EVERYONE need to read this thread in the link below, please post this other threads related to this, BTW it discusses that this is James Young is a HOAX read the last couple of posts
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=492330
Admins: Just talked with Microsoft being my profession and this was not sitting good with me since it was missing A. a contact phone number and for these cases it must also contain a Digital Signature with that being said they said it is fraud, I gave them the link here and they verified that they do not have a James Young employ and that the email extension [email protected] is not valid furthermore they said on there notices they will also have a phone number for the person(s) to call and correspondence is done through written. I will be receiving an email with the case number and contact information for the antipiracy case manager who verified the information and will forward it to the Admins here and at PPCGeeks as well. If one one the Admins here can PM there email addy so I can send the email to them for future verification on these types of notices.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More info on the Ms Hoax please pass this info along to all sites and admins...
http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7041
Microsoft Impersonator Sends Fraudulent Letters, Disrupts Community
Posted by Chuong Nguyen
March 13th, 2009 at 02:53 PM
It turns out that there may be an impersonator lurking around disrupting Windows Mobile communities. In response to an article that was posted this morning about Microsoft demanding that Windows Mobile 6.5 ROM images that were cooked unofficially be taken down, our own Microsoft MVP Adam Z. Lein spotted that the guy responsible for the letter to XDA-Developers may be a fraud, as was posted on PPCGeeks.
A similar hoax had occurred before at msmobiles in regards to Windows Mobile 6.5 screenshots. In the cease and desist letter to msmobiles, the gentleman claiming to be with Microsoft's legal department asked the site to remove screenshots of the forthcoming operating system
. The letter was sent after Microsoft had publicly announced and shown the very screenshots at Mobile World Congress 2009. According to msmobiles: "In any case, if it is genuine action on behalf of Microsoft, it is a case of extreme incompetence that this guy is showing because he is requesting removal of pictures of something that has been officially announced few days earlier." It should also be noted that pocketnow.com had posted screenshots and news of Windows Mobile 6.5 before, during, and after Microsoft's Mobile World Congress announcement and we did not receive a cease and desist letter.
The community over at msmobiles performed some additional investigations and found that the gentlemam, James Young, sent emails originating from IP addresses in London and not from Microsoft's corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington, leading many to believe that he is not connected with the software giant. Additionally, emails were sent from [email protected], and not at a "@microsoft.com" email address.
Whatever the case may be, other forum members in our original post here at pocketnow.com made mention that only the Windows Mobile 6.5 cooked ROM made by ROM chef Da_G was affected and 6.5 ROMs for other HTC-made devices were seemingly okay.
i only hope it is a hoax
I f you read the links I posted you will see that some users and some who work for M$ verified that it was a hoax...
Thanks for this.
It has been raised in the Moderators Forum.
I'll closed this thread now because there are a few of them floating around, might as well keep the discussion focused.
Might I suggest that if this is found to be a hoax, the site admin (or a moderator maybe) will let you know. We would appreciate it if anyone who has had a takedown notice by the admin adears to it until further notice from xda.
Regards,
Dave
I'll re-open this thread for discussion.
Can I request that if Flar removed your ROM images / links that you do not re-add them until you here from Flar (or maybe a moderator).
The takedown notice for those images may be genuine.
Thanks
Dave
thank you Dave,
question, since this has affected several hosting sites, what would be the best way to get them to re-think there decisions ? To me I think is not going to be a easy task to do since they are now very unsure of where they stand..legally that is..I doubt the M$ is going to come right out and tell them "all is well"
Who ever this guy is..he hit a very tender spot and if it was not for a minor slip up this may not have been nipped in the bud as quick as it was..
I have unlimited bandwidth and file space to host...
I am just unsure of the "legality" of ROM images in the US on a file server.
If they are considered legit, and do not contain any illegal software in the ROM image itself, I would be more than willing to host on my 100MBit web server.
What a p*ss take but to be honest someone should have noticed the extension on the email address!!! Or even checked into it... "Just want to clarify not pointing the blame @ anyone"
I know now XDA has to do there research on this and comply with any thing that has happened till the all clear is called.
