PeerGuardian hijacker threatens Shareaza
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- In 2005, the PeerGuardian website methlabs.org was hijacked, p2pnet reported.
“The majority of the Methlabs.org administration and development team have been forced out of their website following a series of threats and incidents,” we said. “The member of the group that had been trusted to handle the finances and servers slowly managed to take over each individual part of the web site’s assets, eventually claiming control over the entire group and locking out the majority of staff.”
The hijacker was allegedly Will Erwin, then a student in Texas, we understand.
This morning, “Erwin shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near any project for any reason,” a PG source told p2pnet.
But now he’s turned up again, this time threatening both the Sourceforge Shareaza project, and the new Website (with the auto-update mechanism), says an email from a reliable source.
“William Erwin, a donor with screen name Rhythm, was given access – against private objections – by financing our ongoing legal battle,” says the source, going on »»»
Activity by a new proxy account on sourceforge can be seen here: http://sourceforge.net/users/ruroufro/
This is a rapidly evolving situation, but clearly timed to disrupt opposition to the patent office publishing iMesh’s Shareaza trademark this month.
“Shareaza WILL NOT be abanded,” says our source, adding a “new project” contingency, quietly put together over the past year, “is polished and ready”.
Says the Wikipedia »»»
On 19 December 2007, the project’s domain name, shareaza.com, was without Shareaza developers permission redirected to an unrelated site, promoting the download of a client known as ShareazaV4 [6] (or respectively ShareazaV5 etc) which promotes commercial netshoping from Discordia LTD, israelian company related to music industry. As a result, the original open source project was forced to move its home page to Shareaza.SourceForge.net, part of SourceForge.net.
Since 1 January 2008, current shareaza.com domain user, Discordia LTD., uses advantage of the automatic update feature built into versions prior to 2.3.1 of the original Shareaza to suggest to users that ShareazaV4 is an update to open source Shareaza. This vulnerability was fixed in Shareaza 2.3.1.0 [7], released on January 3rd [8]. It is the last stable version of Shareaza that will support Windows 9x. [9]
Yahoo, which uses SiteAdvisor to filter their search results [10], no longer lists domain shareaza.com due to it being listed by SiteAdvisor as a security risk. [11] Other website rating services, such as WOT (Web of Trust), also rate Shareaza.com as dangerous. [12]
Attempted trademark registration
On January 10, 2008, the new owners of Shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd (iMesh Inc.), filed for trademark registration of the Shareaza name in an attempt to stop the original developers from using the name, claiming that the first-ever use was on December 17, 2007. [13] The Shareaza Development Team have obtained legal representation to challenge the registration and a legal defense fund has been set up. [14]
This is a breaking story.
Stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
June, 2009
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June 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Are people still using Shareaza?!?
[shakes head]
June 11th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
It also seems the shareaza project site;
http://www.pantheraproject.net/
…is down for the moment. No clue whether it’s related to this news or just something temporary, but let’s hope for the second…
At least they have the advantage of being open source, as opposed to Pablo Soto (http://www.p2pnet.net/story/23041) so no matter what iMesh might try they probably can counter (I hope…).
But still it shouldn’t have ever come this far, iMesh should have been stopped a long time ago …
“…claiming that the first-ever use was on December 17, 2007″ …really >.> (wonder what were all those using shareaza prior to that date really using?…)…
If they find a judge that rules in their favor, it won’t be about evidence or who to belief, but about who’s on who’s lease (RIAA or someone spooking in the background) and how big the bribes were.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[shakes head]
Why?
June 11th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
This is another RIAA tactics to try to bring down decentralyzed p2p project.
I am not kiding. These guys are evils. This is corporate america as it worst in which ther is no diference between the entertainement corporations and organizations of gangsters.
It is a question of national security and this threat shall be eliminated as soon as possible.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
“[shakes head]
Why?”
[shakes head again, even harder]
June 11th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
“…claiming that the first-ever use was on December 17, 2007″
Is it not a crime to lie under oath in the court?
What are the penalties for deliberatly lying to the trademark office?
June 11th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
WILLIAM ERWIN is a parasite working for the RIAA and is marked as such.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
The RIAA is paying some agent to do exaclty what WILLIAM ERWIN has done.
This is criminal!
Since they behave like criminals we believe that they don’t care about the law.
Good! For now on we don’t either.
June 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Honestly ppl, what says the RIAA are behind this? No-one else see it as simply some kid with too much time on his hands, who has gained the confidence of yet another bunch of developers who were in a terrible situation and sadly taken advantage of them.
June 11th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
“# Reader’s Write Says:
June 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Honestly ppl, what says the RIAA are behind this? No-one else see it as simply some kid with too much time on his hands, who has gained the confidence of yet another bunch of developers who were in a terrible situation and sadly taken advantage of them.
”
He is a parasite whatever he is and should be stopped immidiately. It also sound like you are a troll!!
June 11th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Shareaza is back on sourceforge. And it seems to be restored by the sourceforge admins, not just re-registered, so it still shows a registration date years before Discordia claims first use for Shareaza in a P2P application.
June 11th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
“He is a parasite whatever he is and should be stopped immidiately. It also sound like you are a troll!!”
I fully agree to that, he should be stopped and it is a shame to see a community of volunteers have their work effectively destroyed, I just don’t see why people have to scream “it’s the RIAA” at any opportunity. As for the troll comments, I’ve submitted a few anti RIAA articles to Jon in the past
June 12th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
“Seems the Sourceforge project was to the proper develops, but the domain they were using now points to iMesh’s Shareaza.com (Need RIAA Proof?)”
