At Least It Beats The State Fair Circuit
September 11th, 2006 at 5:59 pm by Gerard
Second Life, the fast-growing online site where hundreds of thousands of people play out fantasy lives online, has suffered a computer security breach that exposed the real-world personal data of its users.
Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company behind the Second Life site, said in a letter to its 650,000 users this weekend that its customer database, including names, addresses, passwords and some credit card data, had been compromised.
Blurring the line between a multiplayer game and an online business, the popularity of the site has spurred Fortune 500 corporations such as Coca-Cola Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., along with architects, authors, and musicians to erect virtual outposts of their organizations or personas.
Retailer American Apparel has created a business to sell clothing for the Second Life avatars users create to represent themselves inside the online world. Musicians such as Duran Duran and Suzanne Vega have held concerts inside Second Life.
I’m not sure which part of the above I find more troubling — the massive potential for identity theft, or the fact that Matador bands have such a terribly low profile in virtual worlds. Seriously, fuck your ACL, Vegoose, ATP, etc., call me back when you’re headlining Planet Dork.
