Masakazu Kojima (Masa), known within the virtual world of Second Life as leader of the controversial and at times infamous W-Hat group, has announced via the W-Hat website that his account had been permanently banned from the SL service by Linden Lab. The online service cites “severe or repeated violations of the Terms of Service” but in their email to Masakazu did not detail what those violations were.
W-Hat was originally created in Second Life in 2004 for members of the forums at the popular Something Awful web site. W-Hat members referred to themselves as “goons”, or “SA goons”. They were well known for their general interest in that which others find offensive, and the group attracted wide range of people, from the merely curious to some of the worst griefers Second Life has ever known. Members of W-Hat have created hacked clients, committed content theft, and even created sim crashing weapons. The sim crashers used by the Patriotic Nigras were based on the original ones created by W-Hat.
However, the FAQ page on the W-Hat web site states that none of these things are condoned or are the official policy of W-Hat, and that people who engaged in this activity were removed from the group whenever they were discovered.
The infamous Voted 5 group was comprised primarily of former W-Hat members who were invited to leave because their activities cast W-Hat in a bad light and put the group at risk. Plastic Duck, the creator of both the first truly effective sim crasher weapon and creator of the first megaprims (distributed via his alternate account, Gene Replacement) was one of these. Plastic Duck was also responsible for the discovery and correction of a critical bug in the Linden Lab monetary system which could have destroyed the entire economy. Plastic Duck could have simply exploited the flaw, but instead worked with Linden Lab to identify and correct it before it became a problem. Plastic Duck lost his account permanently immediately following an interview on a griefer-friendly blog site in February of this year.
Masa’s primary interest seems to have been technical, and while the official W-Hat policy was against griefer and racist activity within the group, this same activity went largely unmoderated, thus leading to W-Hat’s overall unsavory reputation.
In an email interview with SCIFI.radio, Masa shared what information she had on the possible circumstances surrounding her banishment and the future of W-Hat:
KR: Lets start off with the big question people are asking, what exactly happened? Do you know why you were banned?
Masa: I don’t know. I hadn’t logged in since February, as confirmed by phone support. It was on my billing day so I thought there may have been a credit card issue, but they said there was not. They had me create a “case” on the support website. Here was the response to my attempt to appeal the termination or find out what I did:
====
Hello,
We regret to inform you that Linden Lab has terminated your access to
the Second Life virtual world. Because you have severely or repeatedly
violated the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards, your
account and any alternate Second Life accounts are now permanently
inaccessible.
What happens to your Second Life account holdings?
When terminating Second Life accounts, we remove all associated
holdings. There will be no refunds or exchanges for any unused time on
your subscription, Island purchases, Linden Dollars, or inworld
objects, items, or content.Sincerely,
Customer Support
Linden Lab
====
Masa: The only guess I have is that someone created offensive content on one of the remaining plots of group land, and I was banned for it.
KR: Will you be attempting to return to Second Life?
Masa: No.
KR:Several members of the permabanned Woodbury University /Wrong Hands griefer group and other individuals known to be allied with griefing groups in SL have gained officer status in the W-Hat group, and are inviting people at random in what appears to be some of personal vendetta, someone with whom they have some enmity. We know that Plastic Duck left W-Hat long ago. Do you know how they gained access and why they might be doing this, and is there anything at this point that you or anyone can do about it?
Masa: After I sold our sim, someone offered to let us use one of theirs, and I let them be an officer of the group. They invited some people, who invited some people, and so on. I was the only owner of the group and the only one with permissions to change roles. New officers can be invited, and nobody can demote or eject them.
KR: The other major question is, what happens now? Is the W-Hat group to be shut down, and how will this change W-Hat’s nature as a group or an organization?
Masa: W-Hat was already largely inactive. The group will probably be disbanded. The website and projects will remain as-is for the foreseeable future.
KR: W-Hat appears to have had its genesis outside of Second Life – what’s your next move? What do you envision W-Hat becoming in the future?
