Stop the bot protection hysteria already!

[bestmacros 60]

After viewing every day new and new Bot protection systems released here on forum I would like to share my humble opinion on this subject.

 

People! Stop this hysteria with BOT protection!

 

Existence of protections will NOT make you rich! What will make you rich is good software and most important great SUPPORT, good human relations and professionalism.

 

I've build 2000$/month business from selling iMacros scripts without any protection at all with code visible and editable in simple notepad!

 

Why you should not spend your time and money on protection:

 

1. Lets make it clear: where is no unbreakable protection - it is only question of time and willingness to crack your software. Let's see examples of multiple millions dollars games projects with hundreds thousands dollars invested in protection, which were cracked in the day of game release. Now, do you really think that after investing 300$ in protection you will make ultimate unbreakable protection for your software? The answer is NO.

I personally would be proud and pleased, if someone would invest time and energy in cracking my software - this would show me that my software is really useful to people and I'm not selling some kind of junk.

 

2. People would pay you money for support, for adding features, for changing how your software works - this kind of people you need for the sales. You need to understand that most of people which would spend their time and effort on searching, cracking and breaking your software would NEVER pay you anyway, so they are not your customers anyway.

 

3. Yesterday I got 100$ order request for my script which was sheared for free on Warrior forum, so even if people share your software for free you can still get yourself paying customer - give it good support and he will be your returning customer.

 

4. NEVER give your software, if you don't receive something in return for the simple reason: if you do this, then you say that your software worth nothing and your time worth nothing, so do not expect from other people to respect your time and effort if you do not respect it by yourself.

You can shear your software for FREE, but you should always get something in return - this can be anything: karma, brand building, list of emails for newsletters, backlinks, social share, additional traffic, affiliate sales, adsence, banners ... whatever.

I'm shearing myself many scripts for free on my website, but from this free scripts I'm receiving a lot of paying customers, especially from consultation/problem fixing, I'm also involve more people in imacros scripting by shearing these free products, because more people would use imacros, more potential customers I will have.

Three days ago I've made 20$ on fiverr for ONE line of code fixing Pinterest Amazon products auto posting script. I've also had several projects, which started as 50$ simple projects and ended with 500$ maintenance/operation/setup projects and all this with iMacros scripts for firefox without any protection.

 

5. Do not sell your software for cheap price, unless you have huge amount of targeted traffic and conversions - where is fiverr for this. This basically will grant you another layer of protection, because it is unlikely that person, which bought software for 50-100$ will share it for free, he can try to resell it, but with the first changes on target website his customers will request fixes and he will not be able to provide it, so his customers will come to you to get updated and fixed version and will pay to YOU.

 

6. In bot/script development area where 90% of automation is blackhat / greyhat your main income is from SUPPORT/UPDATE of your software. Basically, when I hear that LinkedIn changed something on their site and it may affect my bots, I'm happy, because this mean that my customers will pay for updates (if they bought it more than 45 days ago).

You can see it if you will provide software, which changes very often like youlikehits/addmefast bots, which stop working almost every week - I had many request from people, which were ready to pay me for each update, every time it stops working, but I do not do it anymore because it was "eating" to much my time for support/fixing/updating, while I prefer to create software which will not stop working after a week.

 

P.S.

Currently I work with UBOT and I've created very simple protection only to create additional layer of products line: time limited trials, because many potential customers want to test my software before they buy full license - this is the only reason I did it.

 

P.P.S

I'm not writing this post to ruin someone's business, just to share my opinion on the subject.

Edited February 12, 2013 by bestmacros

[Sanjeev 46]

Hello ,

 

What you're saying sounds interesting.

 

But tell me - if I keep my price high - wouldn't it be easy for someone to create the same /similar product and sell it for far less, undercutting my profits?

 

Someone could take my Idea - add a couple of features more, and sell it for less! But if the price is already low - There's less motivation to create similar product..as undercutting the price becomes unattractive.

