He came to our job fair as a tiny cat with a red bow tie on and expressed interest. That was followed by an in-person interview.\” So many questions. Was it the red bow tie that helped put this developer over the top? Did other applicants apply for the position and, if so, what kind of avatars did they use? Are they going to pay the developer in Linden Dollars? Thank goodness a personal interview also was involved.\”

5. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Scottish University First in UK to Teach Virtual World Development. \”Glasgow Caledonian University, a school based in Glasgow, Scotland, is actively creating a 3D Web project and a major component of this project is a \”complete, integrated module\” that will teach students everything they need to know about 3D virtual worlds. The course will teach students all the elements required to get a VW up and running. These include hosting, managing and creating real estate, and user interactivity. The course will be taught for now in class but could also be supplemented by elements in Second Life and will also use OpenSim.\”

6. Troy Media (USA) – Second Life\’s founder responds to criticism. \”Philip Rosedale, the mastermind behind virtual reality phenomenon Second Life (SL), predicts that SL technology will make great strides in the near term. If “near-term” is typically defined as under a year, this means users will find that it’s a lot easier to master SL and get into its virtual world, according to Rosedale.
At the moment, Rosedale says it takes about five hours to understand and get your bearings in SL. With software and hardware refinements, he says that it will take only five to 20 minutes to get the lay of SL’s virtual terrain. That’s about as close to user-friendly as any technophobe can hope for.\”

7. Massively (USA) – Linden Lab releases Snowglobe 1.0 for Second Life. \”A while back, Linden Lab\’s Philip Rosedale announced a new Second Life viewer development project. That project ultimately grew along lines similar to that of third-party viewer project, Imprudence, breaking down many barriers to user contributions, and adopting a more agile methodology. After only a couple of release-candidates, the result is already available. One of the biggest developments you might see in the Snowglobe viewer is that the map is now an order of magnitude faster to load, rather than taking several fractions of forever, as is traditional. This is the start of a new texture-transfer pipeline, which we can reasonably expect to become standard in future viewers, and to encompass more kinds of textures, however there\’s a new caching architecture which should benefit all textures.\”

8. Express Buzz (India) – Senior citizens in second life. \”As we entered, we were greeted with a cheerful smile from Bessie, a small old lady with a crop of snow white hair, exuding an infectious enthusiasm. Once you are in the restful premises with its lush green gardens, you will feel like you have been transported away from the city. This is the Little Sisters Of The Poor on Hosur Road, a home for the aged and the infirm. Well, if that makes you think of a place bereft of liveliness, of a place where people just bide their with nothing much to do, think again. Expresso paid a visit to see how the elderly come together to form a community and go through their daily lives.\”

9. Destructoid (USA) – Sony: Home to be \’essential\’ for all PS3 games. \”f you close your eyes and get everybody to be quiet, you can almost hear my soul dying a little bit. That\’s because Sony has stated that its eventual goal for PlayStation Home is to make the horribly dull poor man\’s Second Life an \”essential component\” of the PS3 experience. Excuse me while I am sick into a little bag. \”Home is the starting point for PlayStation 3 online, and that\’s something that gamers are going to expect as more games support Game Launch from within Home,\” promises SCEE\’s Peter Edward. \”This will become an essential component for all PS3 games.\” Edwards states that Home is not going anywhere soon, stating that the company is \”in it for the long-term.\” He also boasts 7 million users of the service worldwide. 6 million virtual items have also been downloading, leading me to believe that the world is full of incredibly bored people. \”

10. AdAge (USA) – Twitter Is What Second Life Wasn\’t: Light, Cheap and Open. \”I run into many skeptics who believe that Twitter is rife with the sort of hype associated with the ascent and crash of Second Life. This is not true. Twitter is suffused with hype, for sure, but it is a much different and more sustainable hype than Second Life. Here\’s why: Twitter is light, cheap, open and permanent, whereas Second Life is heavy, expensive, closed and ephemeral. Twitter does things right where Second Life failed. Second Life is amazingly heavy, requiring lots of computer, lots of bandwidth and a commitment to client software. Second Life is a closed system, a walled city, completely invisible to serendipity and coincidence. Second Life is greedy, pushing avarice and commerce. Second Life is ephemeral and anti-textual, meaning that all of the work and energy one spent on Second Life invariably went away the moment people stopped investing time and money into the platform. While there was a programming language, a scripting language and lots of room for creativity, Second Life was not nearly as agnostic and open a platform as it could have been.\”

Filed Under: General News, Virtual worlds in the media Tagged With: the watch

Merged realities – events and issues for virtual worlds

June 28, 2009 By Lowell Cremorne

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1. Looking for alternative to the now Linden Lab-owned online shopping option? Slapt.me has launched and has a fair sized inventory already. Given the ever-improving integration of the incumbent in Second Life, it\’ll be interesting to see how much support there is for a competitor.

2. Metaplace have been focusing in a big way on enhancing the community aspects of the platform – earning coins for visiting other users\’ worlds was a big step in that direction. Founder Raph Koster talks about the introduction of the Golden Egg.

3. Tateru Nino has a superb summary of why media releases get passed over.

4. Camp Pete is a new kids world aimed at USA-based juniors given the use of the work \’football\’ all over the site in context of their version of the game. It may be quite a fun world, though i always get nervous with statements like this:

University of Southern California Head Football Coach Pete Carroll has been called the ‘coolest 57-year-old kid in Los Angeles.’ He’s more in touch with technology than most teenagers. He was one of the first head coaches with his own Web site, the first to embrace Facebook, the first on Twitter, and now, Coach Carroll is the first Coach to have his own Virtual World for Kids.

Obviously the proof will be in the experience itself as to how kid-centred it is.