Masa: There are SA goon groups in every game there is. I do not run or intend to start any others. Feel free to ask anything about the group. This is all I have left of the 7 years of my life that LL deleted. I opened another case which has not been answered yet, here is the content (terse because it’s limited to 1000 characters):
====
I am trying to appeal the termination of my account on 2011-05-17.I have not severely nor repeatedly violated the TOS or CS. My account
was in good standing for over 7 years before being suddenly
terminated.I was suspended once, on 2010-02-01, because someone created offensive
content in my sim. It was lifted but I was warned about future
incidents. (4051-7322562)After that I sold my sim, gave away most of my mainland holdings,
disabled object creation on and gave others in my group permissions to
sell the remaining group land.My last login was in Feb 2011 according to phone support. I do not
have any alternate accounts. I do not have the Second Life client
software installed.I use my account to provide infrastructure and support via IM for the
services I provide to LSL developers (since 2006) at
http://w-hat.com/. This is all I want to continue to be able to do.If nothing else, please disband my group “W-Hat”, as it has fallen into chaos.
====
KR: Touching on the technical side of W-Hat for a moment, despite the dubious reputation you and your people have been laden with over the years, what many may not know is that your group has actually contributed in a significant and positive way to Second Life.
The Name2Key database created and maintained by W-Hat ended up being one of the most important technical contributions to SL in its history. Can you talk about how that came to be and the history of the project, and where it might be going now that you’ve lost your main account? And, the mystery on many people’s minds, how did you manage to be so effective at gathering new keys of freshly minted avatars?
Masa: The database relies on keys being submitted with the scanner script on the page. They are verified by in-world objects that belong to me, which are currently still present and working normally even though my account has been terminated. If they are removed I will have to find someone else to rewrite and redeploy them, and/or do verification from the search website instead.
Fun fact: the name2key database servers 20-40 requests per second, 24/7.
12:00AM up 2438 days, 22:08, 1 user, load averages: 1.50, 1.45, 1.41
W-Hat’s Name2Key database is still active, and is not especially dependent on Masakazu Kojima’s presence in Second Life for its continued operation. It is used by thousands of commercial enterprises and scripters all over Second Life, and represents a substantial contribution to the Second Life economy. This was offset by W-Hat being perceived as either unable or unwilling to do something about their high griefer contingent within the group, to the point where griefing in Second Life and W-Hat had become nearly synonymous terms. From the FAQ page on the W-Hat web site one could draw the conclusion that the situation was beyond their control. It is not possible to state with certainty what the truth is one way or the other.
SCIFI.radio would like to thank Masakazu Kojima for taking time to respond to our questions.
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I already spoke to GLE about this, but there was a big misconception about what w-hat did as a whole to begin with. Despite the constant reputation of destroying peoples stuff and going around bothering people, very little was actually ever done besides building politically themed things on group land. It had about as much malice in it as a political cartoon might.
I’m sure that’s what they’d like everyone to think. Unfortunately there’s pretty massive history that says otherwise. It may not have been all under Masa’s control or direction, but it did happen. You’re probably too young to remember.
Anything that was done like that wasn’t done as a group. Just because an individual is a part of a group doesn’t make the group responsible for all their actions, especially when the group has hundreds of members. Any sim crashing or anything like that went against the intentions of the group.
In all reality you have a point there Ryokashi, and the article carries the same message. Voted 5, a sub-sect if you will, carried the majority of the troublemakers. However this isn’t a matter of casting W-hat or any other group in a particular light. We’re reporting an event. Conclusions about the nature of the group, or members thereof, are for the readers to draw on their own.
My observation is that Masa had the responsibility either to get the situation under control or shut the thing down, and Masa didn’t do either one of these things. I also observe that Woodbury said much the same thing about itself and it was permabanned en masse not once, but twice, so there we are.
The responsibility to get what situation under control?
By this I meant the out-of-control griefing situation that was happening in the name of W-Hat, in apparent diametric opposition to the stated precepts of the group itself. I realize it was a hard thing to do, I get that – and at the same time, W-Hat was drawing in some pretty bad elements. Even now, trolls and griefers now run what’s left of the group, squabbling over the bones and scraps. Unfortunately there’s not much anyone can do about that now.
