[Kyek]

As most of you already found out, the domain name for Appulous has changed. Instead of Appulo.us, it's now Appulous.us.

Edit: Post changed. Haklab felt that my account of the events here were inaccurate (specifically, my accusation that he "hijacked" the domain), so here it is laid out in all its detail. You decide if "hijacked" was the right term.

When I first had the idea for Appulous, I laid it out on both GeniusBlog (which is now this forum) and Hakstore (the forum that was hosted at haklabs.com -- note the plural). When I thought of the name and finished the logo plate for the site, I very, very foolishly posted this on Hakstore before buying the domain. I figured if I registered the domain right afterward, I'd be safe.

Well, I wasn't. Enter a guy named Vibe, who bought the domain out from under me without asking. I was livid at the time, but we talked it out and he sounded like he honestly wanted to help. I was planning on having others do the transactions for the domain and hosting and such anyway, so I figured -- aside from not having a trust built up with this guy -- things were still going according to plan.

Fast forward to late Saturday night, when I get an alarm that the WHOIS info for my domain changed from Vibe's information to one David Zimmerman of San Francisco, with Haklab's E-mail address. The next 10-15 minutes were a blur. I had someone TRUSTED buy appulous.us and one other backup domain, I found the old domain's registrar and contacted them, finding out that the domain had officially changed hands just minutes before. Another phone call and some E-mails later, I had a hold order put on the domain so that whoever got it wouldn't be able to point it to a new website.

Meanwhile, I'd been trying to get in contact with Vibe about transferring the domain out of his ownership for a week. He planned to transfer it to me right after he bought it in the beginning, but wasn't aware of the 60-day waiting period before a domain could be transferred. He agreed that after 60 days, we'd handle it. Obviously, things had already started smelling fishy before the transfer even happened. He'd always responded to my E-mails immediately before, and suddenly there's radio silence.

The next few hours involved waking the guy who handles my DNS (the thing that tells your computer what IP address to connect to when you plug a URL into your browser) from a dead sleep sometime around 4am, me reconfiguring the webserver to handle requests for the new domain, and making a flurry of changes to the Appulous code so that I could run the site on either the old or new domain.

About the time I finished, I got an E-mail from Haklab, announcing that he owned my domain and that he put an "Appulo.us Down" post on his blog so that my users "would know what's going on" -- as though it was a favor. In this E-mail, he revealed that he got in touch with Vibe, and that Vibe was suddenly and mysteriously scared that he was going to get into some sort of legal trouble -- and so he was more than happy to sell the domain to Haklab for $60. Haklab also mentioned he asked Vibe not to say a word to me about it -- you know, because that's not shady or anything.

Nonetheless, not five minutes after he repointed the domain to his own blog, the hold order went through and it pointed it back at my site. I took that opportunity to reconfigure the server to take you to this page when you tried to visit any URL at the original domain. I had no idea how long the hold on the domain would last, so telling people to change their bookmarks was top priority.

So that's how this whole thing started. Now, let's go over some basic facts:
Vibe and I were in communication any time something needed to be changed with the domain. He understood that you can't get in trouble for owning a domain, only the site itself. Of all the times I talked to him, he was NEVER concerned about any legal issues. So Haklab finds him, convinces him that he IS in legal danger, and gets him all scared -- over a blatant lie. Next, he waves money in his face to get the domain off his hands, and furthermore feels the need to convince Vibe not to tell me what's going on or respond to any of my E-mails. Last but not least, he writes this E-mail to me to oh-so-politely explain that Vibe was just scared and anxious to get the domain off his hands when he found him. ...for $60. If you were scared to death of legal threats and wanted to get a domain off your hands immediately, would YOU mark up the cost to FIVE TIMES the price of the domain?

When getting a domain involves lying to the owner, dropping five times the cash it would normally cost, lying to the site owner, and sneaking around so that no one could possibly find out, what DO you call that? Because, personally, I call that Hijacking. It wasn't illegal, he broke no laws, it required no computer hacking... but it did involve lies and secret plans that lasted a week. So, you make the call.

Anyway, the long part is over. If you didn't read any of that, read this:
Haklab doesn't want an "internet war". Actually, this is a direct quote from his last E-mail to me: "I'm not expecting your users to be okay with [this], but at least I can try. You have the power to tell them to cooperate and just wait out one week". So, everyone ... let's all "cooperate" as Haklab takes the domain of a successful site to get himself more hits. Nonetheless, he still claims that we'll get the domain back in a week, so we'll see if he keeps to his word. He's never given us ANY reason to trust him (remember, like, three days ago when he said he was shutting his site down, only to start it back up with some post that said something like 'lol gotcha I'm going to make up some random technicality in what I said that makes this NOT a lie'), so we'll see how it goes down.

Until then, http://appulous.us.

