The World Is Run By Lawyers

…and lawyers are, by nature, a bunch of pussies. I’m sure they would rather call themselves ‘careful’, but then they’re lawyers. They like to play with words, it’s their thing.

Just now I heard of the first victim of age verification - a woman who cannot access her own store because the landowner has flagged the parcel as mature, or adult, or whatever the extra-mature terminology is they dreamed up for our virtual world. Now hear this, all you Lindens out there:

THIS IS INSANE.

Open Google. Click Preferences. Check ‘Do not filter my search results’. Save preferences.

On the main page, click Images. Fill in a girl’s name - any girl’s name - or the name of a young, attractive female celebrity. And I guarantee you that you will see real life full nudity and possibly hardcore pornographic material, on the first page of the image search results.

Here’s one example I found with Google after a search using the first name of my mother (sorry, mom). I cleaned it up for this blog - actually it is one of the most modest pictures from that page. And it took under five seconds to find it.

And that’s exactly how hard it is for kids. And that’s why as a parent you need to monitor your kid’s internet behaviour. Yes, it takes time away from your precious career but hey, it’s a kid, not the damn DVD player. It needs looking after. And I am not going to do that for you.

Google does not demand age verification. The sites with these pictures do not demand age verification. My ISP never asked me for age verification. The government of this or any other democratic country hasn’t set a minimum age to web access. And therefore the good people that run our virtual world have no obligation whatsoever to introduce age verification.

I don’t know what is wrong with the lawyer folk in San Francisco. Maybe they are hardcore Christian fundamentalists with an agenda to clean the Internet of all the ‘filth’ that’s to be seen. Maybe they are just not ready for the 21st century yet, and still think you can somehow shield people off from mature content. But most likely they are just a bunch of pussies.

While you’re at it, go and see what Google turns up when you search for ‘pussies’ as described above… and don’t for a minute fool yourself into believing that your kids wouldn’t ever try.

Disclaimer: if you think you own the rights to the picture above, shame on you. It’s not even a good photoshop.

Age Verification - Philip, Daniel and Robin speak

Tonight (this morning at 10 SLT) I was present at Robin Linden’s Office Hour where more Residents than usual gathered to talk to Robin about age verification. I have tried to plough through the chat log and lift out those questions and answers which touch upon my main concern - and I dare say the concern of most Europeans: handing over personal data to a company in the US. Typos are left as is (except for one of my own, hehe) in order to not over-edit the whole piece. Please note that a lot has been left out to present just what I think is the main issue.

A few more words about age verification

The post-9/11 world is characterized by increased security measures all around us. At the same time we see a continuing growth in the use and the power of automated systems for storage of personal data. These two facts combined have caused, and are continuing to cause, widespread concern about civil liberties. The ability to couple databases together to paint a picture of our daily lives, without us being aware of it, worries a lot of people. But what is even more worrisome is the fact that data storage has consistently proven to be unsafe.

Unfortunately the advent of the internet has seen an enormous growth in storage of potentially damaging personal information on many different locations. Merging these databases together is a very simple routine and results in a fairly complete picture of a person’s interests, sexual preference, habits, religion and political affiliation. One further simple step is to flag the database and pick out all the muslims or all the gays or anyone who registered to view mature content.

Let’s say that I would send my passport number to a third party via the web. This results in two bits of info arriving at the receiving end: my passport number and my IP address. This means that potentially all my internet behaviour can be directly coupled to my person. Sounds far-fetched? Read on.

During World War II resistance fighters here in Holland and in other countries attacked and destroyed public record offices to prevent the Nazi German occupiers from finding out which citizens were Jewish. After the war such info was not stored at all anymore. The first lesson is obvious: for the safety of all citizens the amount of private information stored anywhere should be kept to an absolute minimum. The second lesson is less obvious: the danger doesn’t have to come from neocons, Illuminati, the military-industrial complex, Homeland Security or whatever some conspiracy theorists try to tell you. Things happen fast in this world – what’s highly unlikely today can be an imminent threat tomorrow. You can wake up one day and find yourself under hostile occupation.

And this time around there is no public records office to attack.

Second Life comes of age?

Linden Lab has taken some extraordinary steps lately, but none so totally off-beat as described in their latest announcement. Our virtual environment, our evolution of the internet, our I-cannot-call-it-a-game is going to require you to deliver proof of age. And this time even your credit card is not going to be enough. All in the name of protecting children - which is, as I have said earlier, the parents’ responsibility anyway.

Now be aware that there is no law in the United States which says that you have to protect minors from mature content in online services. And right now a lot of companies are not even trying to do so. Using Selfseo I discovered that a lot of porn sites offering photos and videos of highly explicit nature without asking for any age verification - without even so much as a warning - have their servers in the United States. Mind you, these sites show explicit content depicting real human beings intead of avatars. I am almost tempted to prove this with a list of sites, but I’ll refrain from that for now. You all know where to find these sites anyway.

With all that real life mature content up for grabs on the internet, why would Linden Lab demand proof of age through highly sensitive personal data like passport numbers or social security numbers, without having a legal requirement to do so and indeed in clear violation of established privacy laws in lots of countries - or ‘some areas‘ in LL speak? What would make LL infinitely more vulnerable to lawsuits than www.firexdream.com? (there - I’ve done it. That’s a moderate one, by the way.) Or have they gone the Born Again way?

Our watchamacallit is, if you cut through the chase, a game. No game in the world requires me to hand over my most personal details, unless you want to consider airport security checks a game. You know, I’ve had friendly and nice encounters with Lindens like Torley and Robin, so I’d hate to tell them they need to get their heads out of their asses. But really… they do.