Second Life under attack - LindenLab not telling the truth ?

For the best part of last two days, Second Life users have to cope with strong problems in the Linden Lab virtual world, including unability to teleport, to transfer money, to search for items, and so on.

This makes most of online activities impossible. No camping as money can't be transferred, no financial transaction, no copy of objects. All of the Sercond Life economy is blocked, and could collapse soon if this goes on !

Linden Lab reports on the official Second Life blog does not mention any cause, or specific problems. They just say they're working to solve it. This is not so usual, as normally the blog is much more detailled about what goes on, and what are the problems.

This silcence from Linden Lab, and their unability to solve the problems within reasonable time makes me think that they could be under attack from hackers. This hypothesis raises the questions who and why.

To me the answers are quite clear: gamblers, and casino owners, to protest against the stop of all gambling activities in SL ! As a revenge, or to blackmail Linden Lab, some gambling activists could try bringing it down. Remember, there were even demonstrations of protest in-world this week-end.

This hypothesis also explains why Linden Lab can not manage the problem by simply going back to a previous and more stable version. It also makes clear why they don't make any mention of the problems cause. Revealing such a vulnerability in their systems woud have a catastrophic effect on their business.

Can you imagine how bad it would be if the attackers could find a breach in the clients themselves, getting control over users computers ? It's clear that Linden Lab would not communicate on this !

No camping today

SecondLife is still experiencing major troubles, apparently related to the last update and the introduction of the voice client. The official SL blog is permanently announcing trouble, but not a lot of problems solved.

Today I had problems with money transfer, making camping useless, and teleport did not worked, so I could not go anywhere. The mood of the group was quite bad, as we are all facing the same problems. Some even filled problem reports to LindenLab.

I will make a new attempt later on, but for the time being, there is nothing to be done.

A bad day on Second Life

Second Life experienced several technical problems today, and I had troubles with login, teleport and money transfer. It was even impossible to transfer money from JaneLight to JohnLight, and I guess this is why some dacepads were not paying dancers.

A quick check with the group members confirmed that I was by far not the only one with such problems, so I decided to stop camping activities until tomorrow, and I spent some time to upgrade the blog.

Blog refresh done !

I hope you will all like the new layout and colors of this blog... Let me show you all the new features.

First, and this was the main motivation for the change, the archive is now readable. The previous font was a bit tiny...

Another new item is the indication of my present balance, so I won't have to put it in the post titles anymore, and it will be easier for you to have an idea how quickly the quest for 1'000'000 L$ is progressing.

All the blog widgets (feed, del.icio.us contact, ...) are now grouped together, and finally I put a picture of JohnLight, which I will update when funny or special things will happen.

I sincerely hope that you will like this modifications, and enjoy this blog even more.

Opinion polls to earn money in Second Life

A common way of earning free lindens is to take part in opinion polls. There are even islands specialised in that, and this can generate lots of money.

I don't use them personally for two reasons. Firts it's needing some time, not like camping, and to be eligible to most of polls, you have to reside in the US, which is not my case.

Nevertheless, if you're interested in this activity, you will find a blog on this topic called Earn free lindens in SecondLife. I got this link via a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, so thanks again.

This afternoon I will give a refresh to the blog. Post number 100 is approaching, and I want to change a few items, I hope you will like it. You probaby already noticed that the posts are now signed "JohnLight Raymaker"...

Normal day, just a bit buzzish - 11'520 L$ by Ginko

I've nothing particular to report from the camping front today. Apparently the buzz about the gambling being prohibited is getting bigger and bigger.

After all my visits in Second Life, I belong to several groups, and one of them was organising a demonstration to protest against the end of gambling ! There are also a few places where the slot machines are still operating, but most of gambling places are now off.

With the present Ginko interest rate, I'm earning 15 L$ a day from them, the half of my daily objective from camping. This does not mean I can stop camping now, but it is a symbolic step for me.

I will start hunting for new campsites soon, but these days JaneLight and JohnLight are camping a lot in Petunia Island.

The gambling days are over - news about the 1'000'000 L$ lottery

It is now clearly confirmes that any gambling in Second Life is agains the Terms and Conditions of use. One indicator how serious it is is that even Ginko stopped their weekly lottery. I certainly did not visit all casinos, but I guess they all shut their slot machines down.

Another hint is that group notices for parties no longer mention any sploder. I'm even guessing if Platinum is impacted by that or not, as their camping rate is random. May be they escape the new rule because there is no need to pay to start earning.

