Develop Bugs

Digigasin ripped me off!!!

I have to complain about this site selling add space to Digigasin. This guy operates out of his apartment. I know because I found it. He took my money through PayPal and never did deliver the order. It has been past 45 days so PayPal won't do anything about it. They told me to go to the police. Digigasin will not reply to my emails and the phone number is just an answering machine. Don't buy anything from Digigasin, you'll be sorry.
I repeat, this site should not let him advertise here!

This site is not selling ads space to Digigasin, it has Google Adsense on it, and Digigasin has payed google to advertise. The ads are placed based on keywords found on the page you're looking and on local information (if you're from switzerland you get more swiss ad's).

pof said:
This site is not selling ads space to Digigasin, it has Google Adsense on it, and Digigasin has payed google to advertise. The ads are placed based on keywords found on the page you're looking and on local information (if you're from switzerland you get more swiss ad's).
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I figured it was something like that. I guess I'm just venting...he took 189. Swiss francs from me. It is the first time I've been ripped off on the Internet and it doesn't feel good. I just wanted to warn others about this guy. His business is not professional at all, I know because I went there...nobody home either.

im a webmaster that uses google adsense and you can request specific ads not to be displayed, perhaps xda-devs could do that?

Well I am in Switzerland and the only add that I see at the moment is from Digigasin, change section, same add, go to wiki, same add.
So can't miss him. Looks like Google does not have many customers over here.

MDAIIIUser said:
Well I am in Switzerland and the only add that I see at the moment is from Digigasin, change section, same add, go to wiki, same add.
So can't miss him. Looks like Google does not have many customers over here.
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I wrote a letter to toppreise.ch where he advertises as well. It has been an eye opening experience. I did my research and still got ripped off. I'm going back to my old criteria, never let a an outstanding order go over the credit card/PayPal dispute period. My Platinum card would have snatched that money back if I hadn't waited so long. My excuse is the holiday season...live and learn.

Midget_1990 said:
im a webmaster that uses google adsense and you can request specific ads not to be displayed, perhaps xda-devs could do that?
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Yes, why can't you stop this guy. This is really a matter of fraud. One of the reasons that I took a chance on him is because I saw his adds here.

Hello,
I am the webmaster of Digigasin and I must tell you I am highly shocked about what Matterhorn said. I am no crook ! I sometimes forget to reply to mails, that's true, and sometimes deliveries take time ! But one again, I am no crook !!
Whatever the problem is about (and I really don't know what it is about...), this customer will be refunded. My reputation is of value. I've just written an email to this member to have an explanation....

seb1003 said:
Hello,
I am the webmaster of Digigasin and I must tell you I am highly shocked about what Matterhorn said. I am no crook ! I sometimes forget to reply to mails, that's true, and sometimes deliveries take time ! But one again, I am no crook !!
Whatever the problem is about (and I really don't know what it is about...), this customer will be refunded. My reputation is of value. I've just written an email to this member to have an explanation....
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Besides, when a customer buys something with Paypal, he can write to Paypal and the money is immediately taken off my account, therefore the customer is refunded!
So what Matterhorn says is untrue. He certainly bought something in my Shop and the delivery period was certainly long. It is true that it's hard to reach me by phone and maybe I did not see one of his emails..but if he wrote more than one, I don't see how I could not have seen them and give a prompt reply !

seb1003 said:
Hello,
I am the webmaster of Digigasin and I must tell you I am highly shocked about what Matterhorn said. I am no crook ! I sometimes forget to reply to mails, that's true, and sometimes deliveries take time ! But one again, I am no crook !!
Whatever the problem is about (and I really don't know what it is about...), this customer will be refunded. My reputation is of value. I've just written an email to this member to have an explanation....
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Digigasin,
You don't run a business by "forgetting" to answer emails. I placed the order on November 14, 2006, yes that is a long time. I'll reply to you privately as I already have 5 times between Nov. 24, 2006 and Jan 11, 2007. Maybe this time you will respond.