…Yep, despite hoping otherwise, the worst seems to have happened and the link I gave in the second post now points to yet another scamsite by Discordia, featuring their scamware client disguised as shareaza…
The forums on sourceforge are not yet up, but those interested of new info over recent developments until then might want to visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareaza as that seems to be kept updated by someone(s).
June 12th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
not anymore for riaa proof!
this http://ja.pastebin.ca/1456476 appears to be a chat log with a developer of Shareaza -SmokeX- and their now ex site admin Rhythm
in house fighting has led to their admin doing this?! suppose it is one of the many possibilities at the moment. be interesting to see how it develops over the next few hours and what exactly is going on!
June 12th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Real smart. Guess he doesn’t know that since the hacker scare of the ’80s deleting computer files on other peoples servers (sourceforce or the service provider for the site) in order to make a point in an argument is a felony. Interfering with computer systems or something like that. IANAL, obviously. Just saying that deleting the sourceforge project was really stupid. It was utterly pointless, since the devs just needed to contact sourceforge to get it back and all had full source anyway, and if sourceforge reports it to the police he is in deep shit. Having administrative rights is not enough, for this law intent counts.
June 13th, 2009 at 12:59 am
I’m a Shareaza contributor, and a bit of an insider … haven’t been in the public for the last couple of months but I’ll admit I find this very shocking and puzzling. Rythm worked hard on Shareaza’s behalf, don’t really know what could possibly push him over the edge. I personally would admit I was hesitant when Wout passed down the reigns to Rythm, I will admit though he represented a visionary and he worked hard in making that image. I was wrote news articles for Shareaza, and to put it bluntly Rythm came off wrong, cryptic and disengenious to me. I wrote an Article, and he felt it upon himself to change stuff without letting me even know. I didn’t like it … so I stopped posting the news, because he saw it as something that was not even wrong … I take pride in open dialogue and I don’t like to be censored. Those that are part of the Shareaza forum community would know that I speak whatever is on my mind with regards to Shareaza.
In any case I don’t think Shareaza was worth doing the amount of work he put in, and as far as motive, dude just didn’t have it … but I will admit he was a control freak. (Admin privileges definitely abused)
Now as to Shareaza, great code base guys … but honestly as a P2P its time to let it go. We need to give this project it’s official death, anything else would just be a prolongation of the inevitable. The problems are daunting, and the P2P options that are better is just endless. Let us put Mikes pet project to rest, because it pains me to always see these setbacks and witness developers with no initiative. This incident is another proof of the lack of leadership. Now the best alternative is to make Shareaza a community less P2P client … let us begin from the beginning with new values and core objectives … developers if you are hearing me … do not restart another website and forums combo. Forget the general user, and program for the love of programming. Learn how to communicate amongst each other, and once you guys hav an organized group with a roadmap then restart the community dialog. This will take time, but will build a stronger user base with new ideas, and we can finally put Mike’s Shareaza to rest, and have a new client attached to old dogmas.
Heed my warning, to pretend Shareaza is the best P2P is but simple naivety. That was although once a true mantra worth saying.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:35 am
Apparently William Erwin has been gloating that he was paid big to do this, and PeerGuardian people have pictures and personal information to proving he’s the same guy. (Second hand chatter is all over the web, but he must be blackmailing people or something – no one’s really saying anything publicly.)
@ MoJo: That’s too bad, even if it’s true. The beauty of open-source though is that someone is bound to pick it up, especially after something like this happens. People say “that’s not my client” and don’t care, but this should be a big story -if companies think this is the way free software goes down we all lose.
June 14th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hi, today is Sunday and in few days after this devastation project is restoring and keep running. So news about it’s death is a bit exadurated, fortunately. There are bad and good things, like in every group of ppl – however I haven’t knew MoJo you have been censorred. Whish you were told about it! I also has contributed some of my work to Shareaza. So I regret this was gone with a wind. Also I don’t understand why Will has done it, he was really involved and hard working with Shareaza and make the site impressive look and unique working. From posiotion of great creator and admin has made himself I even don’t know who. I still hope this will appear to be a drastic joke or sth like this. But every next hour this seems to be less and less probable. Whatever, every crisis is a chance for improvement. As Shareaza community has been already attacked by domain hijack, this time is not first time. First time always is twe worst. So far basic fuctions has been restored however in different shape. I have obtained next debug build. Site for downloading for users works. Wiki perhaps is already working, I haven’t seen yet. Forums don’t work. We fight for our trademark Shareaza against Discordia agresor. It is hard, but it is working. New ideas are in mind. BitTorrent at last works as expected. Our community still is around. Reasuming: We regret our friend Rhythm has done sth like that, I personally still can’t believe this has really happend. If you would like to help any help is welcome. Skillful programers are needed, as project is running. We are not sunked. We are just changing the boat, the site – that’s all. Until forum will be launched you can contact with us via built in Shareaza IRC or any other client. Deatails on Shareaza.SourceForge.net.
Before I ve finished this post I asked at Shareaza support if we still as going to reconsilate and obtained quotated aswer:
” short questions: are we still runing Shareaza projet? Are we going to restore lost resources as we can do it or built new
forum, site, wiki etc?
It’s already restoring itself
http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/
shareaza.sourceforge.net
shareaza.sf.net
yea we programmed shareaza to fix a new website for us if anything ever went wrong
its doing a good job
if all of us die, then shareaza will maintain the site for us
it has achieved a state of semi self”
OCE> cool just checking as I write a post we are doing this – wouldn’t like to lie in the internet
PS.
Rhythm if you would read this, think over if your decision was anything good for you. Still this is not to late to revert all this IMHO.
June 14th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
@oce
that was sarcasm BTW. There is a new forum up and we are going be using trac for our bugtracker/wiki. Everything is moved to sourceforge now permanently.