User:Zero Linden/Office Hours/2008 September 04

• [8:35] Rex Cronon: sai r u sleeping:)
• [8:35] G2 Proto: lol
• [8:35] Lillie Yifu: hihi Zero
• [8:35] Zero Linden: "Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping? Brother Sai? Brother Sai?"
• [8:35] XLR8RRICK Hudson: hey Zero
• [8:35] G2 Proto: haha
• [8:35] Saijanai Kuhn: There 'tis
• [8:35] Lillie Yifu: maybe he's just in processor cycling mode
• [8:35] Rex Cronon: hello zero
• [8:35] JayR Cela: hi there Zero :_)
• [8:36] G2 Proto: backups are happening
• [8:36] Saijanai Kuhn: zzzz- Good Morning Teacher
• [8:36] G2 Proto: lol
• [8:36] Zero Linden: "Morning AV's a-Blinging... Morning AV's a-Blinging...."
• [8:36] G2 Proto: haha
• [8:36] Zero Linden: "TP away.... TP away...."
• [8:36] Saijanai Kuhn: admires teh green 1 floating above his head... Bling?
• [8:37] Zero Linden: no no
• [8:37] Himalaya Zerbino: bling off
• [8:37] Zero Linden: the song is an admonition to the sleepy monk to remind hiim that the Avatars with heavy bling are arriving and it is time to wake up and TP to a different region....
• [8:37] Saijanai Kuhn: ah, so.
• [8:38] Zero Linden: It was a popular children's song in the 16th century around the regions of Arles and Mauve
• [8:38] Saijanai Kuhn: the deeper significance escapted me. Must... watch... more... anime...
• [8:38] G2 Proto: wow cool
• [8:38] XLR8RRICK Hudson: they had Bling back then
• [8:38] Squirrel Wood: low lag, scriptless bling? it IS possible ^^
• [8:39] Saijanai Kuhn: The original bling was called "rocks"
• [8:39] Zero Linden: Now then.... "The Grand ol'Fur of York....He had ten thousand prims...."
• [8:39] Himalaya Zerbino: siny rocks
• [8:39] Saijanai Kuhn: closes his eyes and snores loudly, trying to drown out the noise
• [8:39] Zero Linden: "...he rez'd them up on the top of the sim, and he rez'd them down again."
• [8:39] Zero Linden: stop me
• [8:39] Zero Linden: please
• [8:39] Saijanai Kuhn: something new in your coffee this morning?
• [8:39] G2 Proto: lol
• [8:40] Squirrel Wood: [1] ^^
• [8:41] Goldie Katsu: really needs to get her browser windows down to under 20 if she's going to click on links in SL (and re-open the saved browser.)
• [8:41] Zero Linden: Don't tell ANYONE about that rendering bug.... or there'll be a new line of high end designer clothing that requires it in no time
• [8:41] Squirrel Wood: hehe
• [8:41] Zero Linden: welcome everyone
• [8:41] G2 Proto: woot
• [8:41] XLR8RRICK Hudson: CTRL SHT W
• [8:41] Zero Linden: how many are here from SLCC?
• [8:41] Xugu Madison: Hi Zero, sorry I'm late, and while I'm babbling off-topic; SLim looks fantastic to me BTW
• [8:42] Mirt Tenk: I'm going there later today
• [8:43] Zero Linden: oh look it that --- Joe announced SLim
• [8:44] Mirt Tenk: when can we get it?
• [8:44] Saijanai Kuhn: Znet had a nice iterview with him too
• [8:44] Mirt Tenk: v exciting
• [8:44] XLR8RRICK Hudson: what is it
• [8:44] Zero Linden: [2]
• [8:44] Saijanai Kuhn: Though, once we get pyogp rolling...