seb1003 said:
Besides, when a customer buys something with Paypal, he can write to Paypal and the money is immediately taken off my account, therefore the customer is refunded!
So what Matterhorn says is untrue. He certainly bought something in my Shop and the delivery period was certainly long. It is true that it's hard to reach me by phone and maybe I did not see one of his emails..but if he wrote more than one, I don't see how I could not have seen them and give a prompt reply !
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No, you are wrong, what Matterhorn says is completely true. I sent you 5 emails and a voice mail trying to clear this order up and you didn't respond (I have all the records). I called PayPal to find out what to do and they said that because you strung the whole thing out for more than 45 days, that I would have to go to the police in Lausanne since it was past their time period for recourse. That is the honest to god truth.
Don't call me a liar Mr. You are the one that has not done the proper thing in this whole transaction. You took my money when I placed the order and that is the last I heard from you. Now I am taking this affair offline to a private discussion with you, unless you continue to refuse to respond to my emails.
So if you want to preserve any reputation, let's take this matter to private correspondence, or better yet, just refund my CHF189. and I'd be able to say so here and other forums that you did the right thing.

As I promised, I am confirming resolution of this issue. Digigasin has refunded the funds from my order plus some extra compensation. Thank you for the refund.

Still, I think this guy is not doing a good job. Wonder what happen to your $$ if you were not to make noises here.

hanmin said:
Still, I think this guy is not doing a good job. Wonder what happen to your $$ if you were not to make noises here.
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That is a good question...

that was the best story i've ever heard.
hah.

Dusvdaw
You dug really deep to get that story out almost 13 months later. Woow.

Now i feel cheated!
I feel like i have just watched a realy awful film. one where you have decided you wont like it when it starts, but its that bad that you end up watching all of it.
I was actually half way through the thread when i realise this post is from 2006/2007, but i had already read most of it, so, i had to read the rest to see how it ended........... totaly as expected.
Now i feel silly..........

hedgemonstahinz said:
I feel like i have just watched a realy awful film. one where you have decided you wont like it when it starts, but its that bad that you end up watching all of it.
I was actually half way through the thread when i realise this post is from 2006/2007, but i had already read most of it, so, i had to read the rest to see how it ended........... totaly as expected.
Now i feel silly..........
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Yea, but re-runs are good too, cause you never know how they will end this time. LOL.
Actually, I feel really stupid, cause I read the whole thread and didn't even notice the dates till I read your post. What a day!

how much do you expect to get in a "donation"

first off, thanks for everyone supporting such a great site
2nd, yes i use the search - haven't seen this come up
(other than beverages...)
but, what is the "normal" donate amount? we talking 2 bucks? up to 10?
i feel bad donating to ONE person, realizing that theres usually a team effort involved in each of these builds
likewise, i dont wanna donate 10 bucks to a few dozen people... lol

Yeah, I understand. If you send me $9, that would be ok too. I think your heart is solid gold.

well, i have to say i'm shocked...
12 hours and thats the only reply?
boy i figured people would jump all over this topic...
owell, i'm gonna guess that the "redbull" means 2 bucks and call it good...

Very good question. I too am wondering about this. I was thinking about what a paid app cost? 2-5 bucks?

A normal donation would probably be the cost of a beer

Happy hour is 99¢.
40oz malt bottle 99¢.

Like any "donation" you give as much as you want. And honestly most devs don't expect anything so any amount over 0 is a plus. So no there is no amount to little or to much
"Results may vary."

I always figured like a tip it's really how much you can afford.....I've dropped a couple of guys 25 because they made a really good product that I used....If I have my monthlys covered why not help motivate these guys after all we benifit from it......

Capt.D said:
I always figured like a tip it's really how much you can afford.....I've dropped a couple of guys 25 because they made a really good product that I used....If I have my monthlys covered why not help motivate these guys after all we benifit from it......
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+1 - varies on what you want to donate, what you can afford, and what it is worth to you.

Over the 6 months I have had my phone I have donated 4 times to 3 developers for a total of $40 bucks. I am pretty well off, and won't miss the $40 at all. I understand that is not the case for most people though, and a couple bucks shows plenty of appreciation.
I also think $10 for retail software is not much. I also find I am more willing to donate $5-$10 for a free app I really like then to gamble a couple dollars on a paid app.

