WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by duckilama Not fully planned. Or maybe not fully implemented. One of those is only half-assed.

Or maybe functional. Remeber the last major WoW patch? I do. Half the time you couldn't even log into WoWI, and when you could you got an ugly "low bandwidth mode". Notice how nice and responsive it is this time? That's because WoWMatrix isn't crusing it. Thats why they did it now. It was a choice between functional for nobody, or a nice crisp fully functional page.

[downset]

i don't care much about the reason why wowMatrix is supposed to be the devil.

WowMatrix just worked, If you had provided a client that works on Mac and then sabotaged my only option i would be posting dancing bananas here all night long like the other "real" wow add-on advocates.

As it is now its just sad, basically you admit being incapable of providing a means to update and organise updates for the add-ons you provide.

If you would have had a working updater wowMatrix would have never existed, now you ruin peoples patch day, by having them forcefully visit you awful sites and have them generate revenue for you.

Even worse you dare to write that all people who used to use wowMatrix should go to the official updaters, then link them to a page that states the updater is no longer supported and we should all wait for a new possibly working version. Also great: the mac version is written in wxwidget. All this would be funny if it wasn't true and if you guys didn't write this post with a smug attitude like you where doing everyone a big favour.

The discussion is probably moot anyway, the WowMatrix people are obviously -unlike curse and WOWI- capable and will probably circumvent this "protection" in a matter of days.

[Ackis]

My story:

One day, I started getting dozens of error requests saying "ARL is broken", "ARL doesn't have wrath recipes", etc... posted on the ARL forums, in tickets, and via e-mail.

Upon further investigation, it was determined that these people were downloading ARL via WoWMatrix.

As a result I lost countless hours dealing with the comments/tickets. I could've ignored them, but I try not to.

I contacted WoWMatrix and requested that they remove all of my addons. The response I got was asking why, to which I responded saying it was causing me support issues. The e-mail exchanges occurred a few times, with the contact person trashing Curse, however my stance was the same. I did not want my addons to be hosted by wowmatrix.

Needless to say, they ignored my request.

As a result I had to spend even more countless hours just to fix the fact that wowmatrix was bugged and was sending out a version that was not compatible with the live game.

Basically they ignored my request, and caused me 20-30 hours of extra work. Yes, that much work.

[Tuhljin]

Originally Posted by downset The end justifies the means! [paraphrased]

(And WoWI says to Tuhljin: Your message is too short to post.)

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by downset If you would have had a working updater wowMatrix would have never existed, now you ruin peoples patch day, by having them forcefully visit you awful sites and have them generate revenue for you.

My patch day is just hunky dory. And I like this site. Of course previous patch days even WoWMatrix didn't work most of the time, because it's horrible scraping technique brought down both the Curse and WoWI pages were it serves it's content from
So your choices for patch day are
1.) Update manually or via curse client
2.) Spend all day trying again and again to reach pages that are down to the the excessive server load.

I like option 1 better. Call me crazy if you will.

[Republic]

Originally Posted by downset The discussion is probably moot anyway, the WowMatrix people are obviously -unlike curse and WOWI- capable and will probably circumvent this "protection" in a matter of days.

Capable of what? Theft? If that's what you mean, I agree. You guys need to quit making 1 post accounts and become respectable. Go rent your own fileservers, pump your own application. You're essentially saying you guys exist to find ways around legitimate websites (circumventing protection in a matter of days). Not for nothing kid, but I'd be all over you with criminal charges if I were running this site or Curse. You need to quit while you can.

[Kallieen]

Originally Posted by Vyper My patch day is just hunky dory. And I like this site. Of course previous patch days even WoWMatrix didn't work most of the time, because it's horrible scraping technique brought down both the Curse and WoWI pages were it serves it's content from So your choices for patch day are 1.) Update manually or via curse client 2.) Spend all day trying again and again to reach pages that are down to the the excessive server load. I like option 1 better. Call me crazy if you will.

Ok, you're crazy!

Seriously, I agree. Option 1 is much better than option 2.