 

 

[zdot 14]

Interesting read and point of view. But there's a difference between a bot being cracked and the full code being accessible. A hacker with this compiler tool can get your code, remove your protection, put his, compile it again and sell it under his own name with only a new UI design and a new bot name.

He only has to wait for your coming updates to upgrade "his" bot... That's what we are fighting for, and I think it's not hysteria or paranoia but simple business protection against thief.

The excuse that those people will never buy the bot is, I think, not relevant. I do not agree to let thief steal because they won't buy it anyway. No money no candy.

[bestmacros 60]

The idea by itself worth nothing - you can Google million ideas a day for free, also note that no matter what you do you should be ready to have competitors on the same day, just be better than they - this should be your main effort.
See all those fiverr-clone website as examples - they worth nothing comparing to original fiverr.

Hello ,

 

What you're saying sounds interesting.

 

But tell me - if I keep my price high - wouldn't it be easy for someone to create the same /similar product and sell it for far less, undercutting my profits?

 

Someone could take my Idea - add a couple of features more, and sell it for less! But if the price is already low - There's less motivation to create similar product..as undercutting the price becomes unattractive.

[bestmacros 60]

1. I think you did not read it correctly - imacros script can be edited with simple notepad and it does not have any protection at ALL.

So "hacker" does not need anything to crack it.
2. Updates are not free.
3. There is no unbreakable software protection.

 

 

Interesting read and point of view. But there's a difference between a bot being cracked and the full code being accessible. A hacker with this compiler tool can get your code, remove your protection, put his, compile it again and sell it under his own name with only a new UI design and a new bot name.

He only has to wait for your coming updates to upgrade "his" bot... That's what we are fighting for, and I think it's not hysteria or paranoia but simple business protection against thief.

The excuse that those people will never buy the bot is, I think, not relevant. I do not agree to let thief steal because they won't buy it anyway. No money no candy.

[zdot 14]

I understood, I just do not agree. I know that software are not unbreakable on the long run, but what is happening now is unacceptable, at least in my point of view.

 

You seams to be making money mostly with updates. But every time I see a bot on sale at WF, people are complaining when they find out that they have to pay for updates after one year... Let alone 45 days.

 

It's a different approach.

[bestmacros 60]

I'm making money from sales AND from updates. People will always complain when it comes to pay money for software.

I understood, I just do not agree. I know that software are unbreakable on the long run, but what is happening now is unacceptable, at least in my point of view.

 

You seams to be making money mostly with updates. But every time I see a bot on sale at WF, people are complaining when they find out that they have to pay for updates after one year... Let alone 45 days.

 

It's a different approach.

[AutomationNinja 194]

Well said. I totally agree. It is just a bunch of hysterics. People are just imagining the worst. How often does what we imagine actually end up that way? Gettagrip!

[bestmacros 60]

Good thinking!

BUT

1. Your general idea will work only on bots which collect data, not on the bots which do actions like commenting or liking or following

2. This will work only on bots which collect small amount of data (let's say up to 10 Mb) - you can do it on realtor.com agent scraped which scrape 1 000 000 agents data and output file size around 300Mb

I am programming my bot in a way that even if someone did distribute it, then GOOD. I'll just show my sponsor ads to the new users.

Also, building it in a way so that, if the new user doesn't distribute it to more people then the bot would deactivate. So, if he wants to use it then he better do me a favour and distribute some more copies.

This is Freeware or Whatever Version.

 

Now about the PaidWare versions. Mmm, an idea just popped-up in my head. All my paid bot users would need to feed the bot their email addresses if they want to have the bot's work saved as it won't save it to their hdd but email it to them. For example, if the bot is a lead finder that scrapes profiles of potential customers then instead of saving the links from the List to the user's hdd it would email the whole List to the user.