0mie custom doors status thread

Since indiegogo apparently thought the best way to dodge accountability was to poof the entire campaign on their site, I figure a thread here is warranted. Please post if you never received your door as well. I'm rather curious what percentage of his orders actually did get filled.
As for myself I emailed indiegogo and PayPal and neither seem to be inclined to take much action to actually get anyone's money back. Perhaps if there's enough of us an action can be forced. I really don't like the idea of letting this slide
Having received the email explanation today about the doors, I made the thread title more hospitable. I already went and grabbed another door from Gruber which I'm happy with though, so will be requesting a refund myself. How that turns out will decide how I feel about this.

Yeah same boat here. Not exactly thrilled that my attempts to contact both through the indigogo site and to 0Mie himself on xda have gone unanswered. I contributed I think about the 8th of March, and not long after that would have been the last email update I received from him about progress and dispatch updates.

Wow - I came here just to post this thread...
Never received the battery door, and PayPal closed the dispute because the transaction was more than 45 days old... That'll teach you to give the benefit of the doubt to the person. Did ANYONE receive a door? The contribution level got up to ~$7,000... He had a website up for a few days, but it looks like the domain is no longer registered to him -- Who-Is registry.
Does anyone know who this guy is? I found that Indiegogo thread here on XDA...

Wow ...I guess he was on some news sites as well ...damn ..
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

Well - looks like we're SOL --
utcu said:
He took my $65 contribution for a battery cover and spare battery, as well as many others' contributions and disappeared. The last I heard from him was over a month ago. He sent out an email saying some of the covers were done and that he was working on others and if anyone needed to get a hold of him to contact him through his site. (andetch.com)
As of a week or so ago, the site is no longer active, indiegogo and paypal have pretty much told all of us we're SOL, and people who were told their doors "were shipped" never received them. Both of the sites he operates from have been taken down and no one can contact him on his Google+ page either. I would never talk negatively on someone without good reason and I'm not sure if maybe he had something come up and couldn't follow through with the project but any type of response or refund would be nice. Here's the original project page with comments from many other unhappy contributors. http://www.indiegogo.com/Galaxy-Nexus-Laser-Etched-Doors?c=comments
It's very awesome how Gruverdesigns is helping all of us out. Dealing with them has been a great pleasure thus far. They actually respond to messages.
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I hope this guy goes to hell, seriously... I was one of the first people that contributed when I saw his campaign and even helped promote it a little bit. I feel betrayed and it makes it even worse that I helped promote this liar.
And I'm in the same boat, haven't received any updates, emails, or battery door yet.

Still had his google plus page from early in the campaign. This is what convinced me he is dodging rather than just MIA for some real reason. The plus page has been unused a while, but there's a tweet a few days back, and we're adding stuff to our 'wish list' on april 10th...which is after my 2nd polite email inquiry about what the status of the campaign is...
https://plus.google.com/u/0/101578908305271892137/about
http://twitter.com/#!/0mie
http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2C15TYE9IM063/ref=cm_sw_su_w
The whole thing seems so weird though, the guy has been active for 2 years with that name and done other stuff, no real reason to burn people now.

he was on all the big sites , someone tell these sites
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/02/14/interested-in-a-custom-laser-etched-galaxy-nexus-back-cover-check-out-this-kickstarter/
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/02/14/interested-in-a-custom-laser-etched-galaxy-nexus-back-cover-check-out-this-kickstarter/

Somebody file something with FBI. Worth a try. $7000 is probably a felony charge.
let it be.

Did anyone else receive this email on 4/9/2012?
[email protected] said:
Looks like my auto-reply away message didn’t get setup up properly, my family was in town from San Diego last week and I hadn’t seen them in almost a year. I was spending time with them. I am getting some orders ready to ship now, I have yours ready to be etched. That will probably happen tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, I now have to reply to about 100 new emails.
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My PM box was probably full, I will check it out when I get home. I am spending time with the family, I haven't seen them in almost a year. Which design did you get again?
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I had spoken to him about a month ago. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt but that was last email I received from him. I even got a stamp.com tracking email a week after he met the minimum requirement but never received anything number never even updated.

