IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2018 - 58

conflict with a modification which a different user made
to the main fabric copy of the same portion of the virtual
world. For example, a user enters a virtual kitchen room
in which a knife is present on a counter. The user
requests a Private Copy of the virtual kitchen, and while
using the private copy the user picks up the knife and
puts it into a drawer. Meanwhile in the main fabric version of the virtual kitchen, a different user picks up the
same knife and adds it to his item inventory. When the
first user exits the Private Copy of the virtual kitchen,
suppose the first user requests his modifications to the
virtual kitchen be preserved. In this case, the location of
the knife must be resolved - is the knife in the drawer, or
is it absent from the kitchen (removed to the item inventory of the second user?) In this case, it seems best to
discard the first user's modification (as it was only witnessed by the first user in the Private Copy), and instead
maintain the second user's modification. This is because
the second user would be disturbed if the knife were to
"disappear" from his item inventory, and also because
additional avatars who observed the kitchen counter in
the main fabric would have seen the knife removed by
the first user. A change in the Private Copy will typically
not have as many witnesses as the corresponding conflicting change in the main fabric. We have examined several ways in which conflicts can be resolved. For example
(and not unlike the paradigms of software version control), the system may: a) adopt all changes from the copy
into the main world, b) selectively merge changes from

the copy into the main world, or c) preserve and merge
changes from the copy only when they do not conflict
with corresponding changes made in the main world.
A "Private Copy" plan thus gives the user absolute
privacy for a limited time in a limited space of the
user's choosing. While the user is immersed in the private copy, the system fabric guarantees that no other
avatars or bots will observe the user's behavior. Of
course, if the user chooses to merge private copy
changes to the main fabric, it may be possible for an
observer to later observe those changes and to deduce
some part of the user's behavior. However, if the user
discards changes made to the private copy, then no
observable traces will be present in the main fabric,
and the user's privacy will be fully maintained. In summary, we note that spinning up private copies of parts
of the metaverse for small groups of avatars poses
some IT-related issues such as scale and deployment,
which are not detailed further here.

Toward a Framework of Privacy Plans
Once the system is capable of providing the user with a
variety of privacy plans, it then makes sense to think of
this set of plans as a privacy framework to be presented
to the user in a controlled way. For example, the available privacy plans may be organized into a "Privacy
Options Menu" that allows easy access to the various
tools. Table 2 summarizes (in high level detail) several
proposed privacy plan fundamentals that we have

Table 2. Various privacy plans.

58

Name

Summary

Clones

The fabric creates a "crowd" of new avatar clones, each identical in appearance to the user's avatar, in such a
way as observers are confused and may lose track of the user's avatar.

Private Copy

Allows at least a portion of the VR world to be spawned as a "Private Copy" which the user exclusively inhabits
and interacts with, unobserved by others.

Mannequin

The fabric replaces the user's avatar with a single clone of the user which exhibits believable behavior, while the
user's true avatar is transported to another place. A mannequin is a type of clone that typically stands-in for a
user's avatar whilst the user's attention is elsewhere.

Lockout

Allows a part of the VR world to be 'walled off' temporarily for private use; other avatars are temporarily locked
out and prohibited from entering. For example, a room in a building may be subject to lockout so that a user has
private use for some time. When the Lockout expires restrictions are lifted and other users are again allowed to
enter the area and interact with this part of the VR world.

Disguise

Allows the avatar to stay in the local area but in a new (e.g. disguised) form. The disguised appearance may be randomly generated by the fabric, or the user may employ an avatar appearance editor to create one or more disguised
forms for use with this plan. Observers do not easily notice the transformation and therefore become confused.

Teleport

The user's avatar is transported (e.g. instantly) to a new location in the virtual world. The destination may be
selected by the user, e.g. from a list of destinations or by using a "map" interface.

invisibility

The user's avatar takes an invisible form so that avatars and/or bots cannot detect the presence or actions of
the user.

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

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JUNE 2018



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