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 This method has gone outdated, so we removed it from our forum.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

[anon]

We already have a shoutbox, but it's accessible to Advanced Users and higher only. If we went private, yes, it's assumed that invitees who could manage to get an invite know correct forum etiquette to some degree, so it could be made available to "normal" users too.
You can see that at some other forums shoutboxes are public and therefore everyone spams them, or thinks they're search fields...

Also, this board install has been heavily customized, so new skins can't be directly added without having undergone important modifications as well. This is why we have just two skins at the moment - orange and blue, warm and cold

[rom08]

I have made the same research in google than you Anon but I'm in France:
- emule leecher mods puts you in 10
- emule no-upload mods put you in 7 but with Spike 2+ no upload in title :"eMule 0.48a Spike2+ (No Upload) - SB-Innovation"

[anon]

Interesting search result difference - "emule leecher mods" is 5th here with our doorway page as the result, and "emule no-upload mods" in the 3rd place, with the Spike2+ mod too. If you search "emule leecher" here, SB-I is in the 12th result with the doorway page again, but in Google Images the SBI-Leecher's splash screen is first.

[rom08]

I made the search for emule leecher SBI is 20th but it is the same for google images.I think it is not good to be in the second page of search result after to be 4th or 8th shoudn't be a problem.
On yahoo search for emule leecher(It is used in france) I stop searching your place at rank 130 and you still weren't there

[anon]

I once read in a Web marketing book that being between the first 8 results is the best...

And got tired of searching for SB-I inside the Yahoo search results and not finding it after the 10th page, too.

[Aurion]

I once read in a Web marketing book that being between the first 8 results is the best...

And got tired of searching for SB-I inside the Yahoo search results and not finding it after the 10th page, too.

Yeah it was kinda cool to see SB-I results in the first entries in the first pages of Google but it's still exhausting to see no results within first pages,that just pisses me off!

[Tinkle]

well working to improve search engine queries to improve results by us coming first is damn difficult
i think we must try to establish blogs in general category and spread our name through them will most probably help the cause
ya in case of yahoo yahoo search is the worst search engine ever
u nevr get results u expect
experiment in google only since once we find way out to come first in google search i think we can easily make name for ourselves and become dominant

[anon]

You're right with that - we have to love Google, because everyone else does.

And our blog posts have have helped a lot indeed - its PageRank is even higher than the board's itself (2 vs 1).

[Aurion]

You're right with that - we have to love Google, because everyone else does.

And our blog posts have have helped a lot indeed - its PageRank is even higher than the board's itself (2 vs 1).

and that's a good credit for us tho! it's all about the word of the mouth!

[CindyVer]

I'm still puzzled why a leecher board would like to be famous?
It goes against everything a cheater should do. Do any of you use the same name on a tracker as they do here? Does anyone on the trackers know who you really are here?
Most smart cheaters are never even very active on a tracker because of the fact one small mistake can get you bannedand make all your efforts go to waist when they catch you.

What's the advantage to be one of the first results when googling for leechermod, or cheatermod? To get them away from seba? That will not help, as long as you can't stop him from stealing your mods. instead of trying to get as much attention as possible to get people to register here instead of at seba's you need to stop the stealing.

If you can do that people who want the mods will automatically come to this place, no matter how hard it is to find.
That's when sb-i will be truly famous in a good way ... a board where coders are working their ass off to provide first-class mods that can not be found elsewhere. You won't be on first place when Googling, but you will be know for quality of mods/members and board ... not for quantity and number of mod-downloads, number of members, etc ... which is meaningless.

[shoulder]

But there's the question, how to stop Seba from stealing?

It's not that easy than most of you think.
If a mod is released he will steal it, he even posts them unedited if he isn't ablte to edit them.
Be sure we think of ways to stop him, but we need to find one which will really work and doesn't frustate our honest members.

[anon]

...
What's the advantage to be one of the first results when googling for leechermod, or cheatermod? To get them away from seba? That will not help, as long as you can't stop him from stealing your mods. instead of trying to get as much attention as possible to get people to register here instead of at seba's you need to stop the stealing.

And that's the problem: how? Do you have any ideas? A login system will pretty much always be cracked given enough time (you said this yourself before), a post restriction generates spam, giving the mod to certain members only isn't the way to go.

In the meantime, and if you put yourself on a coder's position, where would you rather have people get your mods from? SB-I, or seba's crappy blog where he unpacks and hex-edits them so that it looks like it's his work? Believe me, seeing the latter after all the effort put on our mods makes you feel sick.

If you can do that people who want the mods will automatically come to this place, no matter how hard it is to find.
That's when sb-i will be truly famous in a good way ... a board where coders are working their ass off to provide first-class mods that can not be found elsewhere. You won't be on first place when Googling, but you will be know for quality of mods/members and board ... not for quantity and number of mod-downloads, number of members, etc ... which is meaningless.

We're already known for our "first-class" mods - the SBI-Leecher and PrE eMule mods, Faze, Uni-Leech, the upcoming Extreme Azureus and the "normal" SB-I Hack which is updated way faster than Shu's, even though our coders don't have access to the original source, just to mention a few. We also always ask for permission to post non-SBI mods & tools (XdP, ECB, ZZ-RS, mRatio, RatioMaster, etc.) and you'll have seen that coders like umeK or Tr0nYx have registered and started posting their mods themselves, which is even better.