I donated back when the funding was only $30
I still haven't received my door....welp

I received mine. I ordered it on March 12th via his website (they day before I ordered the Google limited from ebay) and they both came in on the 31st. I had to contact him via an xda pm after a week of not hearing anything about the shipping though, but I eventually got it. I think he said he got swamped with orders plus was busy at work so he got delayed getting the orders out.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

mattpacifico said:
I received mine. I ordered it on March 12th via his website (they day before I ordered the Google limited from ebay) and they both came in on the 31st. I had to contact him via an xda pm after a week of not hearing anything about the shipping though, but I eventually got it. I think he said he got swamped with orders plus was busy at work so he got delayed getting the orders out.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA
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Considering the amount of received vs not received, I doubt it's just a "I got really busy" scenario...
The lack of communication is also troubling...

Oh I totally agree. Especially when in the first pm I included my Google checkout order number and his reply back was "did you order GSM or cdma version". Ugh really? That's why I included the order number
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA

I paid for my gsm door plus international shipping early on and got a couple emails early on but nothing for ages. No door yet. I have given up on ever getting it...

I would love to be able to take back the other post I made in the other thread. He was nothing less than great to speak with at the beginning of the campaign. I'm definitely frustrated at this point though. No responses to emails or inquiries just seems too suspicious. There's also the matter of his sites now being inactive. If I end up getting a response, a refund, or what I paid for I'll be more than happy to delete the posts I've made.

I think we'd all love to give the benefit of the doubt, but the ball is very much in his court to respond and he isn't at all.
His profile shows activity on xda after this thread began yesterday. If there's an explanation, we're listening.

utcu said:
I would love to be able to take back the other post I made in the other thread. He was nothing less than great to speak with at the beginning of the campaign. I'm definitely frustrated at this point though. No responses to emails or inquiries just seems too suspicious. There's also the matter of his sites now being inactive. If I end up getting a response, a refund, or what I paid for I'll be more than happy to delete the posts I've made.
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Exactly - I think the majority of us understand that life gets in the way, and it's not always possible to finish what you start -- but a refund is at least needed. As it stands now, he stole the money.

Found a google profile for his website but like everything else there hasn't been any activity since mid March.
https://plus.google.com/app/plus/mp/988/#~loop:a=g:-4726536214375572952&view=profile
Seems like this is the only site he's been "active" on.

[Q] BOUNTY, why doesn't XDA make a holding?

Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..

Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.

Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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Bingo!

XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.

ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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That's what I always say. I donate if/when it happens and donate/support the dev of the ROM that I use the most.

ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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What you say makes perfect sense to me, and most of others here. however not everyone thinks the say way.

insang-droid said:
Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..
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Because of all of these:
Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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JasonJoel said:
XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
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ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
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AND because XDA BARELY tolerates Bounty threads and only under very specific conditions. Have you seen how many devices XDA has forums for? Do you know how many bounties are still unclaimed and threads open? How many people would be patient and wait after giving up their money? Then what about time limits? What if it never happens? What about individuals deciding they waited too long and want their money back? What if all money is refunded and it happens right after? There are sites made just for these kinds of things, XDA is not one of them.

Why cant we s-off without that app? No Bashing! Just a Question

So its been a while since i had an htc.
The last one i had was so easy to root s-off super cid.
when it wasnt, i always loved the challenge.
If i recall you had to extract a file called mmcblk0p4 and modify it. Or just modify it with a hex editor right on your phone and place it back with a root explorer. actually i still have it in an old folder.
What is the problem here? How did htc fix that exploit? Why cant we figure it out?
Not that i dont appreciate an awesome app that does it for you. But i always loved doing it myself.
Not trying to bash or start a debate over moralities. Just an interesting and informative convo.

where there is a will there is a way!

Well actually I guess because the people who were discovering the exploits actually created sunshine and are distributing methods via this app only.

There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.

myphonesbetter said:
There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.
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It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.

Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
computerslayer said:
It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.
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That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.

