Emerald Update: Embattled Third Party Second Life Viewer Removed From Linden Lab's Approved List; Lead Emerald Developer Reportedly Resigns

Emerald, the extremely popular third party Second Life viewer, is no longer listed among the viewers that Linden Lab officially recognizes as compliant with company policies. At the moment, I can't report when it was removed from the list, but as of today, as this screen capture indicates, it's definitely no longer there -- here's the list of third party viewers Linden Lab officially recognizes. "Beware of third-party viewers that are not in the Viewer Directory," Linden's page reads, "they have either declined to self-certify or been refused for noncompliance with our policies." As of today, that includes Emerald.

Perhaps related to that, on Friday I mentioned the "silly idea" which Emerald's blog described as "a poor attempt at boasting that failed miserably", but others described as a DDoS attack on a rival site. Taking responsibility for that incident, and a previous controversy, lead Emerald developer Fractured Crystal is reportedly leaving the team. I say "reportedly", because given Emerald's track record, combined with a lack of real world developer names heading the project, or an identifiable, legally sanctioned company associated with it, it's insufficiently clear what that announcement actually means.

So, once again, here is Linden Lab's list of compliant third party Second Life viewers. Hat tip: Katharine Berry.

Comments

[Hitomi Tiponi]

Yay - thanks for blogging this, Hamlet. It also means that the list is now 10 again, moving Kirstens back to the front page.

[Delinda Dyrssen]

Trying to Soak it all in.. and wondering (I work for them and they haven't told me) what the scoop RE: Emerald is on Tonight live With Paisley Beebe later today. sits at the edge of her seat.. waiting to hear this..

[Hitomi Tiponi]

@Delinda
Fractured has quit and handed over to Arabella the Modular Systems web server while they decide on a new figure-head willing to sign up to being responsible for Emerald, and who may be acceptable to the Lidens. Modular Systems and Emerald will split. oh. and a new release will be out soon ;).

[Delinda Dyrssen]

Hitomi Thank you. However that part I knew.. apparently there is more than that. but not sure what

[Vax Sirnah]

According to a thread over at the Emerald forums, the Emerald team asked for the entry in the list to be transferred to a new owner, and that why it is down.

http://modularsystems.sl/forum/index.php?topic=4130.0

[Little Lost Linden]

Don't forget, Paisely Beebe is dedicating a segment of her show to this new Emerald deablce tonight!

http://thebotzone.net/2010/08/22/beware-an-emerald-in-the-rough/

[jjccc]

Hang on a minute if emerald isnt on the list does this mean one third second life viwers wont work because i tried loading up viewer 2 and that dont work and all the others on the list have got key loggers in them seems to me linden labs wants to stop everone going on second life why i wonder is it because there not making any money out of it any more

[Leondra]

What does this mean? I'm in SL now on Emerald, it's my only comfort zone. Hate viewer2. Will the plug be suddenly pulled? Viewer police pull me over?

[Uccello]

@jjcc

"... all the others on the list have got key loggers in them ..."

All of them? How do you know this? Where is your proof?

[Adeon Writer]

@Leondra: It's entirely OK to use viewers that arne't on the list. You're just doing so at your own risk. However Emerald was removed from the list because the name next to it on the list, Fractured Crystal, has quit the team. The viewer will probably be added back under the new leader's name, when one exists.

[Formerly Jennnnna Jameson (now Emanuelle Jameson)]

Great post and great comments. I always learn a lot from this blog (and the very insightful comments.) I really like Emerald, I hope they work out those issues. Of the other approved viewers, which is your favorite (and why)? Any idea which is the most Mac friendly? Thanks!!!!

[Ann Otoole InSL]

If you every used any of the binaries from any of these black hats and are worried about malware then the only way you will know you are safe is to format your hard drive and start over and stop downloading binaries from anonymous internet accounts.

And once a week or minimum once a month you need to change your passwords to random strings of unique upper/lower case characters and numerals that are longer than 12 positions. This is why: http://bit.ly/dfckQ7

[Ann Otoole InSL]

So Hamlet did you listen to the voice recordings of Arabella discussing this?

[Hamlet Au]

No, what she say?

[NonTechie]

OK, for someone who is not technical in the slightest and does not know what a DDOS DOS or any of the above are, can you let us know if there is anything else to be worried about? I've read comments from various articles about this Emerald mess, and people are now searching their machines for malware, etc. If Emerald fixed the issue, should the average Emerald (or ex-Emerald) user be worried about residual pieces of software on their computers?

[Adeon Writer]

@Non, I'm not sure where the malware rumors are coming from, I don't know of anyone who has claimed an Emerald binary contained malware.

This DDoS attack was entirely contained in HTML, the technique is documented here: http://www.rohitab.com/discuss/index.php?showtopic=32583

The procedure is entirely legitimate from a user's stand point, as in, nothing was loaded to your computer, you simply accessed a webpage you weren't aware you were accessing (this happens all the time, including the site you're on now, you're loading banner ads from other servers, etc)

The only reason this is considered an attack in this case was because Emerald gave the target server an insane amount of sudden traffic due to the redirects.

