There is no such thing as real privacy in second life… true there are security orbs you can pretty much automatically eject anyone at any time, even when you are offline, but when it comes to curious neighbours next door or close to where you are, any means used for privacy are, like the picture says, a privacy symbol.

I recently -after pondering all of the pros and cons- decided to move permanently to my son’s ranch, you know wide open spaces, silence, a cosy little cabin. He offered space for a second residence and since I spend most of my dead in-world hours with him in there, it seemed simpler to just make the move.

It’s all been -so far- dreamy; we “wake up” (log in bright and early that is) talk about our things and when time comes we both move on to our RLs. He had a few ideas on changing and moving things around the ranch to make my stay more comfortable, but I refused; no extra efforts or changing of things because of me; I like things as they are and am -by definition- not a big fan of sudden change. Then, half jokingly he mentioned curtains for his house, which is across from where my cabin is now. My house has no windows so I saw this suggestion of his as either a joke or a pointless idea. I have no plan of sitting in the porch trying to make sense out of the blurs and shadows that are moving inside, so I just brushed it off.

Today, I log in at our usual time and, surprise, he’s setting up curtains. “You’re not seeing anyone, or planning to” I say, “it’s just for privacy” he replies. This got me thinking, in this simulator that Second life is, is there a real idea or concept of privacy? If you have neighbours, whether it’d be that you’re living in an apartment complex or on a quiet sim with neighbouring houses, all your neighbours have to do is zoom in on you or cam in, to get a very graphic idea of what you are doing. A pretty disturbing concept if the peeping is unwanted, unsolicited and the peeved party, unsuspecting.

With all of the advances being planned for our virtual world, whether we call it mesh or whatever it may come, I often ask myself if a mean to prevent zooming in on certain areas is planned or possible for the near future -a security orb of sorts, but preventing unsolicited camming-.

Whomever managed to work the script for such a thing would not only change how we guard privacy, and consequently change second life, but would surely make a fortune. Those are curtains I would not mind spending a few thousands linden on.

https://www.facebook.com/spikecls

Labels: CURTAINS, PRIVACY, Second Life, SECURITY, SPIKE CLEMENCEAU