UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat i fear UBB hacking will be completely stopped before UBB6 is finalized...

# You may not distribute "hacks" for the UBB without approval from Infopop.

that comes straight from ultimatebb.cgi

kewl

No, sorry....

i mean, they cant be "forced" to add new features anymore, right?

besides, im seeing here some interesting ways to add modifications, very easily indeed. i think they are just making it official now.

besides i was thinking about not releasing my "hacks" anymore, so to not need to give it support nor "help" to build up ubbs anymore. i feel all my addictions should be in the code, or at least in a downloadble chunk of code supported by them.

ubbdev is working on an agreement with Infopop so we can distribute hacks.

I dont understand why they would even consider removing hack permission from Ubb they have and will continue using all of us to test this stuff on a high level lets face it sometimes we work these board to death.
They also get alot of free info from us and we pay for a lic. I used to hack a very popular entertainment piece that was illegal
and still to this day its got hackers by the groves all over the world. There is a certin amount of addiction to creating all you can create. If this wasnt a popular hacking pieace than it would be v board or one of the others. Not trying to upset any body thats just my thoughts

That clause was not added to prevent hacking by any means.

That clause was added to prevent what occured with the freeware where people would give away half the registered version and call it a "hack". This clause now gives us better ability to control this and more leeway if we need to stop someone from doing the same thing again. It is your investment in time and money that we are protecting as well as our intellectual property.

In the future it will allow us to work more closely with and to support legitimate sites such as UBBDev, for example, and prevent other less legitimate sites from giving away your hard work.

I can tell you that before I was an Infopop employee and still an avid code hacker nothing upset me more then seeing my hack end up on somone else's site without my knowledge, even with my name on it. Except the two times my work appeared on another site with someone else's name credited, that definately upset me more.

[ February 03, 2001: Message edited by: navaho ]

Navaho, Thanks for helping to clear that up and putting a few minds at ease.

Suggestion for INFO POP Is there a way that you can put a serial number to every zip that is downloaded from the members area and include that number in the script that view source would show. Even if a entry had to be made in the control panel you could then inforce serial number In the same way that you dont allow the copyright from being removed those numbers could be kept in your data base for an easy check of who should have that copy of ubb

Thanks Navaho...

Speed, that sounds like a good idea. A serial number that has nothing to do with the license #. You would still need the license number for any downloading of ubb code, but the serial number could tell us if the license is current and who it is supposed to belong to. They could just put it inside a comment tag in the header, would be something sent to the buyer along with the license info and they could enter it in the cp upon first startup.

The serial # check screen at infopop would be made available to those who have that "express written consent to distribute hacks", or something our database could interface in order for someone to download mod code. Lots of possibilities.

i agree. this would help with false "that guy copied ubb for us". actually this happens, u know.

Yea, I don't think Infopop would want to stop hacking. Hell- most of the new stuff on UBB 6 comes from the hacking community.

Speed, we thought about this. Three problems:

A: It's perl code. Anything can be added or removed. To some degree that is why you are all here and why the UBB is so much fun to you all.

B: Crack sites. It would be about 15 minutes if even that before the code would be flying to all the crack sites.

C: It adds a layer of complexity for legitimate users that wouldn't make a whole lot of difference because of A: and B:.

I can say from personal experince that there is no way to protect code from pirates. No check, no spider, no copyright protection will ever stop them....

allen, that idea would not go over too well with me, if i didn't have the option to d/l hacks without serial# it'd be screwed, because i am EMPLOYED by oneminuteleft.com too hack THEIR FORUMS. i don't have access to mick's serial# and pass for infopop so i'd be screwed, and he won't share it because he's scared it would give me too much power.

btw, if i wanted too double check if my head webmasters license is genuine, is there somebody i could contact? cause i do not want to be working on any pirated **** .

You could contact me, but since I saw you had some doubt I looked it up for you.

You're in good shape for a long time to come.

You guys missed my point... the serial number would be to show that the board in question was running on the proper site. You modifying oneminuteleft's forum has nothing to do with whether or not the serial number matched the forum to the site.

Crackers have nothing to do with it, the # gets compared against a database that IP has.. even if you found a serial # on someone elses' forum, it wouldn't help you, because the serial # would have to match the web address registered in the database. If the legitimate owner moved his forum or sold the license, it would be their responsibility to update their info at IP... just like it is now.

The complexity added would be virtually nil. Surely anyone able to setup their ubb could add the serial number from their confirmation email into a box in the control panel... that would be all there was to it... it would forever brand the ultimatebb.cgi file, you would only need to do it to that one file.

The serial # would be just a random # generated upon purchase or renewal of their license. They would still need their license # to actually enter the download area at IP. We could go to that complexity here, but maybe that isn't needed.

