Socially|Mundane

Linux insider (Security section) has a great note for Second Life residents: The bogeymen are coming or you. Well, they are. Really.

There is a lot of blog press about content theft in Second Life. Most of it is by amateurs looking to make a few quick Linden Dollars without any effort. Usually the same kind of people who will double-login just to camp in some camper chair all day long.

However, though the Lindex Exchange have build-in fraud protection and limits with regard to exchanging Linden Dollars with Legal Tender, there are those hackers and whackers who are after your account credentials. Think of it: get a hold of a few really successful accounts for only a few minutes: pay some alt big bucks and away you go.

I have not tried to trade L$ at Lindex with a "basic" account (a.k.a. non-premium account.) Though I do suspect it is possible. Note to Linden Lab: There is no incentive whatsoever to pay for a premium account in second Life. You need to come-up with a compelling reason or two and owning virtual land on the mainland isn't it.

Might I suggest access to the Lindex be afforded (selling L$ for legal tender, not purchasing L$) to premium accounts only? Hey, just a thought. Of all the so-called incentives you could come-up with to cause people to actually con sider becoming a premium member, that would be the one.

But you won't because there is too much money coming in from it. So, I digress.

The point of all this rhetoric I'm spewing is this: Just like hackers try to phish for your bank account and paypal information so they can scrape your bank accounts clean, they are eyeing virtual worlds where funny-money can be traded for real money, especially Second Life.

There was a scam where the bad guys would get a hold of your credit card and charge something small, like $10 per month. You would likely brush it off as some trivial purchase. However, the bad guys have thousands of these legitimate credit cards. Think about it: 5000 legitimate credit cards, each charging $10 per month = $50,000 per month and none are any the wiser.

The same thing can be done inside SL, theoretically.

So, you should take precautions regarding your Second Life. Once suggestion that isn't made in the article I refer to is a "bank alt". I have one: A basic account that sits idle for no reason other than to hold all your Linden Dollars. Since it sits idle, even oif I get some debit-bomb (an object that drains my account of all my L$ if I rezz-it,) the bank alt still holds the majority of my funds. I have seen people make the terrible mistake of linking mutliple vendors together "for convenience" - try it and see what you get when you purchase anything from one of those vendors.

And, if you don't like popping in and out of alternate accounts every time you need a little cash, simply get a persoanl ATM (for example here is the one I use.)

Either way, it's a good, short and easy read. You might want to take a peek:

Walaika Haskins of Linux Insider sez: "Your online gaming credentials are just another part of your identity. Players pay a monthly subscription to obtain and use those credentials and, sadly, anything that one person is willing to pay for, someone else is willing to steal," he observed."

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