Due to Green Zone griefers visiting our customers locations in order to cause them grief and spread false information, we took the decision to make our free Voodoo Tracker HUD identify them to its wearer, exactly as the GreenZone HUD does to Voodoo products.
This informs the owner that the avatar is a member of a well known griefing group, so that they can take the decision on whether to listen or eject them from the land.
We've found, griefers don't like to be indentified, and because of this they have targeted and flamed our HUD on Second Life Marketplace.
In an unrelated incident several days ago, a Green Zone Users group moderator, Unya Tigerfish posted a comment in SL Universe forums containing what they believed was a personal real life address of a Voodoo staff member. The comment was removed the same day by an SL Universe administrator. This is the actions of a group claiming to be interested in peoples privacy, which obviously is to cover story to hide their griefing and stalking activities.
Back on subject, below are some comments made by Green Zone griefers on SL Marketplace.
These people have all taken the decision to support a group well known for griefing, and despite being informed remain in the group.
A regular Second Life sandbox user and long term creator reported to us several months ago that she had witnessed hackers attempting to send a denial of service attack to our server from the sandbox she was working in.
It was reported to Linden Labs at the time, but due to the nature of the problem, really there is not much that they can do to stop it, so no resolution was implemented.
A few days ago, the same person witnessed this attack again and after seeing it happen over several months, decided to create a well thought out JIRA report to suggest a way that it could be resolved.
The owner of Voodoo (the website being attacked in the screenshot) was asked to comment about the attack and we encouraged people to vote for the issue in our group chat. Some people posted messages of support of the feature.
In comes the Green Zone griefers ...
Although the Second Life JIRA is a tool to be used strictly for reporting bugs and feature suggestions, the Green Zone members hijacked the JIRA to make personal attacks, insults and other unhelpful comments. The comment below from Cyborg Renfold is particularly confusing, as he has been known on several occasions to stalk and publish peoples real life names and addresses in the Green Zone Users group chat. The moderators then refuse to eject him.
This and previous posts prove without a doubt that Green Zone is a griefer group and like Woodbury University group, should be banned from Second Life by Linden Labs. We hope they continue to prove themselves griefers so that Linden Labs can take action sooner rather than later.
Today I was contacted by Anastasia Howlett, one of the owners in the Green Zone Users group who recently attacked our server (see previous post). In the chat text below they deny the evidence from our server log, claim to have handled their griefer problem and admit to probing our systems with a proxy server.
[11:10] Anastasia Howlett: Hi
[11:14] Monkey Wonder: hello anastasia
[11:15] Anastasia Howlett: I don't have those skills [11:15] Anastasia Howlett: I can asure you I have not what you said, for what it is worth [11:16] Monkey Wonder: you have the resources to do it through fart, and I have a server log that says otherwise
[11:16] Anastasia Howlett: But as I said - I will not start a personal war
[11:17] Anastasia Howlett: I am flattered you have these high thoughts of me :-)
[11:18] Monkey Wonder: don't flatter yourself, i don't think very highly of anyone in your group
[11:19] Anastasia Howlett: Well, there are both sorts. I don't like herrassing and griefing anyone, no matter who it is
[11:19] Monkey Wonder: yet you do nothing to discourage your members doing it for you [11:20] Anastasia Howlett: Griefing GZ members has been ejected from the GZ group
[11:22] Anastasia Howlett: Well, just wanted to tell you that it was not me. If it would had been someone else that had been faulty accused ... Well, good maybe you accused me? [11:24] Anastasia Howlett: The only thing I have done ONCE is testing your sploder with an alt using a proxy. And it worked. I did it ONCE, just to test
[11:24] Anastasia Howlett: I don't like sploders, to restless to wait :)
[11:26] Anastasia Howlett: I read that you could see proxies, so I tested with one from USA I use when using US services not available in EU [11:31] Monkey Wonder: as a moderator of green zone do you have any interest in trying to resolve this mess, or do you want to carry on? [11:32] Anastasia Howlett: I am not a moderator, actually. I am an owner. I very seldom read what is said in the group. I have not the time [11:33] Anastasia Howlett: When I am in SL, I am quite busy with my shop and creating new stuff, customer supprt etc, etc [11:34] Monkey Wonder: so, as an owner, that is no then ok
[11:34] Anastasia Howlett: I really whish I had the time to do it, really
[11:34] Anastasia Howlett: But I am not on very much
So again Voodoo has made the first move to a resolution, but again we have got nowhere with the group owners who generally have little interest in the group, and certainly are not interested in moderating it, leaving it free for any griefer to abuse.
