'Second Life' hit by worm
A self-replicating worm Linden Lab dubbed "grey goo" overtook online world Second Life Sunday, forcing the world's owners to block all logins but their own for about half an hour. According to comments on the company's blog, the worm planted spinning gold rings in the world. Perhaps a Pavlovian response by fans of Sega's old Sonic the Hedgehog game, or an indication of the general curious nature of people playing Second Life, players willingly interacted with the objects, spreading the worm even further. As the worm spread, players reported serious lag in the virtual world.
According to blog entries posted by Linden Lab, the company blocked users from logging in at about 2:45pm PST in order to manually eradicate the virtual world of the rings. Login capabilities were restored half an hour later.
The worm may well be the largest of its kind to hit an online world.
Jennifer Guevin is assistant managing editor of CNET News. She focuses on science and green tech. But she also makes the occasional contribution to CNET's kitchen gadgets blog or writes about the latest Web distraction. Once a week, she takes the mic as host of CNET's Daily News Podcast. E-mail Jennifer. 