[voodoodad]

If you dislike this site so much because of their policies, you are perfectly welcome to go elsewhere. I would strongly encourage you to do so, in fact. Why hang around a website that obviously causes you so much pain. I just don't get it. Whining about WM being blocked from using this site is not going to change the fact that it is blocked. As I said in a previous post, if you use addons that are exclusive to this site or curse, you can still manually update them. I'm certain that the WoWI updater will be ready soon, and I personally can wait for it.

[JediExcel]

Originally Posted by Vyper I think people are failing to realize that if they hadn't done it now, the site would be crushed under the wieght of all the WM users updating... and we wouldn't be able to have this lovely converstation.

Well, I remember back when 2.0 hit, most of the addon sites were pretty badly smacked... and I think that was before the 3rd party clients. I was still doing it manually back then.

[Stormlor]

Originally Posted by Vyper Heh... you obviously have no networking knowledge whatsover. The port WoWM was using is port 80. Same as ALL http. Block port 80 and no one gets in. Secondly, WoWI is NOT a portal to another site, they host all thier own content.

Actually its not. Port 80 is used for people coming across. Like normal users. WOWM actually used a different port to get into WOWI. WOWM amateur programming didn't have sufficient ways (can't think of terms here) to be done via port 80 or 81 (HTTPS). I'm not WOWI's Network Admin so I have no idea how their Network Infrastructure is hosted, (not the site, the internal network). I have no idea if WOWI has a DMZ in conjunction with their firewall to keep port 80 hackers away (if WOWM used port 80)

I understand they host their own content. I am not saying anything about that. A lot of the content that WOWM was not through port 80, as a lot of it was saved on the internal side as well. Basically WOWM did hack into WOWI. How so we have no idea, maybe by a worm, maybe by constant hacking and seeing the port was open. I have no clue how the infrastructure was laid out, but if WOWM got through that basically means anybody with the knowledge and determination can get in. This is a security problem on WOWI, and while blocking ports was the first area of security there is much more that looks that needs to be done from the web front.

[cashdash]

Is it only me or did somone see all that "Blah blah bla I'm Lazy Blah blah" in this Topic?

[Republic]

Originally Posted by Stormlor Basically WOWM did hack into WOWI

Which is why WOWM is pure trash and their developers should be treated like the criminals they are. Anything else?

[voodoodad]

Originally Posted by cashdash Is it only me or did somone see all that "Blah blah bla I'm Lazy Blah blah" in this Topic?

Good point, wish I'd thought of that before I got so long-winded lol

[Stormlor]

Originally Posted by Seerah @ Stormlor: And the IP that wowmatrix was using what the IP of the *user's computer*. Don't come in here and tell us that we don't know what we are doing and didn't try to stop this before. You *obviously* have not educated yourself on the subject. We have already stated time and time again that this was not our first effort at attempting to block wowmatrix. Closing the port was not an option. Blocking the IP was not an option. Requiring logins, captchas, etc, we did not want to impose on our users. Every thing that we did try to block wowmatrix was summarily hacked around as they continued to *knowingly* steal what we did not want stolen. We even tried ignoring them. The patch coming and the looming bandwidth costs and site crashes were the last straw. Some of you say we threw the baby out with the bath water. IMO, we cut a foot off to save the rest of the body. WowMatrix was a *parasite*. No matter how pretty that Venus Fly Trap looks, it's still a Venus Fly Trap.

Please do not insult. I came here with an opinion. If your wondering of my qualifications.

- B.S. Computer Networking
- B.S. Network Security
- MCSE, A+, NET+
- Currently working in a Masters in Computer Science and Business. I have been working in this industry for over 15 years.

From what you describe its asking me questions. Do you have a DMZ behind your Firewall? Are you using NAT to get outbound connections coming in? Is everything Windows based or is anything UNIX / Linux based? Is WOWM hacking your DNS tables and making (A) records and making PTR records to their site in some way?

I understand they are a "parasite" but with networks nothing should be. This is a big site with resources (money type this time), you should be able to hire the right network admin that knows how to deal with these things. From the response that was given on this site basically all you did was a workaround.