Filed Under: Events, General News Tagged With: camp pete, merged, metaplace, tateru

Weekend Whimsy

June 28, 2009 By Lowell Cremorne

1. Relay For Life 2009 in Second Life

2. U2inSL U2 tribute band Second Life gig for War Child

3. Second Life – Dream Scene – The Roman Bath

Filed Under: User-generated Tagged With: whimsy

Net filtering and virtual worlds: reactions

June 27, 2009 By Lowell Cremorne

After last night\’s story on the Australian Government\’s internet content filtering legislation and its potential impact on virtual worlds, the response has been astounding. Today has seen the largest ever traffic on The Metaverse Journal. Like any issue, there are a few camps of thought:

1. Those who have significant concerns that environments like Second Life will end up being banned.

2. Those who have significant concerns, but cannot believe the Australian government would be so misguided as to oversee such a ban.

3. Those who believe the whole idea is hype and/or scaremongering and that the Federal Government will not take such a scattergun approach.

4. Those who support the proposed legislation.

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A resident of Australia sim in Second Life unhappy with proposed net filtering plan

I tend to fall in the second camp, because there are innumerable examples of governments making policy that has unintended consequences for individuals not intended to be targeted by a new law. In fact, most legislation does that, it\’s just that this proposition particularly stands out for its gaps in logic and potential to harm some really good work going on within Australia.

There\’s certainly a chance that the final legislation, if passed at all, will have taken into account the intricacies of virtual worlds. I\’m not holding my breath on that though, unless there\’s some concerted efforts by Australians on the issue. Telstra and the ABC have plenty to lose and it\’s both those organisations that could make a difference in sanity checking the final legislation. The hundreds of thousands of virtual environment consumers in Australia also have a large voice, if there\’s a timely response in the event a ban does seem embedded in the legislation.

There\’s plenty of time for these issues to be teased out – determining the Minister\’s willingness to do so is the biggest unknown. We\’ve contacted Senator Conroy\’s office but unsurprisingly there\’s been no response. What are your thought? Is it all a storm in a teacup, a call to action or a big yawn?

Filed Under: Australian News, Law and virtual worlds, Op-ed Tagged With: censorship, conroy

An open letter on virtual worlds for Senator Conroy

June 25, 2009 By Lowell Cremorne

Today\’s coverage by Asher Moses in Fairfax newspapers on the latest saga with content filtering in Australia, alludes to virtual environments such as Second Life being added to the list of content not suitable for viewing in Australia. Essentially, the issue is that online \’games\’ like World of Warcraft and Second Life have not received an Classification rating and therefore under the proposed content filtering would be blocked.

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It\’s difficult to know where to begin to pick the flaws in the logic of the approach, but I thought it may be worth writing an open letter / tutorial to the obviously misinformed Minister in question, Senator Conroy:

1. Virtual worlds do indeed contain adult content such as sex of pretty much any type, simulated drug use and plenty of violence. That said, just like going to the R-rated shop located in most suburbs, in environments like Second Life you can\’t partake of the goods unless you\’ve provided proof of age. So Senator, are you going to mandate the Australian Federal Police to ensure every \’bricks and mortar\’ adult store customer has to go through a government check before entering? Will you also be closing down other social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as they too are not rated and also contain graphic content?

2. Second Life, OpenSim grids and gaming worlds like World of Warcraft are three examples of environments that have highly valuable and empirically demonstrable educational benefits. Just talk to the dozens of Australian educators who have undertaken postgraduate research in the area. Can you explain what alternative means of immediate support the Rudd government will be providing to those people who utilise such environments for immediate health support around issues as diverse as mental health, physical disabilities and chronic disease support?

3. Given a range of virtual environments are used for the purposes of expressing free speech or engaging in activism in a much more visual way, does the Australian Labor party commit to not using emergent technologies for political purposes? Why should Gaza protesters not be able to get their message out via Second Life to Australians whilst the ALP spams YouTube with Kevin Rudd informercials?

4.On the child protection thing. Any normal person doesn\’t want their kids exposed to undesirable influences – it\’s called parenting. If parents cannot be trusted to screen virtual world content, then is the government also committing to a full ban on R-rated magazines in newsagents, a blanket ban on all legal drug consumption in public and zero tolerance on swearing or violence. And if so, how will this be funded and implemented?

5. Can the Rudd government outline how Australians will maintain their competitive advantage in a global economy where virtual worlds are increasingly adopted as a means of communication? Will books be distributed with vetted pictures of said technologies and will this be enough to make our children competitive?

6. This to me is the most important question of all: have you, Senator Conroy, received any substantive briefing on the opportunities virtual worlds provide for educators, health professionals and businesses? I don\’t mean Steve Fielding showing you a picture of two avatars going at it in Second Life. I mean a real briefing covering demographics, trends, research and evidence-based success stories. I can point you in the direction of half a dozen great people locally off the top of my head. Hell, I\’ll come too to report on your newfound open-mindedness. I promise I\’ll behave.

Of course, Senator Conroy is no more likely to read the above open letter than he is to request the substantive briefing mentioned. To be fair, no definitive statement has been made by the government on virtual worlds but the signs certainly aren\’t encouraging. Like the wider issues with content filtering, the baby looks like being thrown out with the bathwater, and we won\’t know it until it\’s too late. If this does come to pass, Australia will be up there with North Korea in developing its population to be tech-savvy competitors in a global economy. Now THAT\’s an education revolution.

Postscript: this afternoon I spent some time discussing the issue with Tateru Nino (who\’s written on the issue here and here) and she made a really good point: by creating its adult-only continent in Second life, has Linden Lab forced the hand of ACMA to provide a rating on Second Life\’s content. Having everything conglomerated in one place makes a rating easier. The trouble is, under the proposed regime it could also spell the end of Second Life access for Australians, or at least some significantly pared down access to PG-areas only.