Just shame the ammount of disruption this has caused to chefs and users alike....
With regards hosting sites i think that they will be fines as i imagine the flagged ROMs were reported by the offender and most hosting sites do not have enough time to check every upload to there servers....
Not sure i got anything else to say except lets all get back to usual.....
stylez said:
With regards hosting sites i think that they will be fines as i imagine the flagged ROMs were reported by the offender and most hosting sites do not have enough time to check every upload to there servers... I have personally had to initiate a DMCA, send it, and follow up with individuals before, as well as removing illegal material from some of the websites our current and former clients have hosted.
Not sure i got anything else to say except lets all get back to usual.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can speak to that since I am a partner with a game and web hosting company. We do look at the individual files on the box to determine if the reported apps or media violates either our Terms of Service or any copyright laws. We also check into each "report" we get to determine if the report is legitimate, and we do investigate IPs and domains, to determine if they are valid.
In our arena, we do get gaming guilds who pretend to be official companies who try to get us to take down a competitors site or server.
We have also used copyright DMCA ourselves, and we do send email notification, but ONLY after a written certified letter is sent. The email is sent to the listed contact of the company and contains a copy of what was sent via certified mail.
We do this since we normally engage in unofficial conversation if someone has used our copy-righted material to save us money, as most of the time they use it without knowing they can't.
As far as the DMCA goes, we can send notice using our own attorneys, but we HAVE to hire local counsel to serve any legal action notice if we end up going that route. However, we do have a choice of mediation and litigation clause which allows us to use the laws of and conduct legal activity in the state our company is registered in. MS would have to do the same thing.
so when will roms be back? will everyone have to re post them therselves?
If it's truly found to be a hoax, I'd sure hate to be "James Young", or whatever his real name is. He may quickly become the target of thousands of hackers. I would imagine with the combined power of everyone effected, he could find himself with:
An Empty Bank Account
Homeless
Late Vehicle Registration/Stolen Vehicle
On the FBI's Most Wanted List/On MI6's Most Wanted List
His Face In Porn Movies/Beastiality Movies
A Failed Drug Test at Work
On People Magazine's Worst Dressed List
etc, etc...
More info from another thread.
By Dereth
this guy obiously has no life....
he sends these to the pirate bay all the time:
http://static.thepiratebay.org/ms-loveletter.txt
and read this email at the bottom it states the copyright on the email.
http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_mail.txt
"IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and attachments are confidential
and may be subject to legal privilege and/or protected by copyright.
Copying or communicating any part of it to others is prohibited and may
be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
copy, distribute or rely on this email and should please return it
immediately or notify us by telephone. While we take every reasonable
precaution to screen out computer viruses from emails, attachments to
this email may contain such viruses. We cannot accept liability for loss
or damage resulting from such viruses. We recommend you carry out your
own virus checks."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tell ya what this guy been everywhere!!!
Last month, Ars reported that Microsoft's Windows Media Audio (WMA) digital rights management protection had been cracked, and a program called FairUse4WM had been written that would strip DRM data from purchased audio files. Microsoft was aware of the workaround, but did not seem too concerned, merely stating that "we designed the Windows Media DRM system to be renewable, so that if such events occur the system can be refreshed to address them." Now it seems that the company has gone a little further than that, sending out cease and desist orders to web sites hosting the FairUse4WM program. According to the owner of the web site BG4G, the orders came in via e-mail.
The notices are of a standard boilerplate format, claiming that the sites are "offering unlicensed copies of, or is engaged in other unauthorized activities relating to copyrighted works published by Microsoft." The copyrighted works are Windows Media Player 10 and 11, and the unauthorized activities are listed as "offering 'Cracks' or 'Product Keys', intended to circumvent technical measures that control access to Microsoft's copyrighted works and that protect Microsoft's copyrights in those works."
