For the past year, Second Life residents who deal with in-world real estate — both casually and professionally – have had a deadly robotic foe…
The aptly named ‘Landbots’, which repeatedly survey land sales and make purchases in less than a third of a second, are a boon to some, and a bane to others. A Landbot is computer software which connects to Second Life and in essence acts as an ubercaffeinated, soulless, superhuman and quasi-evil real estate agent, and purchases the most inexpensive real estate on the grid in the blink of an eye. The human operators of this software vary broadly in character, with some taking advantage of hapless residents who mistakenly misprice land and causing subsequent financial hardship, others operating legitimate businesses, and still others reclaiming advertisement land and planting trees to beautify Second Life and benefit the community.
At present, these landbots are controlled and operated by the small collection of individuals within the community who have had the time and resources to create Landbot software or to hire developers to do so for them. For the average resident, this is a capability either beyond their technical grasp, their level of interest, or their financial capacity to obtain.
This blog and companion resources will seek to consolidate useful information on Landbots, offer resources and tools for defense from malicious use of Landbots, document the technical operation of landbots, and in the very near future, to provide general purpose for the public open source Landbot software for any resident that has an interest.
