The rip-off figure is still at it. This time posting Education in the hills ch35. The fiction section is only accessible if you register but I won't givve up declaring the thefts for what they are.
theft continues
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Comments
Since the ripoffs were reported here
Since the ripoffs were reported here, BC has been under increasing pressure similar to DDOS attacks causing intermittent failure of the Apache process on our servers. Today Piper reconfigured our servers and seems to have ameliorated the problem. Whoever is doing this doesn't seem to have the resources to squash us, the attack has been less like a bulldozer and more like a horsefly. Still annoying though.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Have you been reporting it to
Have you been reporting it to the IP address providers?
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Possible suggestions.
Is it possible to prevent the copying of the material from the site? I know of several sites that have this method in place. You have to take a screen shot if you want to preserve some portion but is very tedious. I know this would hamper those of us who like to download the material for later reading but if the thief can copy it then they can place it.
Or disable both the guest as well as viewing of the material unless signed in to preserve the rights of the owners material. I don't mean to sound harsh, just that I'm seeing very few alternatives at the moment.
Is that why the servers where
Is that why the servers where twitchy over the last couple of days?
I've been getting "503 Errors
I've been getting "503 Errors" Is this part of the attack ?
Karen
Yes to both questions above
Our servers would get overloaded, do a dump of memory and restart. While they were down you would get 503 errors from the cache server.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I notice
Sisters part 46 by Cyclist, and Quoth the Raven Chapter 15 The Reaping too
Bots
I was warned by Snowfall that they had started taking my stuff. The lifting of odd chapters does suggest a bot rather than a human. Just had a look at Sisters 46, and while it is a piece I am more than happy with --it deals with Arwel's courting of Alice--it will make no sense whatsoever in isolation.
I said elsewhere that while I am enraged at the theft, I am trying to see it as a sort of backhanded compliment to both our writing and to BCTS as a site.
Not just stories
Their "Crossdressing Comics and Cartons[sic]" forum doesn't require registering to see and it looks like the stuff there was stolen, too.
I posted a note over at TGComics.com to give them a heads up.
thefts are continuing????
Okay, it would seem this is happening at a number of sites.
As for me, I ALWAYS download the material I want to read when it appears on this site.
I do this for several reasons....
1) I do not wish to remain on the Internet for more than short periods and certainly when I do not absolutely need to do so.
2) I don't often have the time to read a story chapter or posting beginning to finish in one sitting.
3) When I do have time to read, I seldom have the time to read more than a page, maybe two before I am back at one thing or another. I think the last time I read a chapter beginning to finish before halting was perhaps a year ago. I have a lot on my plate including my own writing, which has also been stolen although fortunately not from this site but from the Kindle/ Amazon site (I believe the perp there was someone who has a monthly subscription allowing them unrestricted access month after month) (then again, I don't know how these systems work so I could be all wet)
I do agree, however; something needs to be done to reduce these instances. If prevention of downloads is the only way, then I believe it must be done. That will halt my own reading of the stories, since it would require me to remain on the internet for longer period and, thus, subject to infestation of malware of one kind or another ( I do have a VERY good anti-malware program which has halted many would be malicious attacks - we do have some excellent programs over here). I do believe download prevention might be the only way to halt easy theft. There is always the copy and paste method which I use to post my stories here whenever I do so (it has been a long time - nearly three years as I was tapped by family to retire from my retirement and go back to work at the headquarters in Milan a few years back. Now I'm semi-retired..... unless they decide they need me for something. I've been communicating with my brother recently (over the past year) and am highly likely to begin working with him - especially since he is planning on moving his businesses.
Whatever remedial action is taken to slow or halt story and chapter thefts, I'm all for it.
God Bless you all,
Anesidora
Do we not have a talented hacker in our midst?
An individual who could hack the 'target' site?
Not that I wish to encourage any illegal activities of course ...
J.