According to our data, the claim of griefers being ejected from the group is a lie to try and give the impression something is being done about their problem.
Accessing our gaming systems using a proxy server is explicitly against the Voodoo terms of service agreement and DOS attacks are illegal.
Part 3 of Green Zone's drama will be coming soon, but in the meantime ...
Today we stumbled upon some motionless Green Zone bots on a platform at 3500m in the air, some even displaying their 'Green Zone' tags.
This is a common way for land owners to cheat search ranking for their land by inflating their traffic score with scripted agents (bots). There are no humans controlling these avatars, just software.
The avatars in the picture, listed on our Second Life Griefers page, that are blacklisted by Voodoo for griefing are shown in red below.
Following on from the Part 1, this post answers some common points raised on various forums and details some of the attacks by Green Zone Users group. If you are a member of Green Zone, you are showing your support and endorsing the attacks made on legal Second Life businesses.
I belong to GreenZone! I have never griefed anyone!
1.
The Green Zone Users group founder Fart Admiral has created a 'GZ' HUD widely used by group members, (which you personally endorse by belonging to the group).
Fart Admiral can decide what the HUD identifies to it's wearer as '[01:32] GreenZone 4.0: Watch out ! Potential Avatar / IP gathering / spyware device found !'.
Every Voodoo product (as well as other peoples creations) is identified by the GZ HUD with the above message, and this blacklisting was initiated without any prior communication with Voodoo, or any research to find out what the products actually do.
The tactic used here is to blacklist and damage a merchants reputation to get their attention, and then demand they change their legal products to the standards of Greenzone with the promise of being taken off their blacklist, which we found after about 6 months never seems to materialize.
2.
While any product is listed on the above HUD and labelled Spyware by Green Zone, even during negotiations, the members of the group attempt to find the locations of the product and send notecards to the owner. The notecards are from templates made by group founder Fart Admiral.
100's of these notecards have been sent to Voodoo product owners, the most recent by 'mic Inshan', as seen below.
Greenzone has detected a Spyware. While you have the right to run the spyware, I have the right to not spend my time here. Your spyware invades my privacy by collecting my personal IP address and entering it into a database for the purpose of identifying my alts, if any.
Multiple nameless threats are posted to us on our website everyday. The examples below were posted to us on 2nd May 2012, from IP address 90.168.94.93 which resolves to Orange ISP in Spain, using Mozilla Firefox.
Wed, 2 May 2012 08:09 A question for Sofie, Lavita, Sadeq, etc. When will you understand that Monkey wonder is crazy? Or perhaps you know it already but you don't mind. He isn't just a criminal, he is really mad
Wed, 2 May 2012 08:13 As Linden Lab is missing and do nothing, you are going to be reported to RL police
Wed, 2 May 2012 08:17 You aren't griefers, you are criminals
4.
On 24th April 2012, a well known Green Zone Users group member forced their way into Voodoo Anti Bot group after being ejected several times and evaded our moderators attempts to disable their text.
[2012/04/24 08:35] sarina Voorhees: stop voodoo
[2012/04/24 08:36] sarina Voorhees: are scammers and treaters
[2012/04/24 08:38] sarina Voorhees: asshole
[2012/04/24 08:44] sarina Voorhees: bye bye voodoo soon on the end
From the 16th to the 23rd April 2012, the below instant messages were sent to Monkey Wonder, some of it sent while the avatar was standing in the Voodoo Mainstore.
[2012/04/16 05:23] Joan Arias: Abuse report for you [2012/04/20 11:00] Joan Arias: /me looks at the monkey and laughs, laughs, laughs, and can't stop laughing of this stupid thing [2012/04/23 07:51] Joan Arias: nh, just taking pictures for the next AR
2012-04-24 [19:24:16] Joan.Arias: lol, you are like a tick, but ticks have more ethics than you 2012-04-24 [19:24:46] Joan.Arias: do you sleep by nights, Monkey?
These are just two examples of personally directed verbal abuse from prominent Green Zone Users group members, it is a daily occurrence and all instances of this kind of griefing are too numerous to list here.
If you are a member of Greenzone, these people are speaking on your behalf.
5.
A moderator of Green Zone, Anastasia Howlett attempted to hack our website in April 2012 by creating an LSL script that made automated requests to the Voodoo Sploder verify page.
