[Bloksel]

Since this is still not answered in all other posts. I still would like an explanation about what is wrong with the TVTunes addon?

Please do not start the Rob or Kodi Team is evil discussion again. If you can, please answer my simple question.

[Kib]

This was answered multiple times already, but I'll answer once more.

There was a whole lot going on with rob and none of that initially had to do with tvtunes per se.
But during the course of this we found out that the tvtunes add-on violated two strict rules we have about add-ons, not doing direct analytics of users and not doing anything illegal.

- The add-on tracks users (code link) (not reverted)
- The add-on allows users to share copyrighted material to an (obfuscated) address of a bittorrent ftp server.(code link) (not reverted)

That add-ons sometimes access snippets of copyrighted material from a website that hosts them under the fair use law is one thing.
That an add-on enables users to circumvent copyright by uploading material is a very different thing.
That this code was intentionally obfuscated can probably be interpreted in different ways but at that point I don't think anyone on the team wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Other things that I believe contributed:

- Not wanting to fix the fact that an add-on overwrote user keymaps.
- Not wanting to fix the including of an existing module in his repo.
- Rewriting history on his add-ons, this effectively removes previous authors from GPL code. (one example, same for all other repos) (not reverted)
- Removing GPL as a license from his code and replacing with a commercial license (here) (reverted)
- Removing the (MIT/GPL) licenses from code written by others, rewriting the author and replacing with a commercial license (not reverted)

I'm just answering your question and have no intention (like you) to start this discussion again.
If this thread turns into anyother discussion thread, I'll close it - there is already a thread for that.

edit: adding links to code
edit: changed bittorrent into FTP, because I got told it was that. I understood it was bittorrent earlier but for the reasoning it really does not matter.

[Karnagious]

Well let's wait and see how the addon author responds to these allegations.

[Kib]

I am starting to believe it is not going to take long for me to close this thread is it, Karnagious ?

[Hitcher]

The fact he hid an address of a bittorrent server in the code below says he knew what he was doing was wrong imo.

Code:

aHR0cHM6Ly9zaXRlcy5nb29nbGUuY29tL3NpdGUvcm9id2Vic2V0L3R2dHVuZXMtdXBsb2FkLWNvbmZpZy54bWw=

[black_eagle]

The fact he hid an address of a bittorrent server in the code below says he knew what he was doing was wrong imo.

Code:

aHR0cHM6Ly9zaXRlcy5nb29nbGUuY29tL3NpdGUvcm9id2Vic2V0L3R2dHVuZXMtdXBsb2FkLWNvbmZpZy54bWw=

Thats not a bittorrent server. Its an xml file hosted on google sites. Or at least, it was. That page doesn't exist any more. Whether or not there was a pointer in the xml file to a bittorrent server I don't know, but the tvtunes code downloads that xml file and parses it for upload settings.

I'm still not 100% certain where the bittorrent stuff comes in as the code (at least that I have seen) uploads to an ftp server.

[stefansaraev]

The fact he hid an address of a bittorrent server in the code below says he knew what he was doing was wrong imo.

Code:

aHR0cHM6Ly9zaXRlcy5nb29nbGUuY29tL3NpdGUvcm9id2Vic2V0L3R2dHVuZXMtdXBsb2FkLWNvbmZpZy54bWw=

Thats not a bittorrent server. Its an xml file hosted on google sites. Or at least, it was. That page doesn't exist any more. Whether or not there was a pointer in the xml file to a bittorrent server I don't know, but the tvtunes code downloads that xml file and parses it for upload settings.

I'm still not 100% certain where the bittorrent stuff comes in as the code (at least that I have seen) uploads to an ftp server.

it was a base64 encoded url, that pointed to a xml file, which contents was base64 encoded "settings" for the built-in file uploader (ftp server, username, password)

now, neither the xml file exists, nor I can login to ziggy73701.seedr.io using the credentials I've got earlir from the above base64 encoded xml file.

strange enough isn't it?

[Gracus]

The fact he hid an address of a bittorrent server in the code below says he knew what he was doing was wrong imo.

Code:

aHR0cHM6Ly9zaXRlcy5nb29nbGUuY29tL3NpdGUvcm9id2Vic2V0L3R2dHVuZXMtdXBsb2FkLWNvbmZpZy54bWw=

Thats not a bittorrent server. Its an xml file hosted on google sites. Or at least, it was. That page doesn't exist any more. Whether or not there was a pointer in the xml file to a bittorrent server I don't know, but the tvtunes code downloads that xml file and parses it for upload settings.

I'm still not 100% certain where the bittorrent stuff comes in as the code (at least that I have seen) uploads to an ftp server.

it was a base64 encoded url, that pointed to a xml file, which contents was base64 encoded "settings" for the built-in file uploader (ftp server, username, password)

now, neither the xml file exists, nor I can login to ziggy73701.seedr.io using the credentials I've got earlir from the above base64 encoded xml file.

strange enough isn't it?

Why is it strange?
It was not his server and the owner (ziggy73701) removes access to rob's storage area when he saw the discussion here about tracking: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=...pid2439895
(he also said that the bittorrent part of the server had nothing to do with tvtunes or rob)

Nothing to do with "bad hacker trying to disappear without traces"

Personnaly, I know nothing about base64 encoded files so I will trust kodi team on that matter

[Bloksel]

This makes no sense at all.

@Kib, I Am just a user who want to know if it is advisable to install this addon. Your copyright remark also counts for most subtitle addons.

After that everybody is beginning to blame everyone again.

Let me rephrase my question:

What is the addon uploading exactly?

[black_eagle]

Someone gave Rob some ftp space on a server for him to use, and then pulled said space when all this blew up so I guess it probably isn't that surprising that login details no longer work.

However, regardless of that I expect that Team members are factually correct in what they post, and Hitcher's post wasn't.

I'm not trying to stir anything up here, I just think that the truth is important.

It also surprises me that even though there is no bit-torrent code in the add-on, it still gets posted that Rob was using a bit-torrent server (which wasn't even his I might add).

Clearly, the team have every right to take whatever action they deem fit and that's fine. But lets at least get the facts correct.

[stefansaraev]

@Gracus

good. thanks for pointing out that post.

so, let's assume no malice (and for the protocol, I never said that rob is the bad guy), and lets say he uses base64 encoding just to hide login credentials and nothing else (which I belive is true), it is still bad. it took me 5 seconds to decode those credentials. what if I uploaded some child pr0n under your mac address' folder?

uploading files behind user's back (without asking him for a permission), and associating those files with his mac address is a bad thing. my 2 cents.

[Kib]

The point being is that the addon allowed users to upload copyrighted material, which is illegal in most countries and (more importantly) not allowed by our add-on submission rules nor by our forum rules. Uploading copyrighted material is not much in any grey area anywhere - it is almost universally illegal.

Whether it was an obfuscated address to download an xml which had an obfuscated address to an ftp server which then obfuscated more about where the data was going:
It doesn't matter as add-ons are not allowed to break copyright law and encouraging users to do exactly so is simply not allowed on our forum.

@Bloksel, do whatever you want with the add-on. It violates our rules about add-ons we allow here for discussion but it is up to you as a user whether you want to install add-ons not supported by us.

That being said, I'll close the thread, thanks to everyone who found it necessary to turn it into a second discussion thread.