Changes: The Wrong Hands

Revision as of 16:58, 23 March 2015

The Wrong Hands was a group initially founded to leak the Justice League Unlimited's BrainiacWiki but was later involved in other notable events in Second Life's history. The founding members were comprised of Woodbury University members. However, in later years the group began recruiting former W-hat members and individuals from others from various groups.

Founding

Thewronghands2009 — The Wrong Hands in 2009. From left to right, Haruhi Thespian, Hydrogen2 Oxygen, Tizzy Teardrop, lnformation Core, Cam Mitchell, Doctor Yootz, Robble Rubble, Mullet Handsohn

On December 20th 2009, Cayce Urriah a member of the Justice League Unlimited teleported into Soviet Woodbury. He ran into a Woodbury/W-hat member named Robble Rubble and the two struck up a conversation about Star Wars. Later in the same conversation Cayce confessed to Robble he was a JLU member and told him about the BrainiacWiki; a database the group uses to track griefers and other enemies. Robble convinced Cayce to send him 3 pages related to Woodbury, but he refused to leak anymore because he was afraid of getting caught. On December 28th 2009, Robble began talking with other Woodbury members about the possibility of infiltrating the Justice League and getting access themselves, but they needed someone who had no affiliations with the group. A new Woodbury member named Mullet Handson then informed Robble he had and alt that didn't have ties with the group, its name was Haruhi Thespian.

Posing as a female, Haruhi Thespian began IMing the leader of the JLU Kalel Venkman. He seemed pretty impressed with Haruhi and invited her to their region Justice Island for a tour. While touring the group's watchtower, Haruhi ran into Gawyn Philbin a long time JLU member. Haruhi asked Kalel and Gawyn about the BrainiacWiki and Gawyn replied, "A lot of private info and shit on there that if passed into the wrong hands, could ROYALLY fuck us." the group attempting to infiltrate the JLU now had a name “The Wrong Hands”.

Justice League Unlimited Infiltration

The watchtower — Haruhi reveals her affiliation with Woodbury

After the tour was finished Haruhi Thespian sent in her application and Kalel Venkman added her to the JLU Applicant group. For the next week, she got to know the other JLU members and patrolled sandboxes with them. She was the perfect applicant, a little too perfect. At one point Kalel became suspicious and started to question her, but she was able to change the conversation to avoid being caught [1]. A week after becoming an applicant Haruhi was made a full JLU recruit and now had access to all of their inworld tools and the BrainiacWiki. Other Wrong Hands members began giving her tools to save as much of the wiki as possible.

On January 10th 2010 while the Justice League was in the middle of their weekly meeting, Haruhi asked if she could say something, but Kalel said it would have to wait until the end. When her time came to speak, Haruhi Thespian stated "We at Woodbury are thankful for the wiki :3" in local chat and a group notice. The Justice League immediately went into shock, banned Haruhi from Justice Island and kicked her out of the group [2].

The Alphaville Herald posted an article a few hours after the incident occurred with download links to the entire wiki.[3] The Herald wrote numerous articles about the content in the BrainiacWiki. Kalel Venkman responded by filling DMCAs against the links and Typepad.com the Herald's host. The content was removed from both sites. Herald editor Pixeleen Mistral then filed a counter-DMCA questioning Venkman's and a few weeks later the information was restored.[4]

Emerald Viewer

After the release of Client Detection System in February of 2010, The Wrong Hands began investigating the developers of the system and their other projects such as the Emerald Viewer. In early April of 2010, TWH obtained illegal access to modularsystems.sl the Emerald Viewer's main site. They discovered Fractured Crystal created a datamine database that correlated IP addresses and avatars that teleported into Emerald Point or used their REGApi. A censored version was featured in an article on The Alphaville Herald in May of 2010 [5]. An early LSL script of Client Detection System was also discovered and unintentionally leaked. The leaked script was later modified and used to create a series of similar products; including the controversial zF RedZone [6].

In July 2010, TWH member Hazim Gazov questioned the developers adding Emerald Kakadu library or (emkdu) an openjpeg codec to the Viewer. One of the developers added a line that would broadcast the version of the Emerald Viewer and the file path. Depending on the path of the exe and the username on the computer, it could disclose a user's real name without them knowing. The data was then decoded by Onyx, a private viewer only a handful of Emerald developers possessed. The developers claimed the code was implemented incorrectly and would be fixed.