The "Demand for Immediate Takedown" e-mail comes from a James Young, "Internet Investigator," who claims to be acting on behalf of Microsoft Corporation. The interesting thing about the e-mail is that it makes no mention of the DMCA, which is the one law that would make FairUse4WM (which does not contain any copyrighted code, portions of Windows Media Player, nor any copyrighted music files themselves) illegal. The DMCA contains provisions against programs that attempt to circumvent copy protection. It also provides a "safe harbor" for Internet Service Providers and web hosts that take down files in a certain amount of time (usually 10 to 14 days) after a warning letter has been received.
The DMCA is a US invention and applies only in the United States, but many companies have attempted to use it outside their country's borders. The notice advising web sites to take down the FairUse4WM program came from the domain Microsoft-Antipiracy.com, which according to DNS records belongs to Microsoft but is actually administered by the ISP Nildram Ltd, which is based in the UK (the web site itself redirects to a page on microsoft.com).
Microsoft has not commented on the takedown notices, but they would be consistent with the sorts of notices given to web sites hosting cracks for other media-related copy protection. In the case of FairUse4WM, the problem may be somewhat more urgent from Microsoft's perspective, as the subscription-based model used by many DRMed WMA online music stores allows downloading an unlimited number of songs, but they can only be listened to for as long as the subscription is active
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More reading regards this:
http://jamesholden.net/2007/04/25/microsoft-didnt-issue-takedown-notices-for-fairuse4wm/
Tell you what though there is a hell of alot of letters and some of them going back as far as 2004 from what i'm reading lets hope that XDA can nip this in the but...
this is all nice to be a freelance paid by M$ or ? black M$ funds haha. its way back to .... that this guy is scaring on the inet for them . SO XDA WHAT WILL BE RESPONSE TO ALL CLOSED THREADS
edit : i want my thread back restored from backup hehe red lines removed . WHEN ?
Use common sense, people! (Admins mainly)
IF Microsoft would have sent any of such letters, it would require you to remove ALL of their products, not just one - isn't it obvious?
I cannot imagine msoft asking xda to remove anything WM6.5 related, but not mentioning WM6.1 and WM6.0 ROMs and files
It's like Sony would have ask i.e. The Pirate Bay in a C&D letter to remove links to just 1 movie torrent and not mention links to all other Sony-owned movies present there.
I don't think it ever happened that way.
And letter coming from microsoft-antipiracy.com ? That's a no brainer LOL! It's as credible as if it would have come from microsoftsucks.org
Sure it's a hoax.
You've been pwnd
http://who.godaddy.com/WhoIs.aspx?domain=microsoft-antipiracy.com&prog_id=godaddy
http://msmobiles.com/news.php/8059.html
http://pocketnow.com/index.php?a=portal_detail&t=news&id=7041
http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=4780
http://brian.carr.name/mscompln.htm
F2504x4 said:
More info from another thread.
By Dereth
this guy obiously has no life....
he sends these to the pirate bay all the time:
http://static.thepiratebay.org/ms-loveletter.txt
and read this email at the bottom it states the copyright on the email.
http://static.thepiratebay.org/sega_mail.txt
"IMPORTANT: The contents of this email and attachments are confidential
and may be subject to legal privilege and/or protected by copyright.
Copying or communicating any part of it to others is prohibited and may
be unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient you must not use,
copy, distribute or rely on this email and should please return it
immediately or notify us by telephone. While we take every reasonable
precaution to screen out computer viruses from emails, attachments to
this email may contain such viruses. We cannot accept liability for loss
or damage resulting from such viruses. We recommend you carry out your
own virus checks."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Interesting... the confidentiality notice is often a sub mail server attachment, meaning its attached to the email as it leaves the companie's mail servers, not when it leaves the users outbox... There are universal clauses out there, but since this one matches pretty much 100% it would be safe to say that the company James Young mailed it from and this company are one and the same, or connected through a parent or something like that. Here is the one that my company attaches once the emails leave our intranet and go out:
This message w/attachments (message) may be privileged, confidential or proprietary, and if you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender, do not use or share it and delete it. Unless specifically indicated, this message is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of any investment products or other financial product or service, an official confirmation of any transaction, or an official statement of <removed>. Subject to applicable law, <removed> may monitor, review and retain e-communications (EC) traveling through its networks/systems. The laws of the country of each sender/recipient may impact the handling of EC, and EC may be archived, supervised and produced in countries other than the country in which you are located. This message cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free. This message is subject to terms available at the following link:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
James probably worked there at the same company that sent the sony notice and got fired, so he's taking it upon himself. Maybe he got served a notice, and got mad that everyone else has it so he is sending out notices himself as a revenge plot... who knows... he has issues thats all.
