Unfortunately, it seems some members in the Casio homebrew development scene have some problem with posting in other communities than "their home", and that is obviously not healthy for the scene as a whole. Yes, I'm looking at Simon<->Cemetech, but there are other situations if we look around a bit. I'm going to focus on Simon for "academic" purposes though: if Simon also posted his findings and participated in this forum too, instead of (at least to my knowledge) only participating on one forum, the end of CS wouldn't mean a stop in the development and documenting process of the Casio calculators.
Yes, I only post at Cemetech, but I make sure all my add-ins and any future important findings are also available in my personal website, untied from any community.
Decentralization is good in some cases, so perhaps having two or three wikis with similar content can be good - but only if they are updated. Otherwise, it may be better to just stick to some wiki, instead of each community having its own. Really, do you have such an urge for being "better than the neighbor" that you can't cope with using his wiki and need to start yours from scratch?
Now about this topic. IMHO, and this has been my opinion since ever, Casio Kingdom (CK) was a dead website just waiting for its domain to expire or its web host to close in order to go offline forever. I got this opinion from seeing little to no discussion in the forums, and no new files being uploaded. So I thought the backing up of CK in a new project, Casio Scene (CS), was actually a great move. But now it seems the admin of CK actually still cared about the website because it gave him profit from ads. I'm now unsure about my opinion on CK and CS, and I'm waiting for more details.
I'm waiting for more details because it's something completely different to clone website content with authorization from its owner and cloning content without even asking for authorization first. Anyway, Casio Kingdom is dead and Casio Scene was not, so without further details, to me it seems the admin of CK got jealous of the success of CS and decided to use the fact that the whole CK forum had been imported to CS (and was actually active, with new users, files, etc.) to shut down CS. If it was done without authorization, I kind of agree with the admin of CK, but even if it was not authorized, I think CK's admin is overreacting (assuming what helder said is true and CK's admin sent not-very-polite emails and really only cares about money).
One more thing: the admin of CK had so much time to complain after CS started importing the forums, and yet he only says anything publicly more than one (or two, three?) months after the operation was completed?...
Sure, helder doesn't owe us an explanation (and nothing forces him to post more details) but it was nice to have it as Ashbad said, and I think that if helder really acted in good faith when doing the CK->CS import, more details on his side of the story would only benefit him.
Of one thing I'm sure, these must be some horrible holidays for helder... Problems with websites, I know that feeling...
Wowee, we're already accusing him of hacking...
helder7 requested that I don't reveal the contents of his PM, but basically, he's in the clear. He has done nothing wrong, and there is no hacking involved. This is just like the case between TI-Bank and TI-Planet.**
**EDIT: I'm not terribly familiar with the fiasco between TI-Bank and TI-Planet. The precise details may or may not be the same.
There was, indeed, no hacking in the TI-Bank -> TI-Planet transition, no matter what the TI-Bank creator is clamoring.
He had given out the passwords, and critor was already co-admin and doing most of the work on the site, on both features and security: the site was based on the pwsPHP, known to be full of holes (TI-Gen used that, too, and suffered lots of intrusions), and insecure changes made by the TI-Bank creator worsened the situation.
alberthrocks wrote:
Wowee, we're already accusing him of hacking...
No, the text left on the site accused him of hacking. We've been objectively debating that accusation, if you read this topic.
gbl08ma wrote:
Unfortunately, it seems some members in the Casio homebrew development scene have some problem with posting in other communities than "their home", and that is obviously not healthy for the scene as a whole. Yes, I'm looking at Simon<->Cemetech, but there are other situations if we look around a bit. I'm going to focus on Simon for "academic" purposes though: if Simon also posted his findings and participated in this forum too, instead of (at least to my knowledge) only participating on one forum, the end of CS wouldn't mean a stop in the development and documenting process of the Casio calculators.
Yes, I only post at Cemetech, but I make sure all my add-ins and any future important findings are also available in my personal website, untied from any community.