Now, if that user starts sharing his bot copy to his friends then those friends would have to provide their email addresses to their bot copies and I'd get hold of their email addresses and send them notification to cease and desist or pay-up and ofcourse we know they'd carry-on using the copies without paying but it doesn't matter because when everytime the session data get emailed to them, my ads would also be in the emails that pay me to send to recipients.

Infact, I might aswell open a new service to email my ads to these illegal users.

Good idea ? This way, I now get hold of the new illegal users email addresses and start sending them my sponsor CPA offers (have to get permission from sponsors first to do this). Currently, I don't have any sponsors.

This was just a thought on the spot on how to make profits from illegal users.

Another thing I can do is, get the illegal users bots to email me a copy of their session data so that whatever data they've been gathering using my bot I get a copy so that I can sell the data and make money that way out of them.

So, if 1k illegal users scrape millions of valuable links today using my bot copies then I get those 1m links emailed to me which I can then sell.

This way, they burn their bandwidths and resources to harvest valuable data for me to sell.

Must mention all this in the EULA so no illegal user cries I stole their data. But, on the other hand which illegal user would do that after knbowing that he's using my bot illegally ? If he doesn't want his bot copy sending me the data he's been harvesting using my bot then he better cease and desist or I'll keep on getting copies of what he's harvesting and start selling.

Good idea ?

 

I haven't started implementing this as it just popped-up in my head. What do you reckon, good idea ? Stab the backstabbers. I reckon it's fair.

 

In short: The EULA would have clause that states, if you payup and register then whatever the bot harvests for you it gets emailed to you only and no copy to me but if you don't pay then you give me the right to have copies of your harvests (whatever your illegal copy harvests for you and emails to you, it also emails me a copy of that harvested data for me to sell and this continues untill you payup).

If you don't like that then PAYUP for the bot copy. When you payup, the copy forwarding to me would end.

Great idea! Now, who's gonna LIKE this post and put me on his FRIENDS LIST ? You got to admit, I can thinkup solutions on the spot, if not too well then atleast a little well.

I reckon that is fair and so are you thinking of implementing this ?

[bestmacros 60]

The main question is how will you identify illegal users from you legal users: both will successfully login to email.

Sell data is not like selling software it is different approach and much harder.

cPanel option is bad because not all have cPanel, better create protected folder on your host and create username/passwords to it and give it t your customers.

Also note, that if you'll sell your bot 100 times, think about amount of emails you will receive all the time. Are you planning to check it daily? Only checking all these emails would "eat" all of your time.

 

BestMacros,

 

I understand what you're saying. You are correct that, if our "scraping" bots get illegally used then we can program it to email us the data it harvests for the illegal users but for those bots that do not scrape data and do other things such as comment, vote, fillup forms, etc. then what ?

Well, if it's your link building bot that gets illegally used then all the bot has to do is email you a list of sites it has posted the illegal users links and then you can check what he's site is and go to his competitions and start selling the data where your bot posted his links for link building. Sell the same data to as many competitions as you can. Also, program the bot that it will notify this to the illegal user and he'd stop using your bot as he wouldn't want his competitions piggy-backing on his illegal efforts.

If it's a voting-up bot that someone is illegally using then get the bot to email you the log data so you can see what he's been upto and then offer his competition the same opportunity with a better package. Once the illegal users realize that using your bot illegally ends-up in them gather more competitions who compete with them at a faster pace then illegal users would dread to use your bot.

But, make sure your EULA mentions all this would be done to illegal users and they must agree that you have the right to do so and if they don't agree then just get the bot to neutralize itself.

Yes, I know, a cracker can takeout that part of the code that deals with the EULA and the neutralisation but how many people are crackers and hackers ?

 

Anyway, again, I just thought up all these on the spot and so not fool proof.

Right now, I'm programming my bots so that the bot user would have to login to his account such as Yahoo Mail account for the bot to verify the user.

