Pirated Software..

[Zachery]

Originally Posted by Neosoul

If its missing an authenticate.php

How do you figure that? Tons of people remove their entire install folder

[Colin F]

Originally Posted by HR3rdGen

I see vb on the newsgroups all the time. To bad all they let you do is submit URL's

HR3rdGen, email piracy@vbulletin.com if you have other information that doesn't fit the standard URL field.

And as a lot of other people said, there's no definite way for you to know if a board has a license or not.

[JohnBee]

Originally Posted by Zachery

How do you figure that? Tons of people remove their entire install folder

Precisely, I remove all /any dir of file that is not needed for vBulletin to operate call my paranoid but over the years after all the exploits I have learned its the least we can do to protect ourselves.

[Neosoul]

Its just one way...

[vau7]

like the good old days in the DDR, shame about ya.

ok, please, another flaming thread about piracy and other things...

1- if you found a pirated board, alert Jelsoft here: piracy@vbulletin.com
2- if this board is REALLY pirated, you will not be aware of any action taken by Jelsoft because it's not of your business how the follow up is made.

3- details you can think of related to a pirated board MAY not be what makes it pirated... 50% of the piracy reports are false because people think they know everything...
a: if you don't see the copyright in the footer, it MAY means that the guy paid the Branding Free version, so if you report this board for that, you're just bothering the company...
b: if you see missing files from the core directory, it MAY just mean that the guy cleaning the directories... the /install/ directory can be removed completely btw.
c: evidence of missing or modified content doesn't mean you face a pirated board... most of the time it's a modified board only... take care!
d: the guy said he bought the license at vb.org... we all use this denomination, instead of vbulletin, we use vb ...

oh, and btw, NEVER play the Net COP... if you think you face a pirated board, NEVER do the investigation yourself, never question the site owner on his legality... you have no right for this, and you always do worst than what you think you are doing.

remember that there is thousands of vBulletin boards around... if you visit a board that look suspicious and you do a report just for that, you make trouble... this is what i think over come here.

Originally Posted by HR3rdGen

I see vb on the newsgroups all the time. To bad all they let you do is submit URL's

the files you talk about are "nullified" versions of the script... i can tell you that 2 hours after the last vb 3.5.2 release, there was already 3 different pirated versions of it on the P2P networks... this is common, some license owners are buying licenses only to be able to release them on the nullified market...

btw, this is so easy to find nulled boards... the tag related to the action can be found easily from any Jelsoft guy - or anybody that is aware of it...

[Marco van Herwaarden]

If you suspect a board of using pirated software, always report. Jelsoft can very quickly see if it is a true or false report. If false (board is licensed) nobody will ever hear about it. If it is pirated, actions wil be taken.

Better to report 1 to many, then let one slip.