I can't agree with you more. As the founder and leader here, I of course lean heavily on this forum, but I still am careful to publicize my projects elsewhere and post release topics for big programs on Omnimaga and elsewhere. In addition, my staff and friends always poke me if there are topics on other forums where my expertise is needed, such as with z80 ASM. I'd say that Simon's refusal to regularly post his findings and progress and answer questions here (not to mention inflexibility regarding contributing to the now-widely-used PrizmSDK instead of continuing to focus on the miniSDK) is frustrating to me. I know he is a great guy and extremely skilled, and based on past PM conversations with him I don't even think his snub is intentionally provocative, but no matter the reasons, users still don't get the benefits of his Prizm expertise here.
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Decentralization is good in some cases, so perhaps having two or three wikis with similar content can be good - but only if they are updated. Otherwise, it may be better to just stick to some wiki, instead of each community having its own. Really, do you have such an urge for being "better than the neighbor" that you can't cope with using his wiki and need to start yours from scratch?
Well, our WikiPrizm wiki was started from a view that other wikis were inadequate for the Prizm, so my opinion must be taken with a grain of salt, but I do feel that division of loyalties can create two or three mediocre wikis instead of one great reference.
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I'm waiting for more details because it's something completely different to clone website content with authorization from its owner and cloning content without even asking for authorization first.
Precisely. If it was done without permission, even if not strictly "hacking", it's still dishonest and causes drama. On the other hand, if his motives were pure and he honestly tried to contact the current admin before acting, then there's less of a problem. And hence:
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Sure, helder doesn't owe us an explanation (and nothing forces him to post more details) but it was nice to have it as Ashbad said, and I think that if helder really acted in good faith when doing the CK->CS import, more details on his side of the story would only benefit him.
Exactly. And his silence I'm sure is no help to the situation. 
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it seems some members in the Casio homebrew development scene have some problem with posting in other communities than "their home"
yes, for exemple some cemetech members doesnt like post prizm content in omnimaga,...
simon participe in 3 casio forums, not only 1 as you said (omnimaga, CS (now dead) and DCF).
First of all Casio Universal Wiki (CUW) is developed by 2 communitys, casio-scene (now dead) and planet-casio, an effort to create a global wiki (unlike what happened with cemetech/omnimaga, 2 different wikis for same device, prizm).
Differences between Casio Universal Wiki (CUW) and Cemetech or Omnimaga Wiki:
->CUW have 2 wikis (english and french) integrated and is possible easy "linking" the pages... For exemple a french member write a page in french wiki and a english member translate it. In future i can add more languages supported like german, chinese (yes CS had i think 2/3 chinese developers and some chinese members)
->Users only need 1 account, 1 registration and 1 login to use different language wiki versions, wikis share the session cookie.
->Our objective is cover all casio calculators (classpad, afx, fx9860, prizm) not only prizm.
->Our homepage isnt 100% finnished yet, we are trying to do a simple, easy and acessible home "GUI" for all visitors.
->Ziqumu is creating many templates to do more easy the task of write in wiki, like infobox, etc...
Right now the wiki is offline.
I do not hack any site as he claim.
I can say that CK ADM say things like "casio kingdom" is a trademark, and makes some accusations without proof and ask me for money. I tried negociate with him.
Now, im working in other project, I will leave the calc "scene" for now. I'm working hard on it, I hope it is ready in 1/2 weeks.
helder7 wrote:
simon participe in 3 casio forums, not only 1 as you said (omnimaga, CS (now dead) and DCF).
I reword my sayings then: it looks like some developers have a problem participating on specific communities, or alternatively, post their findings and developments on an independent medium (i.e. not tied to any forum). It's one thing to be banned on one forum (like what happens on certain Cemetech members when it comes to posting on Omnimaga) and another to not be banned and even be very welcome, and still don't post.
Anyway, I used Simon's case as a generic example, and as I said, there are other cases. How many times didn't the Cemetech users need to cross-post news on the development&hacking scene from other forums, because the original developers won't post them here?
Other than that, it was really great to have some explanations posted directly from your account into public. Thanks!
Omnimaga was the site that started PRIZM development in 2010 before z80man and Qwerty.55 stopped and most of it moved to Cemetech, and I remember back in the days certain Casio guys said they wished PRIZM dev happened on Casiocalc/kingdom instead of Omni and Cemetech.
I don't know why, though. It could be that some hardcore Casio fans saw TI as an "enemy" and did not appreciate that PRIZM dev occurs on Omnimaga (and later Cemetech), which are primarily TI sites, instead of Casiocalc and Casiokingdom, which are Casio-only.