If you buy a copy from me, then it would be programmed to check whether you successfully logged into your email account or not. It's obvious, if you share the bot copy with your friends then they'd fail to login to your email account and so their illegal bot copies won't run the session.

And yes, you can just share your disposable email address details with your friends but you wouldn't if that email account was under your own domain name.

Also, I can program the bot to ask you to login to your cPanel account under your domain name. Now, you won't in your right mind distribute your cPanel login details to your mate. Would you ? No!

These are the security measures I'm currently working on. Infact, I got to go now as I'm working on this right now. I mean about the part where the bot checks whether the user has logged into the right email account or not and not the parts about sending me their session logs and their harvested data.

You're welcome to show me flaws in my system so I can improve it.

Anyone is welcome!

[raptortrex 2]

I'm totaly agree with the statment every bot is crackable.

There will always be people who want your bot crack.
These are not the people who run your bussines and let you make money.
Focus on those who are ready to pay for your software.
There is not a $ 600 security system necessary for these people.
Only a protection products against the most common cracks is satisfactory marks.
What is important, Is that a licensing system also can use as a good marketing system.

Contact between you and your customers is very importent this days.

Inform you customers for upcomming updates, new release, ect...

 

With a good license system you can do that  easy.

[Twitter Dominator 125]

this thread seems to have completely missed the real point which is not about cracking its about the security of the source code

[bestmacros 60]

I've already said that I've build 2000$/month business from selling imacros scripts which do not have any protection at ALL and ALL the code is visible and editable by simple NOTEPAD.

If you're my customer and you have a Yahoo Mail account bestmacros@yahoo.com then the software will at first forward you to Yahoo Mail login page and prompt you to login. Once you login, it will check if the url is from Yahoo Mail or not and then check if the logged-in page contains your email address or not. If it contains not then the session won't start. Simple.

If I were to go ahead with the ideas I mentioned in this thread, then I won't plan on checking emails daily manually. Another bot can check the emails, download the harvested data and put it up on my membership site that sells the data. Now, you're starting to get some new ideas, aren't you but because I'm not singing along with you you probably hate me now.

Yes, I do agree, there is no 100% protection but at the end of the day we should try as much as we can so every Tom, Dick and Harry can't get an easy access to it.

It's like no pad lock in unpickable. It is by professionals but does that mean, you're now gonna leave your door wide open simply because there is no unpickable padlock and let every criminal (thief, burglar, murderer, rapist) just walk in to your home and have their way with not only your SAFE but your wife and children ? If so, then leave your door wide open right now and never shut it again.

You will try getting the best padlock out there that takes time for it to be picked because this way, the majority of "not so professional" thieves would fail and this would deter a major number of thieves even coming your way.

That's why every software vendor is out and about looking for the best there is security even though they know it's not 100% fool proof. It will atleast take a lot of sweat for the professional cracker to break in and most crackers would rather spend their time cracking less secured software.

Simple logic, really. If you don't agree, then what's stopping you from listing all your own softwares on cracker/hacker forums and tell them its your pleasure if they have a go at cracking all your's ? You're not gonna do that are you ? Then, best let other vendors take as much measure as they can without you complaining too much. They have a right to protect their stuffs in whatever way they can without you telling them not to. You'll make a lot of enemies if you advise people not to take measures in security and then they find a small cracker managed to crack into their bots and this never would have been possible had they invested in "good if not foolproof" security softwares on sale by other Ubotters here. I'm not having a go at you but there is a saying "put your money where your mouth is". You go ahead and risk your own softwares first before telling others to. That is, if you really believe in what you say. Otherwise, other Ubotters would think you are nothing but a jealous competition who is giving bad advise to ruin their business and get them bankrupt so you can only be the vendor in the market selling bots and with security in place, at that.

Don't tell others to throw away their guns before you throw away your own first.

[LoWrIdErTJ - BotGuru 904]

Difference bud in selling software that you want to keep protected and your selling the software, not selling support and updates.

