Second Life Attacked by Replicating Rings

Posted on November 24, 2006

Strange replicating gold rings have slowed down the Second Life persistent online world. The rings were created by a self-replicating worm. The numerous rings eventually resulted in a slowdown on the Linden Lab servers.

A BBC News article about the worm rings quotes one user, Loretta Lurra, who asked on the Second Life blog, "Can this game get any more unpredictable and exciting?"

Joystiq reports that the "rings" were similar to the rings found in Sonic games. Last month Boing Boing had posted that ae grey goo attacked was started by a griefer. Wired's Game|Life warns Linden Lab that Second Life can expect many more griefers if they can't get a handle of this problem.

The Guardian says the replicating goo has raised the CopyBot issue. The CopyBot allows copies of part or all of Second Life objects to be made which threatens Second Life designs and economy. This simple question from the Guardian explains the problems a CopyBot could pose for the virtual economy: "What would happen to business and society if you could easily make a copy of anything - not just MP3s and DVDs, but clothes, chairs and even houses?"