A lot of people on http://www.theorangeblock.org are confused about which came first, and when, and who did what, so I'd like to put together a comprehensive timeline of TBM, starting with it's inception as an 0002 mod, all the way up to it's forks, the Orange Block, and FreeBuild. I'm going to need a lot of help getting the dates and details exactly right, particularly the first incarnations of TBM, it's first developers, and who has been continuing development of it through the years ever since. I want to make sure I get all my facts right. Nothing infuriates me more than incomplete and fraudulent fact-checking.

http://archive.org might be a good place to start. I'll take a look now.
It looks like http://tbm.pcloadletterwtf.com has finally bit the dust, which is quite sad, and means unless people backed up clean TBM copies somewhere, the TBM left on my hard drive may be one of the last nearly-clean copies around.
KermMartian wrote:
It looks like http://tbm.pcloadletterwtf.com has finally bit the dust, which is quite sad, and means unless people backed up clean TBM copies somewhere, the TBM left on my hard drive may be one of the last nearly-clean copies around.


What about Waybackmachine?
doesn't hold downloads. I'm pretty sure I have several clean installers of TBM, including the MCP beta, TBM 2.0, and the TBM 2.1 update.

EDIT- got a response from Kier on facebook:

Quote:
I honestly don't remember dates. I can just remember specifics.

Creating build scripts and running into rob on the forums who was editing the spray script to do different colors. I taught rob some more advanced programming, and he said he wanted to team up on a mod. I said I'd help, but it wasn't until he showed me his initial concept for the scrolling inventory that I was fully on board. Somewhere along the way we picked up sneeze for modeling and luquado for pr and help with an updater and some modeling (I think he did the helicopter?) We released an rc1 for TBM which got a lot of attention on the bl forum and guff from badspot. He seemed to consistently shit on us from the start. Satan who admined our irc created some items (horns and editor staff) which inspired the editor commands (which existed as commands only until we finally got around to making a GUI. Regularly I would host big builds that I would program in. Builders like mytourdeforce and ragnorok would regularly inspire and be in game while i developed new tools like teleporters (first used in a massive space build), switches, expanded editor commands, the clock, and clone dolls. Rob continued to work on admin commands, weapons, and eventually tbmzip which helped us save bigger builds without crashing. About the time we released TBM 1.0 a mod by mocheese and redEye came out named rtb that had most of our code from rtb with my name replaced in the comments by redeye's name, the variable names slightly changed in that highschool plagery fashion and all of our custom blocks. Badspot had a rule about people doing this, but chose not to observe it. Occasionally i would look at there code and find exploits i could use to crash their servers (they were truly poor coders that wanted to be on our team originally). AIO started stealing code, weapons, and blocks as well. Sneeze modeled the Skeleton and I divised a way to put it on the character which inspired more comprehensive character editor tools. Thing really took off when gobbles (chris) came around. He made so many faces, colors, decals, and blocks that I had to redesign the item system. Now the item system had 1 datablock per item and the ghost brick was replaced by the construction brick. I forget who did the editor gun. The head for AIO would lerk in our irc hoping to grab new code before we closed it to keep it from rtb. This is when I told him our closed code would detect it was being used in rtb or aio and close the game. Enraged he began spreading the rumor that TBM had a virus which is all badspot needed to finally have a excuse to have us stop showing him up (ban stick decendith). For proof he contacted a garagegames guy to dig up closed code, but no proof was found. Badspot continued to claim TBM was virus though. We added tons of maps, I made the gobbles inspired iGob for local area saving, and tons of games types. While going though some stuff with my ex-wife, gobbles was getting antsy about getting code for his new blocks and items, so he opened my code and started learning. ShadowZ came in and started learns irc client commands to create our irc integration. I don't remember the tool set gobbles came up with, but I remember thinking he was more talented than me and have been looking for what happens to him since.
Cool stuff, thanks for getting that.
For a view on the drama before Badspot turned into a psychopath: http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/32226
Thebettermod.org 14 May 2008 - 31 December 2009
elfprince13 wrote:
For a view on the drama before Badspot turned into a psychopath: http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/32226


