We are working on installing the new stable version of OpenSim 0.61 starting next week. Once it is up and running we will have the new Hypergrid functionality online allowing visitors to hit our grid more easily. It is a step toward the 3D-Web Future for sure.
As part of our work on this, we will set-up a few regions in a Hypergrid DMZ on our Private Grid. I had considered making it a completely separate server, but in general we are letting people into our Private Grid so it is already somewhat public. As we are still testing the opensim software, this seems like a good extention of the testing cycle now. The potential for Hypergrid is huge--like making it as easy to traverse grids as it is to click between web pages. It is an essential step toward a decentralized grid architecture which is more avatar-oriented and a true vision of the metaverse.
From my view on this, it means an avatar can take their identity and some small set of assets with them. It seems that the hypergrid will also allow visitors to continue to access their home grid inventory and load that over to the destination grid. Of course there are many issues with this. Inventory could be scripts or other evil things that crash your sims/grid or rip your content. But the positive side is exciting as well, where you can have a true web experience with varied areas without constantly having to recreate your avatar.
I think there is probably quite a bit of risk in enabling hypergrid right now. In general the concept is great, but it also looks like a big security hole. The unknown visitors to the system are logged onto your server/network and hard to know what they can get up to really. We know that the DRM and Estate mgmt in opensim is weak and also hackers do have access to the entire opensim codebase. But in general nefarious acts can also be commited on the SL grid, so I am not sure our exposure is that different--while the opportunity to advance hypergrid is significant.
My sense is that while the hypergrid transactions are clear, the trust between visitors and grids will take more effort to figure out. It might be that grid need to establish some more formal interconnect treaties/protocols--like Europe was before the EU--before you can just open all the borders. I think also avatars will need to have credentials or a trust network which existing really only within a grid/online community now. We actually try to link to the SL avatar names in our grid to maintain some continuity on avatar identity.
We will post the hypergrid details as we figure them out.
More interesting discussion about hypergrid and what else it could be used for here on justincc’s opensim blog.
(What ever happened to the Linden opensim teleports? Is OGP another thing that the Lab has lost interest in?)
Essential Reading/Viewing for the 3d-Web Future here
<- *click*
(
Comments
>We know that the DRM and
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 07:03 — Prokofy Neva (not verified)>We know that the DRM and Estate mgmt in opensim is weak and also hackers do have access to the entire opensim codebase. But in general nefarious acts can also be commited on the SL grid, so I am not sure our exposure is that different--while the opportunity to advance hypergrid is significant.
Why don't you care about permissions, intellectual property, and copyright?
It's one thing when copyright theft and hacking occur on LL's grid, as they have a TOS against it, and physical permissions systems inworld at least to deter it, and a demonstrable willingness to honour DMCA takedown notices.
These other grids do not. Your careless attitude towards this, and your false moral equivalence with SL lets us know your world will not be desirable.
Justin CC's idea of fun is to take Darwinism as a social philosophy to be applied harshly and recklessly on populations of people at his whim. ,nbj
Keep the wheels rolling
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 13:48 — Evad (not verified)@RaR
An excellent, and IMO, essential step forward in your PGA project RaR -
all kudos to yourself and Rezzable for making such a move. Of course there
are DRM/IP issues involved - there will be for a long time to come, but that
shouldn't impede the progress that can be made and should be tested.
As to IP, from tests I have made myself, it is those that HG to yourselves
that are taking the biggest risk (if such it is), as it is their inventory that is
effectively open to 'abuse', but as long as those who want to get involved
are aware of this, then they can limit the risks by only HG'ing with a
sub-set of their inventory/assets, from say a single sim set-up just for
the testing process. You (Rezzable) of course are also exposed by such
a test, but I'm sure you've taken that into account, and weighed up the
possibilities of 'theft', but are still willing to go ahead. Like myself though,
I'm also sure that at this moment in (OpenSim) time, you don't really have a lot
to lose :)
Hypergrid is definitely the way forward (far better than OGP, which is probably
why LL/IBM have lost interest). I'm confident that at some point the DRM issues
will be resolved, and once that happens, I can see HG becoming the standard
for intergrid traffic. This is an exciting and good time for starting to use it ... best
of luck with the tests.
(btw: If you decide to go closed, rather than open alpha with HG, please keep
me in mind. And, as an aside, don't listen to the nay-sayers - he who dares, wins ;))
Evad :O)
Very cool to see experimentation and your very sensible caution
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 19:50 — Justin Clark-Casey (not verified)Travelling between grids is something that really generates a lot of excitement - we've only had it a couple of months and already there's a lot of interest surrounding it.
Very good to see that you're cautious about it too RightAsRain - it is a very new facility and there are various ways in which it can be exploited. However, the contribution of community members such as yourself will hopefully get traction around clarifying exactly what the issues are and what can be done to address them, as well as encourage code contributions to fix the various bugs which are technical rather than architectural in nature. It may be that we find out that certain issues are intractable in the Hypergrid model, but we probably won't fully appreciate them without trying the experiment (personally, I tend to favour a model where inventory data is supplied from the client rather than the grid side since it better addresses the problem of exposing inventory data, but this is much more difficult to implement in the current environment).
I'm not sure precisely what's happened to OGP since I'm not that close to the process (only so many hours in a day, etc.). However, it seems to have slowed down markedly and I'm prepared to guess that it won't be revived much in 2009, since the benefits are fairly long term and the immedate risks are too great, at least compared with other initiatives that Linden Lab can devote it's manpower to).
@ Prok--as usual you have
Sun, 01/11/2009 - 23:20 — RightAsRain Rimbaud@ Prok--as usual you have confused the point and twisted the sense into erroneous grounds for another diatribe. The point is that we do care about DRM. The risk with hypergrid is that it exposes the DMZ area to unknown visitors who could possibly even get into the main part of a grid. So, TOS is meaningless if someone wants to hack their way in and rip stuff or even try to damage the entire server. TOS binds honest people only. Further our private grid is just that, private and we are only allowing access via invitation and acceptance of our terms. But thanks for reminder that I should review our terms and see how we can get hypergrid visitors to agree to something if that makes any sense.
Also, our experience with LL and DMCA actions is that it is only some bureacratic response and not a meaningful enforcement of content theft.
@ Evad -- the DMZ for our hypegrid will have some basic content that in general is available for free in SL as well. I am more concerned about exploits to get into non-DMZ regions and even onto the servers. So we will take necessary precautions until we understand issues with this new feature.
not v0.61 actually now--going with v0.6 OpenSim
Mon, 01/12/2009 - 14:26 — RightAsRain Rimbaudactually, we are not going with v0.61 as the teleport issues look too unstable. So we will install v.0.6 and make an initial set of DMZ hypergrid regions. Hopefully tp issues will be addressed soon.
Its great to know that
Fri, 01/16/2009 - 02:15 — Cube Republic (not verified)Its great to know that whatever grid opens, Prokofy Neva will be there to keep us all well informed....rock on!
Post new comment