[loukas77]

Man... I hate this F****ER!!! He is pissing me off!!! Im glad that you guys are so awesome and smart! He can't keep us down! Good job Kyek!

This post has been edited by loukas77: 16 November 2008 - 05:57 AM

[Lollone]

Keep the hard work on dude!

[wrenchmonkey26]

After downloading and installing a game, I try to run it and get a " cannot open file" anyone else having this problem?

[anti2]

Good work Kyek!

[nathanscott101]

Wow, all I can say is what a a f**king c**t. Can't believe how low that guy is.

douchbag, on Nov 16 2008, 03:00 PM, said:

As you all already know, most of the iPhone and iPod Touch community use Appulo.us to get all their cracked apps. I want to reach out to all these people and show them how cracked apps are affecting the iPhone and iPod Touch community as a whole. Throughout this week I will make at least one post daily so crackers can see things from a different point of view. I know you all like cracking and I'm not asking you to stop cracking, I just want you to see things from a different point of view. There are many people in the cracking community and a lot of them just crack because they just don't know of all the other alternatives. These posts I will be making are really important and I hope you read them. After this week you can go back to cracking apps on Appulo.us if you please. I just want to educate the community.

Well, he can go f**k himself, I'm not returning to his blog again, and hope one listens to the douche.

[DubFiyah]

Kyek, on Nov 16 2008, 08:08 AM, said:

As I was working on getting the site running on the new domain, Haklab was working on his "victory" speech and an E-mail to me. By the time he had those finished, I had two more domains bought, the DNS server reconfigured, the webserver reconfigured, and a redirect in place. By the time Haklab posted that Appulous was down, Appulous was, in fact, back up

That must really piss that a$$hole off, way to stick to him Kyek!

[esoteric0ne]

Good work Kyek I want to meet this a**clown face to face and give him a TIGER UPERCUT!

This post has been edited by esoteric0ne: 17 November 2008 - 04:06 PM

[iGNiTiON]

Haklab: you're the biggest douche I have ever met..

Kyek: You can have my babies whenever you want
Good job, keep fightin!


[Oh, and when Genius gets on, he needs to fix the index page.. the image that says appulo.us]

This post has been edited by Trent J.: 16 November 2008 - 11:21 AM

[p13m4n]

LOL, drama. What's with the idle insults to hacklab? All that's doing is feeding his ego. Better to just ignore him completely and do whatever you can to help Appulous get through this.

This post has been edited by p13m4n: 16 November 2008 - 11:25 AM

[Ryan]

That guy is a dick.
Did he really 'buy' it off you?

[coolieman]

you pwned him!

[cdecl]

Quote

Apparently Kyek had someone else register the domain name so he wouldn't face legal issues and I think that was a smart move

Har har, I remember that.

But come on Mr. Haklab, stop doing simple stuff. Do a little more damage.

This post has been edited by cdecl: 16 November 2008 - 11:42 AM

[hacknew]

remarkable work Kyek! you never fail to amaze us! and i do mean AMAZE! that part about haklab dancing around while you worked your magic before he could even post his faux "victory" sure cracked me up! that's the problem with people who are so full of themselves, they seem to think that they're the smartest but it's a known fact they happen to be the ones falling behind of the pack.

fact of the matter is, what he did was lowest of the low. he claims on wanting to "educate" but we all know the real reason him hijacking your domain was that he just wanted to cash-in on your awesome Appulo's site hits. haklab's site is worth null. nobody cares for his crap site and nobody ever will (with the recent drama he did about him shutting it down due to everybody not caring as an example). talk about who the real bad guy is...

he did an uber low blow and you smacked him hard to limbo! thanks Kyek! again we owe you our deepest gratitude.

[dmoneyrocks]

It is time my friends that we all rise together and take this @sshole haklabs guy out for good! who's with me, cause this shit this guy keeps doing is ridiculous.

[p13m4n]

loukas77, on Nov 16 2008, 08:54 AM, said:

Man... I hate this F****ER!!! He is pissing me off!!! Im glad that you guys are so awesome and smart! He can't keep us down! Good job Kyek!

wrenchmonkey26, on Nov 16 2008, 09:40 AM, said:

After downloading and installing a game, I try to run it and get a " cannot open file" anyone else having this problem?

nathanscott101, on Nov 16 2008, 11:09 AM, said:

Wow, all I can say is what a a f**king c**t. Can't believe how low that guy is.





Well, he can go f**k himself, I'm not returning to his blog again, and hope one listens to the douche.

esoteric0ne, on Nov 16 2008, 02:10 PM, said:

Good work Keyek I want to meet this a**clown face to face and give him a TIGER UPERCUT!

coolieman, on Nov 16 2008, 02:29 PM, said:

you pwned him!

dmoneyrocks, on Nov 16 2008, 02:54 PM, said:

It is time my friends that we all rise together and take this @sshole haklabs guy out for good! who's with me, cause this shit this guy keeps doing is ridiculous.

