Upsurge of illegal "warez" posts.

[XenocodeRCE]

Hello everyone.

For some time now any registered member of the forum can upload or download copyrighted content that is illegally shared and hosted on the forum. Indeed, not only are there disruptive elements within this community, but in addition they allow themselves to use the forum as a platform for retrieving pirated and / or stolen content.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of these positions:

- https://forum.tuts4you.com/topic/42411-armdot-source-code/
- https://forum.tuts4you.com/topic/42159-beds-protector-private/
- https://forum.tuts4you.com/topic/42391-cawk-vm-open-source/
- https://forum.tuts4you.com/topic/42210-atomic-obfuscator-90-open-source/

1) The first item is copyrighted software which has nothing to do here. Not only can we download the software, but we can also view its source code, which is a violation of digital copyright law and a violation of reverse engineering laws.

2) The other three are not copyrighted software, but remain private projects.

- For example the second subject, "Beds protector -> private <-" includes in its title directly the information that it is a sharing of a private project. So while the software or the code behind the software is not currently regulated, should everyone be allowed to share private code?

- The third subject concerns a private project, once again, of one of our emeritus member, Cawk [https://forum.tuts4you.com/profile/90434-cawk/]. Those who speak
 with him or those who have had the chance to communicate with him know very well that he kept this project private in order to sell it. He had already sold one of his private project on this forum. Out of pure respect I wonder if it makes him happy to see his private projects shared with impunity on a forum he appreciated.

- The last one has already been the subject of a DMCA complaint [https://i.imgur.com/V4GjHXR.png] but I want to add something even more serious in my opinion: if you do not know what is " atomic-obfuscator ", you can imagine that it is a paid private obfuscator, which had a very small number of users. Now if you type the name of the project on Google you will find its shared source code several times, in different versions of the project, and this in a systematic way. What I am targeting here is the relentlessness that certain users allow themselves towards other users and their projects.

If we refer to the forum rules, since the first sharing of private content on the forum by the user "localhost0" we can observe several repeated violations of the rules:

- "01. Your Expected Behavior and Attitude": what good attitude would allow you to share private code on semi-public forums? None.
- "07. Uploads, Downloads & Files": the leaked and cracked versions of the programs mentioned above are expressly hosted on the forum, or use the forum's hosting platform. In other words, the forum is currently hosting illegal content.
- "11. Scene Warez": A bit for the same reasons, but if only it was disparate; we can see that the user "localhost0" is ONLY sharing leaked code or private project source code.
- "22. Intellectual Property": It goes without saying that all of this content hosted on the forum is subject to violation of the intellectual property code. I am not a lawyer but in my humble opinion there is no need to get a PhD in digital law to understand the problem.

What I propose:

- The "Packer and Protector release" section must be reworked, or be moderated: our newly created topic must be approved by a moderator before being visible, in order to prevent sharing of illegal content or sensitive.

[Teddy Rogers]

One of the links you have posted was taken down within a few hours of it being posted. Another of the links was reported, taken down and further information was sought for confirmation as the code was already hosted on GitHub and other sites. The post was restored because no further information came forward to confirm otherwise.

It would be appreciated if you use the "Report post" feature with as much information as possible about why it has been reported to prompt the moderating team to investigate...

Ted.

[XenocodeRCE]

11 hours ago, Teddy Rogers said:

 

It would be appreciated if you use the "Report post" feature with as much information as possible about why it has been reported to prompt the m

I already tried numerous time but if I did not make this thread then one (all ?) of the post I linked from May 2020 would still be open. You can check by yourself, they have been taked down only after this thread had been created.
Also I don't think it's ok to let spread leaked code from github to here.


 

[Teddy Rogers]

53 minutes ago, XenocodeRCE said:

I already tried numerous time but if I did not make this thread then one (all ?) of the post I linked from May 2020 would still be open.

Checking the logs of those topics, you only reported them around 45 minutes prior to posting this topic.

54 minutes ago, XenocodeRCE said:

You can check by yourself, they have been taked down only after this thread had been created.

Yes, the moderators removed them because they were reported.

54 minutes ago, XenocodeRCE said:

Also I don't think it's ok to let spread leaked code from github to here.

Agree. If there is supporting evidence topics and posts will be removed...

Ted.

[XenocodeRCE]

On 8/1/2020 at 3:40 PM, Teddy Rogers said:

Checking the logs of those topics, you only reported them around 45 minutes prior to posting this topic.

Yes, the moderators removed them because they were reported.

Agree. If there is supporting evidence topics and posts will be removed...

Ted.

