Thanks Curt, I appreciate the heads up on whats happening. It is good to know
that stuff is being done, please keep it up. Please don't take my comments as a
attack on the fg community, prior to your reply I was partly unaware of what
others were doing, or if they were doing.
I do however disagree on your belief that they can hurt us - its obvious that
they are annoyed by what we've already done as evidenced by the callous use of
the 'flightgear.us' webdomain (among other things), so it is my belief that the
more we up the ante the more they may react, and in doing so they stand to
expose themselves more and more for what they really are. It is worth
understanding that their retaliatory tactics (creating webdomains, ads on
facebook etc) cost money, ours thus far do not to any great degree (other than
some time) - that gives us the upper hand, so I could suggest we keep doing
what
we're doing.
I've been doing what I can by sending complaints to facebook, doing some
analysis of the IP addresses associated with the scams websites to geolocate
where they're sourced, informing anyone I know to also complain if they see the
ads on facebook and other sites, and requesting that "Dan H Freeman's" articles
on eZine be taken down due to the misleading nature of his/her/its/they're
enterprise.
How about adding the search words in the scam websites to the fg wiki and main
site? That way google will bring up fg on search results that also find
proflightsim - you can put a small message in the fg site header to alert
people
to the scam via google search.
Regards,
Chris Wilkinson, YBBN/BNE.
________________________________
From: Curtis Olson <curtol...@gmail.com>
To: FlightGear developers discussions <flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Fri, 14 January, 2011 1:35:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] pirates
Hi Chris,
A lot of people are trying to do things ... we've had boatloads of fake
facebook
pages shut down, we have gotten some of the affiliates to remove some of their
most offensive lies. But for every page we get closed down, 10 more pop up.
It's difficult to battle an opponent who thinks they can do anything and say
anything with zero accountability. Why do they have zero accountability?
Because they operate with fake accounts, fake names, fake addresses and they
have tons of these setup and can make up more any time.
Lately they've been running a video on the proflightsim site that is clearly
not
flightgear. Their excuse was that an affiliate sent them it to them, and they
would look into it. It was still up on their page last I checked.
We can tell them that they aren't tolerated and that we'll out them ... they
don't care.
A lot of people are spending time on this including myself. I've been in
contact with clickbank (the affiliate/money mechanism for proflightsim sales).
I've even been in direct contact with proflightsim.
If you are a person who spent money of proflightsim-scam, just google through
the flightgear forum and wiki and several other mainstream flight sim sites and
you'll find plenty of information that is truthful and honest about this whole
thing.
If you don't think we are doing enough, the please, what are your ideas. If
you
don't think we are doing enough, then please pitch in and help. But please,
let's keep our response ethical and our words honest. One thing we have seen
is
that every time we do get a page shutdown or hit them where it hurts, they come
back in retaliatory form like it's all out war. They can hurt us too if we go
down the path of all out war ... that's not what I want to do.
If you hear of someone getting ripped off, or you yourself got ripped off ...
please contact click bank ... they aren't exactly bastions of innocence but
they
have to keep up a good front and if enough complaints come in it forces them to
respond. Likewise, proflightsim is about as slimy as it gets, good luck
cashing
in on your 100% rock solid money back guarantee if you decide you want it. But
people who have pressed them hard enough have gotten through and gotten their
money back.
And by all means, let's keep posting and talking about this issue. Every
email,
every forum post, every blog or tweet or facebook comment adds to the body of
evidence available on the web. As this body of evidence grows and spreads it
becomes easier to find and someone who does a bit of legitimate research ahead
of purchasing should hopefully have a good chance at digging up some valid
information. For those that just whip out their credit card and click buy
without thinking or researching ... I do feel bad for them, but maybe that's a
lesson learned ... and it would be great if they turn around and help the rest
of the world by posting their experiences in a variety of places. The more
information we can get out there in more places the better.
Curt.
On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 5:18 AM, Chris Wilkinson <blobster...@yahoo.com.au>
wrote:
Well let them read these emails, and have them serve as a warning - they and
their ilk will not be tolerated, and they will be outed for the immoral
scamming
lowlifes that they are.
>
>
>I don't care if their enterprise is completely 100% legal (which in my
>interpretation of GPL v2 it is NOT). It is a scam, and targets and rips off
>those who know no better. I would like to posit that inaction in this matter
>could reflect badly on the flightgear project - after all if I purchased a
>blatant copy of a free software, but only realized after the fact, sure I'd be
>angry at the scammers but I'd also like to know whether or not the people
>behind
>the free software were trying to do something about it.
>
>
>Regards,
>
>Chris Wilkinson, YBBN/BNE.
>
>
>
________________________________
From: George Patterson <george.patter...@gmail.com>
>
>To: FlightGear developers discussions <flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
>Sent: Thu, 13 January, 2011 8:48:37 PM
>Subject: Re: [Flightgear-devel] pirates
>
>
>On Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 6:22 PM, Michael Sgier <scrat_h...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> Those crappy pirates are going on my nerves....Why not add some convoluted
>> code
>>to display:
>>
>> Flightgear.org fly free
>>
>> or alike at various in game stages? Should not be that complicated?
>>
>
>It would be better would be to release a new version and publicise the release.
>
>This means press release to Flight Simulator magazines, twit it, rave
>about it on facebook, create videos on youtube.
>
>Yes, i know we (collectively) have been doing that anyway, but this is
>more effective than relying on the slime balls deciding to upgrade to
>the latest version. let's do our bet to outmarket them. There is
>probably more of us than them.
>
>Note: they could be reading this and associated emails now.
>
>Regards
>
>
>George
>
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--
Curtis Olson:
http://www.atiak.com - http://aem.umn.edu/~uav/
http://www.flightgear.org - http://www.flightgear.org/blogs/category/curt/
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