[Tekkub]

Originally Posted by JediExcel Well, I remember back when 2.0 hit, most of the addon sites were pretty badly smacked... and I think that was before the 3rd party clients. I was still doing it manually back then.

2.0 was a very different beast. It was the only patch that forcefully disabled addons based on TOC number. Everyone had to update everything. Every other patch all that's been needed is the old "load outdated addons" and updating only the addons that have broken.

[Vyper]

Originally Posted by Stormlor Actually its not. Port 80 is used for people coming across. Like normal users. WOWM actually used a different port to get into WOWI. WOWM amateur programming didn't have sufficient ways (can't think of terms here) to be done via port 80 or 81 (HTTPS). I'm not WOWI's Network Admin so I have no idea how their Network Infrastructure is hosted, (not the site, the internal network). I have no idea if WOWI has a DMZ in conjunction with their firewall to keep port 80 hackers away (if WOWM used port 80)

Port 443 is https, not 81. I don't belive there is a service commonly in use that runs on 81, but it is probably still reserved for something ancient no one has ever heard of . Most everything <100 is.

WoWMatrix worked by scraping WoWInterface, and other pages, via standard HTTP (e.g. port 80). As will all browsers, the port used client side is chosen arbitarily, and unlikely to be the same for any run of WoWMatrix. As for WoWMatrix's internal server structre, it is irrelavent, as all the traffic comes from the clients machine. The WoWMatrix servers themselves did not pull anything from WoWI.

[downset]

man some of you people are pretty sad,

threaten to sue me for having an opinion?

Originally Posted by Spyan Instead of spending so much effort trying to prevent WowMatrix from working, how about trying to build something that is so much better than WowMatrix. You sound like the RIAA trying to sue 80 year old grandmothers.

this sums it up perfectly, please read the SOUND LIKE, it doesn't mean they are suing it means they hide their own incompetence with their holier than the pope rhetoric.

There are no more community sites run by a couple of enthusiast all those sites got bought out by big multi million dollar companies, they are not blocking wowMatrix to protect the community there are disabling competition and trying to gather extra revenue while doing a lousy job and breaking wow-player's only working option.

Here on the forum amongst the "real" add-on advocates you will keep patting yourself on the back and posting bananas for a job well done, but 99% of the wow-players don't share your opinion, they just saw their updater break with NO alternative.

Stop telling me the curse or woWI updater is ok and i could use that just as well, its not, its laughable and doesn't work on mac at all. Put some of those dollars to work on a few programmers instead of trying to gather more page-views for add revenue.

[Tekkub]

http://www.iana.org/assignments/port-numbers

81 is not officially assigned, but often used as an alternate for 80, as are 8080, 82, and 8090 on rare occasions.

Stormlor, hate to be mean (wait no I don't) but ya kinda hurt your credibility there by spouting off a bunch of networking jargon and getting the basic stuff wrong

[Republic]

Originally Posted by Stormlor Please do not insult. I came here with an opinion. If your wondering of my qualifications. - B.S. Computer Networking - B.S. Network Security - MCSE, A+, NET+ - Currently working in a Masters in Computer Science and Business. I have been working in this industry for over 15 years. From what you describe its asking me questions. Do you have a DMZ behind your Firewall? Are you using NAT to get outbound connections coming in? Is everything Windows based or is anything UNIX / Linux based? Is WOWM hacking your DNS tables and making (A) records and making PTR records to their site in some way? I understand they are a "parasite" but with networks nothing should be. This is a big site with resources (money type this time), you should be able to hire the right network admin that knows how to deal with these things. From the response that was given on this site basically all you did was a workaround.

I'd like to translate this post for all the laypeople out there...

"Hi, I'm a 20 yr old kid with a few useless certs. I once configured a lan party to play Counter-Strike with a few of my buddies. One guy's parents wanted me to hook up a printer at his office, so I did. I've also re-imaged my computer a few times as a result of some bad virus I got while using IE to view some man pron. I feel like I'm qualified to tell WoW Interface how to do their job now, even though I'm totally ignorant of their infrastructure. I am certain I know it's bad because I'm psychic."

That is all.

[colonp]

Great to hear, keep up the good work guys!