On the Nature of Guerrilla Operations in a Metaverse Environment

The Patriotic Nigras are, without a doubt, the greatest known griefological threat to the existence of the AGNI grid. Since it was formed in the winter of 2006-2007, it has claimed responsibility for numerous crashed sims, vandalized parcels, and traumatized weeaboo. The Patriotic Nigras have become enemies of almost every major social group in Second Life (SL), from the Goreans to the Democratic Party. Priding themselves on carrying on the work of such pioneering griefers as Cockhitch Hitchcock and Plastic Duck, and on making such significant technological contributions to the SL griefing community as the Eye Raep gun and Mudkips particle spammer.

Through this work, the Patriotic Nigras hope to inspire a new generation of griefers, dedicated to the proposition that Second Life must be closed to halt the spread of AIDS and fail, and in order to create a metaverse safe for non-furry AVs.

Brave Nigras "forcibly redecorate" a furry enclave in Second Life

Griefing in Second Life is much like staging an RL raid on Hal Turner's house. It sounds great in theory, but often leaves a lot to be desired in actual execution. The majority of would-be griefers in SL rarely manage anything more dramatic than a brief pushgun rampage, and usually retreat to the comfort of their hugbox as soon as they receive their first official warning from a Linden.

Preparation for Raiding

The first thing Anonymous needs to consider when contemplating a raid in SL is their level of commitment to the operation. Is it worth the risk a permanent hardware ban from the AGNI grid just for the sake of lulz? What kind of time can be put into the griefing activities? How far are are nigras willing to go?

Once Anonymous has made a commitment to grief, they need to consider what kind of operation they would like to mount. There is a big difference between targeting individual avatars and targeting parcels or entire sims, in terms of the planning required. The Patriotic Nigras rarely go after individual accounts, due to the difficulty in controlling the exact location of that account within the targeted time frame. In a few cases, we have mounted operations targeting a specific individual, but those operations were focused more on that individual's SL property than on their avatar.

Targeting a general sim or parcel is the easiest way to organize a griefing operation. I have had newly inducted nigras express disappointment that a sim was “no build” and “no script,” fearing that it basically eliminated any chance of raiding that area. In reality, these restrictions have very little impact on a knowledgeable griefer's ability to wreak havoc in a particular sim. Particle spammers can be worn on your AV, allowing a griefer to lag a sim without needing to actually “build” the emitter. Items such as billboards and posters can also be worn on one's AV, and then “dropped” into place. In this latter case, Anonymous must make sure that their client has “View Admin Options” enabled. Doing so will also allow Anonymous to fly in “no fly” areas.

Types of Raids

Certain weapons spam vast numbers of shock images

Anonymous needs to decide ahead of time what the exact goal of your raid is. Is Anonymous intending to crash the sim, or merely deface the property within? Crashing a sim is a fairly simple task once you understand the mechanics of SL, and the amount of strain put on the host servers by prim-heavy property and high-traffic. The Patriotic Nigras have occasionally found that in particularly prim-heavy sims, only a few particle spammers are necessary to push the server beyond its limits. Often however, the only efficient way to crash a sim is to employ self-replicating anti-sim weapons, such as Doomsday or the semi-mythical Apocalypse Reactor Omega. In the case of Doomsday, only a few “Choppa Man” cubes need be launched to grind most sims to a screeching halt.

If only trying to deface a parcel there are many more options available. Signs and textures should be tailored against the tastes and views of the inhabitants of the target sim. The Patriotic Nigras have in the past used various white supremacist and neo-Nazi textures against politically liberal sims with great success. “Shock” images, such as Goatse and Tubgirl, are also very effective when employed in PG-rated sims.

Anonymous should take care not to discuss specifics of raids via SL chat or IM channels. Lindens and other SL security types have been known to scan chat logs as part of their anti-griefing duties, leading to the discovery and ban of many valiant nigras. A private IRC channel, or use of MSN or AIM, is reccomended.

Consequences of Griefing

In the event that Anonymous is discovered, several punishments are possible for the griefing. The first, and most common, is being banned from that parcel or sim, and having accounts listed on Banlink. Banlink is a third-party website that allows SL landowners to share lists of banned accounts, in the hope of preventing cross-griefing of sims. In the past, nigras have had their accounts listed on Banlink merely for discussing griefing with other avatars, usually because they were overheard by one of the many weeaboo intelligence operatives that roam the grid.

Another possibility is being reported to a Linden and the account suspended for anywhere from an hour to a week. Because of this, it is often useful for nigras to have alternate accounts registered prior to a raid.

The most feared punishment dished out by Linden Labs is a permanent ban from Second Life. This can be administered in several ways, ranging from the banning of an IP address to a ban of a computer's specific hardware fingerprint. Many nigras have dynamic IP addresses, so the former isn't considered a great threat to our operations. Hardware bans, on the other hand, pose a significant threat to the griefing community. Since Linden Labs started open registration for SL, the client program has been updated to transmit that computer's processor ID, hard drive volume serial number, and MAC address in an encrypted “hash” to the Linden servers. While MAC addresses, and even HD volume numbers, can be spoofed fairly easily, processor IDs cannot. For a short period of time, the Patriotic Nigras were in possession of a hacked SL client that allowed us to avoid hardware bans, but it had its own limitations, namely being available only for Windows-based computers. Due to a change in the coding of the official SL client, the modified variant can no longer be employed.

Lulz: Over 9000

Griefing ain't easy, but it's necessary. The Patriotic Nigras have dedicated countless hours to the development of new griefing weapons and software, in addition to conducting extensive surveillance of target sims well in advance of our planned raids. Raids are often compromised, and the need to NEW ACCOUNT GET has become more and more frequent. But when the name is seen in the headlines of notable blogs or the ticker of TV tech shows, it all worth it for the lulz.

With hard work, and a great deal of time, anyone can join the ranks of the few, the proud, the Anonymous.

See also

• Identifying A Guy IRL on Second Life
• Second Life
• Patriotic Nigras