Regarding the 1'000'000 L$ lottery I initially envisaged to do when I will have earnd my million Linden Dollars, I have to find something new. The only thing that won't change is that it will be given to one of the "Free Money from JohnLight" group.

Casinos banned from Second Life

The group was very active today, as whole of Second Life probably, because Linden Lab announced on the official blog that all gambling activities are now forbidden !

We had a long discussion about it, discussing if it was advertisment for gambling, or gambling itself. Apparently gambling is now illegal in SL, as the US law makes online casinos illegal. One interesting point was the definition of gambling as "a game one have to pay to enter and which result is chosen randomly, and prize is L$". Some were really disapointed, because this definition also cover... sploders !

Apparently Linden Lab will close such places, and remove such objects. No evidence of such activities have been seen as no member was in a casino by this time. Anyway, casino only help you to loose money, not to earn ;-). I will report later on the closure or not of all casinos.

The post also mention that local laws are applicable, which is not so clear for anyone. Another point was to know if SL is more populated by US or non-US people, and the question of moving the Linden Lab servers somewhere else has been raised, with no satisfactory answer.

The single point on which all present group members did agree is that this could have a strong impact on SecondLife economy, but we all beleive that Second Life will survive it, and business will find another way...

I'm by far not a legal expert, so if I wrote any mistake down, please correct me. Any comment are welcome on this red hot topic !

This is a bit provocative, but if casinos have to shut down, there will still be the sex industry to continue Linden Lab business !

Readers homework

I received in a previous post's comment the followin URL http://www.secondlifecamping.com/top.html

It seems promising, but it is may be just a website to attract traffic, and there is no mention of last update or such thing. As I won't have time to check all of them by myself, I wanted to ask you, reader, to check some, and give feed-back to this blog, so as to determine if some are worth or not.

Many thanks in advance for your comments.

10'000 L$ !

For the 90th post on this blog, I'm happy and proud to annouce that I just reach 10'000 L$ ! The camping night has been good, and I could cash 217 L$ by Ginko. Passing this new step makes me happy and motivated for the next steps, so stay tuned, and you will may be get 1'000'000 L$ soon, by joining the "Free Money from JohnLight" group !

"To 1'000'000 and beyond !"

A bit short... - 9826 L$ by Ginko

I missed my goal of 10'000 L$ by Ginko by the end of the week... As mentionned in the title, I have "only" 9826 L$. I hate admitting that I missed my objective, so let's say it is postponed ;-) !

Hopefully next week I will reach that objective, and be able to proceed with the 99% remaining ! I'm motivated again, and I hope JaneLight and JohnLight have good legs, because they will dance for hours next week !

False promises

Yesterday night I left JaneLight and JohnLight on supposedly unlimited 3L$ / 15 minutes dancepads at Camazotz.

When I checked them today, I found out that JaneLight client had crashed, after earning 48 L$, not so bad, and JohnLight was still dancing, and its accumulated total was 150 L$ !!

When wanted to stand-up, it made it quickly, the client was apparently not overloaded or something... but I never got the money ! Bloody place ! Promises, and no money ! Shame on them...

They are now both camping at Banquo while I'm doing some video editing work. As I'm here, it's ok to restart camping every hour.

The place that can't be named !

I discovered a new SL feature today. There is a 3 L$ / 15 minutes camping spot, apparently unlimited (at least up to 33 L$). I then wanted to landmark it, to then be able to share it with the "Free Money from JohnLight" group members, and then with readers of this blog.

When I clicked "Create Landmark", I received a blue box saying that I could not bookmark this as the owner did not wanted. The name of the Island is camazotz... I hope you will enjoy it.

For the time being, I still can not understand why someone would not its place to be landmarked. I can see why for a very private place, but then why having dancepads ?

One more Second Life oddity.

JohnLight's landmarks book - Best-of

This post is a list of all the campsites I use and prefer, with a short description. From my point of view, some are amongst the best camping in Second Life. The head of sections are the name of the islands.

Banquo
My favorite campsite for semi-supervised camping. It offers 3L$ / 10 minutes, but is limited to one hour camping sessions. It's in a dance-club, but not a lot of traffic and no moving trees or such memory consuming items.

