Save Sky Eclipse, crasher of sims: SL Jira VWR-2281

Second Life user Sky Eclipse has a problem: something about their account or their avatar causes the sim they are in to crash.  The sim they are in crashes as soon as they log in to it , if I understand the problem correctly, leaving them no way to do anything like remove attachments or delete the last few items they acquired. 

The only solution for this problem lies in the hands of Linden Lab: either fix Sky Eclipse's account, or fix the sim crash problem such that Sky Eclipse's account remains just as it is but the sim Sky is in doesn't crash.

There's a Second Life Jira issue to vote on related to Sky Eclipse's problem. The Jira issue is at  https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2281 ; if you'd like to help Sky Eclipse by convincing Linden Lab to devote resources to solving this problem go to https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2281 and vote for the issue. (Only members of SL can vote for SL Jira issues, so if you aren't an SL user, just join SL at secondlife.com, then vote for Sky's Jira issue. )

There's a forums.secondlife.com thread on this topic at http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?p=1661915#post1661915 .

The Sky Eclipse Jira issue VWR-2281 reads as follows
:

Second Life Viewer - VWR
 Sky Eclipse's avatar crashes regions EVERYTIME she logs in, regardless of where she logs in
Created: Friday 02:42 AM   Updated: Saturday 04:58 PM

Component/s:    Crashes
Affects Version/s:    1.18.3
Fix Version/s:    None

File Attachments:     1.  debug_info.log (4 kb)
2.  SecondLife.log (161 kb)

Environment:     « Hide
CPU: AMD K7 (Unknown model) (1396 MHz)
Memory: 256 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 6200/AGP/SSE/3DNOW!
OpenGL Version: 2.0.3

Is this why Second Life's forum's vB Code is turned off?

Second Life's forum, at forums.secondlife.com, has had it's vB Code turned off for a while now.

The Second Life forums use vBulletin brand forum software, verson 3.0.5. "vB Code" is  vBulletin's form of BBCode, which allows forum  posters to easily insert links, images, apply formatting, etc. in forum posts.  No explanation has been given by Linden Lab.  A statement was made that vB Code would be turned back on, but no further word on the subject has been issued. 

Possibly it has something to do with the information presented below taken from http://forums.nexcess.net/showthread.php?t=596

JELSOFT SECURITY BULLETIN
http://www.vbulletin.com/
January 21st, 2005

This email contains important security-related information.
Please read it carefully.

* vBulletin 3.0.6 / 2.3.6 Released
* Performance Hit Since PHP 4.3.10 / 5.0.3
* Your License Information
* Contact Us


------------ VBULLETIN 3.0.6 / 2.3.6 RELEASED ------------

vBulletin 3.0.6 and 2.3.6 are security and bug fix
releases. They fix a recently discovered XSS issue
regarding BB code parsing.

All versions of vBulletin prior to 3.0.6 and 2.3.6 are
vulnerable. The only workaround is to disable BB code
parsing in signatures and all forums where untrusted users
can post.

The page at http://www.vulnerabilityscanning.com/vBulletin-BB-Tag-XSS-Test_16280.htm says:

Such versions are reportedly vulnerable to a
cross-site scripting issue involving its BB code parsing.

As a result of this vulnerability, it is possible for a remote
attacker to create a malicious link containing script code that will
be executed in the browser of an unsuspecting user when followed.

This may facilitate the theft of cookie-based authentication
credentials as well as other attacks

If this or a similar security issue is really the problem, is there a good reason why Linden Lab couldn't just say the vB Code has been turned off for a security reason and won't be turned on until the forum software is replaced, which may well never happen?

 

Virtual World moguls meet across shared Surface in Metaverse Poker Room August 16th, 2007 (virtual news, aka fiction)

A story at http://blogs.cisco.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-c.cgi inspired me to write a fairly lengthy comment so I figured I’d repeat it here.
=============================================
Odd that I see a reference to http://blogs.cisco.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-c.cgi along with a reference to Cisco’s Telepresence technology just shortly after posting in my blog about my notion that it would be interesting to see Linden Lab link it’s San Francisco and Boston offices using Cisco’s Telepresence system.

What I had in mind in my idea was creation of a permanently linked area, a distributed place in the Linden Lab offices where for example Philip Rosedale might walk past in San Francisco and John Lester in the Boston Linden Lab metaverse room would see him walk by if Philip was in the shared location place in the Boston office.

Instead of a desk or table physically located in both Linden Lab offices serving as the shared, co-mingled focal point of the distributed location meeting area, a Microsoft Surface unit could be used instead, synchronized so that the San Francisco and Boston Surface units functioned as if there was one Surface simultaneously. Hence John Lester could sit in shared presence area in Boston and see Robin Harper, for example, displayed life sized on the Cisco Telepresence system’s monitor, apparently sitting across the way a few feet on the other side of the of the Microsoft Surface table unit.

By maintaining the telepresence link permanently, the nature of the shared location virtual place is changed from one that is created on demand in which to hold preplanned events to one that is more like just a normal part of the office, normal except that to a human it seems like one place but it has widely separated physical locations.

Why would Linden Lab have an interest in such a thing? Well, because it’s a metaverse idea and Linden Lab is a metaverse company.

I’d like to see this shared location space extended to other companies that are working on the creation of the metaverse, so maybe Hui Xu would sit down in front of the Beijing metaverse room’s Surface and see Nicole Yankelovich sitting in Sun Lab’s metaverse room in Menlo Park. Philip Rosedale would sit down at the San Francisco site, and John Lester in the Boston area.

Then the Friday night metaverse poker game would start.