Security Experts Able To Hack Into Nearly Every E-Voting Machine

IBM Decides Common Sense Isn't So Common In Virtual Worlds

from the if-you're-representing-IBM,-perhaps-your-avatar-shouldn't-be-a-grungy-rat dept

Tue, Jul 31st 2007 3:17am — Mike Masnick

Just as companies are beginning to question the wisdom of spending time in Second Life, IBM has decided that perhaps part of the problem is that its employee representatives don't have enough common sense to recognize what's appropriate behavior in Second Life and other virtual worlds. The company has put together rather informal guidelines that basically sound like common sense: Don't discuss intellectual property with unauthorized people. Don't discriminate or harass. Make sure your avatar is appropriate as a representative of IBM. These are pretty much all things that would normally go without saying -- but apparently IBM felt they needed to be said (which is either a statement about IBM employees, or what IBM management thinks about IBM employees). In the meantime, Second Life is probably helping IBM and other corporations out by banning all the vices that made Second Life popular in the first place. Now it'll be safe for all the corporate types. Of course, that's about all who will be left since everyone else will have moved on to the next (more fun) world that isn't locked down with rules and swarming with marketers trying to pitch them.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: corporate policies, guidelines, virtual worlds
Companies: ibm, second life

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Hoeppner, 31 Jul 2007 @ 4:39am

is this even worth commenting?

obviously it is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jeff, 31 Jul 2007 @ 5:17am

IBM...
Doesn't IBM have more important issues to concentrate on than Second Life guidelines, like maintain North American profits so they don't have another round of layoffs? -(FreshDailyGadget.com)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sneeje, 31 Jul 2007 @ 5:54am

Thinking
Did it occur to anyone that the reasons IBM did this have nothing to do with IBM and everything to do with the legal environment in which employers must operate?

For example, without these guidelines, what do you think would happen if one IBM employee harassed another IBM employee in the Second Life environment? Would IBM's liability be so clear? The harasser would argue that SL is a place of freedom and no rules and he/she just got carried away, and besides there weren't any employer guidelines or policies, so...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Aaron, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:06am

The Matrix
IBM will make an acceptable IBM prototype representative, clone them, and name them all Agent Smith.

Oblig. Matrix Quote...

Agent Smith: It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ikey Benney, On IBM, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:31am

IBM second life guidelines
Hello:
It seems this is a good idea and other big corps should learn a few things from it.
Ikey Benney
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:33am

People need to get out of Second Life and get a REAL life. There's enough problems to deal with in reality. We don't need to be hearing about problem in virtual worlds too. There, 'nuff said.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Annonymous Coward Too, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:39am

Just by posting, you are acknowledging and embracing your own Second Life, it's just that you don't have a groovy avatar.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Paquito, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:44am

What did you want?
I used Second Life only once... I tested it and I just thought "This is not for me"...

Point is, 9 million people around the world, like me, created an avatar... Many of them were used only once...

Today, only in SL's prime time, only 30.000 people at connected at the same time... Companies has taken places and that promised "Second Life" became like your "First Life"... The one you run away in SL...

Such a pity... But, anyway, it's a good experiment.

Thanks for the post (really interesting :-).

Paquito.
http://paquito4ever.blogspot.com
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Sanguine Dream, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:54am

Re: Thinking

For example, without these guidelines, what do you think would happen if one IBM employee harassed another IBM employee in the Second Life environment? Would IBM's liability be so clear? The harasser would argue that SL is a place of freedom and no rules and he/she just got carried away, and besides there weren't any employer guidelines or policies, so...

And that would a very dangerous precedent. Imagine that setup. One IBM employee harasses another. Not only would the victims sue the attacker and Second Life but they would try to sue IBM as well. And that is not even thinking about trying to somehow press charges on IBM. I know that would be very unlikely in normal situations but trying to adapt real world law to a virtual world is hardly a normal situation.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Luke, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:03am

Policies are fun
Yeah, IBM needed a policy. I've had to read a policy on what type and what color pen I'm allowed to write with at work. I had to re-read it (i.e. independant training) this year when they added blue to the previous list of only black.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
GoblinJuice, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:05am

Re: What did you want?
Eh. Same here.

Created an account and avatar, checked it out for less than an hour, and realized what a waste of time it is.

If there was/is any sex or gambling, I didn't see any. Meh.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:09am

Re: IBM...
Yes, because they devoted so many resources to setting these guidelines. And, if they are losing profits, forget any other part of their business plan that may have a chance to turn that around.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
freak3dot, 31 Jul 2007 @ 7:51am

Re: Policies are fun
And darn it, I was happy with only black...

Why blue... Why, Why, Why?

freak3dot
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Dude of Life, 31 Jul 2007 @ 9:42am

Common sense isn't too common in RL™ either!

Viva la Academia!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Bob, 31 Jul 2007 @ 10:00am

You've missed the real story
Take a look at the Second Life official blog at http://blog.secondlife.com.

The real story is what's been happening since Saturday, and still there's NO FIX for it.

This weekend, the Asset server began having issues, followed by other DB's that control search, teleport, and financial transactions. Linden Lab told everyone the best thing to do was to just hold off doing anything that deals with no-copy objects (objects that can't be in your inventory and in the world at the same time), financial transactions (don't go shopping), and try and stay where you are since Teleports (the way to get from one point to another in Second Life) are not working properly. Normally these types of issues will creep up once every couple of weeks, but they get fixed in relatively short order; this time though, the fix has yet to appear. Here we are now mid-day on Tuesday, and the problems still exist, and apparently there's no clear indication as to what the problem is.

I wonder how this will effect Linden Lab,, since they have cutoff one of their largest influx of income with the banning of Gambling, and now a world where you can go and stand in, but not much else. Do you think companies like IBM are going to continue spending time in a world where all you can do is stand there?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
TVs Frank, 31 Jul 2007 @ 10:57am

So many people
So many people can't get their first life in order, why add a second?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Woadan, 31 Jul 2007 @ 5:18pm

Employees or Contractors
It's a Help Desk environment, so you can bet, they are IBM contractors, not emplyees...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Charles Griswold, 31 Jul 2007 @ 6:10pm

Re: Policies are fun
Yeah, IBM needed a policy. I've had to read a policy on what type and what color pen I'm allowed to write with at work. I had to re-read it (i.e. independant training) this year when they added blue to the previous list of only black.
Thank you, sir, for reminding me of why I quit working for IBM. IBM has a bad habit of interrupting actual productive work in order to have their employees do asinine, non-productive crap like typing in their manager-dictated personal goals for the year. That, and their insistence on forcing Lotus Notes (*gack*) down the throats of their employees.
[ link to this | view in thread ]