In your opinon, why has W-Hat never been mass banned nor had a sim or mainland plot taken away?
I think it’s because of a difference in the way W-Hat did things. There was a genuine interest in providing for the public good, raising the overall quality of life for people on the grid and in some important fundamental ways. The people who were only interested in making things worse got invited to leave, as I understand it, and once they were consolidated into one place they were easily identifiable by Linden Lab as being a huge source of trouble (Voted 5) and then were sanctioned. In the meantime, W-Hat’s Name2Key database provided an essential service upon which much of SL commerce depends, and a service still in use today. W-Hat actually produced something of value for the community as a whole, and whatever else Linden Lab might have thought, I doub that this fact was lost on them.
I think it probably didn’t help W-Hat much that it was an extension of the Something Awful forums, which attracted some of the worst trolls on the Internet. Having that as a core group made W-Hat a breeding ground for the troublesome activities for which W-Hat became so widely known. Not sure I’d have done that, and I think that was probably unwise in the long run.
Contrast this to Woodbury / The Wrong Hands, where the leadership was actively involved in significant griefing activities and used the pretense of academia as misdirection so that they could further their nihilistic, deconstructionist and sometimes criminal ethic. In this case, it was the leadership directing this activity, not just some problem factions within the group – further exacerbated by meddling from so-called academic researchers who were molding Woodbury into a radicalized extremist cyber-gang so that they could have something to write papers and books about. They provided nurturing, all right, but nurtured all the worst parts of these kids, rather than teaching them to take responsibility for and control of their own lives.
By way of example, DeadlyCodec had a rather serious crush on Pixeleen, but went to his grave believing Pixeleen was a girl his own age. “Pixeleen” never told him he was a fifty-something male professor studying griefers in Second Life. DeadlyCodec went to his early grave and never knew. The manipulation of these kids has actually reached this level.
Naturally, because the leadership itself was corrupt, Woodbury lost not one, but two complete estates over it, and is about to lose a third from what I understand. I don’t know who I feel more sorry for in the Woodbury case: the kids whose teenage years and young adulthood were commandeered and reshaped to create the impression of a false social “movement”, or the students now in these researchers classes being taught social sciences based entirely on fabricated data.
W-Hat may have had its issues, but it was nothing like what Woodbury became.
So if LL is so hot to go after the remnants of the W-Hat folks and WU, why on earth are they allowing Atlas Saintlouis and Tux Winkler ( just to name a few ) to continue re-organizing the griefer throng out on Red Square & Revolution. Seems to me theres an angle to all of this not readily apparent to the average concerned citizen. Does directly paying for a sim make for some kind of special treatment or protection under the ToS umbrella Kalel?
From what we’ve seen, “Nip/Tux”, yes – estate owners tend to get preferential treatment from Linden Lab. Of course, we have never been able to get Linden Lab to confirm this, but just based on my observations alone over the past five years in Second Life, it seems that “griefer landowners” tend to stick around a lot longer than griefers who do not lease regions from Linden Lab.
As to why they’re specifically allowing Atlas SaintLouis to host The Wrong Hands and allow them time to regroup, I honestly don’t know. I do know that those two regions are heavily patrolled by Lindens (usually in whatever the Lindens use for ‘ghost mode’, but sometimes not) looking for enough evidence over time to have them removed. We know that they’re using a ban evasion client, so this is hampering the investigations somewhat.
I think it is a pretty fundamental concept that society must meet two responsibilities to survive, and that its hierarchical nature requires these responsibilities to be passed to sub-groups for them to continue: 1.) it helps its members, supporting them where they lacks capabilities as individuals, and 2.) it polices its members, buffering any harm they might do.
If the first is neglected, there is no benefit to an organization and it will fall apart on its own. If the second is neglected–if a blind eye is turned on the wrongdoing of members–an organization will be perceived as a negative influence because it is not doing its job; corruption will flourish, and outside entities will eventually tear it down unless the members themselves get fed up to the point where they begin a fundamental revolution.