[illmill 87]

Yeah man, you have a business model that works for you, but you can't expect everyone to use the same business model.  I agree, everyone is completely overreacting to this shit, acting like they won't release bots now out of fear that they will be cracked.  Sorry, but I would rather make $10,000 rather than $0 (or even just make $500 - something is better than nothing).

[bestmacros 60]

I'm selling software like anyone else, the payment for updates is only additional income, which anyone may/should use since (like I've previously wrote)  in web automation bots area 80-90% of activity is black hat/grey hat and websites are fighting with this kind of activity by changing design, flow, implementing captcha and so on...that is why your bot will need update sooner or later and this mean additional income for you - which may overcome original software price if updates are often (like on youlikehits/addmefast bots) and this leads to understanding that you actually do not need protection (more than very basic one) to your software.

[illmill 87]

Like I said, your business model works for you.  I personally would rather sell a bot for a high price up front and include updates free.  It's nice to have that recurring income (and I plan to do this for some future launches), but if it's a high price item I feel that updates are required for it to work and therefore should be free.  Just look at all the people who get pissed about paying just $9 per month for ubot updates.

[a2mateit 395]

Like I said, your business model works for you.  I personally would rather sell a bot for a high price up front and include updates free.  It's nice to have that recurring income (and I plan to do this for some future launches), but if it's a high price item I feel that updates are required for it to work and therefore should be free.  Just look at all the people who get pissed about paying just $9 per month for ubot updates.

 

Yeah, but most of the DEV users paid ALOT of money ($600+).

 

And I personally don't mind paying for *updates that add new features*.  I get pissed about paying for bug fixes!

 

There is a difference between paying for updates, and bug fixes!

[bestmacros 60]

if you include free updates, when either you include update price in your product price, which will make it high or you say that your time, which you will spend on updates, is free.

My experience say that people are ready to pay for updates if they really need your software.

In modern software industry there is whole new payment area called micropayments , where you sell your basic software for low basic price and then you sell updates for additional money - I think this should be main way of sells for anyone who sell web automation bots.

Like I said, your business model works for you.  I personally would rather sell a bot for a high price up front and include updates free.  It's nice to have that recurring income (and I plan to do this for some future launches), but if it's a high price item I feel that updates are required for it to work and therefore should be free.  Just look at all the people who get pissed about paying just $9 per month for ubot updates.

[bestmacros 60]

I sell all my imacros scripts without protection (I'm writing it 3rd time for you).

You are missing main point - 90% of web automation bots is violation of website TOS.

Read my first post - NEVER share your software if you don't get something in return.

Read my first post AGAIN - there is link to WSO there my script is shared for free.
You can get list of my free scripts and bots here: http://www.bestmacros.com/page/free-macros

And when I used "hysteria" in the title I was pointing exactly on people like you - You are too hysterical about your protection....

Great! Just great! Now, we're supposed to not protect our decent bots and start building a model around your's building bots that constantly need updates so we can constantly rinse our customers like a greedy pig that has his nose constantly under mud and build bots like youlikehits/addmefast which are nothing but bots that violate the TOS of these sites.

These bots you talk about, do they not auto click links ? Do not people buy them so they can have them running in the background while they sleep ?

Isn't this defrauding credits ? You're supposed to be viewing the links and earn credits. Not go to bed and have your bot auto viewing them. That's violating such progarm's TOS.

So now, everybody should stop building their decent bots and start building crook bots. How-about building a cracker and a hacker bot ?

 

 

I tell you what. Since you're complaining so much about protection hysteria and keep claiming you don't protect your bots then how-about listing your bots unprotected here and the blackhat forums, especially the ones that bring you the most money on the updates, and then we can start competing with you. Good idea ?

So, where's your list of macros bots ? I might aswell checkout this macros tool. I think I did once but didn't like it, hence stuck to Ubot. Might aswell give it a go just to compete with you.