We get many requests for assistance from people with "new installs" of ubb's a version or 2 back from current. This is something that would take 5 seconds to verify, and an email sent to Bret if the serial #/web address doesn't match.

It's a very simple solution that would fix a lot of the problems we are dealing with in aiding pirated ubb's.

Here's an Idea, if you started giving away the UBB for free you wouldn't have this problem

Maybe you are right, but I would prefer to pay for quality work. If I really wanted free, I could go for the **** that ikonboard puts out, or maybe even a zcom board.

Oops! That's your board.

Nevermind.

Allen is on the right track I didnt make that suggestion for any other reason then no one is going to give there lic.# out and people would think twice about giving away a lic.Copy of there ubb if they had a reg number connected to there lic. I know anything can be hacked but you would have to hack info pops server to get a legit. Id number and if you was going to that length you might as well get a copy yourself while your there. the number in the header could be removed but people have removed IP copyrights too. but that does make a pirated version easer to spot.I would not have a problem with putting a 6 diget number in the control panel which would be hidden in the view source of the page. If you gave a copy to someone you would also have to give them a number {zip numbers could be updated periodiacly....

no, if u want nice forums with bad support that are hard on a server, u could get UltraBoard.

in my opinion, UBB should be free, and OpenTopic should the only one you could buy...cause come on it's the same company selling 2 versions of something that's achieving the same goal, for different prices...

But their not selling the same thing. OT is a hosted solution, UBB is not.

OT is written in Java and has an Oracle backend. UBB does not.

--mark

OT and UBB are aimed for two different types of people...

And I think water and electricity should be free, and health care too... but there's that whole little thing about the people writing the code needing to eat and pay their water, health care, and electricity bills... there are several freeware bbs's out there, I prefer the UBB version and am willing to pay for it. To each his own... By paying for the product there are quite a few people working on the product, making it what I consider a superior product.

Give us a little more time to get v6 outta beta, you will be amazed at some of the stuff we will be doing with it in the next few months.

health care is free. what, your country doesn't have free health care? shame on you

Just a thought

somebody pays for it... in the case of a country where it is free, it just means the money is sifted through the government's hands... much more expensive then...

Have to disagree with you on that one Allen.. As a born and bred English-woman living out here in the colonies aka US..

It may be that health care in england passes through the hands of the government.. but american health care is so expensive because of the insurance companies.. more expensive than in england..

?

How is that possible? If you are paying the bill, wouldn't you try to decrease it? As someone who has worked in US healthcare >17 years, I can vouch that insurance companies don't like paying more than absolutely required. I would say govermental regulation and paperwork required to fulfill those regulations has more effect on the price of healthcare than most anything else. I have to chart in triplicate simple things such as V/S on every patient just to get all the forms required filled out. At least half my work shift is spent charting in all the forms.

Well, that, and we aren't even taking quality of healthcare into consideration..

Sooo... you are saying the UBB would be cheaper if Infopop would move to the UK? I think cal has some spare room at his place...

EvERYTHING is more expensive in america.. and I think it's due to the odd way the health system works here that the prices of drugs etc are driven up..

Oh, and doctors get paid a hella lot more here.. I know that for a fact.. and the insurance companies themselves cost more money to run than the NHS does.. again, which drives up the cost of health care..

I mean, for one thing, you actually have to pay for contraception in this blasted country.. which shows a remarkable lack of foresightedness imho..

And yeah, move infopop to the UK.. My parents have a couple of spare rooms.. hehe, maybe they'll rent them out in exchange for a lifetime ubb license for me.. or something..

OH CANADA!

hehe, all our healthcare is government handled here. booyaa!

even the "petrol" that powers your "autos"? or is that paid for by the government, too?

Dawg, nobody in their right minds, at anytime, would actually want to live in Canada. hehe.

Autos? Umm.. you know, they're called cars in england too, and since I've lived in the US for 2 years now, I can actually understand what passes for English over here..

As for gas, well, since I've never driven, don't drive, have never even put gas in a vehicle, I can't answer that question.
But in my experience (and I'm probably more qualified to judge than most people) almost everything here is more expensive.

That's 'mercan to you, not English...

I am glad we got off IP bashing and moved into something more fundamental, like form-of-goverment bashing...

All together now!

Oh, I'm proud to be an 'Mercan! da daaaa da da da daaaa.... somethin somethin somthin... oh yes, we're better than youuuuu...

Our petrol (sorry, but gas is a material state and petroleum spirit is liquid) is VERY expensive compared to america. your don't drive Lucia?

Just a thought

It's times like this, I'm happy I'm only visiting.

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WHAT?

you PAY for electricity,water,and health care?? that's messed up...

i don't pay for none of that stuff.

and where do you live? Switzerland?

LOL!