[Haklab]

I just made a post clarifying that I did not steal the domain at http://www.appulo.us...nd-cracked.html. Please edit any posts here because I did not hijack the domain and make it clear because a lot of people are now thinking I stole it. The last thing I want to do is turn this into a war. I even linked to Kyek's new website. I only want a week and I will only make quality posts so we can have a quality discussion instead of a war or something. I will gladly give the domain back to Kyek after this one week and I'm even linking to his new website so the visitors know. My intention by buying Appulo.us was not to stop the cracked app scene, and you can all keep cracking for this one week. Appulo.us will be up on a different domain just for this week. Think of it like that. I will stop going after Appulo.us after this one week. Lets handle this maturely and not make a war.

You can still get your cracked apps, and all you have to do is read what I say. I won't force you to believe my opinions but I just want to get my points across.

-Mr. Haklab

[csoccer1]

Haklab, on Nov 16 2008, 02:35 PM, said:

I just made a post clarifying that I did not steal the domain at http://www.appulo.us...nd-cracked.html. Please edit any posts here because I did not hijack the domain and make it clear because a lot of people are now thinking I stole it. The last thing I want to do is turn this into a war. I even linked to Kyek's new website. I only want a week and I will only make quality posts so we can have a quality discussion instead of a war or something. I will gladly give the domain back to Kyek after this one week and I'm even linking to his new website so the visitors know. My intention by buying Appulo.us was not to stop the cracked app scene, and you can all keep cracking for this one week. Appulo.us will be up on a different domain just for this week. Think of it like that. I will stop going after Appulo.us after this one week. Lets handle this maturely and not make a war.

You can still get your cracked apps, and all you have to do is read what I say. I won't force you to believe my opinions but I just want to get my points across.

-Mr. Haklab

Dear Mr. Hoebag,

We don't need to do what you say. You don't have our apps, as they aren't hosted on servers you have access to. You have an old domain in which we like the name of but couldn't care less if u gave it back in a month. Point is, you stole a website, we made a new one, and we move our apps. You have nothing of value.

Mod edit: The site you mentioned here isn't back up -- it's someone trying to steal the name to get popular.. not unlike what Haklab did ;-). There's no substitute for the original.

[Kyek]

Haklab, I *just* said in my E-mail to you that if you progressed with the charade of trying to make people believe this wasn't a hijack, I'd give people proof that it was. Care to take back that statement, or shall I share our E-mails?

[Holosoth]

Why does this community have objections to an opinion? It is extremist and dangerous to force opinion upon users, but it is also extremist to label someone as a "hoebag" because of a single viewpoint. People who are this downright inconsiderate and disrespectful are the monsters that drive our society apart. Enough of this fucked up name-calling and disrespect (on both parts). Both sides have acted disgustingly, even now. I appreciate the desire for change Haklab, but a few things need to be made valid and clear.

Regardless of how the domain was acquired, the domain does not entitle oneself to a site, because a site in entirety consists of its users and content. Haklab is not in charge of appulo.us and shall not hold the domain "hostage." I certainly expect he return the domain on time as promised and does not escalate this more than it is believed. Haklab, Please remove the "Appulo.us Down" post because this is simply untrue. Also, provide a clear method of getting to Appulous.us in the same post as your next explanation of opinion. Your current post does not introduce or summarize your opinion at all and appears much like an attack on the community from all other standpoints. I would consider a revision.

In return, Kyek, please change the banner on your site to not state that the domain has been hijacked, stolen, or robbed in addition to allowing the community to give Haklab an apology for labeling him as a "monster", "bully", and "capitalist." Haklab has already apologized for labeling people as "thieves." An no, we don't care about emails. We care about solutions.

I truly hope that these suggestions are followed through. I for one believe that two perspectives can compromise and debate respectfully without cheap blows and malicious behavior. I praise both of your efforts in preserving your causes, but am mortally distraught by your interactions with each other. Let's fix this now before both sides are so extreme that there is no turning back. Remember that an individual has a power of choice, let them execute it here while being informed. You both are outstanding men (or women) and are the most able resolve this while understanding that some people simply do not have to agree. I trust that both of you can bring both Appstore Devs and Crackers together and resolve their differences while also bringing a positive effect on society and the Apple Consumer.

There is no reason to further discuss this issue without really proving that you are both willing to compromise. Someone please lock this thread until both sides are ready.


EDIT:
Extremists that have posted in this thread:
loukas77, csoccer1, dmoneyrocks, hacknew, Ryan, Trent J., esoteric0ne, DubFiyah, nathanscott101

I would like to allow you guys to have the opportunity to go fuck yourselves and leave. Ideal communities need people like you to change.

This post has been edited by Holosoth: 16 November 2008 - 02:25 PM