Shadoworks
18th February 2004, 09:48
We have a friend that was using Dr. Divx created by Divx.com that told us he had reported a few flaws in Divx.com's forum and suddenly his registration didn't work anymore. No matter what he did he couldn't get the app to register. I even went to his house and tried to help him re-install it. He was sure that Doom9's recent post about SoftwareKey's was what had happened. He was not firewalled and convinced a few of us that divx.com had yanked his registration that he paid for just because he was unhappy and said something about it. So we set up a test to see if divx.com is using SoftwareKey's products. I bought the divx codec 5.11 and a dr. divx registration key. We setup an old machine on a dsl connection and joined their forum. No firewall of course, other than the gateway. But basically wide open. I tried the products out. I think I was very fair in my posts to the forum. I made a couple posts on the good in Dr. Divx but every flaw I found I told them about it. Nothing happened for a month or so. I decided to step it up this week and really pointed out the weak points in the program and compared it heavily to VirtualDub. I stated it was inferior to Gordians Knot and wammo, we got what we were looking for. My dummy machine was breached today by none other than divx.com. My registration was yanked and the program simply states the trial period is over. Try to re-register it and it throws up an error. But to make it worse, this takes the cake, I watched them take files from my machine just to be asses about it. I had a feeling this would happen so I've been sniffing my traffic pretty close. So I posted this message in their forum earlier:
The story about 321 Studios remote deactivation before proven guilty (official press release) makes you wonder what more companies are using SoftwareKey's products and may thereby revoke your license at their will? This is a strong argument for using an active firewall. What about the Dr.?
To my suprise they admitted to it with this reply:
you are not allowed to question the authority of DivX or our products. your license has now been deactivated... and we also stole some mp3's from your collection. thekid... If you wish to purchase a new license for Dr. DivX let me know i can give you a good deal on your old one
To this I replied:
You think that's kewl kid?? Well that's okay because we already knew this. We watched you do it. And I think that's pretty unethical don't you. www.divx.com is hacking into our machine because we had some issues with your program. I knew you would! In fact we at Shadoworks have been watching you for some while due to other reports of the same kind of mischief. This is why we posted some things to get your attention if you might say. Now if this isn't a violation of law and ethics I don't know what is. And you have stupidly confessed to the masses. And for those of you reading this I hope you know this could happen to you. Don't dare say any wrong about Divx.com or you will be violated in the same way these KIDS think they have violated us. You're lucky I'm older and wiser and work for the other side now or you'd be down for a while, just for trying this. If this is the kind of proffesionalism divx.com is all about then we should evaluate what we buy from them. This was but one instance as we have heard of this happening to other people that disagreed with their ideals. Use caution my friends.
I really hated to go about this in this manner. All I did was speak my opinion though and instead of asking me to leave the forum or helping to fix my problems of a product I paid $60+ dollars for I was deactivated and hacked. What kind of a company is this when leaders of software divisions act this way. I am a developer myself and I understand as many do here that it sucks to get criticized about your work. We try very hard to put out the best products. But I don't run ddos attacks on people that don't like it, and for a major company to attack me and my friends and take our money then gloat about it just pisses me off! Be aware my fellow encoders and use caution!
The story about 321 Studios remote deactivation before proven guilty (official press release) makes you wonder what more companies are using SoftwareKey's products and may thereby revoke your license at their will? This is a strong argument for using an active firewall. What about the Dr.?
To my suprise they admitted to it with this reply:
you are not allowed to question the authority of DivX or our products. your license has now been deactivated... and we also stole some mp3's from your collection. thekid... If you wish to purchase a new license for Dr. DivX let me know i can give you a good deal on your old one
To this I replied:
You think that's kewl kid?? Well that's okay because we already knew this. We watched you do it. And I think that's pretty unethical don't you. www.divx.com is hacking into our machine because we had some issues with your program. I knew you would! In fact we at Shadoworks have been watching you for some while due to other reports of the same kind of mischief. This is why we posted some things to get your attention if you might say. Now if this isn't a violation of law and ethics I don't know what is. And you have stupidly confessed to the masses. And for those of you reading this I hope you know this could happen to you. Don't dare say any wrong about Divx.com or you will be violated in the same way these KIDS think they have violated us. You're lucky I'm older and wiser and work for the other side now or you'd be down for a while, just for trying this. If this is the kind of proffesionalism divx.com is all about then we should evaluate what we buy from them. This was but one instance as we have heard of this happening to other people that disagreed with their ideals. Use caution my friends.
I really hated to go about this in this manner. All I did was speak my opinion though and instead of asking me to leave the forum or helping to fix my problems of a product I paid $60+ dollars for I was deactivated and hacked. What kind of a company is this when leaders of software divisions act this way. I am a developer myself and I understand as many do here that it sucks to get criticized about your work. We try very hard to put out the best products. But I don't run ddos attacks on people that don't like it, and for a major company to attack me and my friends and take our money then gloat about it just pisses me off! Be aware my fellow encoders and use caution!