Dear Null-Byte fellows,
I was trying to hack the pentagon recently, when suddenly I received a message informing me that a teenager from Spain got promoted on a local newspaper for his superior IT Security articles:
http://www.diariodeleon.es/noticias/innova/bloguero-16-anos-arrasa-ciberseguridad_1060500.html
However he is just translating our How-To 's into spanish and releasing them on his blog:
http://luisiblogdeinformatica.com/
For instance master OTWs Mr. Robot series and my article about "Bad USB". He even copied the fact that I was anoyed about Visual Studio which took 10GB on my SSD.
Don't take me wrong, but I am really pissed off and thought it is a good idea informing you about this.
37 Responses
This is irritating.
What's Spanish for "Get rekt m8"?
So here's my plan. We're going to inform the news station of his plagiarism and he get's fired there.
They only did a piece on him; he's not employed there.
ghost_
the fun is he ask you to register
anyway
here is a suggestion
since Null-Byte got people like My Ouzo who are bilingual
ask Null-Byte's masters if it is okay to make blogs or create sites
and release the articles of Null-Byte in different languages under the name of Null-Byte
through doing so;
1-we attempt to stop plagiarism
2-knowledege is spread by its people
Actually I dont know spanish, but anyway, it is a great suggestion.
Honestly I wouldn't mind at all if he did so.
The issue is that he is taking the credit. Email the newspaper and alert them that he copied the articles and then email the teen.
Yes, it's wrong that he's taking credit for Null-Byte articles. But I'm translating some of OTW's article on my forum too but I'm putting original null-byte link as a source. Also I sent a message OTW about translating the articles, he didn't write me back. I thought that it wouldn't be a problem since I put a source redirecting to orignal Null-Byte article. Am I doing wrong?
Yeah, you can't use his articles without his permission, regardless of whether you put a link to the source. The whole "I asked him but he didn't respond so I took that as an implicit yes(?)" doesn't make it right. Not to come down too hard on you because you at least seem to have good intentions. But that's still not the right way to do it.
Yeah, I already apologized from OTW and deleted the translated articles immediately.
Anon:
First, I don't remember you writing me asking for permission. Second, if I didn't give you my permission, you don't have my permission.
OTW
Plagiarism is a real problem on the Internet. Thousands, literally, are copying the articles from here at Null Byte and posting them as their own.
I want to be clear that without my permission, such plagiarism is a violation of copyright law.
I have a few suggestions to prevent others from plagiarizing.
1. For pictures add a stamp of the WonderHowTo website. Ex.
2. Disable the highlighting of the mouse so others will not be able to copy and paste.
3. Disable the use of the right mouse click so others will not be allowed to view the page source.
Actually, watermarking might not be a bad idea.
Noo, I wont add ugly things to my photos! >.<
It is removable anyway with some photoshop knowledge
It's not worth disabling right clicking and all that. As a community of tech-oriented people, we should side with the Open Source movement, in that we should allow people to use our stuff with permission.
Plagiarism will exist wherever great things are. In this case, it's articles from Null Byte. There's no reason to get angry over something so common. Just stay level-headed and let the proper entities deal with it accordingly.
-Defalt
just hack his blog or get it down...DDOS
This comment is stupid for 3 reasons:
I would advise against it.
I will send contact details of both the plagiarist and their domain provider to OTW so he can pursue this if he so chooses.
ghost_
His name was in the news paper anyway
Apologies for the confusion, I've amended my comment.
ghost_
Nah, just do a WHOIS and contact his ISP :)
What amuses me is how he thinks he will get away with this.
ghost_
I'm the owner of the page and i had to said only two things:
I just wanted to make a better and simpler entry for Spanish that does not have many knowledges so I said sorry and please ask me if you want do
You need to write your own articles, you can reference this as a source for the information you found, that is not illegal. However if you copy, translate, paste, thats just plain plagiarism. You need to learn the difference. This is also really important if you work at that local newsstation. You get insta-fired if you do any plagiarism.
I tried to do all the guides yet and explain with my own words so that not plagiarims, I think, but the imagen of the USB I cant not because it not send this to spain.
I tried to make easy the post, only that and the article said it: Everything taht he knows and write is from Internet and he write to make it easy for normal people.
:(
Please contact occupytheweb, he is the admin.
I'm sorry, but I'm not buying.
You have copied and translated almost entirely verbatim.
There's a difference between that and paraphrasing in your own language and linking back to original source in order to help explain concepts.
Not only that, but even in the newspaper article, you're being hailed as a prodigal infosec genius. The sentence that you've quoted implies that you are the original author of everything on your site, which is simply untrue. It's blatant plagiarism.
Think long and hard about whether you've earned the recognition your town is giving you.
ghost_
This hurts. I'm all for freedom of information but this is a cheap shot. Thanks for the info
The thing is the information is already here, free, and readily available.
There is absolutely no need for someone to do this, other than to take credit.
ghost_
I agree with you Ghost, i hope he gets fired
To clarify, the blogger is 16 and they do not work for that particular news source.
ghost_
Wait, doesn't Null Byte (or WHT) have the copyright over whatever is posted? Plagiarism is illegal, and all it takes is a legal notice to make them take it down.
If there is copyright, then the authority can be contacted to issue a notice. Though considering the size of WHT, it wouldn't make sense otherwise.
~Chaos
WonderHowTo owns the content submitted by the people they pay to create content, in this case, OTW.
However, unpaid users, such as yourself own the content we submit. So if, for instance, Defalt decided to create his own blog and wants to mirror his own content he is completely within his rights to do so. He is also within his rights to refuse anybody else to use his content.
I'm of the firm opinion that we keep Null Byte content exclusive to Null Byte. We collectively worked hard to make this community what it is today; allowing distribution of our content only serves to diminish that achievement.
Justin put up a post about this just earlier.
ghost_
Yeah, my bad for not noticing that post before. Actually, my comment was to come a day earlier, but it wasn't really loading up yesterday, so well...
~Chaos
No harm done, just thought you might like to have a quick read through it is all.
ghost_
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