SRL Archive - Senior News and General

I have been reading the charges Jagex imposes on iBot. I have made a little checklist of guilty/not guilty, and to sum it up…we are quite guilty. For most parts that is.

• 1. Guilty. "Jagex seeks injunctive relief, damages, and other related and equitable relief for copyright violations arising under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 101 et seq., for violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 1201 et seq., for trademark infringement and for false designation of origin/unfair competition arising under the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq., and for computer fraud and abuse arising under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 et seq."
• 15. Guilty - owning and operating cheating sites
• 16. Guilty - circumventing Runescapes security measures and infringe intellectual property rights. "Defendants unauthorized code then enables its users to cheat fellowplayers by completing in-game tasks and advancing characters with little or no humanparticipation, thereby giving Bot users significant unfair and contractually prohibited advantages over legitimate players"
• 17. Guilty. Mentionment of Color Sampling Techniques.
• 18 - 22 Not Guilty. We dont spread clients and we dont make customers pay!
• 23 - 27. USA Jurisdictions. Copyright infringement. Dont apply in the Netherlands, but we do have a number of Copyright Bloodhounds that can nail you for practically nothing. So… Guilty.
• 28 - 32. Trademark Infringement. Not Guilty.
• 33 . I love this one. "Jagex has been irreparably damaged, and continues to be damaged irreparably, by Defendants’ copyright infringement of the Software" Guilty.
• 34 - 40. Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Guilty, but not on a Java level….at least…..SMART? And again Jagex has been irreparably damaged.
• Advertisments. Not really guilty like imp "Defendants advertise the Bot line of products on a web site named “RUNESCAPE CHEATING ASYLUM” at www.rscheata.net, attached as Exhibit H." With misleading webmails etc like runescape.su. tsss. Not Guilty.
• 47 Love this one too "Defendants’ actions constitute trademark infringement and unfair competition under the laws of the United States, 15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq." I dont think we have a law for that in the Netherlands, though I wouldn't be surprised if we had one.
• 50 - 56. Computer Fraud. Not guilty, though here the letter becomes rather emotional with "Defendants’ actions intend to defraud Jagex by interfering with legitimate RuneScape® players, thereby causing distress to those plays." follwed by"As a result, Jagex spends considerable amounts of employee time, computational resources, and money to resolve user complaints, the value of which exceeds $5,000." ??? Only 5k? Anyway, if the letter is legitimate, and it looks like it, SRL is just as iBot guilty.

Lucky for us we always played intelligent and have thus been able to escape the Wrath of the Legal Forces. Not guilty on making money and spreading modified clients, two things Jagex very rightfully is allergic to.

But meanwhile, RSBot (Dutch) has been charged and our Freddy1990 (Belgium) lost his rshacking.com. So it is coming real close to home. Too close if you ask me.

For me, I would immediately close the gates, starting today, go private, stay low, operate on a hearsay basis, spread Simba through other fora etc. BUT I am not going to do this. Why? Because I am not in charge here. Other people have a great say. Wizzy for instance has been in charge for a long time and he is running this circus, so I leave this decision really up to him. Also it should be in the hands of a couple of keypeople that have dedicated a lot of their freetime to SRL. Many come to mind.


But my personal proposal would be -and I want your opnions on this-:

• Hype SRL.
Advertise that we are going underground. That will actract a lot of people. But we still get surprisingly approx. 10 people a day in. If we can Hype SRL for a month, we should be able to hold on to the influx for a little while.
• Go Underground.
Simply continue with what we are doing, but now in the relative calm environment of "friends"… whatever that may mean.
• Restructure and enrich.
Restructure, refurnish and enrich the forums. There is lots and lots todo.

We will open up again on a time and date we see fit. This can be in a couple of weeks, but it could also take some months and see what happens to our neighbours.

Me personally, I wouldnt mind closing, but it could be disastreous. Cant look into the future.

P.S. A close-the-gates-poll…if one will ever come will be made by me or Wizz, and by noone else, capisce?

I'm not sure about hyping or closing, either one could be really good or really bad for us. Or even somewhere in between.

But we probably should restructure the forums, no matter what else we do. There's a lot of clean-up that could be done.

