[Discussion] Ethics

[Cypher]

Given the 'interest' in the latest drama (which I will not go into here), I'm interested to hear people's opinion on what's considered 'ethical' and what isn't in this field.

Please note that until I talk to Kurios, there should be NO discussion of specific cases, nor should there be any posting of cracked/hacked applications.

Personally, I think that the reverse engineering of public hacks and then posting the gleaned information publicly is perfectly fine. We reverse engineer games and other software, why should we set a different set of rules for ourselves? A couple of minor exceptions to that in my opinion would be the public posting of information gleaned from private bots/tools that were shared with you in confidence by the author, or the use of offsets/hooks/etc reverse engineered from a public hack in your own public (especially paid) hacks without credit to the original author.

If you're posting your hacks publicly, you need to be prepared for them to be pulled apart and publicly analyzed. I would go as far as to say that you should not just be prepared for it, you should expect it. If you don't want your code/offsets/etc made public, then don't post your hacks publicly!

The area of 'paid hacks' is a little murkier, however I think that as long as you give credit where credit is due (and also don't just 'rip' code and slap a price tag on it) then there's nothing inherently unethical about it. You've put time and effort into it, and programmers deserve reimbursement for their time invested. It goes without saying though that you should respect all licenses on libraries that you use, and you should try to be careful to 'do your own work' rather than just copypastaing from the public forums and selling it.

Furthermore, I disagree with the censorship of the thread (you all know what I'm talking about), however that's something I will be taking up with site management once I can catch them online and I have some free time.

Well, that's my take on a couple of the issues that have arisen lately. I'd like to hear from others though, as my opinion is obviously not set in stone.

Please try to keep it civil. You're welcome to disagree with each other (and me), but don't start personal assaults or I WILL delete your post. So if you want your opinion to be heard, then keep the personal attacks out of it and you should be fine.

Note to the admins: Please don't delete this thread. PM me if you want to discuss it (I certainly want to discuss the other thread). I would like to see more transparency in this section, as I don't think that censoring threads just because it gets some people's panties in a knot is the right way to deal with things. Reversing offsets from public software is NOT warez. If it was, then you can consider this entire section warez and you may as well close it.

[Dr. Doom]

Finally someone with good incite. To do a full fledged cover up is a little ridiculous. I'm not saying anything in particular, but as for anything being ethical, my opinion on the matter is, it's the internet.

I believe the internet should be anonymous and everything should be open source. We always put ourselves in the situations. People say warez/pirating/blablabla, WRONG WRONG WRONG. But it's simply information.

Put it however you want, but pirating in my opinion, isn't wrong. Want to not have your shit pirated? Don't put it in a format where it can be burned/shared. Or better yet, don't give a flying f whether or not your music/program is shared, and think of it as expanding your userbase. You may not be making any $$ off it, but people are still acknowledging your program and like it. They're just being cheap skates lol. It is 3AM here, so I may have some weird opinions at this point in time, but that's my take on all of it. I basically believe what you believe Cypher. It's the internet, and everything should be public knowledge. Censorship is simply constricting free speech.

I may have taken this to a whole new realm, but I do agree it's "ethical" to pick apart and re engineer someones work. It allows you to find flaws, and what not. For say, we have members on this website who frequent websites OC won't approve of. But yet, it's like a don't ask don't tell situation. There are sites that have ripped apart Bossland's program and have made their own servers and are giving it out for free and slapping a "donation" in front of it, for more features, etc. That in my opinion, is wrong. I might be contradicting myself, but I think you shouldn't be allowed to profit off someone else work.

Again, it's the internet. It should be expected, and nothing is sacred.

EDIT: Just throwing it out there, that I believe something is okay to be re engineered, but if they re engineer it for bad, then it's bad.

[Cypher]

Finally someone with good incite. To do a full fledged cover up is a little ridiculous. I'm not saying anything in particular, but as for anything being ethical, my opinion on the matter is, it's the internet.

I believe the internet should be anonymous and everything should be open source. We always put ourselves in the situations. People say warez/pirating/blablabla, WRONG WRONG WRONG. But it's simply information.