Apfelland
This one is really CROWDED and full of complex objects, so a good performance is needed. On the plus side, it offers unlimited 2L$ / 10 minutes camping benches. I must mention that sometimes I got ejected, so I guess that the owner tries periodically to identify passive campers. My "personal best" here was 112 L$ in an overnight.

Oceania
You will find here the Skye Club, with three Dance Dance machines. These were the first I found, and where I met Josephina. They have many pads paying zero, and their total limitation is 150 L$.

Willow Beach
You will find here Club Xero, with three Dance Dance, limited to 100 L$, but with no pads paying zero. Note that recently they were frequently off.

Monevole
This island is hosting an "Hot'n Gay club" (sic...), with a series of 3L$ / 15 minutes pads, limited to 15 L$. Really stable, no issues.

MediaScape
This island is hosting 2 Dance Dance limited to 300 L$, which is the highest limit I know. They have no pads paying 0, but there rate are really slow. Be careful, the rates are expressed for 30 minutes !

Ernst
You will find here the Twist Camper Cafe, with unlimited 2L$ / 10 minutes bench ! However, I tested it with ammounts up to 10 L$ with no problem. But when I left both avatars there for a night, the bench was saying 56 L$ each, but I never received the money !

Apfelland and crashes - 9222.15 by Ginko

This morning, I posted again JaneLight and JohnLight in Apfelland, but had poor results. JaneLight crashed nearly immediately, and JohnLight has been ejected from his bench after 12 L$ only.

Hopefully I had better camping this evening, so I could deposit 115 L$ by Ginko, reaching 9222.15. Depending on the week-end, I could reach the 10'000 L$ step sunday ! Sounds coooool... and good for my mood.

This week-end Josephina will inaugurate her club, more info in her "Club Josephina" group... This will certainly be a new cool place.

For the time, JaneLight and JohnLight are both camping on a 2L$ per 10 minutes bench in a very quiet place. I don't know yet if it is time limited or not. At least there are no animations, no trees, no avatars passing by, so I hope the client will not experience any difficulty.

Lack of unlimited camping sites

Today has not been as good as expected. I've been pushed out of my spot in Apfelland after 28 L$, probably by the owner. He starts talking to campers, and the one who does not react are simply ejected from the campsites. That's the hard life of parasites like me.

Nevertheless, I could camp with JaneLight on a 3L$ / 10 minutes tonight for quite a while as I was working on a website project, and JohnLight was on a 2L$ / 10 minutes. Together with the small ammount from Apfelland, I just made 100 L$. Not so bad.

However, the lack of time unlimited campsites makes my task harder. I know that Skye Club in Oceania is still open, with 150 L$ max Dance Dance systems, but they have so many pads paying nothing that I think it's too risky. I prefer 18 L$ in one hour granted in Banquo than a whole night in Skye for nothing.

I hope to find soon a new unlimited camping site, may be with some help from you, reader, via a comment, or from a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group. Remember, as member of this group, you will have a chance to earn my million linden dollar in the end !

Today could be good...

I just found enough time this morning before going to work to start a camping session with JohnLight in ApfellLand, which still offer unlimited 2L$ / 10 minutes. If it works good through all day, this will be a 100 something. Let's hope nothing will crash.

But it's sometime risky to camp at good spots. One position was free... mostly because the avatar in the next one was burning. You don't beleive that ? Have a look...


I also saw some messages in the group worrying about me. As I said, and as someone correctly mentionned, I'm really RL busy these days, but I'm still decided not to stop, even if some good campsites closed recently.

I'm not out of the game yet !

Hard day today... long long day at work, and I was back home really late. Moreover I could not have the avatars camping for the day for technical reasons.

Nevertheless I just put JohnLight on a 3L$ / 1o minutes dancepad in Banquo. It is limited to 18 L$, but this is more than nothing, and as the group had a new member, this would normally take my total to 26L$... slightly below the daily 30 objective, but hopefully I can find something better within the next 15 minutes... before going to bed, getting ready for a new long long day tomorrow... but with full day camping possibility.

Hard times ahead

From the very start of this quest for 1'000'000 L$, I expected such a period to come. Things are getting repetitive, no new stuff to report. My RL activities are quite demanding as well for the time, so it is a bit hard to find motivation for going camping.

The next step to come, 10'000 L$ is quite appealing, and I need now some discipline to maintain regular activity. This could be a key point in the adventure. I know myself good enough, if I start being uneven in this activity, it would soon decline to nothing.

