‘In brightest day, in
blackest night,
No evil shall escape
my sight!
Let those who worship
evil’s might,
Beware my power… Green
Lantern’s light!’
The Green Lanterns have taken their name from the comic book.
In Second Life they are the neighborhood watchers. They dress like the original
Green Lanterns original comic characters and patrol the grid to assist
residents off griefers attack and help new residents. Over the years they have
filed several reports to Linden Labs. They also play a role in training the
land owners about security arrangements. They offer free training and uniforms
to members who wish to join the force. They have started maintaining a live
help chat since June, 2014. Here is the link http://lanternalliance.com/irc.htm.
No extra Hud or group space is required; no chat interface, just a log in and
you are good to go. SL peacekeepers monitor this channel.
Visit their
headquarters in The Unknown Country http://slurl.com/secondlife/The%20Unknown%20Country/171/152/2022
In the past few months you might have heard of a link that
seem to take to the market place, but instead it has hacking the profile
passwords and withdrawing large amounts. You would always hear these from group
chats or notices. One such threat I heard, and would like to share with you.
On 23rd November, 2014 BlackAngel Firehawk informed of a Hack Link Warning, “In some
Groups today my friend is noticing a link being passed out with the letters
MY3GB in it....looks like a Market place link...DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK it will
hack your account. Warning do not click on any link with the letters
"MY3GB" in it, It takes over your account changes password they buy
the max L$ and transfer to different account and cash out and use your account
to pass same link to all friends.”
If you hear any of the sorts or any other griefer, do not
forget to call the Green Lanterns. To know more about them and their work
process, I contacted, the founder, Hal Jordan, Green Lantern Excelsior and I
had the honor of speaking with him.
Debby Sharma: How has
2014 been in terms of security?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): We have not seen the
large amount of organized group griefing that has plagued SL in the past. The
gigantic problem that seems to be catching many people off guard is a phishing
scheme where people get their accounts hijacked, and the hijacker sends out
links to a fake SL Marketplace website where residents might carelessly enter
their SL username and password. It's too bad people fall for that.
Debby Sharma: What
steps are you taking and what steps should we take to prevent that?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): I have seen blog
entries and group notices several times about this issue. In some cases it will
be a caution to not click on links sent out from some specific person, and in
other cases it will be a general "beware" notice to be careful what
links you click on. I don't know if Linden Lab has sent any messages about this
problem. It is difficult to educate everyone about schemes like this, because
there are so many bogus urban legend notices going around that sometimes it's
hard to tell which is a legitimate problem and which is just something made up
to slander another resident.
I've seen notices cautioning people not to click on links or
accept items from some specific resident because they will steal all your
Lindens or send a virus to your PC or some other incredible claim. I think some
of those are just people having a feud with another resident and trying to
besmirch the other person's reputation.
If people would just take the time to look at an Internet
address and make sure that it really goes to secondlife.com, many of these
problems could be avoided.
Debby Sharma: I wanted
to ask, do you give training to land owners, if so, is there any schedule for
classes?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): I have a 2010 griefer
presentation that covers parcel security. I haven't made up a schedule for
doing training because people haven't been asking me to train them. The
presentation is here: https://sites.google.com/site/herouniversepeacekeepers/parcel-security.
I would be happy to go to people's parcels and help them with their security if
they are interested. We never charge for any of our services, so it's all free.
Debby Sharma: There
are levels at the landmark, each level as a specific color, what do they
denote?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): In the Green Lantern
comics there was a story line around 2009-2010 that created several different
types of Lanterns beyond the green variety. The story was about the
"emotional spectrum" associated with each type of Lantern. The Green
Lanterns operate on the emotion of willpower, since their power rings can
create anything their minds can imagine. The other spectrum colors operate on
different emotions, rage (red), greed (orange), fear (yellow), hope (blue),
compassion (indigo), and love (violet). There is also black, representing
death, and white, representing life.
Debby Sharma: Do you
have departments for each?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): We have the entire
Lantern emotional spectrum groups represented at http://lanternalliance.com/, along with
several other affiliated peacekeeper groups. We are all on the same side and
generally we have the same goals, to help Second Life residents, whether it be
reporting griefers, helping new residents, or assisting venue owners with
security.
Debby Sharma: I was
looking at the application of The Green Lanterns, what specific skills does one
require to be a member?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): We have a wide range of
skills that people can use everything from negotiating with griefers to helping
new residents to event security. Talents in scripting, building, creating
clothing and everything else associate with SL is welcome. The only requirement
we have is that a new member must be 180 days old in Second Life, but we have
discussed that and decided that a resident can be an associate member from day
one if they want to. We just can't give them a free Green Lantern power ring
until they're 180 days old.
Debby Sharma: What
would be the new projects for 2015?
Hal Jordan (Green Lantern Excelsior): We have discussed
creating a welcome center for new residents, with freebies and notecards and
links to helpful websites. The idea is in its infancy at the moment but we have
enough members that we should be able to create something of value. We are all
about helping people and this is just another way to do that.
Reference Links:
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