I can't say I totally agree with you there. I think there's a big difference between software piracy and software reverse engineering. Certainly in some cases one can lead to the other, but in the case of piracy, you are sometimes depriving developers of the money needed to continue developing the project. I know that if I was to release a piece of commercial software, and everybody was just pirating it instead of buying it, I'd probably just stop working on it. Why bother putting all that time and effort into it when people are just 'stealing'* it? (Using the word 'stealing' in the sense of lost profits rather than a physical loss of property.)

Open source software is slightly different. As someone who supports open source software and also maintains an open source library, I obviously expect that a lot of people will use it without contributing, however I also hope that by making the source available, that other people can give me feedback, patches, etc and contribute back to the project. Effectively 'paying' me for my time invested, with THEIR time. This only really works though in certain niches and for cases where you're not working on the project for financial gain, but rather just for personal or business use.

When it comes to commercial software though it's different, as the main motivation for continued work and support for the project is the money. If people aren't supporting the project with money though, then there's no motivation to maintain it. Maybe my opinion is biased because I am a programmer so I can empathize with other developers, but I always try to support software that I use (heck, I even bought a personal IDA license a while back!).

Put it however you want, but pirating in my opinion, isn't wrong. Want to not have your shit pirated? Don't put it in a format where it can be burned/shared.

Sorry, but that's just silly. There's practically no such thing as real-world software/media/etc that can't be pirated. "I can pirate it, so that makes it okay to pirate it" is not an excuse for what I can only interpret as greed (at least as far as the 'tone' of your post is concerned).

Or better yet, don't give a flying f whether or not your music/program is shared, and think of it as expanding your userbase. You may not be making any $$ off it, but people are still acknowledging your program and like it. They're just being cheap skates lol. It is 3AM here, so I may have some weird opinions at this point in time, but that's my take on all of it. I basically believe what you believe Cypher. It's the internet, and everything should be public knowledge. Censorship is simply constricting free speech.

Actually I think you and I are quite divided. Freedom of speech is different to the theft of software/media/etc. There are of course cases where I think the IP laws are stupid. For example I believe that software patent should not exist, as they stifle innovation.

I may have taken this to a whole new realm, but I do agree it's "ethical" to pick apart and re engineer someones work. It allows you to find flaws, and what not. For say, we have members on this website who frequent websites OC won't approve of. But yet, it's like a don't ask don't tell situation. There are sites that have ripped apart Bossland's program and have made their own servers and are giving it out for free and slapping a "donation" in front of it, for more features, etc. That in my opinion, is wrong. I might be contradicting myself, but I think you shouldn't be allowed to profit off someone else work.

Assuming that you obtained the software legitimately (i.e. either you paid for it if it was commercial software, or if it was just free and public to begin with, and it wasn't private and shared with you in confidence) I don't think there's anything inherently 'wrong' with reverse engineering the software. However, it gets 'messy' when it comes to how you USE that information. If you take proprietary algorithms from a piece of commercial software, then use it in your own piece of competing commercial software, is that ethical? I'm not sure it is...

Again, it's the internet. It should be expected, and nothing is sacred.

EDIT: Just throwing it out there, that I believe something is okay to be re engineered, but if they re engineer it for bad, then it's bad.

I disagree with the whole "it's the internet, so anything goes" mentality. Should we allow kiddie porn just because it's the internet? Should we allow the discussion of bomb making just because it's the internet? I certainly don't agree with censorship for political reasons, however I also think that there needs to be a balance.

[broly7]

A hack is a program, wow is a program.
We make reverse engeneering on wow every time, so we can make the same on any program. Why exceptions?

[Cypher]

A hack is a program, wow is a program.
We make reverse engeneering on wow every time, so we can make the same on any program. Why exceptions?

This is what the original thread boiled down to, and I agree with you that I don't think there should be double standards. If reversing WoW is okay, then reversing public WoW hacks should also be okay.

[thefarmer]

Censorship is just wrong in so many ways, and as for Reverse engineering i don't find that wrong since I believe information should be freely available to all people on the globe.
And if a software is made publicly available (Paid or Free) I see no wrong in reversing that software and sharing the information.
Keep the software private if you don't want it reversed.
Since information is powerful i think everyone should have the right to it.