I've already stated my opinion in this matter, and I strongly believe closing the gates will help SRL and Simba to grow, while it'll also build up hype and make sure that we're ready for all the new users that'll come, when our "competition" get shut down.

Also, I don't see anything negativ about doing this?
We would still have the irc for keeping in touch..

The real problem i see with the others is that they are a program specifically made for cheating on rs afaik. SRL however is an library for either SCAR or Simba, which are neither rs specific. Being a library, it can't really be shut down and can't be used by itself to cheat on RS. Its the user's prerogative to make a script and such, so its really only the users that should be able to be punished which would really only happen through banning, which would really only happen by using a catch-able script.

As for closing, i dont particularly see a negative side other than the possibility that without a steady inward flow of people you might have a problem reforming. I assume that there is a fairly large percentage of people that register, can't get the hang of it/are annoyed that it doesnt work, then leave. So with the usual leavings of people beyond those and the fact that many of the upperclass not playing rs, you might end up with a deficit of testers for new scripts. That would just make it even less desirable to make scripts, which would lead to less activity, etc. You could do something like demonoid does, or other such sites where you are essentially closed, but either have invites or open up registration every once in a while. Other than that sort of thing, it would barely be noticeable to me so i am not particularly against it.

I say if we are truely worried, going underground for a while would help. Although we could lose potential to have up and coming scripters join us.

I'm for it, as I believe the amount and quality of activity/users is less about the amount of people that can join the site, and more about what happens once they do, which can be changed while closed so that once reopen (whether that is like it is now or by invites etc) the activity will be even better than before closing.

Meh, we haven't had (from what I can recall) any noticeable "up and coming scripters join us" for a long time. I also see no harm in closing for a while if it's a precaution that must be taken for our safety in the long run.

Everyone should hit up #ssrl on freenode again.

Btw, everyone if you haven't noticed this is in SSRL….

From: YoHoJo
Meh, we haven't had (from what I can recall) any noticeable "up and coming scripters join us" for a long time. I also see no harm in closing for a while if it's a precaution that must be taken for our safety in the long run.

We got silentwolf within the last couple of months, if that counts.

I had already pointed out that I wouldn't be against this idea up in mods'.

It is important to stay below the radar. We all are aware that jagex does have a few people infiltrated in here, even if we might not know who they are it would be stupid to assume they don't. Obvious example? c0de, although I do believe he jsut simply happened to work for them and never really worked agaisnt us. I wouldn't be too sure as by the time I had move up the ranks he was pretty much gone.

And the closing would also be the perfect time to instate all the changes that have been mentioned. When we re-open, we'll have a fresh structure, ready for power. Do keep in mind that in the mean time either other bots will develop and grow small communities or we'll be the only ones left, meaning that we'll (likely) have a huge influx.

I say close; It probably would've already been good to close for a short time even had this not come about, but this just makes it a perfect timing.

~RM

From: senrath
We got silentwolf within the last couple of months, if that counts.

one promising guy, in the last couple of months?
I was hoping it would at least be five..

Hopping underground for a while could spark curiosity, since we are closing right around the announcing of simba. Curiosity could spark more interest and join, along with more activity.

From: Naike
one promising guy, in the last couple of months?
I was hoping it would at least be five..

He's the only one I can think of, sadly. That doesn't mean there aren't more, it just means they haven't attracted my (limited) attention.

Anyway, I've reconsidered a bit and am shifting my opinion on the closing from neutral to for closing (Is this grammatically correct?).

Let me list the possibilites and goals:

Possibilities:
- Close down
- Fake a closure to our forum-members
- Stay open
- Invite-only/Limited influx

Goals:
- Steady influx
- People still knowing about us and wanting to join
- Have people stay

I will, since I'm completely out of date with the cheating, take a pure "Public Relations"-standpoint:

Sparking interest. Even with the forum (possibly or limited) closed down, autoing will continue. I'm not mistaken if I say the majority come here because they feel outcompetitioned or because the bots can simply do the strenuous work for them. So if we want a wave of aspirants, we need to be shown - we need to be seen out in the game. So, my suggestion is that we keep the forum completely open for two weeks (or so) after the other bots are closed. That way, we will get the immigrants from the other bots in a very short time, thereby increasing the autoers and, in turn, increasing public exposure!
After the two weeks - a completely unwarned semi-closure: 10 registrations per day. Imagine it; A state of panic. The newcomers to SRL aswell as others will tell their friends that the only current bot is closing the door behind it. "You gotta join, quick!".

