Strike while the iron is hot

[anon]

Today, we'd like to once again present the biggest problem for our coders' productivity. Currently, new mods are released as never before, even more than in the past at other boards. In addition, there are many other, unique ongoing projects of the highest quality. Until now this is all good, and for our mods' actual users, a whole advantage.

Almost half a year ago, we decided to disable the so-called "credit system", as it makes little sense to force someone to write something, only to then be able to download our mods. This method has gone outdated, so we removed it from our forum. Since then, the downloads amount has of course increased significantly, and the posts one slightly decreased.

But let's go back to our main problem. As it always happens, there are people who are jealous or simply envious of our great work, and simply want to hurt us and take the biggest slice of the pie. That's of course understandable, as we can with a little pride say we are the worldwide #1 board with such an unique, straightforward offer.

We have many times used the time where we'd usually meet up with our friends, or earn money, to invest it in this forum. SB-Innovation has become somewhat more developed, which is increasingly time-consuming. Every new project requires hundreds of hours of work, but we take the needed time and patience for new inventions. We do this for you, not for us.

There is a site (whose name is irrelevant) which doesn't respect our work, mocks us, and releases our products as theirs. Of course this fact alone doesn't matter to us, partly because we're not at such a low level - we simply don't need it. However, his page only exists to monetarily profit from our work, so it's our exact opposite.

In recent weeks we have had a huge decline in our amount of visitors, which makes us lack the advertising revenue we urgently need to pay our server. Also, our public image risks getting damaged if copies of our programs going by different names, to the point of being unrecognizable, keep on appearing and circulating around the net. (Although this somehow flatters us, as it'd mean our work is so good that attempting to copy it is the only alternative.)

The people behind this site effectively don't seem to know what they're doing. Without us there would be no new mods, without new mods there would be no money, and without money they'd have to either close the site or post only bad 0-day tools and other unneeded things.

Given this situation, it won't be long until we take the first steps against mod stealing. Maybe we'll have to stop releasing mods forever (at least for the public sector), or close registration and switch to an "invite only" system.

Reality is, in that case we'd be certainly taking a step backwards, which we can't accept. This article is only to inform our users, and everyone else that's interested, about our situation, and possible changes to our site to stop the mod stealing.

On this note, have a nice weekend and think about what many of you take for granted but what actually isn't.

The SB-Innovation Team

[czullo]

Then hell burn them in the hell, and don't give him access. Only last mod for example if utorrent 1.8 is the newest, public can only get 1.7 etc...

[anon]

There'd be no reason for the public to use our mods then, if they're always one version behind the latest one - specially if someone else starts modding the latest builds and freely offers them for download...

[rom08]

I think that the main problem is that when you search for mods on google ,SB-innovation appears really far in the results(for Shu mod search the board appears in number 37 page 4 in google).If you were appearing in second or third result your number of visits will increase and your money problem should be solve.Maybe you can call for donation to solve the problem for a short time before finding another solution.

[anon]

I think that the main problem is that when you search for mods on google ,SB-innovation appears really far in the results.

That's another problem, too. We're currently taking measures to solve this.

[rom08]

I rhink another problem is the protection of your files.Of course you try to protect your work but first it doesn't work(your mods are still stolen) and second even if you say it's not trojan some antivirus detect your file like one.It can reallyrefrain some people.If you don't know the board your trust more your antivirus than a moderator from an unknown board.The problem doesn't happen with Seba's stolen files so neewbies might trust him more than you.
Just to say if you want more people and more participation you have to make it simple.Be one of the first in google search,just need registration and then a download link for mod.
Juste simple and easy that's the better way in my opinion.

[anon]

I rhink another problem is the protection of your files.Of course you try to protect your work but first it doesn't work(your mods are still stolen) and second even if you say it's not trojan some antivirus detect your file like one.It can reallyrefrain some people.

Protecting the mods didn't always fail - the first versions of Butcho's SBI-Leecher eMule mod that were put up in s**a's blog, for example, couldn't be unpacked at the time, and therefore were no different that the ones you could download from here (I think he changed the .txt so that it looks like Butcho coded the mod for him though, but this is all he could do).

If you don't know the board your trust more your antivirus than a moderator from an unknown board.The problem doesn't happen with Seba's stolen files so neewbies might trust him more than you.

That's correct. His uTorrent mods aren't packed, because they're 100% stolen code from here anyway, and therefore no antivirus will really pick them up as a false positive.
Same goes for the other mods that he could manage to unpack and steal. Because they've been unpacked, the EXE signature that caused the false alarms is no longer there, and AV scanners don't pick them up.

