Auto-dropper
Written on March 4th, 2008 by phirate
Ok, a quick summary, it’s 5am here and I really should hit bed.
Our attention was drawn to a forum post on another site in which someone claimed to be selling a piece of software that would automatically do card drops for you. Needless to say, this isn’t something we permit and a security system exists to prevent it.
The initial release of the software failed to take account of the security gear and resulted in negative credits. Another release was made, and then offered for sale.
I was not surprised, but I was rather disappointed, that a number of users chose to try and use the software rather than notify us. Those users are being identified now by a “fingerprint” the application left in our web logs.
As a consequence, we had to roll out a contingency plan rather more quickly than we had hoped for, adding an additional set of security to the widget. This is now in place.
There are a few potential side effects, the most important of which from our perspective is that the additional security makes our web servers do more work – and they’re overworked as it is. This may result in the site running slower than usual until we can sort things out properly.
The contingency security is only temporary. We will, unfortunately, have to move to release the next version of the widget as soon as we can. Features such as the upcoming credit market may be delayed while we do this.
Sorry about all this, some people don’t seem to feel that having a whole (expensive) site free and available to help them build up their blog is enough – they’d like to try and kill it for a tiny gain for themselves instead. Ah well, such is life.
March 4th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Just too bad some people always have to destroy good things with spam or other abuse
, but this means that Entrecard credits are worth something and that’s a good thing.
/Andreas
March 4th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Now it seems I can’t use CTRL+F to find “DROP YOURS” anymore…:(
-Mike
March 4th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I hope that in the long run the auto droppers will be eliminated.
March 4th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
Keep up the good fight!
March 4th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
EntreCard should put ads into the dashboard because it does cost alot to run a site like this, this would pay for some cost alot of sites have ads and people don’t mind then.
sean
March 4th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
DEATH TO THE AUTO DROPPERS! RWAR!
Keep up the good work, Graham and Phirate yo!
March 4th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Fighting entropy is a life-long process. You quit when you die.
You fight spammers the same way….
Entrecard represents the spirit I am trying to capture both in entrepeneurialship as well as generosity. I’m behind you guys all the way. Keep up the good fight.
March 4th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I know why people would be interested in the software, but it takes away from some of the “fun” involved with surfing the widgets. I come across some very interesting and entertaining sites, as well as some site designs which I really enjoy and consider using. Auto-dropping speeds you past some of these sites and you miss out on the magic and the hard work that our community members put into their sites.
Ok, that’s all I got. *laughs*
March 4th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
It is a rather sad part of life, but I suppose without the scum bags we wouldn’t be able to truly appreciate the decent people in the world right?
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for creating this site, I have found many amazing websites thanks to Entrecard.
Cheers!
March 5th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Seems then that some people are thinking of selling their EC by not working for it at all. This is just sad but a sign that EC is entering the big leagues as well if people are bothering to do this.
March 5th, 2008 at 4:20 am
You should LIST the names/blogs of those who used it so that we can avoid doing business with, or benefitting them… no stupid repraisals by community members, just avoidance… it’s not wrong of you to release that info. In fact, I think you are duty-bound to let us know who in the community is trying to render everyone else’s efforts entirely worthless.
Some people work overtime to help out here whether it’s dropping like crazy, advertising like crazy, posting in the forums like crazy or working on secret complementary projects like crazy
and we should probably be notified of who is helping to negate our efforts.
Like a “wall of shame”…
If there IS such a thing, then newcomers will see it and it will serve as a deterrent… not a panacea, but definitely a deterrent. Some people are naive or easily tempted and only get involved in such crap because they see no consequences. We don’t have to sit idly by and say, “Well, that’s their fault.” when we can just as easily show them that there WILL be consequences.
They don’t even have to be on the wall of shame forever… maybe just like a month or so. I know someone with an argumentative mind can suggest that a wall of shame would just be like free advertising for such people but I’d disagree… it’s not the kind of advertising that anyone hoping to succeed online would want…. unless they thrived on controversy but even that, getting on the wall of shame would be stupid considering there are far more effective ways to create friction than trying to mindlessly auto-drop.
Please consider a Wall of Shame deterrent… to both deter AND warn community members of sharks in their midst.
Thanks,
Sam
March 5th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I totally agree with Uncle Sam up there!
Phirate, unleash the names of those who are involved!
Shame them!
Wall of Shame! RWAR!
March 5th, 2008 at 9:37 am
I tend to agree with Sam, too. If those people don’t have enough respect to play fairly, there’s no reason you should feel obligated to keep their names private. The worst part is that there’s people out there spending time working to move up the ranks here, while others try to cheat the system.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:19 am
@Mike Huang.
That’s because the entrecard widget doesn’t say “drop yours” anymore. Apparently you have been flying through the sites so fast you haven’t noticed the change. Please consider forgetting about shortcuts and actually take a few seconds to look at the site you are on. Is that not what you would want others to do when they come to your site? Slow down and smell the roses, Mike.
March 5th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I kind of agree that it would be a good idea to penalize them, however releasing their information to the blogging community only opens them up to hate mails, spam, and any other malicious attacks which can only do more harm than good.
Personally, they tried to get away with something they thought they could, some of us have done that. They got their butts handed to them when they looked at their dashboard and realized their credits started rolling back at an exponential rate.
Auto-droppers can be quite hurtful to sites like these as not only does it take away from the fun of dropping, but also causes the system to not balance out properly, in my opinion.
I am glad the admin here were able to catch it and that the coders of the auto-dropper overlooked security measures. Still though, shame on them.
March 5th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I would be in favor of both a “wall of shame” and a banning by Entrecard, so there’d be no reason to provide any benefits to the scoundrels.
I’m so tired of the “lottery mentality” of people on the internet. They really do believe they should get everything for nothing… no work, just cheat, sit back and collect the rewards.
Here’s your reward… you get identified and banned, so we can avoid you like the plague!
Shari
March 5th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Totally. Air them out in public. I’d hate to think I am spending time reciprocating a robot and not an actual human who takes time to visit our site.
March 5th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
[...] auto-dropping seems to have led to a raft of new security measures, at the cost of site performance and accuracy. [...]
March 5th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
I like to take my time to drop cards and discover new sites. And I like card droppers to my site to do the same. I don’t like auto droppers.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I’m surprised you haven’t banned the culprits, at least you should name and shame the thieves.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:10 am
[...] like gaming the system…. and when you keep reading some of the other threads you seem the same people complaining about people trying to game Entre Card. So I guess it’s ok to game StumbleUpon [...]
March 6th, 2008 at 1:34 am
yeah! ban them all.. and all the cheats who cheat all the other “whole (expensive) sites that are free and available to help them build up their blog” i.e. stumbleupon…. oh hang on , thats endorsed here right.. sorry my bad
March 6th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I agree, release the list and ban those violators
March 14th, 2008 at 4:56 am
why they aren’t banned yet?Maintain the quality of EC
March 20th, 2008 at 9:18 am
I am sorry that I am one of the criminals in this community. You can read my sad story here: http://www.jaseemumer.com/dont-play-with-entrecard/
May 29th, 2008 at 9:29 am
If everybody is using auto-dropper, entrecard will soon go down the route of many failed traffic exchange and nobody will be interested in it. Thus, protecting bloggers interest is very important.
March 30th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I too in a recent google search came to know about it and i say honestly i prefer notifying you guys rather than buying that crap.