But for this bold move to REALLY work, we should need something new and shiny to show off. Perhaps silentwolfs OpenGL-hooking or SIMBA and SMART and whatnot. More of it should be accessible to the lower ranks of SRL, so people will tell their friends that WE (The only ones left) have free goodies but only limited entry.

After the two weeks, we can begin cleaning up on the forum, to prepare for when the doors can be reopened.

It is vital for our survival, that we do not close while the others close. We can't have rumors like "All bots are gone" or "SRL closed too" going around. We need to show ourselves, alive, while the others are forced closed.

-Knives

Well, they already know they don't really care about us, mainly because, I would think we don't charge people. I don't know how that flies in their mind, but w/e.

If they were going to target us with a lawsuit, would they not have already sent it out? They sent letters or whatever to all the other sites on the same day yea?

We're just about to release Simba, a new SRL, and inteception, and the other sites are under alot of pressure - that means working autos and people who will be wanting to "jump ship" from the java sites and come here.

And I don't see how closing the forums would keep Jagex out, especially if we hyped it up first - all they need to do is make one user account here and they're good forever? Even though its already highly likely they've got an account in SRL Members already? Seems that all we would be doing is turning back new users who missed the cut-off date after the hype.

Unless we get sued/you think its very likely we will be sued, and closing is seen in court as something to make the damages less, I don't really see any need. Restructuring can be done in an hour of intentional downtime.

They've had 3 years to gather evidence on us. If they're gonna sue, they're gonna sue.

[RM: This part is just up in mods]

I would have to disagree with you claw, closing down makes us less of a threat.

They might have not sued due to us not being considered a big threat as the other bots were more leecher friendly and used, but being the only ones left, we are now a threat to them. Once they realize this, they will be coming round. I suggest we announce a lock down, which will get the hype as everyone will want to jump boats as quickly as possible, we'll get the users and jagex will feel safe cus we are closing down.

~RM

I see what you mean, but if they were able to shut us down why would they have not done it at the same time as the others? It's not like they would of forgot about us. And would acting as a closed community make any difference anyway? If they have a registration here, which they 100% certainly do, they'll still be able to prove the copyright violations.

it wouldnt surprise me if someone in SSRL was from jagex.

Anyways, if you do close, it would be pointless to do so unless you came out with much much more. Working scripts, working SCAR/Simba, working SRL, working randoms, and whatnot. If you close then come back and are exactly the same, then its as pointless as timon telling pumbaa not to eat.

From: The Claw
I see what you mean, but if they were able to shut us down why would they have not done it at the same time as the others? It's not like they would of forgot about us. And would acting as a closed community make any difference anyway? If they have a registration here, which they 100% certainly do, they'll still be able to prove the copyright violations.

Simple. Bots are a big part of their economy. Shut down all the bots, have all the markets crash.

In case you didn't notice, they alternate between banning some and shutting down some, in a way that never completly kills it, but shows they are doing something.

~RM

From: Rasta Magician
Simple. Bots are a big part of their economy. Shut down all the bots, have all the markets crash.

In case you didn't notice, they alternate between banning some and shutting down some, in a way that never completly kills it, but shows they are doing something.

~RM

Yea except now they've sued the two biggest botting communities in an attempt to get them to shut down? Don't think they really care about their market.

Still can't see how closing registrations would prevent us from any copyright infringement notices/lawsuits.

From: The Claw

Still can't see how closing registrations would prevent us from any copyright infringement notices/lawsuits.

I believe the point of closing down would be to prevent SRL from becoming too big. As of now, we're under the radar and Jagex doesn't care. When/if the other botting communities go down, everyone will flock here to the only working bot, setting SRL up as the biggest autoing community and Jagex' next target. By closing down you eliminate that possibility and continue to operate on a small(er) scale like we have now.