Good news for xda developers :
http://www.duttythroy.net/component...crosoft-and-htc-say-ok-to-xda-developers.html
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/59043/microsoft-xda-developers-illegaal-maar-we-pakken-ze-niet-aan.html
Thanks and regards
Okay, so there is a HUGE issue that is going on with the American Government right now.
first to prevent spam and other things admins might suspect, My name is Jordan moddes. facebook is facebook.com/jordanmoddes
Here is the issue, If the SOPA / PIPA Bill is passed, this legislation will harm the free and open Internet and inhibit people's access to information online.
Why? SOPA and PIPA put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.
Go to
http://americancensorship.org/
Go to wikipedia.com or google.com (home, DEFAULT page)
please take 2 minutes. If this bill is passed, this website COULD be indefinably blocked from users WORLD wide. PLEASE share this with friends, family, co-workers and CONTACT your political representative.
If you have questions, please find your questions on wikipedia's only american page available via web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more
This really effect everyone of you.
Here is Google's response
https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
Please help us.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=21549253#post21549253
Lonje chat-free mobile app for everybody. Just install an application, which is compatible with all mobile devices, and connect with every piece of the world. Share you feelings, posts, images, text or links with people around neighborhood or in every other country.
lonje.com
chat.lonje.com
Now in Google Play store-Lonje chat
Why we are your choice:
1. FREE
You do not have to pay anything. Lonje is absolutely free for everybody and for everything. Send instant messages, receive it back, share images and any other our features…..right….with no fee.
2. PUBLIC CHAT ROOMS
Of course there are many other applications with instant messages...but how about to chat with everybody in the same time, in the same room...isn't it cool? Absolutely different people from countries all over the world….who knows from which country is your soulmate or best friend. Maybe you should try.
3. PRIVATE MESSAGES
Send instant messages, photos or other files to your friends or leave them a text if they are offline. And they will read it after.
4. PRIVATE CHAT ROOMS
You have your own choice to choose with whom to chat. Just create your own group chat and share your mind with your people.
5. PROFILE
Create your profile so people can know you better.
6. BLOG POSTS
You are free to make your own blog and share it with people.
7. INTERNATIONAL NETWORK
Because we are connected to every country we have users all over the world, which helps to practice language you want to know better. Speak with native speakers and improve your ability to communicate in your desire language. Broke language barrier. Start it now!
8. AND A LOT OF FUN…
After long day or if you want to relax, just chat at LONJE and your time would be spent in the best time with the best people. Have FUN!
Planned features:
Voice calls
Video calls
Free international calls
Thread closed. Please review our posting guidelines here. You must provide a valid, direct download link and use the proper thread tags.
Nathan
Forum Moderator
talkGov Main Site
Google Play Store
Amazon App Store
*This app is targeted mainly for those in the US*
Given the current state of political affairs, it seems we are in a time where technology should be better used to help keep more people aware.
In comes **talkGov**, a politics based social platform. The main gist is to develop a way for people to stay up-to-date with active legislation. It seems people are only aware once legislation is passed, so bringing this data to the forefront seemed like an issue we need to tackle.
Currently, you can track **Executive Orders**, Bills in the **House**, and Bills in the **Senate**. For each of these, an anonymous chat room is created to discuss the issue at hand, you can cast your own vote, view the votes of others, as well as view more details on the legislation. We have also included an anonymous 'forum' feed, where you can create topics of discussions allowing for more in-depth conversations.
We have longer terms goals that include automating sending feedback to your given representative, as well as setting up to allow you to track legislation on a more local level (state, city, etc).
We have also set up a topic specifically for tonights **State of the Union** address!
Feedback would be greatly appreciated! I'm here to answer any questions as they pop up.