In early August, LordGregGreg Back resigned from Emerald over the emkdu issue. A few days later Fractured Crystal hid an iframe in the Emerald Viewer's splash screen. When users started up the client they would ping Hazim Gazov's website causing a small DDoS attack. The code remained hidden for over a week and was discovered by an Emerald Beta tester. After the discovery Fractured Crystal was forced to resign from Emerald and was later banned from Second Life. Emerald was then sent orders by Linden Lab which they failed to comply with. The remaining developers were banned from Second Life and the Emerald Viewer was blocked on September 8th 2010.

Microsoft Buyout

On September 30th 2010 while in a skype call with a Linden, TWH Member Tizzers Foxchase overheard that Microsoft had placed a bid on the company. Shortly thereafter Tizzers posted on Twitter "A little birdie told me that Microsoft may have silently offered to buy Linden Lab this week." The tweet went viral and within a few hours it ended up on Tech Eye, Gamespot, Toms Hardware, ZDNet and various other sites. Some believed it was an elaborate troll, but 2 days later Microsoft ended up buying another virtual environment Vivaty.

End of Woodbury University

WU (3) — Proposed expansion of the Woodbury University campus

Prior to the formation of The Wrong Hands, Linden Lab was considering terminating Woodbury University from the grid for a second time [7]. However, Linden Lab’s attitude began to change after Woodbury hired Loki Clifton, a gold level solutions provider for Linden Lab, to express their desire to expand into a twelve sim virtual campus. After learning of Loki’s involvement with Woodbury, Glenn Linden agreed to meet with Loki on a weekly basis to negotiate the terms and conditions of the expansion. By January of 2010 the negotiations seemed to be going smoothly but they began breaking down a month later when Jack Linden replaced Glenn Linden as negotiator. Jack wanted the new virtual campus to be closed to the public and also wanted the members of Woodbury to be locked to the estate. In later negotiations, Jack agreed to allow one public sim although it would be heavily monitored by the Lindens.

On March 31th 2010, Tizzers held a public meeting in Soviet Woodbury to discuss Jack Linden's restrictions and the possibility of second mass termination if the group didn't comply. Members felt Woodbury would die either way and they agreed that it would be better to lose everything than to comply with Linden Lab's conditions. In the early hours of April 20th 2010, Woodbury University was banned from Second Life [8]. The majority of The Wrong Hands were banned since nearly all were estate managers in Soviet Woodbury. Mainland parcels and groups owned by Woodbury University were also reclaimed or deleted, but The Wrong Hands inworld group survived. The exact reason for the termination was never specified by Linden Lab, but it’s been speculated the banning occurred due to a mixture of the group's past, the rejection of the proposed estate restrictions and the hacking of the Emerald Viewer’s website a few days prior [9].

After Woodbury University

The Wrong Hands Christmas — Some of the Wrong Hands Members Christmas 2011

In May of 2010 TWH members moved to the sim Rancor owned by Atlas Saintlouis. The sim's name was later changed to Red Square and another sim Revolution was added on December 20th 2010. A machinima was posted on January 3rd 2011 under the name Woodbury in Second Life 2011. However, most of the old Woodbury regulars no longer logged on and the new community was comprised of TWH members, residents from welcome areas and other various groups. The estate remained access only until it was opened to the public on April 20th 2011. On July 19th 2011, both sims were taken offline with the owner, regulars and some estate managers banned.

In August of 2011, TWH was active on SLUniverse.com after a blog TheListSL leaked portions of the BrainiacWiki and JLU group notices. Some SLUniverse users later created their own TWH spin-off called The Pink Hands, an Anti-Cyberstalking group. In October of 2011, The Wrong Hands created a new sim named 'Nope' a private HQ and sandbox for members and close friends. However, the sim was shutdown on March 22nd 2012 when the land baron stopped paying tier.

Reddit/Sanvich

Polyhistor serpente reddit 530319 — The Reddit Sim

In late March of 2012, another sim was purchased name ‘Reddit’ and Tizzers planned to create a community with users from reddit.com. However, Tizzers knew when Linden Lab realized her involvement in the region it would most likely be banned, so she planned to use this to her advantage. She assumed if the region was taken offline, the new community would be outraged by Linden Lab’s actions and she could then create negative publicity by encouraging members to upvote a post about banning to the front page reddit. However, most redditors weren’t interested in joining Second Life and things became tense when infighting caused Robble Rubble to leave the group.

