In light of the recent uproar about data mining by unscrupulous people exploiting a hole in the viewer media system, I thought it might be helpful to include a few ways to protect yourself.

These are not ideal by any means, but until Linden Labs bans these and any other data mining systems and fixes the security hole(s) they exploit, options are limited.

Update your Viewer

This is the single most important thing you can do.

Check the website(s) of the viewer(s) you use and as soon as a fix for the Media exploit is released be sure to upgrade.

As of this writing,  the following viewers have been patched to help fight the media exploit.

Cool VL Viewer 1.25.0.23

Dolphin Viewer  1.5.46.3627

Phoenix Viewer has had a patch submitted and word has it this will be included in the next release (The current version as of this writing is 1.5.2.908).

No Viewer Update Available

If your viewer has not been patched yet, here are some other steps you can take:

1) Keep streaming music and media (video) turned off in your Sound & Media Preferences unless you know for sure no data mining system is being used and you completely trust the people around you*.

2) Don’t access Shared Media (web-on-a-prim)

3) Find out if places you frequent using a CDS or similar “copybot” scanning systems and stop going there.

The no2redzone website and Boy Lane, creator of the Rainbow Viewer, provided this workaround to block the known offender URLS from connecting to you.

IMPORTANT: This workaround involves editing a system file. If you do not know how to edit a system file or are not comfortable manually configuring your network, DO NOT USE THIS! Use the information above until a patch is released for your viewer(s).

NOTE: This will not block them all and if the ones covered here change domains, these will need to be updated.

On Windows open: C:WINDOWSsystem32driversetchosts

On Linux open:  /etc/hosts

On Mac open: /private/etc/hosts

Add these lines:

127.0.0.1 isellsl.ath.cx
127.0.0.1 isellsl.com
127.0.0.1 zfire.isellsl.com
127.0.0.1 girlsofthevip.com
127.0.0.1 hamlinpro.com
127.0.0.1 syscast.net
127.0.0.1 media.syscast.net
127.0.0.1 apache2-blow.port-au-prince.dreamhost.com
127.0.0.1 quickware.net
127.0.0.1 quickware.zapto.org
127.0.0.1 wh0.zapto.org
127.0.0.1 m.sparkgap.info

Save the file.

About Greenzone

I have no first hand information about the Greenzone system which has recently appeared. Anecdotal information is not encouraging that this system is safe or reliable.

The code is closed source so there is no way to know exactly what this is system is actually doing. Snippets posted in various areas suggest Greenzone also collects information and exports it to an external database.

Other testimony posted online suggest the Greenzone is also wildly unreliable and has been used in griefing attacks on regions using the Red Zone system.

Again, I have no first hand experience with this system and everything I said above is purely from 3rd party postings. My suggestion would be not to take any chances and avoid it.

* The reason you need to trust the people around you comes from the fact that at least 1 of these data mining sytems has a HUD available.