• [8:44] Zero Linden: A lightweight SL IM and voice client
• [8:44] JayR Cela: and it was yanked from downloads / because it is not ready for prime time / or reruns for that matter :_)
• [8:45] Zero Linden: They are showing it at SLCC
• [8:45] JayR Cela: its crap
• [8:45] Zero Linden: don't know when it is ready
• [8:45] G2 Proto: I thinks its a gret idea
• [8:45] Zero Linden: gee, thanks for the editorial, JayR
• [8:45] G2 Proto: great
• [8:45] JayR Cela: why not just use Jabber
• [8:45] Saijanai Kuhn: mutters about python-based lightweight clients...
• [8:45] G2 Proto: I would only trust SLim with my account info
• [8:45] TwitterBox v0.4: [script:TwitterBox]: Script run-time error
• [8:45] TwitterBox v0.4: [script:TwitterBox]: Stack-Heap Collision
• [8:45] Xugu Madison: Joe Linden mentioned being willing to discuss XMPP/Jabber at office hours... but does he have office hours, or is he going to take over someone elese's? :)
• [8:46] Zero Linden: groans every time he sees a Stack-Heap Collision
• [8:46] Rex Cronon: mono crashes twitter. lol
• [8:46] Zero Linden: I don't know.... he didn't tell me
• [8:46] Xugu Madison: Zero, we expect you to be omniscient!
• [8:46] Zero Linden: I explored Jabber based solutions for SL about two years ago
• [8:47] Zero Linden: At the time, it required significant hardware to support the loads we were handling --- but mostly because the expectations of Jabber don't match the expectations of SL users
• [8:47] Saijanai Kuhn: [3] interview with Joe LInden
• [8:47] Lillie Yifu: what did you find Zero?
• [8:47] G2 Proto: SLim sounds perfect then
• [8:47] Zero Linden: in particular, Jabber isn't adept at having every active person connected to 20 group chats
• [8:47] JayR Cela: well I am using the Pidgon / client for Jabber with G-mail & google talk with Windows and a Linux client / works pretty darn good and is easy to set up
• [8:48] Xugu Madison: nods to Zero "Suspect it would still not be too easy, alas. Was that with a server from someone else, or just looking directly at the protocol?"
• [8:48] Zero Linden: especially when at least a few of those group chats will have well over a few hundred participants
• [8:48] Zero Linden: Xugu - that was talking with an external server provider --- a company with experience
• [8:49] Zero Linden: and basically they told us that they could handle our characteristics on a some very big, expensive iron......
• [8:49] Zero Linden: ....and with their propriatary extensions to XMPP
• [8:49] Zero Linden: so that didn't look too attractive to us
• [8:49] Xugu Madison: I'm just always nervous about how people are trying to parse XML for any XML based standards
• [8:49] G2 Proto: agreed I like free accounts
• [8:49] Xugu Madison: Yeah, can understand that. Hmmm. IRC? :)
• [8:49] G2 Proto: helps get people in world
• [8:50] Zero Linden: XMPP does have the bizarre property of being a single long XML document --- and so doesn't play well with all XML parsers....
• [8:50] Zero Linden: of course, that isn't quite that much of an issue since there are XMPP libraries available
• [8:50] Saijanai Kuhn: Zero, the basic idea of the Agent Domain acting as the proxy to group IM seems reasonably straightforward, and seems like it would lighten the load a bit
• [8:51] Zero Linden: Xugu - IRC has the problem that the servers can't handle the number of group chat rooms that we have
• [8:51] Lillie Yifu: It could alsobe made so the user isn't trusting their account information anywhere beyond where they are no.
• [8:51] Zero Linden: Now - in all these cases
• [8:51] Rex Cronon: i don't belive that AD should be burdened with that too
• [8:51] G2 Proto: that is key Lillie
• [8:51] Zero Linden: one could play games like dividing up the groups among different servers
• [8:51] Zero Linden: etc....