The web requests came from IP address 216.82.45.162 (sim9828.agni.lindenlab.com)
The HTTP headers contained:-
This form of griefing has been carried out by other members of the group in the past, but this is the most recent case. In March a similar attack bought the Sploder network down for 2 hours.
This is not related to a network issue we experienced in 2011, (ref. https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-7140).
Sending denial of service attacks is illegal in most countries and this activity has been reported to Linden Labs and the police.
6.
Several prominent Green Zone Users group members have begun a flaming campaign against us on Twitter, which we have tried to give minimal response to. The accounts used often have almost no followers, but they usually use popular hash tags to ensure an audience and promote malicious blogs.
A small extract:-
Imnotgoing Sideways is a Green Zone griefer group member and SLU flamer, his/her Second Life profile reads "I'm not nice. You won't like me. Trust me on this." They sell two low quality free items on Second Life Marketplace with reviews like "Didn't do what its supposed to!" and "Didn't work".
Potosi Abonwood is a prominent GZ griefer, although only has 8 Twitter followers, seems to be able to post effectively tagged tweets indicating this could be an alt account created to flame people. They have also created a malicious 'adult rated' blog in which they continuously flame Voodoo using false information.
In answer to those tweets, we use comment moderation because we are being targeted by griefers, and the blog is hosted on blogger.com to keep the 'gz orientated drama' content away from our main website and increase visibility in search engines.
7.
During 2011 Green Zone Users group attacked a security business in Second Life called JLU (Justice League Unlimited) and all their customers because they had developed a security device called PhantomZone that wasn't acceptable to green zone's standards. This was another case of GZ acting on rumour alone.
Below is a notecard forwarded to me from a PhantomZone owner, which he was forced to pass on to all his visitors after being griefed by Green Zone Users group.
The Green Zone Hud – Griefer Trick
The GreenZone Hud is a tool that has been developed by griefers in order to locate and identify Security Devices used to prevent griefing. When an anti griefing security device is located the HUD wrongly identifies the device as spyware. Do not let these griefers fool you by getting you to assist in spreading their lies. The Green Zone Group was formed by griefers in order to trick otherwise good people to do their bidding, by getting sims such as ##### to lower their defenses, making the sim more susceptible to griefing attacks.
Please pass this on to any of our patrons who voice concerns over our security devices and assure them we are not violating their privacy in any way, shape or form.
Recently Voodoo SL began to blacklist groups in Second Life known for causing grief to others, to raise awareness of the members of these groups to people so they can avoid being caught up in the trouble caused by them.
The 'Green Zone Users' group in Second Life was the first to come to our attention due to their previous controversial campaigns against legal SL businesses and their attacks on us which have been sustained over many months.
Looking into the group
Since Greenzone's attacks on us started over a year ago we have monitored the groups activities, along with other third parties interested in security and have found their processes quite disturbing.
The groups information comes from rumour alone, very often a rumour is started in group chat, and without knowing any facts others in there jump on the bandwagon and create a hysteria.
Since the legitimate reason for its existence [Red Zone] was removed from SL, the group has become open to anyone who wishes to attack others and appear to have a crowd supporting their actions.
Unya Tigerfish is a moderator and 'voice' of the 'official' side of Green Zone ...
Unya Tigerfish: Noone has control over the individuals there.
Unya Tigerfish: The majority of the GZ group are shortlived jerks.
When people are banned from Voodoo gaming systems for repeated cheating attempts, and after being given many second chances, they will often join the Green Zone group with several alt avatars to rally up support for a new campaign of grief against us and our customers. The majority of the members of the group are no longer the privacy campaigners of the original Greenzone, but griefers and cheats who have hijacked the group for their own agenda.
How do Greenzone grief?
Greenzone have been known to use any griefing tactic that is available to them.
Individuals hand out defamatory notecards which have been hand crafted by the founder Fart Admiral in a "Fill in the blanks" style, so that anyone can defame products in a coherent and well thought out way.
Our servers have been DOS attacked, and when traced back originate from inworld objects created by individuals belonging to Green Zone Users group.
Several bots known to belong to a Green Zone member attempted to brute force their way into Voodoo Anti Bot group to troll in group chat.
The group founder Fart Admiral has created a HUD that detects perfectly legal and harmless objects in Second Life, which they decide to target and announce as Spyware creating unfounded fear in its wearer.
Personal and often crude insults are made on an almost hourly basis, lies are fabricated to create fear, and one member "Cyborg Renfold" is known to release real life addresses of their targets. This is a privacy advocacy group?
