On one hand I see a potential (albeit small) benefit to such a system. If someone is stealing content they will be doing it on a particular type of viewer. If, and that is a big if, this system can detect those viewers then it has a potential benefit. On the other hand I also see the potential for abuses of this system. Much as copybotting itself is derived from the reasonable desire to want to back up your own content on your own hard drive, this type of system has equally worrisome implications for the future.

The purpose is a noble one. I will give it that. It wishes to eradicate the  copybot menace from Second Life… for a fee. So the motives are not entirely altruistic. There is gold in them thar banlists! The core of the system is it uses the same basic idea that you can look for ‘tells’ than indicate what viewer someone is using, send that to a database, then use that as a basis to make lists of avatars to ban from your region to keep out the bad guys. Interesting theory. In a perfect world it should work just fine. But if this were a perfect world there wouldn’t be copybotting in the first place, would there?

The obvious question being raised is, “What happens if someone is innocent?” Answer? No one really knows. You don’t know if they really are innocent. You don’t really know anything. You are essentially trusting the creators of the system to never make mistakes and never use their powers for evil. Ooo! Did you feel that? I swear I felt a chill in the approximate area of my spinal column.  Don’t get me wrong. I hold no love for copybotters. I feel if you are caught stealing content from other hard working residents then you deserve to have your naughty parts gnawed off by a pack of rabbit weasles. I also think child molesters should have the same punishment (only literally). However in both cases I also think we need to be careful we aren’t pronouncing guilt on innocent parties.

I do not call this Orwellian. It isn’t ‘Big Brother’ as much as it is ‘Big Lynch Mob’.  And it is pretty scary. The potential for abuse is incredible in this system. There is no direct verifiable evidence that this system is catching or stopping anyone. It could very well simply be driving them underground or making them better thieves as the copybotters adapt to new ways to get around the system. There have also been rumors of innocent names (some belonging to critics of the system) being added to the ban list only to be removed a week later, which has all the subtlety of a black rose or a dead horse’s head in your bed.

Most worryingly there is absolutely no accountability at this point. Linden Lab is taking a hands-off approach in how they deal with this. Their stance has always been that region owners ban whomever they want for whatever reason they want and they will not interfere. That works fine when owners and estate managers would ban people for being asses and causing drama or just even if they simply didn’t like the way someone looked. This all takes on a much more menacing tone when they are now banning people they have never even met based solely on the say so of someone else. That someone else suddenly has a great amount of power at their fingertips. Power given to them by scared landowners afraid of the boogeybotter. Power that can be easily abused with no real recourse or anyone willing to hold them accountable.

Now there is even those who say the system will be banning alt accounts based on your IP as well. Here is where we really start crossing the line. Just as before the purpose is a noble one, but we see now how the slope keeps getting slipperier. For one, IP banning is fairly useless. Spoofing or changing your IP is not complicated at all. Anyone can google how to do it and have a new IP in no time. Add to that the fact that many of the copybotting viewers already have this functionality built in and you quickly see how utterly useless this is from a crime prevention standpoint.

It is perfect for one thing though… tracking the alts of everyone else. See, this is where the pattern of marginally useful tool being turned into massively immoral and socially corrosive technological exploit rears its ugly head again. Just as copybot was the offspring of morally bankrupt individuals perverting a backup tool I can easily see this technique being used to track alt accounts of anyone and everyone and having the information marketed as a commodity.  If people will pay a monthly fee to (supposedly) keep out (alledged) thieves, imagine what they will pay to know all the (supposed) alts of their asshole boyfriend who (allegedly) cheated on them with that bitch of a former best friend who… well, I think you get the point.

And what exactly is my point? My point is we need to have someone crack down hard on the content thieves, but these people are not it. The only people we should be entrusting with deciding who should and should not have an account in SL are Linden Lab. They are in a much better position to accurately determine who is breaking the rules and who is not, both technologically and ethicly. Linden Lab does not have a financial intrest in ‘selling’ you protection. They do have a financial and ethical interest in providing it as part of being a member. And in the event the conspiracy theory version of virtual reality comes true and a Linden actually “goes rogue” and starts banning accounts for purely personal reasons there is a chain of command that can be appealed to, legal council that can be notified, and justice sought.

I say as soon as any company offers anything akin to “alt matching” they should be banned from SL themselves. The Terms of Service state that you agree to not “Post, display or transmit Content that is harmful, threatening or harassing, defamatory, libelous, false, inaccurate, misleading, or invades another person’s privacy;”

Even if you do assume everyone caught by this system has used an ‘illegal’ client it still does not prove they actually did anything illegal with it and as much as you may not like it they still have a right to privacy and being presumed innocent until proven guilty. Add to this the pitfalls of IP matching and you have a system about as effective as a shotgun in a crowded room. Sure, you may get a few bad guys, but you’ll be responsible for creating more innocent victims in the process and paving the way to invasions of everyone’s privacy across the grid.

I encourage everyone who has had their account banned by CDS but NOT banned by Linden Lab to appeal to Linden Lab and make thier discontent known in a reasonable and non-inflamitory manner. Express to them how you feel this is an unfair defamation of your character. If enough people voice their opinions this way they will listen. If instead you give in to the fear of retribution and say nothing don’t be surprised when LL does nothing either.