Just my thoughts

[suicidity]

I take into consideration that every release I make, compiled or not, might as well be a release of source-code ( Unless I go through measures meant to keep people from reverse-engineering my work ). Where I draw the line is when someone's intent is malicious ( They sell the code or repackage it as their own without credits ).

The entire reason my work ( At least the best of my work ) is not largely strewn across the web is because I take into account that it will be naked to the public.


It may be my opinion, but I think people need to grow up and realize that public information is public ( Much like any non-packed game ).

[Robske]

Ever since the last thread this subject has been on my mind as well, I'll try to write down my thought process on the matter, you should be able to follow it (Note that my original opinion differs from my current one, so don't you dare context-quote me)

I take it this thread is not so much about the act of reverse engineering, but what we do with the information gained from reverse engineering applications.

It's my opinion that exposing this information to the public is a back-stab to the original application developers and generally shouldn't be done. Extrapolating from this, selling an application created with this information shouldn't be done either.

After some thought I realised that this is a very hypocritical statement to make - Most of us already reversed and posted information about WoW - why should we draw the ethical line there? Why should applications made based on reverse-engineered information be any different?

In the end, it all comes down to morals, ethics and views of the person holding the information. People have been reverse engineering and creating applications all for different reasons, some of us do it for fun, learning, curiosity and even greed. I'm sure many people will find it morally 'okay' to expose information about applications made with greed in mind (ie: paid hacks & bots).

Personally, I would never release information about another hack or bot like some people in the past did, simply because it holds no interest for me. Just the same, I wont condemn anyone who does.

Another great topic for debate is paid bots/hacks!

[SKU]

< quick, look over there! >

[Xelper]

I have no issues with people reverse engineering my work, the only thing I have an issue with is someone re-releasing my work as their own... which is why I use obfuscation. If someone wants to use my methods for their own purposes (and by extension the methods I have learned from others, and given credit to in my posts) I have no issues with that.

I guess it becomes shady when someone obviously invested a lot of time into something and releases a paid hack, then someone re-releases their work as a free hack out of spite. Thats pretty shitty.

[namreeb]

Put it however you want, but pirating in my opinion, isn't wrong. Want to not have your shit pirated? Don't put it in a format where it can be burned/shared. Or better yet, don't give a flying f whether or not your music/program is shared, and think of it as expanding your userbase. You may not be making any $$ off it, but people are still acknowledging your program and like it. They're just being cheap skates lol. It is 3AM here, so I may have some weird opinions at this point in time, but that's my take on all of it. I basically believe what you believe Cypher. It's the internet, and everything should be public knowledge. Censorship is simply constricting free speech.

Would you say the same thing about money in a bank? What about valuables in your home? If someone can successfully overcome whatever security is in place they should be allowed to have whatever they can steal?

I think that many people in this community claim their actions to be educationally motivated. I say claim because, also for many people, this is a rather transparent lie. Were it the truth, we would not be seeing paid hacks (or even public hacks, I would think) from everyone under the sky. This is why I never have, nor do I ever plan to release something I create in its "./" form. To people here who are trying to learn, I don't see the value in it. As for the other people, frankly I would say you're in the wrong place here.

As for the issue at hand, I would say you can't really be surprised if your work gets stolen. That said, the "issue that shall not be named" that I believe prompted this thread seems to me to be a personal attack disguised as a free information rant. It's one thing to steal someone else's work and claim educational intentions. It's another thing entirely to publicize it in such a mocking fashion. Again it is a rather transparent lie. Okay, so you reversed this other persons work, but you don't have to try to humiliate him. The expression cutting the heads off of giants comes to mind.

It's my opinion that exposing this information to the public is a back-stab to the original application developers and generally shouldn't be done. Extrapolating from this, selling an application created with this information shouldn't be done either.

After some thought I realised that this is a very hypocritical statement to make - Most of us already reversed and posted information about WoW - why should we draw the ethical line there? Why should applications made based on reverse-engineered information be any different?

Again, I believe it is because there is a big jump from posting some reversed information and selling a fully functional product based on that information.

[DarkLinux]

I was told that we can only reverse engineer stuff that the community has not created. Double standards but ok...

My opinion is that reverse engineering anything is fine. Releasing your findings is also fine, as long as you state what you have reverse engineered. To use the findings in your own hack is fine, but again that is if you state the author. I don not think that selling any findings is ok, even if you state the author. But again everyone does stuff like that, I still see some people using opensource libraries in there paid hacks and bots.