It happens at the level of governments, and companies, and friendships, and sometimes even families. Why is it so surprising that it happens in online associations, and what makes it such a tough concept for the leaders and organizers of so many such associations to grasp?
Also important here is that, lately at least , the denizens of Revolution and Red Square appear to be keeping mostly to themselves. We aren’t seeing, or at least I haven’t seen, near as many sandbox raids under their various flags as we had in years past. Being self contained like this LL seems content to let them grief each other rather than disrupt the grid as a whole. That’s fine by me, while those perma-banned do need to respect that ban, if the others want to blow them selves up, orbit or deform each other while leaving the rest of the grid alone… hey.. enjoy!
DeadlyCodec knew Pixeleen was a man.
We stand corrected. Here is the article written by Joshua McCracken himself in which he discusses his betrayal at the hands of “Pixeleen”, and mistakenly identifies Pixeleen as Ludlow. It was from this public statement that the League had drawn its initial assumption that Pixeleen was, in fact, Peter Ludlow and not Mark P. McCahill.
Checking our own articles and timeline of events, you’re right, DeadlyCodec must have known that Pixeleen was a man and that he had been used. We admit our error there. But he never knew which man until the League forced McCahill out of hiding to answer the DMCA takedown request of the stolen BrainiacWiki content illegally published in the pages of the Herald. McCahill had carefully guarded his Pixeleen identity and certainly wouldn’t have told him on his own.
One of the most poignant quotes from his article was this:
Imagine an infamous griefer making a statement like that. The tormenters who posed as his friends could stand to learn that lesson. As it was, they did not even pause to note his passing.
Carter, truth be told, the mischief isn’t nearly restricted to Revolution & Red Square. One thing everyone should understand is that Atlas is still in cahoots with Raine Brucato and that plethora of ALT accounts he (Raine) has created over the years. Those account linkages are being revealed weekly. Raine, or Cal as some folks have called him in the past, creates all kinds of chaos grid-wide and has repeatable and predictable usage patterns, going to many of the same venues where he drags out a handful of ALTs to give the impression the he is amongst friends. There’s an underlying “self importance” thing going on there but that’s an entirely separate conversation. Revolution containment is not only a failed policy, it’s a fake proposition that will only delay the inevitable. The Tux account is up to no good as well, as are others. Atlas is a complicit member of much bigger online problem, not only as a sponsor but more notably, a perpetrator in several unique and publicly captured events. The whole thing is getting rather interesting by the day.
For those leaving obscene comments and saying you know they will not be approved, you’re correct. If you want to participate in the discussion, then keep it civil and it will be approved.
And then there’s the pact between Tizzers and Masa to form an alliance between W-Hat and Woodbury in 2009, I think they called it Digital Woodbury Hat. Digital Worlds is now gone, and W-Hat is now overrun by WU – they seem to poison everything they touch, the other groups were great till WU got in.
I didn’t put my SL name here because I don’t want them finding me.
The current condition of the Woodbury / The Wrong Hands group is a quixotic mix of apathy and internal conflict. It’s likely that they’re expending too much energy fighting amongst themselves or worrying about ban evasion to have much left over for going after anyone else. However, it would still be a mistake to lower your guard.
If “quixotic mix of apathy and internal conflict” means most of the group is off playing Terraria then yeah you guys are totally right.
“The current condition of the Woodbury / The Wrong Hands group is a quixotic mix of apathy and internal conflict. It’s likely that they’re expending too much energy fighting amongst themselves or worrying about ban evasion to have much left over for going after anyone else. However,it would still be a mistake to lower your guard.”
Yes, it would appear you are on to something with your observations of infighting and malaise. Something is up over there and it stinks rotten for sure. Tux is a relative “no show” these days, only popping in for short stints and even going so far as to putting “BORED NOW” in his profile. The few that are talking mutter recent LL activity on the Revolution sim, where a rash of instant bans have been levied against that Fitty Something character and someone else running multiple alts incorporating Docking in the names. A memorial for someone name Code Slacker was erected a few weeks back. There are others as well I’m told. Also, on the wider front, there seems to be some sort of maneuvering going on with the Nicholas friends that frequent the two sims. TWH will claim no ties to Nicholas but that seems to hold no water whatsoever. There is a multifaceted story breaking on this whole thing. Stay tuned!