• [8:51] Lillie Yifu: The AD can tell the outside service "go ask this place for the cap/password/other ifnormation"
• [8:52] G2 Proto: I don't want my e-commerce account shared around
• [8:52] Zero Linden: but -- the more one does that, the less it is going to feel like an interoperable use of that protocol
• [8:52] Lillie Yifu: so jabber won't know your sl passowrd
• [8:52] Lillie Yifu: and the ad won't know your jabber passswords
• [8:52] G2 Proto: exactly Lillie
• [8:52] Lillie Yifu: hmmm
• [8:52] Xugu Madison: And reworking Jabber to fit... yeah, I've never liked smashing protocols into a hole they clearly don't fit
• [8:53] Lillie Yifu: we've mentioned this in various contexts
• [8:53] Lillie Yifu: but this kind of hand off process
• [8:53] Lillie Yifu: where the AD tells antoehr service to communicate witht e client directly
• [8:53] Lillie Yifu: needs some thought
• [8:53] Zero Linden: Lille - right - so the AD could indeed tell the viewer where the IRC or Jabber server is, and what credential to use to sign into it -- for any particular conversation (IM or Group chat)
• [8:53] Lillie Yifu: because the AD is going to be doing it along, and probably in contexts that are nto currently envisioned.
• [8:54] Zero Linden: but at that point - you aren't really making use of the common IM system
• [8:54] Zero Linden: since, for example, you wouldn't be able to just log into the chat/IM sub-system with your favorite IM client
• [8:55] Zero Linden: Don't get me wrong - I can see the value of using such a standard --- I just don't know how to get it match the use profile of SL yet
• [8:55] Xugu Madison: Zero, if we come at this from the other angle, that you have a working protocol, lets spread it beyond SL, is that a sane thing at all?
• [8:55] Saijanai Kuhn: Zero, I see no reason why it can't do that for external sIM, but for the common case, why not use the AD as the "ISP" for the avatar, and let it receive the email (group IM) and deal with it appropriately with the avie is online or off-line
• [8:55] Lillie Yifu: but liek fire and pther multi-system clients, it would be intergrated from my viewpoint
• [8:55] Lillie Yifu: I log into my IM client
• [8:55] Lillie Yifu: it goes through my key chain and logs into all the systems I've told it to auto log inot.
• [8:55] Zero Linden: Sai - I certainly hope that in the future, people will regard their AD much like their ISP and their e-mail provider
• [8:55] Zero Linden: and sure - if *I* were a building an AD, I'd add e-mail services to it
• [8:56] G2 Proto: hehe
• [8:56] Lillie Yifu: zero += 10;
• [8:56] Saijanai Kuhn: well, specifically, the group IM server doesn't know the actual conection of hte avie, it just knows the avie name and the AD associated with the avie, and sends messages to the avie via the AD
• [8:56] Saijanai Kuhn: the AD decides whether or not the avie is online
• [8:56] G2 Proto: its a good time to be in the 3D biz your now even encroaching on email yikes
• [8:56] Saijanai Kuhn: and passes the message along, sends it to email, or just eats it
• [8:57] Zero Linden: contemplates world domination....
• [8:57] G2 Proto: lol
• [8:57] Saijanai Kuhn: I was usuing email as a metaphor for group IM
• [8:57] G2 Proto: i think you already commtemplated, really reflecting now lol
• [8:57] Saijanai Kuhn: ISP is to AD as email is ot group IM
• [8:57] G2 Proto: its all good I am bored with the 2d web
• [8:58] Zero Linden: /rummages around his inventory trying to find his monk robes...
• [8:58] G2 Proto: muhahaha
• [8:58] Zero Linden: no no, I'm really not attached to virtual material possessions
• [8:58] Saijanai Kuhn: but they ARE attached to you
• [8:58] Zero Linden: d'oh!
