I added an update to the Neil Life Viewer Review I wrote in early August. See; Warning – Neil Life Viewer
Today Massively is reporting that a number of those using the Neil Life Viewer for IP theft have been banned. See; Linden Lab rounds up and ejects a bunch of copyright infringers
Massively explains how those abusing IP rights were separated from those just running the viewer. Smart.
This effort from Linden Lab is a good move in the face of the current law suites pending regarding IP theft. (See Wired: Linden Lab Targeted in Second Life Sex-Code Lawsuit) When one considers that Second Life residents spend about US$50 million real life dollars per month an idea of the importance of the action is apparent.
I like most of your posts however your post towards Neil Second life viewer does not do you justice. I don’t know Neil personally but the 19 year old kid deserves much credit. Thanks to him a few of many exploits are now some-what patched up?
I am hoping that you know that linden labs made SL viewer open source to have people learn, improve and break it. To my best of knowledge LL still have not finalized limitation to govern how one must be allowed to compile a viewer’s functions. Neil is important to help improve secodnlife functions and increase security. Second life viewer doesn’t by default have built in animations override, search by date, previous owners and or creator. Or copy-bot and or copy- botted items detector. May be you should try it out under an alt and go to high end stores and see what is really going on.
It is only my option that if a bug gets reported to lindens it is fixed at a different pace then and exploit in an idiots hands and person with loss of lindens filing an abuse report about it. Many of client side developers are laughing and or shaking their heads at Neil. Some of the developers at one time or another were kick ass at bringing second life to its knees. I am glad to assume they had a change of heart and started developing certain huds and clients.
I have been in Second Life since 2003. I was there when money was implemented to motivate people. I have see gambling being pushed aside and a blind eye being turned towards sl banks that stole money, prostitution and age/sex verifications. I miss the days when ever one had to pay for an account and prove age and whatever. Regardless I love Second Life for what it is.
My point is that a viewer doesn’t enable exploits, it the server side that enabled it. Exploits like no copy kill or worse yet full perm anything were around for a long time till someone decided to do something about it. Neil could have stayed silent and made a lot of money. His methods may not be popular with you but they are effective. He has been effective towards devaluing greifers and some of many exploits.
Just think about it there are many exploits still out there one of which is buy land once and never have to pay. Giving permission to scripts to work in no script zones, entering ban locations , No transfer kills, pay zero and still get the item from any affiliate vendor, track any one just by opening a chat window. Just to name a few.
You may be right… but, from what I know and my experience and that of others I know and trust… I have to disagree.