Oh and before I forget, “quixotic” was cool to see used like that.
Nice choice of words.
: )
We also note that Tux’s parcel at Superville, the home base for the distribution of the trojan horse spyware he was distributing as “freebies” has been put up for sale. Whether it’s because he’s genuinely bored with Second Life, feigning boredom because he can’t grief anymore without everyone instantly knowing about it, or he’s having financial troubles that preclude the maintenance of a property that couldn’t possibly have a positive return on investment, it’s most likely a positive sign for the rest of us.
There is no Robble Rubble anymore, because that account was deleted for griefing months ago. All there is left now is an email address with that name on it.
Oh yeah just because I lose an account that means I am gone forever, why don’t you tell that to my growing list of banned alts. Copy and pasted from my txt file for your enjoyment.
Robble Rubble
IDrankTooMuch Wiskee
Robble Rumble
Bambi Beedit
RobbleR Ubble
LightlyToasted Ruben
R0bb1e Rumble
DelicateLittle Sunflower
Robble Resident
R0bb1e Resident
W00dbury Secretspy
EvadingA Bayn
lEvangeline Resident
Stupidname Smithson
Spooky Iceghost
Pider Maven
OnlyNerdsLike Steampunk
Elitest Macfanatic
Well, probably not gone per se. Unfortunately the fact missed by many such serial griefers is that a ban isn’t a ‘time out’ it’s a “We at Linden Lab no longer desire your custom, and will refuse you any further service”. The irony of course is the stress and drama they encounter by returning time and again via ban evading alts, proxies and what not is entirely their own doing. Tizzers for instance could probably have spent his time after his first permaban more constructively on Minecraft or some other MMO, WoW perhaps.. PvP combat games seem more up the alley of the majority of them.
Being banned is a liberating thing sometimes, when before you would approach a situation with the idea “oh I could be banned for this, I better not do it.” But after you have been banned you stop really caring as much about being banned leading to more freedom and risk taking. Nothing is really making me hesitate when I do horrible things anymore. It’s not a hard process to reset my router and run a program to change my hardware ID, it takes only a couple of minutes and I am back.
And now we see Robble Rubble’s true nature. He has so many ban evasion alts that he needs to keep track of them on a notepad.
He now considers any behavior fair game, and the only thing that kept him from it before was the fear of being caught and not any sort of self control, personal ethics or moral compass. He has the makings of a true criminal.
He was once quoted as saying that he was upset at the League for heading off a griefing raid by members of Woodbury. The “wiki heist”, as he put it, was done in retribution. The theft wasn’t whistle blowing. It was revenge.
Robble once stated that he felt that Woodbury “doesn’t need a babysitter”.
It is very clear that a babysitter was very much what Woodbury needed – but now simple babysitting will no longer suffice.
Looks like Rubble screwed up and just posted his whole current list, there were some active accounts in there (not any more, thank you, Robble). And no, the list did not contain other people’s alts, just his. He tried to make it look like a successful trap to cover his mistake, but honestly, between you and me, he’s just not that clever.
Read on on this page; also, rather than drink the Wrong Hands kool-aid, read what actually happened here: The Wrong Hands: Lies Exposed. Don’t be fooled. Winkler and Rubble are still peddling their lies and misdirection over a year after the initial infiltration of the League and their theft of our private research and reference wiki, and they’re becoming increasingly strident and angry at the fact that that the harder they push, the less it works. At this point they’d be liable to say absolutely anything if they thought somebody would swallow it.
Here’s the entire chronicle of the Woodbury situation. Read up, the facts are all there.
To whom it may concern, LL responded to my ticket on Tuesday:
====
Linden Lab has reviewed, at your request, your appeal of our decision to permanently terminate your Second Life access.
The original decision to terminate your Second Life access was reached after investigation of your use of the Second Life software and service. Upon further examination of your case, we have determined that the permanent closure of your accounts was justified and correctly applied.