My resolution is to continue, but for the next days I will have very few time because of RL, thus I will camp in places I already know, will have no time for the group, and the daily earnings will probably be just the minimal 30 L$ daily.

When I will have a bit more time, I will try to introduce new ways to make money, may be take new chances with games... and I also hope a change in luck, because lately some good campsites got closed.

As I said earlier, discipline will be the key point now...

A boring post...

I'm sorry dear reader, but I have nothing new to report. With the wonderful weather we have had for the week-end, I spent most of it outside. JohnLight did some camping at various places, and earned some new money. No new sites, no new techniques... It sounds boring, mainly because from an SL point of view, it was.

My next objective is 10'000 L$ before the next of next week... so stay online... and share any tips you could have with the "Free Money from JohnLight" group. The group is still active, even without me. When I'm online, I answer questions, and share tips, even when I'm not present the group is good.

To 10'000 L$ and beyond ... !

A new bloody way to earn money in Second Life

In some places, you can now find kind of phone booth where you sit, and then you offer teleportation to your friends. This device pays you 3 L$ for each friend you teleport...

This could sound good at first, but it is a bloody thing... as I've got tons of friends now, I receive bursts of invitation, sometimes in series... and if my mistake I click "accept" while on a good campsite, I loose my spot !

So I do not encourage usage of such devices... except may be between someone's main avatar and an alt.

Be warned, reader, if you're on my friends list and you start spamming me with such invitations, I will certainly remove you, and may be even report abuse... So the rules are clear now.

Thank you Linden Lab for this new version !

The SL client version that has been published by LindenLab after the last maintenance is really better in terms of memory and CPU consumption. For two nights in a row, I was able to leave JaneLight and JohnLight by Apfelland (each at 2 L$ / 10 minutes) without any crash.

The Macs are still damn slow after the night, but at least they go through it, getting me an average of 240 L$ / night (total for JaneLight and JohnLight together)... not so bad, isn'it ?

The price for joining the "Free Money from JohnLight" group is now 8 L$ as I've got a bit more than 8'000 L$ by Ginko. About Ginko, they are now paying 10 L$ / day in interest... the engine is warming...

The next step will be passing the 10'000 L$... which represent only 1% of my million to come, but with interest constantly increasing, and the good payrates I reach these days, it could come quicker than expected...

JohnLight's landmarks book VIII - 3L$ / 10 minutes camping - max 18 L$

There are eight 3L$ / 10 minutes dancepads in Banquo 84,12,27. They are limited to 18 L$.

As always, this spot has been announced few day ago to the member of "Free Money from JohnLight", so they got an advantage on the readers of this blog.

Maintenance again

I left JohnLight camping in Apfelland the whole day, and when I came back, I found out that there was a grid maintenance in progress. JohnLight made 92 L$ before it, and got paid, so it's not a bad score.

By luck, I was able to be back online very shortly after the end of this maintenance, so JohnLight is now camping on pad 3 in Skye Club Dance Dance (Oceania). Once again, the trick of getting online as soon as the maintenance is over appears very profitable. I should may be read the linden blog more regularly to spot such opportunities in the future.

My hope now is that the avatars on pads 1 and 2 will not be there until reaching the maximum of 150 L$, as this would last for 7 hours before JohnLight could access the 7 / 10 top pad... will see.

Ups and downs - how to find new places

After the 500+ L$ week-end, the start of week is a bit disapointing. Xero is frequently off, as they don't have running events, so their good dance dance are off, as well as the bar.

To find a new place, I did as usually. When camping, you always receive advertising landmarks from robots or other campers. As a rule, I do keep all of them. Then when my current favorite spot is closed, I look at my unsorted landmarks, and check if they are cool or crap. As you may guess, most of them are crap !

I also got a promising one from a member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group, but had no time to check it. I found a good 3L$ / 10 minutes spot, but limited to 18 L$. Obviously, I shared it with the group.

JohnLight's landmarks book VII - 2L$ / 10 minutes camping

This new spot is very good, as it is very quiet, and there are no animation, trees or CPU / memory expensive objects around.

It is a different system, not a dancepad. There is a big camping sign that you have to touch to start camping, and then touch for five seconds to get your money. You also have to remain within a certain distance of this sign.

Be cautious when using it, there is a major trick. If you reach 100L$, you get disconnected from the camping device and stop camping, but you DO NOT GET the 100L$. Thus, this can not be used for a totally unsupervised camping.