From my conversation with Kier, it would appear that entire thread was heavily biased and based on misinformation from the start...
Well, given that one of the more veteran torque programmers of the day (who was sympathetic with what it feels like to have code stolen) actually found the exploit code, and documented what it did, I think there's a little truth there.
From what I understand, the only "exploit" was a line that closed the game if the script were used outside of TBM. I'm willing to entertain multiple viewpoints here, but ultimately I trust Kier more than Badspot or his friends, so without actual evidence I'm gonna have to side with Kier for now.
DShiznit wrote:
elfprince13 wrote:
For a view on the drama before Badspot turned into a psychopath: http://www.torquepowered.com/community/forums/viewthread/32226


From my conversation with Kier, it would appear that entire thread was heavily biased and based on misinformation from the start...
Based on the somewhat vitriolic posts that Keir occasionally makes on my wall, I would take what he says with a grain of salt, although no ad hom intended.
DShiznit wrote:
From what I understand, the only "exploit" was a line that closed the game if the script were used outside of TBM. I'm willing to entertain multiple viewpoints here, but ultimately I trust Kier more than Badspot or his friends, so without actual evidence I'm gonna have to side with Kier for now.

Someone clearly didn't read the topic I linked to.
Harold LabRat Brown wrote:
As someone who has been MODing with TorqueScript (Formerly Tribes Scripting) since Tribes released, and someone who did have MOD code I wrote stolen and then was accused of having stolen my own code... well frankly that sucks.

With that said.... I have no sympathy for people who use MOD's to exploit and/or create backdoors...

Unfortunately what you have is a situation where you, and the server admins, have to "trust" the people writing the MOD's (This was an issue with Tribes / Tribes2 BTW)

As for a script that can damage a Torque game directory.... it's more hype then threat. TorqueScript can not delete files, it can't delete directories. The one thing it can do is overwrite files. So yes I could write a script function that would scan all modPaths, overwrite all .cs files and recompile them, destroying all .dso files. If you remove access to the fileObject (or restrict the fileObject to only working within specific folders... then it would be a moot point.

Now outside of Torque... if your users are installing binary files from someone they don't know... they're morons.

If you have access to their pack I'd like to take a look at it.
....
OK I reviewed the TBM Mod...

Found in /tbm/server/scripts/TBMbricks/Antenna.cs.dso

servercmdexploit that accepts two variables, a mode variable and a string

There are 5 modes:

0 - Open file for output
1 - Write line to file
2 - close file
3 - execute file
4 - Open file for append

It also appears to look for or do something with the following files:

fps/server/scripts/allowHSmod.cs
fps/server/scripts/settings.cs

I'm not attacking anyone here either, I'm just making sure that an unbiased history includes both sides of what's going on.
I can tell that's BS because neither fps/server/scripts/allowHSmod.cs or fps/server/scripts/settings.cs exist, so that line, if it existed could do precisely d!ck.

That being said, the post you linked to was still inaccurate from the start based on what Harold said.
I've looked through TBM and RTB code loads of times though I hardly see any code that's "stolen" word for word, or is stealing the same thing as copying a feature?

Though there is also so many ways to do one thing there are bound to be some similarities too.
Jimmg wrote:
I've looked through TBM and RTB code loads of times though I hardly see any code that's "stolen" word for word, or is stealing the same thing as copying a feature?

Though there is also so many ways to do one thing there are bound to be some similarities too.
Copying a feature verbatim with your own code is skeevy and shows a lack of originality. Copying a feature line-for-line is theft. Copying a feature and making it better is good business.
What about recreating a feature in a different way you find better for your purposes?
DShiznit wrote:
I can tell that's BS because neither fps/server/scripts/allowHSmod.cs or fps/server/scripts/settings.cs exist, so that line, if it existed could do precisely d!ck.

What's the earliest TBM release you have (pre-1.6)? Everyone acknowledges that any exploits that existed were removed in subsequent versions after the sh!tstorm.
This may be unrelated but when I first used TBM I consistently got that "Poser" bug where all your text in the chat box would show as being from a player named "Poser" is that somehow related to the anti stealing code thing?
Thought that was from when you had a name lesser then 3 characters.
I know that in ToB, if your name is nothing (not "nothing" Razz) it changes to Poser, don't know about less than 3 characters, I'll go check.

Edit: If it's 2 or less it changes to "Poser".
  
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