However, back then, the UCF was like the TI-Nspire User Group in the way that teachers visited the site and instated a mentality against calculator gaming on it (this would last until the 2012 moderation change), and Casiokingdom was buggy and infested with spam. The only other alternative was French. This is why PRIZM development started on a TI website instead before it spread to another.
Sorry for double-posting, but Matt, the current CasioKingdom owner, has posted this on Omnimaga just now (URL in quote header):
http://ourl.ca/16643/312016 wrote:
Ok, I'm Matt from Casio Kingdom.
So I've been getting many emails, some supportive of what happened others angry.
I've read this thread and obviously I've been in contact with Helder about this issue, but I think that it's important that you get my side of things.
I can't go into everything that happened, because too much happened. But I can give you an outline and I can respond to any questions - I would prefer more of the details to be discussed at Casio Kingdom while it's back up.
Ok so from the beginning...
At the time that I bought the website I intended to do more with it (improve the software, design, content etc.) but things got really busy. I mean crazy busy. I moved country, I changed job and we had a baby. My job just kept getting busier and busier. I had no time to manage many of my websites and some died. I didn't realize how dead CK had become until recently - and that is my fault.
Adsense was placed on CK not to make tons of money, but to make test how much money could possibly be made and to help pay back the price I paid for the website - I really don't see anything wrong with that. There is nothing evil in paying for something and hoping to make some money back.
Fast forward to recent events...
So I get an email from Helder (that is going to all 8000 members of CK) that does the following:
1. bad mouths me (saying I was just in it for the money when you don't know my situation)
2. tells everyone that Casio Kingdom has moved to Casio-Scene.com
3. tells people how he has copied all the content from a website that I paid Sean Tan a lot of money for
4. tells people he has copied their passwords and private messages as well
I go to visit Casio Kingdom and see that it now is forwarding to Casio-Scene.com despite me still having ownership of the domain names - so clearly the website was hacked and member data stolen.
All of this was done without my knowledge or consent. If someone had emailed me and wanted to take over the site, partner up, share ideas then that would have been great. But that didn't happen. Imagine how you would feel if you saw that someone had a plan (and carried it out) to hack your website to redirect to a website that they had made? to damage your website after stealing the content? to breach data protection and privacy laws that really are there to protect you?
This really is the most serious crime and what bothers me the most. When someone creates an account with a username and password (and sends PMs) they do not expect that information to be taken without the admin's knowledge or consent and used or viewed. As a website admin I wasn't allowed (and never did) view anyone's PMs or passwords (which were encrypted). Helder used a security flaw in the software and took this data (and even I didn't look at it).
You have to be concerned about this. Your private messages and passwords (which maybe you use on other websites) are yours and you shouldn't be ok with someone coming along and taking them. I'm not ok with it, and I'm not ok with someone going further to redirect my domain name so people typing in my website name go to his clone of my website - how is that ok?
I then sent an email to Helder explaining how serious this is and asked him to take the website down.
His next response to me was a refusal to take the website down followed by:
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If you want the new site owners are interested in bought your domains, they will pay a big ammount of money... I talked with they about this.
There is a lot more to this story involving Helder's refusal to see that what he did may have been wrong - and his refusal to take the website down until I contacted his host. I will definitely consider posting more about what happened on Casio Kingdom, when I have fixed the website.
Look I want the website to be a good place for all. There will be a few ads that might pay the cost of hosting/software/upgrades but let's not think that me putting a few ads on the side is me against the community it is the opposite.
Also I have had many people contact me since the email was sent out to 8000 CK members and they are very annoyed that their data has been put at risk and taken without permission.
I'm fighting for their interests and mine. If anyone ever steals from you (like stealing member passwords, that puts you at risk), don't let them get away with it - because it is a serious crime.
I am still busy with life, work and family but I will try to be a better operator of the new CK and welcome any help that anyone wants to offer.
If you have any questions about this then please contact me at the email on the CK homepage (please can you remove my email from this thread because it just leads to spam). I am a fair and reasonable person so all respectful emails will be answered respectfully - and I will try to stop by here again to see if there are any replies.