It's a bot doing it, so what
It's a bot doing it, so what can be done is to use a standard bot sniffer on downloads and block the IP, no need to counter hack
But the other site is gleaning data from more than just ours.
So yes, there is a need to disrupt the other site.
Yes, but there are ways to go
Yes, but there are ways to go about doing it, if we find their website server provider, and give documented proof, including the offending IP(s), they can do something more permanent, after all by publishing stolen intellectual property on THEIR servers, they at the very least lower their reputability, and at worst make them liable to lawsuit, reciprocating things only puts BCTS at risk and lower reputation, and will make any proof we have questionable, by recording and incorporating defensive measures, we can go for the jugular and get them shut down, anything else will just make things worse.
Counter-measures?
I suspect (from comments here) that it is a bot 'harvesting' the stories.
Could we retaliate by using an approach that sends lots of garbage to them, swamping the real stories with junk and making their theft uneconomic? In concept, create links for a two-thousand chapter story, and when the bot starts reading these, send many chapters of out-of-copyright material (the bible, Chaucer, Shakespeare ... ) It would occupy their disks, and require much human intervention to find the gold (the real stories) among the dross.
I don't know if this would work, but it would seem a possible approach to counter bot thefts.
We just need
A bot sniffer, on downloads know those write the word in the picture and something to limit login attempts to 5 per hr, less than that could be a limited internet, but more is likely a ddos
One hard problem
Combatting this theft is a hard problem for Erin and her crew. Technically it might be straightforward to drop in a CAPTCHA or even a login requirement but making it harder to read TG fiction makes this a less friendly place. Some readers value anonymity and privacy above access to stories. We all need personal safety.
Yes, but..
Yes but to use either a pin or a CAPTCHA does not inhibit those who have already established an account. More and more internet sites are being forced to do so due to the very reason of what is happening here. Its not taking away your anonymity only putting in place another step in order to safeguard the site. Those that wish to view it as a guest would still be required to put in the CAPTCHA in order to view the site. This would still leave their anonymity. A further hassle but let me ask this. Would you still be willing to put your work up here if you were to find it elsewhere that someone might be charging money to read or claiming it as their own?
I love this place but if what I'm writing is being used for the benefit and possible profit for someone else .... I'm not willing to be a ghost writer for someones monetary pleasure.
CAPTCHA does sound like a
CAPTCHA does sound like a good idea. It would slow the access for a moment for those of us who frequent the site but it could be placed ahead of the log in ( ??? ) so those who wish to remain anonymous could do so. I don't know the logistics of it however, and also wonder if it requires a use payment to whomever developed the concept? That would be yet another expense for Erin and the site Elves. Since only a few ( dozens) are actually heavily supporting the site expenses, what would this do to the site longevity?
If it could be done without bankrupting the site, I'm all for it.
Anesidora
Keep in mind
That many in our community have massive fears about being identified as interested in thi type of thing. That is why the ratios of reads to kudos and reads to comments is so high. Many fear leaving any trace of their visit on the site, and a captcha would cause them to flee.
Dawn
If the copy agent is from an ip address from the pirate site
Could the ip be blocked or range blocked?
I say...
...we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
counterattacks
I know many people want to see measures taken against the thieves. Unfortunately, our government does not allow us to do this. It's part of the reason spam is such a problem. Many of the people (like me) are skilled enough to take some sort of action against the sending computers, but our government will spend money tracking US down, rather than the real criminals, just because it's easier. If zombie PC's were cratered, and the C&C systems demolished, as soon as they went active, there would be unhappy people, but a lot less spam, and maybe those unhappy people would start paying more attention to the coupon printers they keep thinking they're installing. There would also be a lot of bankrupt hosting companies in certain countries because they wouldn't be able to keep their systems online.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Watermark
What about putting a permanent watermark on the pages like picture of some sort. Nothing to make it hard to read. But something to mark it as being from this site
Or
A text scrambler that would make copy paste attempts need some editing to make sense.