SignpostMarv's Blog

Trespass, verb; To enter a property without permission

The issue of “trespassing” in Second Life has always been floating about, whether it be in the form of permissions exploits, forgetfulness, or just making use of the default permissions.

Trespass in the context of Second Life land as real estate

If a Resident gains access to another Resident’s “land” without their permission, then by definition this is trespass. There is however a distinction between intentionally trespassing and accidentally trespassing.

Intentional Trespass

Second Life’s default permissions on “land” allows any Resident to build or otherwise instantiate (rez) virtual objects on that “land”. The most likely reason for a Resident to intentionally “trespass” would be to litter another Resident’s land with objects in order to “grief” the owners. This is equivalent to anything from leaving a flaming pile of dog turd on someone’s door step, to spray painting profanity and other graffiti on someone’s walls. There is also the issue of allowing for the possibility of squatters “moving in”.

Accidental Trespass

If a “land owner” has forgotten to set their parcel access list, then any Resident can easily fly through their land- restricted access affects the “air space” 200m above the parcel in question, so no restrictions would mean being able to fly lower than 200m above ground level.

Randomly teleporting around the grid can result in the Resident finding themselves in the middle of someone’s house. In which case the Resident would either be “stuck” inside, or just teleport out.

Exploring the grid at ground level can sometimes result in Residents coming across large swathes of empty “land”- since the laws of physics don’t apply to a virtual environment such as Second Life, Residents can have permanent stationary accommodations several hundred meters above ground level- these are generally referred to as “sky boxes”. Such accidental “trespass” in these cases would probably be equivalent to people ramblers exploring the countryside and unknowingly walking through a farmer’s fallow field; you wouldn’t be aware that the “land” was “owned” by someone unless you checked the About Land dialog/land registry.

Trespass in the context of Second Life as a virtual environment

Second Life has been referred to as the Internet of the future.It is in this context where the issue of “trespass” becomes a little less clear cut.

In the context of a virtual environment or “next generation internet”, Regions and estates are the equivalent of websites, and individual parcels are the equivalent of web pages. Private estate owners would be the equivalent of Geocities, Fortune City (anyone remember the Melting Pot server ?), Dreamhost etc; Resellers of virtual locations for which to “build” upon.

Accidental Trespass

If “land” is the equivalent of a website, then “accidental trespass” is the equivalent of accidentally coming across a website which the owners have forgotten to protect with their web server’s authentication mechanisms or other login schemes.

Intentional Trespass

Again, if “land” is the equivalent of a website, then “intentional trespass” is the equivalent of exploiting bugs in the permissions system (when a parcel is protected), taking advantage of the physics engine, or more often than not; merely by moving through the front door.

Permissions System Exploits

Though I can’t personally recollect any instances of this occurring, if a bug in the server-side permissions system was discovered and exploited, it could hypothetically allow Residents to gain access to restricted land.

Physics Engine

The basic gist of this is if you fly fast enough, you will pass through any solid object between your departure point and your final destination. There are many scripts freely available that allow Residents to fly at “super human speeds”, very few (if any) of which were likely created to enable “intentional trespass”- bar teleporting, flying is the fastest way to travel long distances in Second Life.

Moving through the front door

Personally I find the concept of “locked doors” in Second Life (when not used for role-playing/gaming purposes) to be one of the most pointless invention in Second Life.

In Second Life, “Lockable doors” at the basest level are solid objects which prevent a Resident from moving through a hole on the wall (the doorway). “Unlocking” the door- usually through scripts using the llDetectedKey function (which can allow for multiple “key holders”) will result in the solid object either moving out of the way (opening) or becoming non-solid.

Aside from being able to take advantage of the physics engine to “fly through” any part of the building in question if the Resident is able to “rez” an object, they would be able to sit their avatar on the object, then move the object through the wall either manually or with llSetPos.

Is it a problem ?

Overall, I would say no. Exploits aside, through the permissions system and such LSL functions as llEjectFromLand, llTeleportAgentHome & llUnSit, Residents (including renters) have effectively complete control of who can access their land. Trespassing is as much of a problem in Second Life as people forgetting to lock their doors in real life- its merely a case of reminding people and education on security.