This concludes our investigation of your appeal. Please consider the matter resolved, as no further communications will be sent.
====
Guess I’ll never know what I’m accused of.
As a matter of policy, they never do tell. For what it may be worth Masa I’m sympathetic to your plight there. I do thank you for providing this , it tells the lie to the common claim by griefers that “LL said I was banned for X”. As we can clearly see , no they don’t say anything of the sort. I personally wish you the best at whatever projects you undertake here-out, unfortunately it cannot be in SL, but there are indeed other pastures.
For those curious as to whether we had any names unfairly suspended or removed from Second Life, set your mind at ease: rumors to that effect are simply that – rumors. We cross checked each name we discovered that had not been deleted using multiple sources to make certain they were alts of Robble Rubble, and the Lindens performed the final cross check by comparing the connection information itself. There is no doubt, and the identity of the banned alts has been absolutely confirmed.
To remind our readers as to how the Second Life abuse reporting system actually works, please visit the page here on this web site called “Griefers And How to File Abuse Reports”. And remember, if you know of an alt account of a banned Woodbury such as Robble, you can help your community by reporting that alt to Linden Lab. Don’t worry – Linden Lab does check and confirm each one of these reports themselves.
Think about this: if it were really that easy to file a false or erroneous report and get somebody either in trouble or banned from Second Life, the griefers would have used this as a weapon and the League would have been picked off long ago, yet in its five-plus year history, no League member has ever been banned or suspended.
We uphold the Terms of Service of Second Life, and its Community Standards, and stand by and for its people.
I think Linden Lab does owe you an explanation here, Masa. If you violated the Terms of Service to such degree that they felt a permanent suspension was justified, you should at least be told in no uncertain terms what it was. If nothing else, it would help others to avoid walking the same path and meeting the same end, but it would also bring you a sort of closure. Not telling you denies a small part of your relevance as a person.
I do agree there, I can understand not revealing the name or location of the AR which led to the ban ( as a matter or protecting the reporter from reprisals) but when a final move such as a permanent ban is made LL would be doing a far better service to reveal the findings. EG “it was found that prims and scripts owned by you were used in a DDOS attack” etc. Not saying this was anyone’s particular case, but information to that end would be more useful. LL used to have a police Blotter type page where bans were reported (omitting names of course) I personally miss that as it at least gave some clue as to what was going on.
They also at one point messed up the blotter and showed the names of the reporters for several hours.
I had actually never heard of that happening, I don’t disbelieve it out of hand though. The Blotters were hand filed by Linden Employees so it’s completely possible one might have either misunderstood the procedure, or ignored it. If it was the latter they were probably among those layed off / fired.
It was the realtime blotter which I believe was automated. It was a temporary bug as far as I know.
They have given others explanations – there are places in the initial termination email and the final decision email to enter them. You can Google snippets to see examples on the web. In the distant past I’ve seen them send chatlogs, and when Plastic Duck was banned I was even added to a “review panel” and sent a list of all his offenses. Back in ’06-’07, people would frequently try to get me banned by modifying freebie stuff I made into grid crashers, etc, but I was always able to get an explanation and resolve it.
If anything, it’s that inconsistency that bothers me about LL. We trust them to follow their own rules, if we did not trust in this fact we would not be using their service. They cannot be wishy washy about policies like this and expect to be unquestioned. Either tell all persons banned why,or tell none, you can’t have it both ways… Personally I would think it best if they did consistently let perma-banned residents know why (protecting the initial reporters of course).
The next chapter of SL stupidity is playing out over on the Reddit sim. If you are unaware as to what has transpired prior, Revolution/Red Square survivors moved to a new, access list only sim called Nope after the last recorded mass-banning of consistent SL griefers. Relatively short lived it was. Tux finally felt repercussions outside of the comfort of his virtual dream and has gone missing from the internets. In the mean time, Reddit pops up and is inhabited by a meager group of left overs from The Wrong Hands gang.
The Reddit sim is now a throwback to the Revolution/Red Square glory days.
Or is that glory hole. Not sure but only time will tell.
It needs a billboard:
“Got Bored (yet)?”