[Opensim-dev] [Proposal] Expanded Grid Info Availability

[Haravikk]

This is a subject very much related to my topic on IP and region validation, and the proposal is very simple; the idea is to make it easier to find out which grid an object or avatar belongs to, as this is useful for a variety of reasons.

It's already possible to get this information with some os*() functions, but they have a current threat level of Low or Moderate, placing them above the default of VeryLow and thus preventing them from being widely available. However, I'm not convinced that the threat level of these functions actually needs to be so high, as the information can be obtained by other means, it just seems like an unnecessary restriction on scripts. You can view the full proposal here:
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/User:Haravikk_Mistral/ExpandedGridInfoAvailability


I'm interested in feedback about which functions should/should not have their threat level downgraded, and also about my proposed addition of a header on llHTTPRequests() that identifies the grid.

In discussion on IRC there was a question raised about privacy, particularly tracking between grids, but I'm not sure this is a problem; currently hyper grid travels works on the assumption that an avatar's UUID is unique, which scripts are free to do as well, in which case they are already able to track an avatar fairly reliably if they want to. Thing is though, to do this they'd need to have an external service in common, and devices spread about widely enough across different grids to get any kind of meaningful tracking, and even then, what can be done with this information is fairly limited. Knowing what a user's home-grid is won't make this any easier; the only difference is that with knowledge of the grid you can be certain there is no cross-grid UUID collision (i.e- UUID uniqueness is a bit less uncertain), it opens up no real capabilities to track avatars that I can see, and there are better ways to prevent tracking that could be implemented if it were a problem.

However, the advantage of having this information more readily available is that it becomes possible for in-world devices to handle avatars differently depending upon whether they are from the current grid or not. It would also, crucially for me, make handling of data on a web-service much easier, as it becomes possible to easily partition data by the grid it belongs to, and to handle crossover (i.e- travelling avatars) more intelligently.