If there is something good to come from this is that I see how much many of you appreciated Casio Kingdom, I really didn't know that. I will try to do better.
Thank you for cross-posting that, DJ_O. From that, I must say that my sympathies fall almost entirely with Matt, especially given my position as a website founder and leader and defender of a vast amount of public and private data in posts, files, and user accounts. I hope to hear more of Matt's side, and perhaps he'll also come visit us and answer a few of our questions.
KermMartian wrote:
Thank you for cross-posting that, DJ_O. From that, I must say that my sympathies fall almost entirely with Matt, especially given my position as a website founder and leader and defender of a vast amount of public and private data in posts, files, and user accounts. I hope to hear more of Matt's side, and perhaps he'll also come visit us and answer a few of our questions.
While not being a website owner, I've fallen to Matt's side as well. I was a bit convinced he had good reasons, honestly, but now at least I can confirm my suspicions. He actually doesn't sound like the monster people are making him out to be, just a reasonable, normal guy who's had something he invested in ripped from his hands without any return on it.
EDIT: He seems even more pissed now.
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I think that some of you have learning difficulties which is fine so let me make a few short posts.
1. No name is on the CK homepage right now - so how is that slander (full details will be published soon)
2. you say that slander is illegal even if it is right. But how does that make any sense? It isn't slander if it is true
3. I'm allowed to be angry if someone commits a crime and damages my site and breaks laws with data. A person who would do such a thing is an a-hole, a complete jerk. Plus someone who would leave traces all over the internet explaining his plan to commit a crime is a dumb a-hole. Let's go further... someone who then goes on to send the email newsletter to the admin, giving incriminating evidence of the site they have just cloned is really not the sharpest tool in the shed.
4. When CK is back up the people who defend a crime that is indefensible and the people who have severe self-esteem issues, to the point where they troll and whine and try to bring others down, simply aren't welcome.
Members who don't want to return to CK, don't. Why waste your time even talking about it. Those of you who would like to, you'll be welcome.
Those of you who have acted like jerks here have only accomplished one thing and that is to make me want to pursue the criminal actions even further until there is some resolution. If your strategy was to defend Helder, you have only created a more fierce opponent in me.
Au revoir mon petit pois.
I hate to say I can't disagree with him. I also hate to say that we've been getting a very one-sided story up until now. Looks like it's the end of his story, so probably the last we'll see of him until a resolution is reached. Honestly I'm not sure why I care about this issue at all personally since I never visited either site, I guess I have no reason; so I'll just throw out my quick opinion and leave it at that. 
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I hope to hear more of Matt's side, and perhaps he'll also come visit us and answer a few of our questions.
I'm not sure you're eager to see him polluting the board like he polluted Omnimaga with disrespect and cluelessness in the subsequent posts 
helder7 indicates again ( http://ourl.ca/16643/312089 ) that he restarted from an old backup 
Lionel, perhaps you're right, but with a topic where neither of the key players has directly weighed in, I'm relying on second-hand information, and from what I've heard, it seems like Matt is more in the right. Though I agree from the second post Ashbad quoted that his tone seems belligerent, I could easily attribute that to justifiable anger and frustration at the situation. Perhaps I'll have to read this Omnimaga thread at some point.
That said, the person being in the business, don't you think it's a bit wrong to act in impolite ways in public or even in private? I mean, for example, if BrandonW and others received a cease and desist letter from TI to take down the RSA factoring keys and it looked like this instead of what he actually got:
Fake C&D letter from TI wrote:
HEY D***HEAD!!!
YOU PUBLISHED OUR RSA FACTORING KEYS WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION, F****** A******! MY LAWYERS WILL KICK YOUR A** SOON AND YOU'LL LIVE AN HORRIBLE LIFE AS A HOBO FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE! WE'LL SUCK EVERY F****** BIT OF PENNIES YOU HAVE FOR THE NEXT DECADES AS A REVENGE AGAINST YOU STEALING OUR INTELLECTUAL POOPRETTY!
I DON'T CARE IF YOU DELETE THE FILES OR NOT, IDIOT, IT'S TOO LATE YOU'RE F******, NOW!!!
F****** MORON!!!
