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Old 04-04-2007, 02:17 PM   #191
Dave
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What's the situation now? mg2:
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Old 06-04-2007, 08:09 AM   #192
win98
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I think that there is nothing we can do apart from edit the downloads and add that program thing to them.
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Old 20-03-2008, 06:09 PM   #193
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These situations are when hacking websites is actually the moral thing to do. I say if any of us are good at hacking, we rip his website a new ass hole. :mad:
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Old 21-03-2008, 11:54 AM   #194
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Not quite possible, as much as it's a compelling concept.
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Old 21-03-2008, 01:29 PM   #195
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Why don't we set up a code that must be entered to trigger the download like some other sites do. The code is displayed on the page with the "Get It" button and changes every time a download is requested. It is displayed as a graphic with the funny shapes and colors so that another site can't write a script to capture it. You've all seen this before, right?

EDIT: Nevermind. Looks like this had been brought up already.
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Old 21-03-2008, 03:34 PM   #196
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How about a Cracktro?

In theory I think it should not be too much of a problem to put an intro on an exe. You just have to create a new one with a small prog, say a couple of K, that runs before it.

I havent made any myself but theres a forum Here with quite a few people who have been making stuff like this since back in the DOS/Amiga days. I'm sure if one of the admin from AB got in contact, people there would be would be happy to help you guys out
While I disagree about a Cracktro or such program which run everytime you try to run the downloaded program, I think that a small text file saying something along the lines of "This game is offered to you by Abandonia. If you didn't download this game free from Abandonia.com, please report leechers and link stealers at our forums." would be a great defense.

The leachers are going to link to the direct download anyways, so if someone who actually got had and paid for the game read about how free it's supposed to be, chance are that we'll end up with pretty angry users. Once redirected to the illegal sites in question, they'll more likely than not start to pressure it over time with the sheer amount of angry users. Even if only one out of five persons actually file a complain to their ISP or the police or whatever, it should be enough to give a hard time to those illegal sites.

The downfall would be that every single available archive on AB should be redone from scratch to add the text file, which is a huge time investment. That, and we'll likely end up with a lot of users who actually think we're the site who charged them, and thus we'd need to explain carefully everything to them everytime they pop up around...
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Old 21-03-2008, 03:42 PM   #197
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I don't know how serious anyone is about this but after giving it some thought I might try this approach.

As most probably know when a group of files are zipped they can be done so using encryption which is password protected. That makes it so that the zip file can't be unzipped without knowing the password. If the downloader where required to enter their email address before the download would commence the password could be emailed to them when the download is complete. Members that were logged on already could have it go to their default email.

Now, this wouldn't be just any ordinary old email. This email would contain more than the password. It would also contain a link to Abandonia, a lot of advertising for Abandonia and a warning that the file was provided for exclusive use by Abandonia.com free of charge and that if they were charged for the download then they were ripped off and should take whatever action blah blah blah.

If you wanted the unlock password to be dynamic for a particular download then a script would have to be written that unzips and then re-zips the file with a new encryption password before each download. That might be a bit much but you never know.
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Old 23-03-2008, 01:50 AM   #198
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The Underdogs has a good system in place for downloading that we could partially mimic. Like others mentioned, we could force the person to enter a code that changes every half-hour or so, and the only place they could get the code is on the download page on Abandonia.

I don't know much of anything about HTML and website design, but I'm sure there is a way to prevent malicious sites from linking to the code image directly, so that they would be forced to visit Abandonia. If we did that, we could also put a prominent warning on the download page and explain to users that they are being scammed if they were charged or redirected from some other site.

Some companies don't approve of sites like Abandonia letting users download games, no matter how old they are. Some of them appreciate the positive interest and publicity that websites like these give their old games. But everyone can agree that con artists making money off something they didn't make, while tricking victims into paying them for Abandonia's bandwidth, is simply disgusting.

Last edited by Adamg; 23-03-2008 at 01:58 AM.
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Old 23-03-2008, 07:28 PM   #199
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I completely agree that this is terrible, but think there is nothing that really can be done about it. Almost every move has a counter move. And those non-machine readable codes one needs to enter are a horrendous pain in the neck. It often takes me 3 or 4 tries before I can guess what it is. I develop software for a living and sincerely believe that copy protection is a waste of time and money (just look at what SlySoft has done to BluRay's uncrackable protection), and I think that applies to leeches as well.

But again, it isn't my bandwidth that is being stolen...
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Old 24-03-2008, 03:10 PM   #200
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I don't understand this.

You're telling me that you can't disable views/links from his site??

Just add a small code to the web site/download to point to 'Error 666 - you've been fooled' site with message for people who link to abandonia site/downloads from his site.

It shouldn't be hard with PHP.

Stuff that he placed on his site (reviews, screens etc.) you can't remove as for some stuff we don't have legal right to display (screen shots are illegal, but not forced by companies - except Nintendo to some extent) but we do. So he is not doing just a little bit more then we are. (even in the eyes of law, we are more illegal site then his site is)
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