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I once hired an offshore developer on ODesk who stole my code and resold it. I discovered he was doing this because he left my analytics code in. Same deal; I w

by dangero 13y ago

I once hired an offshore developer on ODesk who stole my code and resold it. I discovered he was doing this because he left my analytics code in. Same deal; I woke up one day to analytics showing traffic on a domain I didn't own, so I went to look and it was basically a mirror of my site.

spoiledtechie 13y ago
did you get it taken down?
- kevando 13y ago
  Yeah, I'm curious what happened? I had a client have something like this happen. No stolen code, but someone copied her site.
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    I had a friend who had this happen to her -- some SEO spammer picked up the complete text of her blog and posted it under a bunch of different domains, full of hidden links. It was reasonably easy to deal with, though; all you need to do is figure out where the sites are hosted, and then submit a DMCA complaint to the host's abuse address indicating they're hosting illegally copied copyrighted material. Legitimate hosts will take stuff like that down pretty quick. There's two things the DMCA requires that they'll look for in your complaint before they'll take action, though, so make sure you include them: 1) The statement "I swear under penalty of perjury" that you hold the copyright for the material, or that you are representing the person who does; and 2) A list of filenames that contain the infringing content. (If the host won't take action, you can file the complaint at whichever registrar the domain was registered through, too.)
- dangero 13y ago
  I contacted ODesk explaining what happened with all the evidence. By the next day the guy I had hired was contacting me saying that ODesk suspended his account indefinitely. He continued contacting me for about a year saying that he could no longer feed his family after "what I did". It was kind of a nightmare, but I think ODesk had pretty swift judgement because that's the kind of press they don't want. I also talked to the company that was using my code. They explained that they had hired him on ODesk and had no idea. They wanted nothing to do with the stolen code, and were very apologetic for their accidental involvement.
  - user24 13y ago
    I'm not convinced the greater good was served in this case. edit as I'm being downvoted rapidly. All I'm saying is that oDesk typically connect a westerner with a developer in somewhere like India who thinks that being paid $3/hour is fantastic, and who's other options for a job are basically hard manual labour. Obviously I don't know the details of this situation which is why I just said I wasn't convinced. It seems very plausible to me that the worker really was unable to feed his family after having his account terminated, and it seems like a bit more lenience on the part of oDesk would be more reasonable. In the western world, if you steal code you expect to get fired. I totally understand that and that's why I just said it wasn't clear-cut to me that the right thing happened here. It might be, but I'm not sure. In the western world if you get fired you have a lot more options. Maybe situations that involve basically exploiting workers in other countries need a bit more sensitivity. I don't know. Maybe not. I'd appreciate a discussion instead of just downvoting.
    - bermanoid 13y ago
      These "workers" that are being "exploited" are just copying and pasting code, in this situation. In this case, the code doesn't even work properly, since it's calling someone else's analytics callback. No work has gone into this, just willingness to steal code. That's called cheating the customer...fuck these guys. Even if they need the money.
      - user24 13y ago
        I admire your certainty. Maybe it is as simple as that and I'm overthinking it. I can't quite express the difficulty I'm having in a comment so I'll try to write it up some time. I can't argue it yet, but my intuitive feeling is that it's socially irresponsible to create this economy for them and then pull the plug like this. The bigger picture, I think, is that OP got his code stolen which sucks, but the contractor (or one like him) may have to sell a kidney or go back to working 18 hour shifts in the factory with toxic fumes now. That doesn't seem proportionate.
        13y ago
phoboslab 13y ago
Happened (or rather still happens) to me too. My game X-Type[1] was stolen by a Chinese company called Leiyoo[2], who tout themselves as pioneers of HTML5 gaming. They copied everything[3], including my tracking code, but at least changed the name to "Thunder Fighter"[4]. I receive about 20k visits per day from their domain. All my efforts trying to contact them amounted to nothing. Btw.: is there a way to ignore certain domains in GA? This pollutes all my stats and I have no way to turn it off, other than getting a new tracking code. [1] http://phoboslab.org/xtype/ http://phoboslab.org/xtype/ [2] http://www.leiyoo.com/ http://www.leiyoo.com/ [3] http://img.3366img.com/fileupload/html5/games/X-Type2/X-Type.htm http://img.3366img.com/fileupload/html5/games/X-Type2/X-Type... [4] http://agame.qq.com/game/100001283/detail.shtml http://agame.qq.com/game/100001283/detail.shtml
- dataewan 13y ago
  You can apply a filter to your view. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en-GB https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en-GB Note that this doesn't apply retrospectively to your data, so it will only apply to data collected after you make a change. You might want to create an advanced segment which filters out these domains, or only includes the ones that you want. https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/features/advanced-segments.html https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/features/advanced...
purephase 13y ago
I had the same thing happen. I had a contractor working for me for about a year who, when we decided to not renew his contract, took all of the code that I'd been building for the past 6 years and offered a nice little side business to clients in his area. I found out because he kept emailing me with support related questions whenever he'd run into issues with it.
- dangero 13y ago
  What did you do when you found out?
  - purephase 13y ago
    Nothing. I left soon after myself and had no interest in moving forward with the product or codebase. Didn't figure it was worth my time to challenge him about it. He didn't get any support from me though and, if I got to know him well enough in that year, I'd say he didn't get much further with it. Google brings up nada so I'm probably right.