How-about that ? No ? Because, if you agree, then I might aswell stop working so much building my own licensing system and just go ahead and release the bots and if I make any losses then it doesn't matter because I got macros tool and your bots to copy to earn me thousands from updates. How-about not protecting who your customers are as this way I can just drop them a line and offer them a better price ?

No, I'm not kidding. Where's your macro software list and your customer list ? Or atleast where's your macro software list ?

No, really! I'm not having a go at you because I do believe we shouldn't go hysterical about protecting our bots because there's no foolproof system but when you talk about changing our business model from offering free updates to paid updates then my friend Ubotties here need some "guidance" from you on what softwares would sell every month on updates and just telling us youlikehits/addmefast bot is not good enough. Provide us a full list of all your bots, unprotected, and we are happy, or atleast I am happy, to try out your method by making similar macros bots and welcome myself aboard as your competitor. Question is, will you welcome me to or give me the shove and throw me in the sea like they did to one of your Prophets ? I hope a whale won't swallow me! Lol!

So, which type of bots should I build which people would buy ? C'mon, you're not scared to tell us that, are you ?

Howabout opening a new thread just to show us with images and ebook download on how you build your bots and how you sell them and which ones ? I mean, every detail from top to bottom ? Not a good idea ?

Edited February 16, 2013 by bestmacros

[bestmacros 60]

That is all you have to say??? :P

Now, you are starting to call people names. People can now see who's the "wacko".

[bestmacros 60]

you can't find because this never happened - your are dreaming

I'm checking out your scripts now. I'm not gonna fight with you, if that's what you want. Just had a few secs glance at your list a few mins ago. I reckon you're a good programmer. But, I reckon, there's a leak in your boat and you're constantly bucketing the water off without trying to put a cover to the leak first. You can't go on like this forever. You might aswell run an affiliate program to help you get more sales.

Anyway, did you edit your post ? I remember you called me a "wacko". Can't find it now.

[Legend 181]

For those truly serious about protecting their code http://www.ubotstudio.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13043-sell-ubot-source-obfuscator-stop-hackers-dead-in-their-tracks-by-encrypting-obfuscating-your-source-code/ puts this problem in your rear view mirror...

[malefic 48]

For those truly serious about protecting their code http://www.ubotstudio.com/forum/index.php?/topic/13043-sell-ubot-source-obfuscator-stop-hackers-dead-in-their-tracks-by-encrypting-obfuscating-your-source-code/ puts this problem in your rear view mirror...

 

By the look of it, its extremely good code BUT, and this is where I don the flame proof coat, surely this should be part of core Ubot Studio? Okay, all the faff has come about due to some guy being able to decompile our bots and, in my opinion, thats a problem of the program.

 

After paying several hundred bucks for a dev version, I now see that I have to hand out more cash for plugins that people are making (mostly based on the thread by Seth asking what we want to see next in Ubot) or security products that have blown out of the door by people, rightly so in any business, spotting a quick money making opportunity and going for it.

 

To be honest, I have a simple licensing system but most of my security is on my back end server - my bots are simple and quick, if people want to crack them I haven't lost too much time or money so these systems don't really appeal to me. It just bugs me that this is another bolt on that people have to fork out for.

 

Like I said, people seem to think the code is cool and the OP knows her stuff so not trying to flame anyone, its my opinion.

[Legend 181]

By the look of it, its extremely good code BUT, and this is where I don the flame proof coat, surely this should be part of core Ubot Studio? Okay, all the faff has come about due to some guy being able to decompile our bots and, in my opinion, thats a problem of the program.

 

Yes, it should be... but it isn't.

 

This threat has been around for quite awhile now with no attempt from devs to remedy it, making it quite obvious that they believe it to be our problem and not theirs... at any rate, that is beside the point, the main thing is that we now have a working solution that is probably superior to anything they could come up with anyway...