In August of 2012, Linden Lab announced that Second Life was coming to Steam. With the hope of pulling off her new community plan with Steam users instead, the sim was renamed to Sanvich on September 4th. However, the plan was thwarted by financial troubles that left the sim with less than a month of tier. In an attempt to create negative publicity for Linden Lab before the region’s closure, the Patriotic Nigras were allowed to rezz their iconic Fort Longcat in the sky to encourage the region's banning. On September 24th, the sim was taken offline by Linden Lab. Tizzers then created a reddit post about the banning under another name, claiming to have no idea why the region had been removed; the post was upvoted to the front page of reddit.

After Sanvich's banning, The Wrong Hands remained inactive in Second Life throughout the rest of 2012. The Justice League Unlimited's inworld presence also diminished during this period. On December 19th 2012, the group pulled the plug on its region Justice Island. Co-founder Kara Timtam stated the decision was made due to the decline in griefing and because the League was unable to afford the region and their website Krypton Radio [10].

Final Years

RUDE and TW — The estates of the two successor groups.

In January 2013, The Wrong Hands returned to Second Life without a home sim and began hanging out in multiple communities. The Justice League Unlimited's presence inworld became almost non-existent and the banning of members from Second Life became rarity. As a result, members became more interested in making a profit through stores on the Second Life Marketplace and less interested in whistle blowing and group infiltrations. The group also began recruiting new members; including former Emerald Viewer developer Skills Hak. In February 2014, The Wrong Hands created a new sim named RUDE. However, without a common enemy, ideological differences led to spawning of factions within the group. The divide primarily occurred between ex-Woodbury members who wanted to use the region to build a new community group similar to Woodbury University and ex-Woodbury/W-hat members who wanted the region to represent the more closed off nature of The Wrong Hands.

The disputes that occurred between these two factions led to the departure of Tizzers Foxchase, Scout Detritus and Cam Mitchell and the founding of another region. All of them eventually returned, although more disputes occurred in early 2015. Members eventually came to the conclusion that The Wrong Hands was no longer a group of close friends and decided to disband it on March 15th, 2015. All inworld groups and out of world group chats were destroyed while the group's former region RUDE was rebranded. Overall, the fracturing and eventual disbandment of The Wrong Hands led to the founding of two successor groups. The University of Social Justice, a satirical college founded by Tizzers Foxchase and Scout Detritus and Rude Incorporated; a group primarily filled with ex-Woodbury/W-hat members that collaboratively create various themed builds.

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 After Sanvich's banning, The Wrong Hands remained inactive in [[Second Life]] throughout the rest of 2012. The [[Justice League Unlimited]]'s inworld presence also diminished during this period. On December 19th 2012, the group pulled the plug on its region [[Justice Island]]. Co-founder [[Kara Timtam]] stated the decision was made due to the decline in griefing and because the League was unable to afford the region and their website [[Krypton Radio]] [http://www.plurk.com/p/hnnmc9].
 ==Final Years==
-[[File:RUDE and TW.png|thumb|right| The regions of the two successor groups.]]
+[[File:RUDE and TW.png|thumb| The estates of the two successor groups.]]
 In January 2013, The Wrong Hands returned to [[Second Life]] without a home sim and began hanging out in multiple communities. The [[Justice League Unlimited]]'s presence inworld became almost non-existent and the banning of members from [[Second Life]] became rarity. As a result, members became more interested in making a profit through stores on the Second Life Marketplace and less interested in whistle blowing and group infiltrations. The group also began recruiting new members; including former [[Emerald Viewer]] developer [[Skills Hak]]. In February 2014, The Wrong Hands created a new sim named [[RUDE]]. However, without a common enemy, ideological differences led to spawning of factions within the group. The divide primarily occurred between ex-[[Woodbury]] members who wanted to use the region to build a new community group similar to [[Woodbury University]] and ex-[[Woodbury]]/[[W-hat]] members who wanted the region to represent the more closed off nature of The Wrong Hands.