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  ‘Second Life’ Grid Downed:  Social Engineering At Play?  
 
 
Posted 2006-04-29 by Tony Walsh
 
 
     
 
Another denial of service attack hit Second Life last night, taking the virtual world offline for roughly two hours. In what has become a standard method of attack, a user launched a self-replicating 3D object that multiplied more rapidly than Second Life's infrastructure could support, resulting in the "grid" that constitutes the virtual world grinding to a standstill.

In an attempt to get the situation under control, Linden Lab (maker and operator of Second Life) announced that rogue objects had been launched, naming the user to whom the objects belonged. The user in question was subsequently bombarded with abuse-reports and instant messages from angry virtual world residents before being suspended from Second Life while an investigation took place. The results of the investigation have not been revealed, but there is speculation by some residents that the user in question might have inadvertently released the harmful objects. In December, 2004, a harmful object was transferred to a number of users through social engineering.

Here's a history of some of the more notable Second Life security issues I've reported on, from most- to least-recent:
 
     
 
   
 
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Comment posted by Prokofy Neva
April 29, 2006 @ 8:29 pm
     
 
The person named denies that it was him in the forums, and denies that he even knows how to script. I've found recently when my rentals communities are attacked by griefers, they exploit the fact that some objects have inadvertently been left on "share with group" to enable people in the group to move or modify, say, a house, and then these griefers join the group and go into edit and put in a grief ball or script to spew porn or whatever. Many new people mix up 'share with group' and 'set with group'. I turn off 'share with group' whenever I can, well aware that the very thing that enables us to cooperate in groups is a weak point that terrorist-type griefers go after to exploit and make havoc in groups.

This fellow last night may have had his object on "share with group" somewhere and faced this issue.

I know there's this endless speculation about did Philip call the FBI or didn't he. And that there is a rumour that he is "Canadian" and therefore "the FBI has no jurisdiction". Well, that's silly. The FBI has no jurisdiction, of course, but there are other bodies in either the U.S. or Canada or internationally that can address crime across borders. If a Canadian drove a truck across the border and crashed into a supermarket deliberately, there'd be a way to address such an offense on both sides of the border without local authorities saying "oh, we have no jurisdiction" etc.

This crashing of the grid, which causes loss of real dollars, should be no different. If you cross borders out of your own country to destroy something in another country, you don't enjoy impunity.
 
     
 
     
   
 
 
     
 
     
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