I was puttering around in Second Life tonight, when I got an instant message from my friend Rissa Maidstone -- the Toyota Scion island was under attack by Second Life pranksters. So I headed over there, and grabbed some screenshots. As griefing attacks go, it was pretty lame -- at least as far as I could observe -- but see for yourself. Check out the image below the fold.

The attack consisted of missiles hanging vertically, nose-down, along with extremely loud machine noises. The cylinders did not appear to be replicating, and no new ones seemed to appear during the hour or so between my first and last visit.

Big, institutional sites and events are occasionally targeted like this by so-called "griefers." The John Edwards presidential campaign site in SL was targeted by griefers in late February. The Edwards campaign blog reported that the attackers "plastered the area with Marxist/Lenninist posters and slogans, a feces spewing obsenity, and a photoshopped picture of John in blackface, all the while harrassing visitors with right-wing nonsense and obsenity-laden abuse of Democrats in general and John in particular." The blog contains an image of the attack.

Later, on the Daily Show, host Jon Stewart quipped, "I'm not a doctor, but if that's what your poo looks like, I believe you have bigger things to worry about than John Edwards." Video below -- thanks to Second Life Insider for the link.

In late December, flying penises attacked virtual real estate magnate Anshe Chung, a/k/a Ailin Graf in real life, while she was being interviewed by CNET. Later, her husband, Guntram Graef, tried to suppress videos and screenshots of the incident, claiming the violated the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Later still, he said he regretted filing the DMCA claims.