• [8:58] Goldie Katsu: thinks world domination sounds fun
• [8:58] Zero Linden: Saijanai +1
• [8:58] G2 Proto: woot
• [8:58] XLR8RRICK Hudson: you got a big pile
• [8:59] Saijanai Kuhn: so anyway, my idea for group IM is to (for now) keep the current setup, but instead of sending messages directly to and from avies, send them to the AD which decides what to do with them
• [9:00] Zero Linden: That has been my thinking as well for quite some time
• [9:00] Zero Linden: BUT
• [9:00] Saijanai Kuhn: the group IM server sends a given message + avie name(s) to the AD, and the AD distributes them according to who is online or not
• [9:00] Zero Linden: consider this new ues case that appeared on my horizon this summer
• [9:00] Zero Linden: You are in a RD run, say, at your company for purposes of company research collaboration
• [9:01] Zero Linden: You find one of your co-workers is on-line, but in some other sim, but in the research RD
• [9:01] Zero Linden: You are in the middle of something where you are
• [9:01] Zero Linden: so you wish to IM her a question
• [9:01] Zero Linden: I think you'd want that text to travel only with the RD servers
• [9:02] Saijanai Kuhn: RD-pecific IM vs AD IM
• [9:02] Zero Linden: so that under those conditions, the company would feel secure that it is all "behind the firewall"
• [9:02] Zero Linden: So now the question is -- do we need to expose that the users in some way (I have to choose *how* to IM her)
• [9:02] Coral Gausman: send tokens via AD, the tokens resolve to messages within the RD
• [9:02] Zero Linden: or is there a reasonable way we can route that automatically
• [9:02] Saijanai Kuhn: the PROBLEM is, you have made the AD somewhat knowledgeable about any and all transactions with the client
• [9:03] Coral Gausman: RD keeps the maping okens to messages, AD does the routing
• [9:03] Xugu Madison: YOu could ask the AD where to send stuff, but that does also mean that the client has to handle a lot more states
• [9:03] Saijanai Kuhn: stilll puts the AD into a man in the middle position
• [9:03] Zero Linden: Right - so we need a way, that if the ADs and RD agree, that an AV to AV, or even group IM, can go entirely via the RD
• [9:04] Saijanai Kuhn: anything puts the AD into the man in the middle position as far as I can telll
• [9:04] Saijanai Kuhn: if the AD ever dealt with supplying the connection to the RD via the seedcap, the AD still has access to everything
• [9:04] Coral Gausman: if people are -that- paranoid, then they need to use an AD behind the firewall
• [9:04] Coral Gausman: can't have it all
• [9:05] Xugu Madison: Yeah.... I tend to agree, if you're that worried about where your messages are going, IM isn't the answer
• [9:05] Zero Linden: well ... consider something like this:
• [9:05] Coral Gausman: but the token thing will effectively prevent the message from leaving the area
• [9:05] Saijanai Kuhn: not via the normal OGP channels at least
• [9:06] Zero Linden: we'll say that Able is in ALab and Beth is in BLab and both ALab and BLab are in the RD BigCO
• [9:07] Zero Linden: but Able is in AD AAAvies and Beth is in BigAVs
• [9:07] Zero Linden: SO....I imagine a sequence very rougjly like this
• [9:08] Zero Linden: Able -> AAAvies: I'd like to IM Beth via BigCo if possible
• [9:08] Zero Linden: AAAviews -> BigAVs: Will you tell me where Beth is (she's a friend of Able's)
• [9:08] Zero Linden: BigAVs -> AAAviews: Sure, Beth is somewhere in BigCO
• [9:09] Saijanai Kuhn: anything that goes through the AD is vulnerable to the man in the middle
• [9:09] Zero Linden: AAAviews -> BigCo: Able would like to IM Beth, can you get me a cap to IM her directly?
• [9:09] Saijanai Kuhn: where did AAAViews get the connection to BIgCo?