You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
myphonesbetter said:
Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.
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Sunshine has been about since the HTC One M7 days, I paid and used it on my M7 and M8 and about to use it on 2 x M9's, me personally, I really dont have a problem paying the $25 for it to do what it does, personally I think its dead cheap for what these guys did to get around HTCs so called fixes.
Now on to why it even costs in the first place, imagine whilst developing an app to this level, how many phones you had to buy and destroy along the way, this app isnt just for pretty much every HTC made since the M7, of course you are going to want some of it back, if you didnt, you'd be bankrupt in 2 days, with every release of firmware or every new phone release, the app needs to be modified and updated, Hell, you pay $200 for Microsoft Windows for the same reasons.

jcase said:
You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
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thanks for the response. It would be nice to get a response on the actual q i posted lol. (different thread)
I guess its easier when its trivial.
Its good to hear you guys donate some of it. and that youve release the majority of the code. i guess people are just lazy.
Honestly you dont need s-off. The main reason i would want it is incase i need to go back to stock for warranty reasons. In which case the money would be worth it. still more fun do follow a write and learn about what i am doing in the process.
As far as data mining im talking about some of the more popular roms and apps out there. not just in the htc forum. Just a thought. why wouldn't they.
And the question isn't why its $25. I get that. It is totally worth it. Its so easy to use. I used to spend hours troubleshooting to get my phones s-off'd and running smooth on all the roms. now you can do it in seconds. these days i just pick one that works better than stock and stick with it. seems like stock updates kill the phones now.
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
I guess it dragged a little deeper than i wanted. But every time someone asks these questions it turns into insult matches or just the copy pasted comment of i don't think $25 is too much. if you cant afford that then blah blah . then all credibility is lost and people are persuaded to think as the majority of commenters think. Mouthbreathers will be mouthbreathers. But they are the ones that make this consumer based economy function properly.
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.

myphonesbetter said:
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
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Many people have tried to crack sunshine, I'm unaware of anyone being successful. It is actually pretty funny seeing how many hours people put into cracking SunShine, it is an worthless endeavor considering that most of the calculations are done server side, cracking the app doesn't get you anything as it is done server side. They would need to hack our WAN facing server, proxy through it and then hack the "offline" box we do the work on. This would be a felony on many levels. I like to think most people are honest, and don't go committing felony violations of CFAA over the fact that an app isn't free.
As far as a different app, it is hard, it is expensive, and most people with the skillset or drive, are tackling bigger problems.
Far as a writeup, we make plenty of them, where are your technical write ups?
myphonesbetter said:
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
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None of this is "very fast", it all has years of research behind it. Research we did, we put the time and money into. Yes even on old phones it is expensive, the software we use (IDA Pro and Jeb) alone are $1000s a year in licensing fees. Considering each person needs a license, its very costly. And yes, we are not thieves, we actually have licenses in our names. Many models we have spent money on, never sell more than a couple licenses. So the more popular models also fund the work done on models that don't make any sales. Sure we could just not add support for oddball models sold in only one country, but what fun is that.
myphonesbetter said:
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
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The investment would be the out of pocket part, money to start projects doesnt just magically show up. New HTC u11 is what $600 bucks? One we fried the soc and mmc on? What $50 if we are selling it honestly (cause that thing wont EVER be repaired, and screen is about the only part re-usable)? Plus we run the risk of our debug builds leaking if someone is able to extract memory from the device, no thanks, not reselling a burned phone for $50(or even $300) and risk losing everything we have worked on for the last few years.
myphonesbetter said:
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
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We have released plenty of free training material, white papers and example source code for people to start off of. Those resources would be much better than starting off with SunShine source code. As we have said, when SunShine is done, we will open source it. Considering no one does anything with what we do release, I have doubts anyone would do anything with everything we don't release. We were sure we would get 0 sales on Droid Turbo after publishing that write up, we thought someone would have a free exploit written that day. It has been years, nothing so far.
myphonesbetter said:
If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
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LOL. People don't contribute to most mobile OSS projects, go look at copperhead, look at their commit history. I'm even guilty of it, my contributions besides projects I helped started are minimal (even my commits to AOSP are few).
myphonesbetter said:
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
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All of our write ups are still up, and we still publish more each year, I don't know what the heck you are going on about here. Please take the time to look rather than just make such claims.
myphonesbetter said:
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.
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Again, feel free to use the free resources we have and continue to provide to the community for free to build your own. We DO NOT discourage people from doing so, we actively encourage it by publishing a fair bit of our work for free. I even traveled on my own dime (not sunshine money, not someone else's money, but from my paycheck) without reimbursement to Las Vegas with Tim Strazzere and Caleb Fenton to provide trading FOR FREE. We over filled the maximum occupancy for the room. We were not allowed to take any more people.
In reality, and not to be insulting, it is pretty obvious you didn't properly research all of this.