From: Tad
I believe the point of closing down would be to prevent SRL from becoming too big. As of now, we're under the radar and Jagex doesn't care. When/if the other botting communities go down, everyone will flock here to the only working bot, setting SRL up as the biggest autoing community and Jagex' next target. By closing down you eliminate that possibility and continue to operate on a small(er) scale like we have now.

Really we're the only working bot? How do you explain zetabot (spel's new bot), kbot, Quirlion…. do I need to continue :rolleyes:

I don't care to explain my point of view in a long drawn out post, so I'll say it short and sweet:

There is no reason to close SRL. We are not getting legal pressure. I always thought SRL was about openness and sharing in a collaborative community for the betterment of not only the individual but the entire SRL community. Guess those ideals were lost somewhere though…

Final thought: Lose the illusion in everyone's' head that color clicking macros are still relevant to the rest of the cheating world.

Closing SRL is not going to stop Jagex from trying to sue it if they intend to. The only thing suggested that it would is to keep "SRL down to size" by preventing mass people joining if the other communties go down, but I really doubt people will just pour into SRL anytime soon, and until a week or so after that happens, this couldn't possibly turn Jagex lawyers away.

If the goal here was to attract more people to come to SRL then it wouldn't be very effective, rather, to focus on the Include/Scripts itself.

From: Bebe
Really we're the only working bot? How do you explain zetabot (spel's new bot), kbot, Quirlion…. do I need to continue :rolleyes:

No, I didn't say that. In fact, no bots have been shut down by Jagex, yet. When/if the major botting communities are shut down, there will be reason to believe that there will be an increase in the amount of new SRLers, which is, like IceFire said, probably the only reason to contemplate closing temporarily.

From: Bebe
Final thought: Lose the illusion in everyone's' head that color clicking macros are still relevant to the rest of the cheating world.

I think every other community has already accepted this (I'm guessing you're talking about SRL?) and we haven't done so.

I think we're 100% safe. SCAR and Simba can both be used in many other things than just RS, and we don't make any money off RS. We're also a very small community and have little impact on RS compared to rsca and RSbot.

Also, we do not offer the software here in SRL, only the scripts. Is that illegal in NL?

From: marpis

Also, we do not offer the software here in SRL, only the scripts. Is that illegal in NL?

I'm no lawyer, but here is what I see,

In the TOS:

Rules
You must comply with the current version of any rules, guidelines, codes of conduct or instructions specified in any Jagex Product including our game rules, the current version of which is linked to here.

Going from the "linked to here", you find:

You must not use other software to gain an unfair advantage in our games. This includes automation tools, macros, bots, or auto-typers. You may not circumvent any of our mechanisms designed to automatically log out inactive users.

You also must not use any game-specific, third-party software that encourages breaking of our rules, or bypasses the normal navigation of our website, or automatically requests pages from our website, or which endangers user accounts.

And so, by macroing, you break their TOS, correct? Now here is where I think money plays a big part. If you receive money by breaking the TOS and using/creating bots/scripts/anything else that enables people to bot, you're profiting illegally since you are using Jagex' product without their permission (since you're breaking the TOS) for your own gain. Now, if you're not profiting, all you're doing is breaking the TOS. Is that illegal in itself?

Of course, there's still the copyright issues to deal with…

Terms of service is not a legally binding contract between the user and the service provider.

From: Tad
I'm no lawyer, but here is what I see,

In the TOS:



Going from the "linked to here", you find:



And so, by macroing, you break their TOS, correct? Now here is where I think money plays a big part. If you receive money by breaking the TOS and using/creating bots/scripts/anything else that enables people to bot, you're profiting illegally since you are using Jagex' product without their permission (since you're breaking the TOS) for your own gain. Now, if you're not profiting, all you're doing is breaking the TOS. Is that illegal in itself?

Of course, there's still the copyright issues to deal with…

The revenue from ad's can be counted as profiting, but then theres the issue of the cost of keeping the server up. Hmm.

From: WT-Fakawi
50 - 56. Computer Fraud. Not guilty, though here the letter becomes rather emotional with "Defendants’ actions intend to defraud Jagex by interfering with legitimate RuneScape® players, thereby causing distress to those plays." follwed by"As a result, Jagex spends considerable amounts of employee time, computational resources, and money to resolve user complaints, the value of which exceeds $5,000." ??? Only 5k? Anyway, if the letter is legitimate, and it looks like it, SRL is just as iBot guilty.