• [9:09] Zero Linden: Bug - all your conversations with ADs are under HTTPS
• [9:09] Zero Linden: *but
• [9:10] Tao Takashi: Hi
• [9:10] Saijanai Kuhn: I think Bug is a mre appropriate thing
• [9:10] Rex Cronon: hi
• [9:10] Malburns Writer: Hi Tao
• [9:10] Zero Linden: I suppose you could ask the region you are in directly first
• [9:10] Saijanai Kuhn: you can spoof the https<=> htps
• [9:11] Saijanai Kuhn: you'd need to have a direct way to connect to BigCo without getting it through the AD
• [9:11] Zero Linden: Can you point to a spoof of HTTPS?
• [9:11] Zero Linden: (with certificate checking enabled)
• [9:11] Saijanai Kuhn: at most you could trust the NAME, but not a CAP
• [9:11] Zero Linden: I dont understand
• [9:11] Zero Linden: oh - are you worried that AD will substitute a different cap?
• [9:12] Saijanai Kuhn: client <=https=> AD <=https=> AD
• [9:12] Saijanai Kuhn: RD
• [9:12] Saijanai Kuhn: client <=https=> AD <=https=> RD
• [9:12] Xugu Madison: So how does the client end up accepting the wrong AD?
• [9:13] Xugu Madison: Oh, right, nevermind
• [9:13] Saijanai Kuhn: CAPs are supposed to contain NO intelligence at all
• [9:13] Zero Linden: Well - one must assume that the cap RD gives out for this sort of IM willl only work if you are behind the firewall...
• [9:13] Saijanai Kuhn: ah, OK
• [9:13] Zero Linden: but you are right that your own AD could fake the whole convrsation
• [9:14] Xugu Madison: but if your own AD is hostile to you, you've got bigger problems, right?
• [9:14] Saijanai Kuhn: bt the company HAS to assume that
• [9:14] Zero Linden: Able: " Beth, did you finish the caculation on the size of zorktonium needed?" Beth: "I see, Able. How does that make you feel about your mohter?"
• [9:14] JayR Cela: lol
• [9:15] Zero Linden: I suppose another way is to have Able ask ALab to ask BigCo if it can locate Beth internally (BigCo knows all AVs on all regions within it)
• [9:15] Saijanai Kuhn: if its possible to assure that direct communication only works within the firewall, then its no problme
• [9:16] Saijanai Kuhn: you stil, in principle at least, need to have that connection established out of band
• [9:16] Zero Linden: and then if so, BigCo can ask BLab if it thinks that Beth is behind the firewall -- and if so, generate a cap to IM her
• [9:16] Zero Linden: (or if Beth is at least reasonably securely connected)
• [9:17] Zero Linden: Of course, as Beth moves around, from sim to sim, this would need to be renegotiated
• [9:18] Zero Linden: without somehow making the IM look cleaved in two
• [9:18] Zero Linden: AND we haven't dealt with the competting interest of Beth's desires ... .she might want all her communication to go through her AD
• [9:18] Saijanai Kuhn: I don't know how the firewall-only caps would work. Seems to me there has to be some form of verification that takes place out-of-band that the AD can't know about
• [9:19] Zero Linden: because she might be a preimum account where that AD does nice things like record all her IM history for her and give her great tools for referencing it
• [9:19] Lillie Yifu: actually having some kind of occasional key signature to prevent manipulation by intermediaries isn't such a bad thing for a communication's protocol to have, since it happens. But that's not the AD's resposibility, but the respnsiblity of thenodes in the communication. Have the occasionalexchange which says
• [9:19] Coral Gausman: I think that it comes down to whether BigCo trusts the ADs that they allow into their RD
• [9:19] Lillie Yifu: soemthing that only the two nodes would know.
• [9:20] Saijanai Kuhn: I think that use-case of caps from the guy's thesis might apply here, as olong as the key to open the message came from somewhere other than the AD
• [9:20] Zero Linden: sings: "Where, O where, has my public key gone? Where, O where, can it be?"
