Web Textures

This page is for showing the different pros and cons of different approaches of new ways of getting new URL's to the client. A big question on the minds of developers is LL's policies on Expected Privacy. Understanding what LL thinks on this may lead us to understanding what LL will do. Let's do our best to fill this out with both sides.

Client direct downloading of Images

The client directly downloads the Image from the web and displays it on a face.

Pros

Technical

Simple and straightfoward.

Privacy

Parcel owners in Second Life will be able to implement the same defense techniques that have been used in IRC for years. The problem of griefing on unverified alts will be mitigated.

Cons

Technical

1. Minor risk that some users won't be able to reach some URLs, causing support issues because a user can't download a spacific image.
2. Images may have to be generated as size powers of 2.

Privacy

Risk due to items that can track users, possibly allowing alts to be matched to their owners.

LL Downloading of URL, passing back to client/LL as an anonymizing proxy

This solution suggests that if anyone needs to download a URL, that LL will download the URL, then send the image to the client.

Pros

Technical

Guarantees that the image will be served up in a timely fashion because it will be hosted by LL's content servers. NOTE: Actually this is not true because LL would still have to fetch the image from the source and if the source is down or has a slow connection LL won't be able to fetch it any better than a client

Privacy

Good for privacy because the user never connects to a foreign server.

Cons

Technical

1. Lots of bandwidth on LL's part. Every time an image is requested, LL will have to pull a copy of the requested assets from the web server and send it back out. If they implement caching, it defeats the dynamic purpose of pulling a texture off the web. Therefore little caching can be done on LL servers. This feature isn't "use random images off the web"... it's specifically for images generated dynamically for this purpose.

1. Images may have to be generated as size powers of 2.

Privacy

None known.

P2p-based

A Bittorrent-like p2p downloading system.

Cons

Technical

The overhead in time and bandwidth of having to find a peer hosting every requested asset would make this infeasible for a real-time metaverse like Second Life

Privacy

This doesn't address any of the privacy concerns at all. Bittorrent-like protocols expose IP addresses of people sharing and requesting textures so it would still be possible to tie sensors in-world to requests for unique textures also at that location. Maybe the person proposing this was thinking of a multiple hop network like Tor or a darknet protocol like Freenet?

Anonymous P2p-based proxy

A Tor-like p2p downloading system.

Cons

Technical

Ever tried to use Tor or Freenet?