This would be like if the main page of Google.com added a picture of a cat from my home computer. Suddenly the whole world would be downloading my cat picture off of my computer just by going to Google.com, which would make me unable to use my internet connection.

[Ann Otoole InSL]

The best way to resolve the drama once and for all is for something superior to come along and take the wind out of it's sails.

I have a sneaking suspicion this viewer might pick up steam and become popular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxIgT9Y7IY&fmt=22

Unless, of course, she commits it to snowstorm, like she should, and it becomes a much demanded feature in the LL viewer family. wtg Katharine Berry! Job well done.

[Loraan Fierrens]

For those what don't know, by the way, "DDoS" stands for "Distributed Denial of Service." It's a style of attack where you get a bunch of computers distributed around a network to deny service to or from another computer... usually by overloading a server or a network connection. A DDoS does not necessarily infect another computer or provide access to data but it does prevent someone from getting something done.

[William Gide]

@Non and @Adeon, even if this wasn't enough to pull off a real DoS (Denial of Service), that sort of upswing in traffic might easily cause someone to go *way* over their network service plan. If I got the Emerald victim's traffic to my own server, I'd be in financial trouble (or at least great financial vexation).

The malware thing seems like hysteria, and the keylogger (something that would record your every keystroke, and report back to someone evil stroking a hairless cat) talk is, without firm evidence, tinfoil hat territory.

[Galatea Gynoid]

@Adeon: "...you simply accessed a webpage you weren't aware you were accessing (this happens all the time, including the site you're on now, you're loading banner ads from other servers, etc)."

No, I can see the banner ads on this site. I'm well aware of the fact that I'm accessing them.

"The only reason this is considered an attack in this case was because Emerald gave the target server an insane amount of sudden traffic due to the redirects."

No, it's considered an attack because it was done with a large array of hidden iframes, making it clear that the intent was not to give the other site publicity and traffic, but to suck up their resources and bandwidth to do malicious harm to them.

"This would be like if the main page of Google.com added a picture of a cat from my home computer."

More like if they linked different pictures of your cat, but did it in a hidden way so that no one actually saw your cat, your webserver was simply crushed under the load of everyone on the internet trying to pull 32 pictures from your site at once.

[NonTechie]

Thank you to everyone who explained what the heck the issue is :) and lol @William "tinfoil hat territory"

[Little Lost Linden]

Holy Moly!

The Paisely Beebe studio is malfunctioning due to all the people trying to get in. What a mess.

http://thebotzone.net/2010/08/22/beware-an-emerald-in-the-rough/

[Little Lost Linden]

After a 40 minute delay from greifing and overloading of the sim, the Paisely Beebe show was finally able to commence from a secret location and I would have to say it was the best show in a long time. Lots of good drama.

Time to remove that Emerald viewer from your machine if you haven't already.

[Nacho Crumb]

Don't listen to JJccc he has dementia.

[Scree Raymaker]

Gotta love that Fractured left the team only after the huge uproar from the SL community about this. Previously the they were only disciplined (as mentioned in the Shennanigans post).

This and the bad press about emkdu.dll doesn't really inspire confidence if the only times they'll do the right thing is when they receive a lot of bad press (and sometimes they only do a minor form of the right thing, such as encrypting the path name used by emkdu instead of removing it entirely).

[Michelle Leckrone]

This really doesn't matter people will still use it but I'm still concerned about the lack of control over the team

be professional about it Emerald

Keep up the good work don't spoil it

[Leondra]

Sorry, spent an hour looking at Kirsten's (which I;ve tried many times) and some more time with Imprudence. The features that attract me to Emerald are 1)very much like the old SL interface, which is easy 2)can mute group chat 3)multiple attachment points to the avatar 4) my inventory loads quickly 5)and yeah..like the boob bounce... adds a little more realism, cuz I like dancing at music venues.

[Dave Bell]

This story is going to run and run. It doesn't help that the claim that the removal from the Third Party Viewer list was essentially a technicality has been rebutted by Linden Lab.

http://blogs.secondlife.com/community/features/blog/2010/08/24/malicious-viewers-and-our-third-party-viewer-policy

And that was also sent out as an email to all SL customers.

I've stopped using Emerald. The way the developers are handling the known security weaknesses is disturbing. At best, they're being pretty careless.

This has gone beyond the Alphaville Herald throwing dirt.

And it's a pity, because Emerald has some very useful features.

[Elle]

yo all, i dont buy the malware thing for an instant, if you have had any proper dealings with LL you will know its entirly probable that they have pulled emerald on some bs excuse of whatever cuz soo many people hated 2.0 and this will now force people to use 2.0 if they wanna keep playing, LL arent professional and they change the rules to suit themselves, been on there 5 years and seen it with mah virtual eyes lol also bf had a thriving buisness of land sales (30 sims) and lindenxchanges and they screwed him utterly by changing the rules and now hes left sl completely, at its worst we called LL and had to deal and EXPLAIN the issues to 12 lindens! no lie all cuz we arent american and dont have us bank accounts. Beleive they are full of ****