Quality of board & members... if you look at the FAQ you'll see that's one of SB-I's objectives - to give you a friendly and always representative board team. You actually get support for the mods available here, and if someone encounters a bug or glitch and posts about it, they'll be sending feedback to the actual coders, unlike at seba's blog where question-comments remain unanswered.

We're known - the problem is that seba is as well, and he's profiting from it.

[hitman]

dont forget that a forum like this need to be payed with money. without a lot of guests and members we could never pay the bills or do you really think that we could pay the bills with the donations that our members gives to us? äh no we would never pay the bills because nobody like to donate.

making the forum for private invite only would mean to delete 99% of the user database because we would not more need a big server and other things and the costs would be quite low

as usual there are for everything that we are doing reasons and we have to deal every day with difficult decisions its not that easy how it sometimes looks

[CindyVer]

dont forget that a forum like this need to be payed with money. without a lot of guests and members we could never pay the bills or do you really think that we could pay the bills with the donations that our members gives to us? äh no we would never pay the bills because nobody like to donate.

making the forum for private invite only would mean to delete 99% of the user database because we would not more need a big server and other things and the costs would be quite low

as usual there are for everything that we are doing reasons and we have to deal every day with difficult decisions its not that easy how it sometimes looks

The fact you allow every random member to get in sb-i and register is the reason why you need money for your server. If sb-i would have a much smaller user-base of selected members based on their cheating-experience and knowledge, you would have a much smaller userbase and much less bandwidth needed.

By keeping the board public you will never be able to stop seba or anyone else from stealing your mods.

And that's the problem: how? Do you have any ideas? A login system will pretty much always be cracked given enough time (you said this yourself before), a post restriction generates spam, giving the mod to certain members only isn't the way to go.

About spam ... a smaller userbase means an easier job to stop spam. And to be honest ... even with the large userbase as it is spam is rather easy to fight. Just enforce the anti-spam rules in a rigid manner and spam will stop after some time. You could even create an additional staff-position specifically aimed at stopping spam.

As i said a login system can be cracked indeed, but a smaller base combined with a decent auth-system gets you on track. The leakse will be far more easier to catch in that case.

In the meantime, and if you put yourself on a coder's position, where would you rather have people get your mods from? SB-I, or seba's crappy blog where he unpacks and hex-edits them so that it looks like it's his work? Believe me, seeing the latter after all the effort put on our mods makes you feel sick.

You are absolutely right, but mod-stealing has been going on for as long as cheater-mods exist. Even sb-i has been guilty in the past for doing so. For a while now you are indeed not doing it anymore and have a healthy ethical policy, and that's why this mod stealing is becoming a much bigger issue. As a said earlier ... it's the support and the quality of your board that will get people to get their mods here and not at seba's or elswhere.

With the open-door policy sb-i has now you will never be able to stop the stealing.

We're already known for our "first-class" mods - the SBI-Leecher and PrE eMule mods, Faze, Uni-Leech, the upcoming Extreme Azureus and the "normal" SB-I Hack which is updated way faster than Shu's, even though our coders don't have access to the original source, just to mention a few. We also always ask for permission to post non-SBI mods & tools (XdP, ECB, ZZ-RS, mRatio, RatioMaster, etc.) and you'll have seen that coders like umeK or Tr0nYx have registered and started posting their mods themselves, which is even better.

Yes I agree ... sb-i turned has become a fine board over time, but many people still have the image of the sb-i mod-stealers and you should keep in mind that most cheaters aren't honorable people, they have no loyalty whatsoever and wil screw you over for a dime.

We're known - the problem is that seba is as well, and he's profiting from it.

Yes you are, but look at the core of sb-i ... it's always the same people posting. Most posts are n00b-questions, some random news items and some trivial issues. If you would close your doors and keep the core members and keep focus on the quality of the board your member-base will become much tighter and people will become loyal to this board, even if they are cheating.

[Aurion]

Honestly,I wasn't gonna reply back to your post,but anyway I just wanted to drop my tiny words about this scenario.

Some of your words I have to agree with specially that part that we got to do an extreme something to stop this from happening & tho we stop worrying about that jerk,seba,but as the guys above said,we actually discussed that even in the elite section for many times since months ago but the solution was obvious & everybody knows that,it's just a matter of time till seba get fucked up,believe he will,a time will come when he won't be able to steal our mods as they are,he will have to add his touch which he already doesn't have,so he's most likely screwed,so it's a matter of time.

Another interesting part of your words,that goes "core of sb-i,same people posting ...etc" ... actually I have to agree with you,but not completely,because we all have noticed a slight increased number of new posters/members who really liked the idea of being here for rather than getting the new hotshot mod,so this also lies behind time ... I remember,when I first got in here,I really didn't have the intention to be part of this community,I just forgot where I put my old rusty shu mod after a PC crash,so down to google,picked first pages (weren't that first anon ) & found SB-I then after I got my mod,I thought,this board is interesting but lacks of active members,so why not become one ?! so I believe that those same old active ones,have increased significantly thru time as we can notice,and we're having same known posters by in larger scale.