This is also a problem - noobs that don't know what a false positive is, or that don't trust our board because of having had one with its mods in the past, will go for the unpacked/stolen ones...

Just to say if you want more people and more participation you have to make it simple.Be one of the first in google search,just need registration and then a download link for mod.

Well, right now we may not be between Google's first results, but downloading the mods is just as simple: register, go to the mod's respective thread and download the attachment...

[Aurion]

It's kinda true anon,that most of our well packed/coded mods get stolen real easy but on the other hand,I guess we just get honored having out mods well known by most of the Earth's residents even if posted in other places than SB-I which proves that we are ruling the field of modded BT clients,not to mention that we are 100% the source for them....so IMO the most crappy part about this,is that we still can't manage to get it controled but hopefully the secure locking methods would work sooner or later!

[sarutobi]

Well, as rom08 said a big problem is that the forum do not appears at first position when googling. So all the users who seach rapidly for a mod, go and download from that shit blog.

As I said some time ago, I think that we should increase the use of our blog. There are some people who just need the rar file with the mod and don't want to create an account on any forum. So putting the files on a blog where people can freely download and adding a link to the forum where they can post their opinion, bug, etc could be a good solution, IMHO. This also can solve the problem of tons of 0-posters-unuseful-users.

[anon]

I guess we just get honored having out mods well known by most of the Earth's residents even if posted in other places than SB-I which proves that we are ruling the field of modded BT clients

Yes, that's true, and I have mentioned it in my first post

Also, our public image risks getting damaged if copies of our programs going by different names, to the point of being unrecognizable, keep on appearing and circulating around the net. (Although this somehow flatters us, as it'd mean our work is so good that attempting to copy it is the only alternative.)

But if this stealer changes the mods so that no reference to our board is no longer visible, it's harder if possible at all to know we're the original source...

[jolas]

Private! Private and friendly!


ldont ever stop the releases we really need them!

[Tinkle]

i think blogging will help reduce theft of mods a lot
t at the same time i also believe sum way mods must be locked so tht they can only be taken from us or SB-I in short
but at the same time problem in googling is its more dependent on search query and request
so making sure we only come first always is quiet little hard
bt we can make smaller blog on googles blogspot since google give priorites to their products which may kinda increase our enhanced search results in google

[anon]

... i also believe sum way mods must be locked so tht they can only be taken from us or SB-I in short

I think that could only be achieved with a login-system, which isn't possible to implement at the moment, and even so it wouldn't prevent you from downloading the mods from somewhere else - but just from using their special features.

but at the same time problem in googling is its more dependent on search query and request
so making sure we only come first always is quiet little hard

That's true, Google search results are very "sensitive" regarding your choice and placement of words. For example, googling "emule leecher mods" puts us in the 5th result, while "emule no-upload mods" takes us up to the 3rd result. Site placement also varies from country to country - I have been told that in the german Google (google.de) our board is at different positions than in my country's, even for the same query.

bt we can make smaller blog on googles blogspot since google give priorites to their products which may kinda increase our enhanced search results in google

I didn't know this, thanks.

[jolas]

a tip:
i used to use the hellwich i think this was the name, or something similiar, they had a system in wich you had to put a login over at shumod, and the site was private.

maybe this could work here. dunno.

[anon]

The site itself wasn't so private - everyone could register - but yes, your access to special features (namely no-upload and no download report to peers) depended on your user class, which was checked by logging in to the site from inside the mod. But we're not able to code a login-system like that at the moment.

[jolas]

some toughts: forgot to say it before:

recepie to make sb very active, maybe more famous ( not sure its a good thing)

1º if we could be private, we would be allowed to:

1.1- maybe have an open all day chat box
this would make ppl happier, and more active, we cant talk to each other, pm aint enough, and somethimes that makes , prevents ppl for making friendships, and meet here, they eventually spread to another places, like irc, and so on.

2º- Being private, would be easier, to control someone from stealing your work, or lurk around this place, trying to find ppl who use rm and others.

3º- a new theme, oh all black! that would be so cool!!!

4ºmy opinion, some of the most smart ppl around the torrent comunity are working in here, breaking code, all day, and making the life miserable to sct dildos colletors owners. :-D
but besides all this, we need a female touch, this is like a Rock, a very huge rock whit no one to work on her.

very goods, coders, and members, but no one, to work in making this more appelling ( ex: everyone likes gft. but everyone says it looks like hell.

= prettier + private + chatbox + someothers stuff (dunno) its the recepie, at least its my once again very drunk oppinion.