I think this is a big step for this forum to bring up the topic on censoring. It's also nice to see some people with authority who have a head and understand the topic. (Apoc and Cypher, thank you)

Last thing, if anyone has a problem with reverse engineering I say this to you,

Its never my fault, its there fault for not securing there code.

[Apoc]

Alright, just to touch base on the root cause of the issue that brought this thread on...

Everyone here knows I don't just delete posts for no reason. When a thread goes completely off topic (yes, we know which one I'm talking about), I have an obligation as a staff member here to clean the thread up. As far as "censorship", we're very, *very* lax with censorship on these forums. Obviously some things we need to remove (privacy concerns, etc. The typical stuff you deal with when a forum has 50k+ members), but I will never remove posts that are on topic. Cypher; this thread is fine, and I think this topic needs more discussion. I'll be talking to Kurios about the other thread. (I may need to edit the first post to remove the download links if its not supposed to be publicly linkable [site rules on warez, yada yada, catch me on Skype if you wanna argue])

As for this actual topic...

I agree with pretty much everything Cypher has said. I do however think there's certain things you just shouldn't post publicly (such as login systems, etc) out of respect to the original authors. Piracy is the #1 killer of any commercial application, and nobody here will deny or refute that issue. More often than not, its not the fact that someone is 'stealing' it (if its a good application, there WILL be cracks), as it is the lost revenue needed to continue development. If you spent months working on something, only to release it and have it cracked and thrown on the net, effectively making zero revenue, would you continue to develop the application? Most would drop it as its not worth the time to work on any longer. (Unfortunately, this happens all too often, and some people think they should charge people for a cracked application, which is really, really low.)

[Cypher]

I agree with pretty much everything Cypher has said. I do however think there's certain things you just shouldn't post publicly (such as login systems, etc) out of respect to the original authors. Piracy is the #1 killer of any commercial application, and nobody here will deny or refute that issue. More often than not, its not the fact that someone is 'stealing' it (if its a good application, there WILL be cracks), as it is the lost revenue needed to continue development. If you spent months working on something, only to release it and have it cracked and thrown on the net, effectively making zero revenue, would you continue to develop the application? Most would drop it as its not worth the time to work on any longer. (Unfortunately, this happens all too often, and some people think they should charge people for a cracked application, which is really, really low.)

Yep, I agree with everything you've said there.

I didn't actually check the downloads of the original thread. IF they were indeed cracks, login system dumps, etc etc then I agree it should've been removed. I was under impression it was a dumped offset list or something.

[KuRIoS]

In all honesty I can not be arsed to read all the replies here.
We dont want to see cracks here of any programs like glider, honorbuddy, ebuddy, yourmumbuddy or whatever. For me that means offsets used and source codes as well. I am sure that Apoc wouldnt want the HonorBuddy source code posted here either.
Nor do you guys want the stuff posted in elite memory editing section to be public to all.

@Drakefish: It may be doublestandards, but we are protecting a community and that is how it is done, you dont have to agree, but you have to obey if you wanna be here.
Because it isn't obfuscated well enough it is okay for people to rip and post? By that saying it would be okay for people to break into your home, steal your stuff and sell it on a yardsale next door, simply because your security wasn't good enough.

Regarding the other thread, it is not a discussion for anyone not being staff so it shouldnt be discussed here, though I can say that I soft deleted it(google that if u dont know what it means) because of reports regarding that thread and users posting stuff from a paid hack (which we dont want - Go to the lowlifers site if you want to use free hacks without supporting the devs).

EMU SERVERS: Wouldnt be here if it wasnt for reverse engineering, but does that mean that someone who opens up a succesfull custom made private server should be afraid of having "his" content ripped and posted here for someone else to post? Because his work is based on someone elses then why shouldnt he be the booster for other people as well? Isnt that what is going on with hacks and such?

Cypher and Apoc you know where I am if you wanna discuss it. By all means a crack of HonorBuddy posted on these forums would bring in tonnes more members, so it wouldn't be bad for us. I personally think it is a douchebag move, but if you wanna discuss it then lets go ahead