As of today, ComponentForge.net just shows a "Loading..." message and none of their downloads is working. Interestingly, their blog is still up and running. Their FTP server (hostname is ftp.componentforge.net and username/password is test) is still active as well and some of the files there were uploaded yesterday.
Since yesterday the ComponentForge website shows notice that it's "temporarily down for maintenance". No acknowledgement about the infringement yet.
ComponentForge started updating their website to cover up evidence. Google cache still holds the old version. Compare [site] and [google cache] versions.
How to get rich fast? If you are living in a country where copyright law is just for fun and you know how to write software, it's rather easy:
- Purchase a source code of some commercial software components.
- Rename all namespaces, methods, properties, etc.
- Throw away the samples and write new ones.
- Compile, repackage and sell as your own work.
- Profit!
This is exactly what a company (?) called ComponentForge or Safabyte did! Check out our website about ComponentForge/Safebyte scam if you are interested in details.
You'll soon find more posts about this case on this blog. More evidence, more traces, more about the people involved. Remember the book Cuckoo Egg book by Clifford Stoll about tracing a spy in a computer system which started at Berkeley campus back in eighties? Well, we probably won't find a Soviet agent here, but it can be interesting anyway. We already have some various traces to follow...
Would you like to know more?
- Check the evidence at the cheated.by.safabyte.net website
- Follow us on Twitter to see what's new in this case
- Get updates via RSS
- View websites of the original vendors: Rebex, ComponentAce, ComponentSpace and LanapSoft
Update (2009-10-16): They did it again, this time under XtraComponents brand!