Lockdown hack is now allowed

[Dean C]

Well the modification was notorius for use on warez boards. For example people would post up links to warez ftps within the hide tags. Then if the ftp leaked or files were deleted they'd be able to track down which users had been given access to the ftp

As far as being useful, there are a range of circumstances so I'm told

[Revan]

Now Im just wandering in here and havnt read the entire deal, but if what Dean C says is the only reason why it wasnt allowed, then I call that L-A-M-E.
(Note that the following reasons are my own opinions. They are not biased by any previous opinions I might have read earlier or whatever else)

* You cant stop warez. I see vB 3.0.3 on several sites, nullified and spyfixed. Omfgz you shouldnt let people have access to vB files, php experts are able to offer it for free! Letting us see the files promote warez!
* vB in itself as a forum software can be used to promote warez. So fooking what if someone uses vB to discuss warez? Ive seen emulation sites using vB, and do they get busted by Jelsoft? No. Because in relation to what FleaBag said, the admin can just put in their agreement that people "read" and agree to at register summit like "Due to the realtime nature of our forums we cannot be held responsible for any illegal activities going on on our forums", and it holds as much water as Jelsoft's.
* Every single god damn mod out there can in some twisted way, if you bend and turn it enough, be said to promote warez.
People can shout about warez. (Link's Shoutbox owns btw )
People can rip flash games and play em. thats warez
People can attach warez to PMs.
People can chat about warez in an RPG battle
People can post warez new in a portal
etc etc etc

[SaN-DeeP]

Originally Posted by Revan

Now Im just wandering in here and havnt read the entire deal, but if what Dean C says is the only reason why it wasnt allowed, then I call that L-A-M-E.
(Note that the following reasons are my own opinions. They are not biased by any previous opinions I might have read earlier or whatever else)

* You cant stop warez. I see vB 3.0.3 on several sites, nullified and spyfixed. Omfgz you shouldnt let people have access to vB files, php experts are able to offer it for free! Letting us see the files promote warez!
* vB in itself as a forum software can be used to promote warez. So fooking what if someone uses vB to discuss warez? Ive seen emulation sites using vB, and do they get busted by Jelsoft? No. Because in relation to what FleaBag said, the admin can just put in their agreement that people "read" and agree to at register summit like "Due to the realtime nature of our forums we cannot be held responsible for any illegal activities going on on our forums", and it holds as much water as Jelsoft's.
* Every single god damn mod out there can in some twisted way, if you bend and turn it enough, be said to promote warez.
People can shout about warez. (Link's Shoutbox owns btw )
People can rip flash games and play em. thats warez
People can attach warez to PMs.
People can chat about warez in an RPG battle
People can post warez new in a portal
etc etc etc

Well, you have the GUTS to speak truth .

[9mmPrincess]

this is probably a stupid question, but what exactly constitutes 'warez" ? is it programs, like photoshop or VB, that have been altered so that ppl can use them without paying for them or buying a license?

[Dean C]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=warez

[9mmPrincess]

Originally Posted by Dean C

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=warez

k i get it now, muchas gracias

[j_86]

Originally Posted by Zachery

But it is somthing you agree to, making it a contract, making it the law, i f you break said contract, your license can be revoked, then you would be pirating software if you continued to use it, and you would be really breaking the law.

By EU Law, if your allowed to edit the files purchased, then you can use any hack you want. You cannot say "you can edit the files for your own purpose, except if you edit for this this and this."

Sure you could put it in a EULA, but if you tried tso take action against someone who did use the hack, then it would fall apart in the tier court, let alone a EU Tribunal, if it is a ban on a certain "intention to purpose".

If Jelsoft tried to revoke a licence for such reason, then counter action could be performed and would win. (In Europe, anyway).

[blue_chi]

I've seen this hack in some forums long time ago. It was extremely pathetic as it was a warez website, they forced you to reply saying "thank you" before you can download the crack. How stupid was that, not only that they were the idiots wasting their bandwith and database space, but the whole website was so damn slow and nothing really worked in it. *OK, why did I go there from the very start? Oh, yeah, to get the warez...*, anyway, ... :speechless:

[BunkTek]

I can see the use for such a hack in a very legitimate board. Take a board dedicated to say employees. You want people to see what is being posted, but you also want to know who reads so you can eliminate the users you know from the ones you don't to see which ones may be the employer. The Dell employee web site is one example.

The site I help admin uses a EULA on a web page. Its a pretty standard EULA, but some aspects are fairly unenforceable in court. It is of enough concern that I'm scraping up $600 to have it rewritten by a contract attorney so that we can keep certain people out.

I'd never use a hack like this, although I may have considered it a couple of months ago. Instead I spent a couple of months playing with permissions, reorganizing the forums, creating new user groups, editing the registration emails. editing the registration text, creating a web page with the EULA on it and requiring you to click "I AGREE", setting up a popup EULA once you hit the actual forum, editing the guest welcome message, changing the name of index.php and creating redirects, etc, etc.

Sometimes the post and member numbers is not the main issue. For our boards it is the content and being able to keep our members informed of what is going on. Target audience is about 1000 to 2000 people total.

I've learned more about php, html and vbulletin that I ever wanted or needed to, just to protect my members from certain people.

To say that vbulletin could be held responsible for the content on a warez site is like holding GM and Jonny Walker responsible for me killing someone while driving drunk. It just doesn't work that way.

EULAs and any other contract have a severability clause in them to make sure that if any protion of the contract is deemed unenforceable or otherwise contrary to law the rest of the contract doesn't get thrown out as well. You can say that people who use your product must die their hair dayglo purple, but it wouldn't hold up in court. Look at the lawsuit against CompUSA and Symantec last year, people challenged the policy that once you opened the shrinkwrap you could not return the software. The court decided that since you had to open the software to view the software license the store and the company had to accept any returns if you simply said I don't agree to the software agreement. The only other option was to put the software agreement on the box somewhere, kind of hard when most of these run for pages.

[GMoore7]

I don't understand... why is this lockdown hack that simply hides text considered to be so unethical and horrible?