This new spot is located in Borland Fell, as announced already yesterday on the "Free Money from JohnLight" group.

563 L$ in a week-end ! - 6799.00 L$ by Ginko

Yes, you read it correctly. Between satruday evening and sunday evening, I earned 563 L$ by camping !

This has been done in various places, mostly Xero Party, but also Apfelland and a new 2L$ / 10 minutes campsite I found today. I will publish it later, for the time it is a secret I share with the "Free Money from JohnLight" group members only. The group is doing well, with new active members sharing their best campsites, and you can join now for 6 L$ only !

So yes, my Xero is my new favorite place, certainly better than any other until now. I'm quite happy, because I had a busy week-end doing sport, working on other projects and websites, so not a lot of time to supervise JohnLight and JaneLight.

The speed of earning is good, and I hope being able to maintain this pace. I'm also thinking about the machine or the 1'000'000 L$ lottery, and this is progressing.

There's more to xero than the dance dance

In the corner of Xero club is a camping bar. The standard payrate is 1L$ / 10 minutes, but if you join the "Club Xero" group, which is for free, you then get 2L$ / 10 minutes. I don't know yet if it is time limited, but JaneLight will camp here for a while, and I will post about it later on.

As usual, this information has first been given to the member of "Free Money from JohnLight" group members before being published here. Also remind that the members of this group will be eligible for earning 1'000'000 L$ when I will have it.

To buy or not to buy ? That's the question !

Here comes a topic I wanted to post about for a while. Shall I buy land or not ? So here comes a cost - benefit analysis of a piece of virtual land.

The cost part is easy. The first condition to buy land is to have a premium account. Basic membership does not allow for owning land. The cost of a premium account is 9.95 US$ per month, approximately 3000 L$ per month. Good point is that this fee can be payed using L$, but 3000 L$ per month is more than what I earn if I respect my daily minimum. I know I earned more than that within last month, but this fee would be quite heavy given my current fortune.

Then, there are monthly costs based on the owned square meters, but up to 512 square meters, it's free. Finally, one must add the cost of buying, which depends of the spot.

One other important cost aspect is that preparing the land, building a nice place, and putting items would consume much time, which is not exactly my goal... remind the "no / minimal effort" rule ?

On the benefit side, owning land grants kind of a permanent presence in SL world, which opens some interesting possibilities, like:
1) Having permanent adverts for the blog
2) Distributing notecards to visitors on a 24 / 7 basis
3) Have a donation device / tip jar for people wanting to support the project
4) Sell items even when offline

The big issue is to evaluate how much income this could generate...

So, as this would cost me half of my present money, for an unknown income, I will probably postpone that project.

Up and down of region restart

I had two camping sessions interrupted today because the region was going down.

The first one was quite bad, as it was soon after I left home for office, so I had low earnings, and no way to restart it. The second one was a bit better, beacause was back from work, and able to notice it quickly as I was on the mac doing some e-mail processing.

Your question now is certainly "how can it be good to have a camping session interrupted ?" Because I was able to be amongst the first avatars to rejoin the region when it restarted, and then I could have top spots on dance dance, with the best earning rates of all ! So yes, there are some good aspects in region restarts, if you're able to react to them quickly !

Live from the other side of Europe

As announced, I'm in eastern europe, in an ex-communist country for a work event, but the hotel appears to have free wifi in the lobby, so I checked my account. The daily income from new group memberships in "Free Money from JohnLight" was 21 L$, so I decided to top it off by playing number guessing, so I did reach the daily 30 L$ objective !

I guess I'm getting a bit obsessive about this quest for 1'000'000 L$, don't I ? Anyway, this was the post from far far away from home, and despite being small, the daily minimum has been done, and deposited by Ginko.

Let's have a short break - 5722L$ by Ginko - 50 Group members

Lots of things happened since I've been banned from Platinum because of detailling their payrates.

Thanks to the group, I found a new good campsite called Xero Party, which is located on Willow Beach 245, 238, 21. They have three Dance Dance with rates of 3-3-2-2-1-1. So no pad paying zero, so no time wasted. However, they are limited to 100 L$ per dancer.

Nevertheless, other good new is that the 50th member joined the group, so the campsite sharing amongst members of "Free Money from JohnLight" will continue to increase.

I will be out of this business for two days, but I will also profit from this time to assess what went on until now, and see if any new strategy could help me get the million even quicker.