by dangero 13y ago

spoiledtechie 13y ago

did you get it taken down?

kevando 13y ago
Yeah, I'm curious what happened? I had a client have something like this happen. No stolen code, but someone copied her site.
- smacktoward 13y ago
  I had a friend who had this happen to her -- some SEO spammer picked up the complete text of her blog and posted it under a bunch of different domains, full of hidden links. It was reasonably easy to deal with, though; all you need to do is figure out where the sites are hosted, and then submit a DMCA complaint to the host's abuse address indicating they're hosting illegally copied copyrighted material. Legitimate hosts will take stuff like that down pretty quick. There's two things the DMCA requires that they'll look for in your complaint before they'll take action, though, so make sure you include them: 1) The statement "I swear under penalty of perjury" that you hold the copyright for the material, or that you are representing the person who does; and 2) A list of filenames that contain the infringing content. (If the host won't take action, you can file the complaint at whichever registrar the domain was registered through, too.)
dangero 13y ago
I contacted ODesk explaining what happened with all the evidence. By the next day the guy I had hired was contacting me saying that ODesk suspended his account indefinitely. He continued contacting me for about a year saying that he could no longer feed his family after "what I did". It was kind of a nightmare, but I think ODesk had pretty swift judgement because that's the kind of press they don't want. I also talked to the company that was using my code. They explained that they had hired him on ODesk and had no idea. They wanted nothing to do with the stolen code, and were very apologetic for their accidental involvement.
- user24 13y ago
  I'm not convinced the greater good was served in this case. edit as I'm being downvoted rapidly. All I'm saying is that oDesk typically connect a westerner with a developer in somewhere like India who thinks that being paid $3/hour is fantastic, and who's other options for a job are basically hard manual labour. Obviously I don't know the details of this situation which is why I just said I wasn't convinced. It seems very plausible to me that the worker really was unable to feed his family after having his account terminated, and it seems like a bit more lenience on the part of oDesk would be more reasonable. In the western world, if you steal code you expect to get fired. I totally understand that and that's why I just said it wasn't clear-cut to me that the right thing happened here. It might be, but I'm not sure. In the western world if you get fired you have a lot more options. Maybe situations that involve basically exploiting workers in other countries need a bit more sensitivity. I don't know. Maybe not. I'd appreciate a discussion instead of just downvoting.
  - bermanoid 13y ago
    These "workers" that are being "exploited" are just copying and pasting code, in this situation. In this case, the code doesn't even work properly, since it's calling someone else's analytics callback. No work has gone into this, just willingness to steal code. That's called cheating the customer...fuck these guys. Even if they need the money.
    - user24 13y ago
      I admire your certainty. Maybe it is as simple as that and I'm overthinking it. I can't quite express the difficulty I'm having in a comment so I'll try to write it up some time. I can't argue it yet, but my intuitive feeling is that it's socially irresponsible to create this economy for them and then pull the plug like this. The bigger picture, I think, is that OP got his code stolen which sucks, but the contractor (or one like him) may have to sell a kidney or go back to working 18 hour shifts in the factory with toxic fumes now. That doesn't seem proportionate.
      - 13y ago

phoboslab 13y ago

Happened (or rather still happens) to me too. My game X-Type[1] was stolen by a Chinese company called Leiyoo[2], who tout themselves as pioneers of HTML5 gaming. They copied everything[3], including my tracking code, but at least changed the name to "Thunder Fighter"[4]. I receive about 20k visits per day from their domain. All my efforts trying to contact them amounted to nothing. Btw.: is there a way to ignore certain domains in GA? This pollutes all my stats and I have no way to turn it off, other than getting a new tracking code. [1] http://phoboslab.org/xtype/ http://phoboslab.org/xtype/ [2] http://www.leiyoo.com/ http://www.leiyoo.com/ [3] http://img.3366img.com/fileupload/html5/games/X-Type2/X-Type.htm http://img.3366img.com/fileupload/html5/games/X-Type2/X-Type... [4] http://agame.qq.com/game/100001283/detail.shtml http://agame.qq.com/game/100001283/detail.shtml

dataewan 13y ago
You can apply a filter to your view. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en-GB https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033162?hl=en-GB Note that this doesn't apply retrospectively to your data, so it will only apply to data collected after you make a change. You might want to create an advanced segment which filters out these domains, or only includes the ones that you want. https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/features/advanced-segments.html https://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/features/advanced...

purephase 13y ago

I had the same thing happen. I had a contractor working for me for about a year who, when we decided to not renew his contract, took all of the code that I'd been building for the past 6 years and offered a nice little side business to clients in his area. I found out because he kept emailing me with support related questions whenever he'd run into issues with it.

dangero 13y ago
What did you do when you found out?
- purephase 13y ago
  Nothing. I left soon after myself and had no interest in moving forward with the product or codebase. Didn't figure it was worth my time to challenge him about it. He didn't get any support from me though and, if I got to know him well enough in that year, I'd say he didn't get much further with it. Google brings up nada so I'm probably right.