Linden Lab Careless with Avatar Identity?

Since the introduction of Display Names, how can we be certain an avatar is who he/she claims to be? SlySense claims here that you can’t be certain, but that actually is not the case.

In their defense, I’ll admit that their claim may have been true if a non-standard Second Life Viewer were used, or in an earlier version of the Second Life Viewer.

If you change your display name, then your original name will be visible in slightly different format. Let me show you:

Here’s my nametag, after I changed my display name to Vulcan Tester – which I would never have done, if I had known that I wouldn’t be able to change it back until after a week.

As you can see, my original name is still visible at the bottom of the tag, albeit in a different format. Despite the different format, this does show that the middle line (top line if the user doesn’t have an active group) does not represent my original display name.

There is another way. Hover your mouse pointer over an avatar, and you’ll see something like this:

Here you can also see that my display name and my original name are not the same.

I won’t blame SlySense for wanting to sell their BanClone, but…I can’t help but wonder if they’re using the newest Second Life Viewer.