$5k per ban/ban appeal IIRC. Ahahaha.

If Fawki or Wizzup think there is any sort of pressure to being sued, I would say go underground for awhile. There is no point in getting sued for something like this.

Yeah, I think closing down the forums for a bit makes sense, pending the release of Simba. I suppose that the SVN would need to stay up for development to proceed, and people can still keep in touch over MSN.

From: tarajunky
Yeah, I think closing down the forums for a bit makes sense, pending the release of Simba. I suppose that the SVN would need to stay up for development to proceed, and people can still keep in touch over MSN.

Not literally closing the forums down, he means just not accepting any new users to register (Is what I got from it)

I thought going underground would mean a small group of people..?
not just cutting the new users.

We won't become the #1 community unless something really tragic happens. There will always be someone after the $$$$ you get from ads/paid bots, and people don't care about color macroing anymore, and SRL isn't whoring money like iBot/RSBot.. Tons of huge banners, paid pm's etc. over RSBot, not sure about iBot though, but I'm sure ruler (assuming he's still the ruler of iBot) is trying to get all the profit he can..

Ditto bebe.

Shutting down would do more harm than good; prospective and past users would move on to other bots and when we came back, the community would be even smaller.

From: Smartzkid
Ditto bebe.

Shutting down would do more harm than good; prospective and past users would move on to other bots and when we came back, the community would be even smaller.

Closing Down = closing registrations; Past users wouldn't be affected.

~RM

Aah! Hmm, I don't think it'd have a very big effect in either direction..

I think if jagex was planning on suing they would have already :0

Or maybe they wanted to see how these cases go then attack the more difficult case(s). (jagex vs srl)

Would interception expose us to anything else illegal?

Personally, the only reason I think closing registration for awhile would be to ease a restructure of the forum. Steadily move threads, create new forums without too much people crying and caring about it.

I don't think JaGeX has any points to stand on, and I believe them to think the same. If they could, they would have issued us a ``take-down'' letter along with the other communities. And if they still plan to do, taking down registration only shows that we are ``frightened''.

I don't really mind either way.

"Jagex has been irreparably damaged, and continues to be damaged irreparably"

Thats their own freaking fault with their lame updates!
When the cut out large scale botting they cut out a large customer base and drove prices up causing people to be frustrated on how much harder it was to get enough money for things.

That is jagex's own doing.

From: Wizzup?
Personally, the only reason I think closing registration for awhile would be to ease a restructure of the forum. Steadily move threads, create new forums without too much people crying and caring about it.

I agree and I like moving threads to their correct respective sub-forums :)

From: Rasta Magician
It is important to stay below the radar. We all are aware that jagex does have a few people infiltrated in here, even if we might not know who they are it would be stupid to assume they don't. Obvious example? c0de, although I do believe he jsut simply happened to work for them and never really worked agaisnt us. I wouldn't be too sure as by the time I had move up the ranks he was pretty much gone.

Thehehe, the bit about me working for Jagex made me laugh there :)

!!! WARNING !!!

C0de is indeed a Jagex Limited (s) employee!!!!

From: IceFire908
!!! WARNING !!!

C0de is indeed a Jagex Limited (s) employee!!!!

(22:26:59) Markus: Hhahahahaha nice one
(22:27:01) Markus: what are you doing?
(22:27:30) c0de: "Invaders must die!": Making a script to prove I can actually write my scripts.
(22:27:49) Markus: Haha good luck!

<3.

Ooh, is that script released?

From: Markus
(22:26:59) Markus: Hhahahahaha nice one
(22:27:01) Markus: what are you doing?
(22:27:30) c0de: "Invaders must die!": Making a script to prove I can actually write my scripts.
(22:27:49) Markus: Haha good luck!

<3.

Hahahahaha <3 :)))

From: Smartzkid
Ooh, is that script released?

Rofl :D

!!! WARNING !!!

Markus IS Paul Gower!

I'm okay with closing temporarily for forum restructuring and longevity.

-Bam Bam

From: Bam Bam
I'm okay with closing temporarily for forum restructuring and longevity.

-Bam Bam

Cool story, bro. It already happened.