• [9:20] Lillie Yifu: "with it's bits cut short and it's tail cut long////"
• [9:20] Saijanai Kuhn: the company could issue a meta key entered manuallly
• [9:20] Mirt Tenk: srry, gotta catch a plane, ty & take care
• [9:21] Rex Cronon: bye mirt
• [9:22] Saijanai Kuhn: and any caps recived for intra-grid communication would need to work with that key
• [9:22] Saijanai Kuhn: even if they came via the AD
• [9:22] Zero Linden: Indeed - BigCo is at some point going to have to say "Uhm, Ursula, your AV account with UnderworldUsersUnited..... we don't allow them in..."
• [9:22] Zero Linden: counts the seconds until that domain name is registered....
• [9:23] Lillie Yifu: and also "and we are just checking that Comcast or the Great Wall of China isn't messing withthis communication."
• [9:23] Zero Linden: "please hold while we validate your communication"
• [9:24] Lillie Yifu: well we know that ISPs and others *do* interfer
• [9:24] Zero Linden: perhaps we could play "the mating song of the modems" while this goes on
• [9:24] Lillie Yifu: First time I ever saw a grwon man cry was when my ba kept trying to log into AOL
• [9:24] Saijanai Kuhn: Think that something in Martin Scheffler's thesis could be adapted for this
• [9:24] Lillie Yifu: and there was that screech sound every couple of minutes.
• [9:24] JayR Cela: haha / screeacchhh - blurp-howl-screammmm / LOL :_)
• [9:25] Zero Linden: we could test it by sending a snippet of a Michael Jackson song and see if it arrives at the other end with a RIAA censor's stamp on it
• [9:25] JayR Cela: darn I miss that song
• [9:25] JayR Cela: lol
• [9:25] Lillie Yifu: I didn't know MJ recorded the modem song...
• [9:25] JayR Cela: ow yeah Lillie was a big hit back in the 1990's
• [9:25] Saijanai Kuhn: The amount of access to a resource can be made dependent on the unsealers a party possesses. The
• resource can give out facets of itself sealed with certain sealers. Only parties in possession of the
• matching unsealer are able to unseal these facets and use them. This is called rights amplification
• [9:26] Zero Linden: Ya know, that woud be really funny if some grunge band took the modem mating song and turned it into the chorus of a tune
• [9:26] Saijanai Kuhn: [4]
• [9:26] JayR Cela: hmmm / Zero you may have a million dollar idea
• [9:26] JayR Cela: / blast from the computer world past
• [9:27] Zero Linden: this is a somewhat more complicated way of saying --- if you've got the key, and the cap, then I'll let you do more
• [9:28] Saijanai Kuhn: well, in this case, the cap itself could b encrypted
• [9:29] Saijanai Kuhn: so request the cap to the secure communciation between Beth and Able and the grid sends an encrypted cap down the channel the AD potentially knows about
• [9:29] Saijanai Kuhn: but the AD doesn't have the key because that was entered manually at some point
• [9:30] Zero Linden: sure
• [9:30] Zero Linden: or Able has to get the key directly from ALab
• [9:30] Zero Linden: which gets it from BigCo
• [9:30] Saijanai Kuhn: which still bypases the AD entirely. At some point SOMETHING has to be entered out of band
• [9:30] Zero Linden: alas -- I have a 9:30.....
• [9:31] Zero Linden: so I must run
• [9:31] Zero Linden: thanks all for coming
• [9:31] JayR Cela: bye Zero / thanks :_)
• [9:31] Tao Takashi: cya Zero
• [9:31] Wrapp Seiling:  : ( ....
• [9:31] JayR Cela: bye every one :_)
• [9:31] Rex Cronon: bye zero
• [9:31] Tao Takashi: is off again.. cya
• [9:32] Lillie Yifu: yes, to authenticate that the AD is an honest broker there needs to be an exchange that contians information that only the parties in teh conversation can know.
• [9:32] Lillie Yifu: beijos Zero