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS, WHO NEVER FORGIVE, NEVER FORGET. WE ARE LEGION, EXPECT US!
http://education.ti.com/
Or if they put the following on their front page:
Then the person gets famous through his business and this eventually makes it to public. Or if your forgot to pay your Internet bill and your ISP sent you a similar message?
Also in the Omnimaga thread, his initial post was fine and he was presenting his side of the story. Afterward I could not find any offensive or immature posts except possibly some that were posted prior Matt's initial message, where he brought up his side of the story, or one little remark from Helder7 himself, yet in his second post he accused us of being immature and having low self-esteem for not agreeing with every point in his message. Afterward, in response to people disagreeing with him, he reverted to insults and threats of further legal actions against Helder7. This ultimately led to staff locking the topic.
*Sigh*, now I don't have any idea of who's right in this story - also because I had no idea that (at least, according to Matt) the CK->CS cloning was done through a flow in the software. I previously thought it had been done by parsing the publicly accessible content and importing it to the new forum (also, I had the idea passwords weren't copied over, or am I wrong?). Oh wait, so he used an old backup instead? What a mess, I don't quite understand this story now...
I'll just sit waiting like Ashbad - I only briefly visited CK some time ago, and I was a inactive (0 posts) member of CS, so I better keep my thoughts for myself and wait.
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also because I had no idea that (at least, according to Matt) the CK->CS cloning was done through a flow in the software
But precisely, it was not, as stated multiple time by helder7: he had an older backup from the previous site owners
EDIT: I see that you edited your post shortly before I posted mine
One says it was stolen, one says it was from an older back up. Do we have any real evidence as to which one it is? At least one person is lying here.
As I see it, at the very least it's true that the CK domain was forwarded to CS without Matt's permission, right? That's immoral, no matter what how helder got the forum data. I fail to see how anything Matt has done changes that, even if he's lying about stolen member data and being slanderous. Now, if that's not true, that's a different story entirely.
gbl08ma wrote:
*Sigh*, now I don't have any idea of who's right in this story - also because I had no idea that (at least, according to Matt) the CK->CS cloning was done through a flow in the software. I previously thought it had been done by parsing the publicly accessible content and importing it to the new forum (also, I had the idea passwords weren't copied over, or am I wrong?). Oh wait, so he used an old backup instead? What a mess, I don't quite understand this story now...
I'll just sit waiting like Ashbad - I only briefly visited CK some time ago, and I was a inactive (0 posts) member of CS, so I better keep my thoughts for myself and wait.
The forums was actually legitimately copied into Casio-Scene. The only security breach that could have been used was to redirect the domain name and/or access the hosting account.
1) The database was given away by one of the former Casiokingdom admins. As proof, all posts on Casio-Scene dated back in 2009. None of the forum data past that time ever made it to Casio-Scene.
2) Most files in the downloads section were retrieved from Archive.org, because almost everything on CK was no longer available. What was still intact was downloaded from CK in extremis. About 400 files on Casio-Scene were added after CS opened, so those files were never available on CK before. I do not know if the original file descriptions were copied or not.
3) Apparently, there are possibilities that the person that redirected the domain name may have been someone else than Helder7, according to http://community.casiocalc.org/topic/6740-casio-kingdom-becomes-casio-scene/
Imo what needs to happen is that both sides publicly state their problems and politely work it out. Both have insulted the other and its not obvious to those of us who don't know what exactly happened who is right and who is wrong. I would like to know and I would like for Casio-Scene/Kingdom to be restored. The community does not need to fight each other. I am sure there is a way to work this out peacefully and politely whether it be helder7 and matt coadminning the site or that matt sells the site or what.
merthsoft wrote:
As I see it, at the very least it's true that the CK domain was forwarded to CS without Matt's permission, right? That's immoral, no matter what how helder got the forum data. I fail to see how anything Matt has done changes that, even if he's lying about stolen member data and being slanderous. Now, if that's not true, that's a different story entirely.
According to helder7, he is not the person who did the redirect. It's likely that some guy in the community knew about an exploit to the website (PHPNuke?) and used it to make a redirect.
I heard many times over the years that PHPNuke was particularly easy to hack. Also I don't exactly remember, but I think i heard before that even when PHPNuke was getting updated, it was still a few PhpBB2 versions behind (it was using PhpBB2 for the forums module).