All that thread for nothing so ... the user's posts have been removed (only after this thread has been made btw) but the user is not banned, despite breaking 4 times the board's rules. 
It means I can insult one people, share 1 illegal commercial leak, and do 2 other things against the board rules WITHOUT being banned ?
Next time I'm not doing anything, so if you got legal problems with commercial registered companies and if this board get closed then the only fault will be on your shoulders. 

Your forum had been hosting source code of commercial software since May, for 4 months. The issue is not that users do not report these threads, issue is that mods and staffs are not being attentive enough
and if every new thread in this section would get systematically checked by a staff before being allowed/removed then you would definitely prevent such legal issues. 

Your board is probably one of the most active RE boards on the clearweb. Take care of it, it also means prevent legal takedowns. 

[kao]

@XenocodeRCE: I have a huge respect for you as a RE guy but now you're just being a d*ck.  If you have some personal issues with mamo/localhost0/whatever he calls himself this week, please resolve them privately and don't make a huge public drama out of it.

 

19 minutes ago, XenocodeRCE said:

since May, for 4 months

No matter how I count, it's 3 months and 2 days max. If you're gonna whine, at least get your facts right.

 

19 minutes ago, XenocodeRCE said:

issue is that mods and staffs are not being attentive enough

Umm, no. The requirement from law is to react on any reported copyright infringements, not to actively run around and search for any possible issues. See DMCA 512(c).
So, if admins ignored a properly reported copyright issue for 3 months, then yes, maybe they could be held responsible. But that's not the case.

[XenocodeRCE]

1 hour ago, kao said:

Umm, no. The requirement from law is to react on any reported copyright infringements, not to actively run around and search for any possible issues. See DMCA 512(c).
So, if admins ignored a properly reported copyright issue for 3 months, then yes, maybe they could be held responsible. But that's not the case.

 DMCA 512 C is clear :

Quote

for infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider

also the CMS used to run this forum has a notification system for every thread being created so staff cannot say they did not know, that was my point.

It's good these threads has been removed.

But I found this : https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 so really if you are hosted in the US you can own a website where people host whatever they want even illegal things and you won't be responsible.

So the user is responsible, not the staff. Then my bad. US law is strange. In AU it doesn't work like that, in Europe mostly it doesn't neither.

 

Now since the user is responsible, why isn't he banned ? My question is : are the rules of that forum hazardously applied ? If so then my remark on the previous comment still stands, and that's a shame. 

[Teddy Rogers]

I noted in at least one of the links you posted you were able to "like" a post and likely downloaded content yet did not report to moderators any of these up until 45 minutes prior to starting this topic. I am assuming your current motives and interest are purely driven due ArmDot source code being released and were okay not to care reporting of the other links up until this point.

As commented previously one of those topics you linked (source code for commercial copyright software) was taken down, within five hours of it being posted. Another was taken down and restored after a week because the person (claimed author) making the complaint never responded to PM's to provide further information or context.

Regarding "private", it is not uncommon in the RCE scene for private tools, code, etc. to be released (not leaked) to the public. There are also open source code that get released under various licences that people modify and those changes may still fall under an open licence. What I am getting at here, and this is not an excuse, is that sometimes there are grey areas and it would be appreciated if you reported these to the moderators as we aren't always aware of everything that is happening out there.

Occasionally people have incorrectly or falsely reported posts and topics for various reasons (sometimes out of spite, jealousy, personal disputes, etc.). If we really want to follow the rules moderators could request information to validate as described in section 22 of the terms. The moderators have actioned all your reports on good faith and in a timely manner without requesting any of this information...

Ted.

[XenocodeRCE]

3 hours ago, Teddy Rogers said:

Ocasionally people have incorrectly or falsely reported posts and topics for various reasons (sometimes out of spite, jealousy, personal disputes, etc.). If we really want to follow the rules moderators could request information to validate as described in section 22 of the terms. The moderators have actioned all your reports on good faith and in a timely manner without requesting any of this information...

Ted.

I'm ready to provide such informations, and I accepted to do so since I registered on this forum and accepted it's rules  

Regarding the "like" i'm curious, certainly not about the thread but more about CawkVM unpacker more likely, and regarding the download I checked that it was Armdot eddy's leak and I was right.

My motives were toward Armdot indeed because the other leaks are not under copyright and does not belong to commercial copyrighted company  they still shall not be available on the internet tho, but for a question of respect, not legal issue. 

Since it doesn't seems to be clear, my will is to preserve this forum, and I only wanted a systematic check of new thread in the section above mentioned to prevent copyrighted content leak, and a ban of the user that posted numerous time leaks an,d commercial copyrighted app source code. That is all, no need to make a fuss of all of this :^)