Well, the issues with the grid are now quite clear. The Patriotic Nigras (or someone claiming to be them - honestly, it's all so childish that it's hard to tell - most griefer groups spend more time wailing on each-other than anything else) have used a form of a privilege escalation exploit on a number of objects around the grid to overload the communications systems.
It's unlikely that the Nigras themselves are actually responsible for the work, as most of them are 'script kiddies' (people who cannot create or modify software) and this sort of thing seems to be well above their usual displayed capacity (usually limited to screaming obscenities, using cage-guns or employing the work of others). Most likely, their eagerness to cause trouble is being exploited by someone else.
As for the exploit itself, it was reported at least as early as February 12, 2006, and apparently remains unpatched to this day. It is relatively simple to take advantage of and as such, we'll not be publishing the specifics at this time.
The exploit takes advantage of a feature-by-design, and as-such, is going to be tricky to fix without (a) breaking the actual intended feature, and (b) breaking something else - That said, there are several possible points at which the exploit can be closed.
Looking forward to a more stable grid soon.
[Update: Linden Lab have finally put forward some information of their own, that they had a configuration issue that was preventing the database systems coping with additional load. So, I was wrong. The attack was not nearly the whole story.]
1. Is it just coincidence that this kicked up shortly after the announcement about gambling?
Posted at 6:06AM on Jul 30th 2007 by neural