Category Archives: Warnings

Firestorm Viewer v6.3.3 – 9-2022

by

1

Wow, we have a new release of the Firestorm Viewer. Just last July 26 I downloaded my then newly released update.

As the Firestorm Development Team explains, they have a new development cycle in place and expect to have new releases out every 6 to 8 weeks, so every other month. It has been 8 weeks since I grabbed the previous update. So, they are pretty much on schedule.

A New Firestorm Update

What is a bit unusual, is they released this update on a Friday. Typically, Friday releases are avoided. The reason the team gave long ago was that if there were a major glitch, there would be few Lindens at work to get them server-side information for diagnosing the problem.

As usual, Inara has done her review of the new release. You’ll find that here: Firestorm 6.6.3. I see no point in duplicating her work or you reading similar reviews. So, I’ll write about the things that interested me or I didn’t find in Inara’s coverage.

Warning

Another new update… there is a revised beta version of Firestorm that should be hitting the grid 9/19 or 9/20. A new griefing attack is being or was mounted and all viewers are suspectable to it. The Lab has released a fix and the fix is winding its way through implementation and QA testing.

You can turn off Media on a Prim and close that particular exploit. Turning it off causes problems with some body and head HUDs. Experiment to see if you are affected.

This is a scary LOOKING attack. There is little real danger. Don’t panic. If you see viewer panels opening and things happening, TP to another region.

Continue reading →

Second Life News 2019 w20

by

0

A berry good introduction to Second Life™ popped up on YouTube yesterday, How to Get Started in Second Life New User Tutorial.

Save a link to the video. You can refer people to it that ask about Second Life™.

Servers

There is currently no DEPLOYS post which is sort of expected this week as a maintenance project is in progress this week. From Grid Status a few days ago,

Scheduled – Our engineers will be performing maintenance on the Second Life network May 13 – 16. We hope to perform most of the maintenance early in this window, but it may extend several days if needed.

Residents may experience problems connecting to, being disconnected from, or an inability to log in during this time, as well as possible issues rezzing objects, teleporting, or crossing regions. We hope to keep these disruptions to a minimum and greatly appreciate your patience during this time as we work to make Second Life more robust.

We will resolve this status once the maintenance has been fully completed.
May 7, 16:16 PDT

Continue reading →

Second Life News 2019 w13

by

0

WARNING: ASUS motherboard users, you have been attacked. Users in Russia (18+%), Germany (16%), France (12+%), Italy (6+%), and the USA (5+%) are the main targets.

The attack targets specific machines. It is hardcoded into the Trojan. So, checking if you are a target is easy. Check to see if your MAC address is in the list. Links follow…

Once upon a time, there was a demoness.

Once upon a time, there was a demoness.

The virus was transmitted via infiltration of the ASUS update system. As the system provides Certified patches most anti-virus programs failed to detect it. So, you may have updated and opened the doors without your AV warning you.

This story started breaking 3/25/2019. ASUS and anti-virus companies have been working on this since January 2019. ASUS has responded with ASUS response to the recent media reports regarding ASUS Live Update tool attack by Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. They have a repair tool for the problem on that page. Continue reading →

WARNING: Possible Prim Returns

by

0

Animesh Land Impact Change – Risk of Autoreturn

Thu, Oct 25 2018 5:47:59 PM PDT

Land impact calculation for Animesh has a bug that will be fixed with server rolls coming as soon as next week. This means if you have Animesh characters on your land, you could have potential land impact increases that cause an oveflow and force things to autoreturn. The specifics are discussed in the forum post below: Animesh Release Delayed.

The Latest Second Life Drama… Coming After You.

by

11

If you have been in SL for a time you know a significant number of users are big on drama. Whole roleplay communities exist for the drama in storytelling. If you know a game master, you have no doubt heard some of their amazing stories of stupidity.

Unfortunately, drama often spills over into other parts of the SL world and results in RL legal actions that affect those of us that were minding our own business.

Feel good

Feel good – GA.EG

In January I wrote about the OpenCollar Drama in OpenCollar No Longer OpenCollar? The Nirea and Athaliah side of that dama got control of the OpenCollar group. Moderators and some others there claim they are the only real OpenCollar. Collar updates are now confusing.

Now. it seems we are bumping into another such situation, but with mesh heads. Catwa has filed a DMCA Take Down Notice against GA.EG and Akeruka. I’m not clear on whether they are at DMCA with Akeruka. But, Akeruka is in conflict with Catwa. I hear Stray Dog is also dealing with a DMCA from Catwa. Note 7/9: Gac Akina the owner of Stray Dog says he isn’t dealing with a DMCA. As best I can tell the comment/email address is Gac’s. Continue reading →

DDoS Attacks of February 2018

by

1

The previously reported (Second Life DDoS Attack) DDoS is mostly over… for now. Oddly, I am having to search for news of the attack(s). It is there, but the media does not seem interested. On the net, you can find information. Like:

I suspect the reason for the lack of coverage is this type of information is too techy for most newscasters and writers to handle… maybe even understand.

Warriors... come out to play

Warriors… come out to play

From Internet searches, we can see a lot of people knew this type of attack was coming way before it happened. But, those that failed to protect their servers from misuse apparently didn’t. This failure of people to prepare for a known possibility is rampant in society.

Those of us that want solid Internet connections can take some steps to mitigate the impact such attacks have. The attacks often target the DNS servers, the units that translate secondlife.com into something the computer can use, IPv6 = 2001:578:3f::30 or IPv4 = 216.82.8.56. The bad actors get the most impact for their clicks by taking down DNS servers as without them your computer can’t find the machine addresses and cannot connect. Fail. Continue reading →

News Update 2018 w09

by

0

Earlier I reported (ref) on the DDoS attack and linked to the Linden post on the subject. Things seem to be getting better. Concurrent use was back to the mid 40k users.

In the Server-Scripting UG meeting, Simon Linden told us this has been on-going for about 24 hours. April Linden tells us the same in the SL Blog post.

However, from a credible source, I understand the SL Forum went nuts with fake news. So, be aware there are nuts posting on the forum that enjoy creating havoc.  The sad part is some believe what they are saying and think they know something. Others know they are deliberately making mischief.

How do you tell which is real? If you go into the Answers section of the forum and look at the 3 to 6 posts threads, you will find a small number of people consistently answering questions. Those people are mostly trustworthy. When they don’t know, they have been known to say so…

So, the statement the asset servers went down and all SL content was lost was totally bogus. I’m not sure why anyone would make that statement. There are those always wanting to harm the Lab. Others think it fun to scare people. Others seem to believe whatever pops into their head.

I understand some new people will believe anything about SL and the Lab. But, I have the idea that with all the fake news, propaganda, and spin people would be more skeptical of what they hear. Silly me.