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Celio RedFly in Action
November 7, 2009 – 9:36 pm | Comments

A few days ago I commented about the Celio Redfly adding support for BlackBerrys. I came across that bit of information first while researching to purchase a Celio RedFly myself and then while I’ve been …

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Home » General

MobiTV Trying to Take Down Howard Forums

Posted by Chris Leckness on March 7, 2008 – 9:35 am
closeThis post was published 1 year 8 months 2 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

OK everyone, I have to let you all know about some stinky stuff going on online. Fellow Mobius Member, Howard Chui, who runs Howard Forums is getting threatened by MobiTV. This company has contacted Howard’s hosting provider and is trying to get Howard Forums shut down.

Digg this URL to help Howard – Digg – MobiTV to Hofo: Take down

It seems that a user of Howard Forums has discoved a URL within the MobiTV website that allows you free content or something like that. That’s not important. What is important is Howard’s rights. Providing a link to a publicly accessible web URL is no crime. If a company doesn’t secure their site from users getting to things, they need to address their own security concerns rather than scouring the net and wasting dollars on lawyers, etc. This is basicly the same thing as me discovering that channel 943 on sattelite is messed up and I can get free pay per view and sharing the channel info with friends via phone. Right?

I know some of you have Windows Mobile 6 on the Dell Axim popping into your heads right now. How can I support Howard, but not have the conviction to support this illegle Windows Mobile 6 version? I realize it seems similar, but it’s really not. I will say that we have been revisiting allowing discussion of WM6 ROMs, but nothing has been agreed upon yet.

Back to Howard Forums… Howard has refused to remove these links and now MobiTV is trying to get their webhost to shut them down. This almost happened to me with Dell 4 years ago and I know that this pressure sucks badly. Help get the word out by digging this story for Howard. Thanks everyone.

Read more at HowardForums…

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Chris Leckness (3531 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

Chris Leckness is the Owner/Administrator of Mobilitysite. He is a Microsoft MVP, Mobile Devices and a member of the exclusive focus group, Mobius. Chris runs a Mobilitysite, GotZune, and a few other smaller sites and blogs. His personal blog is chris.leckness.com.


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  • hyedipin
    MobiTV should spend some time changing link structure, and that would have been enough. Now everyone knows about both MobiTV and HoFo..
    Both sides win, call it even. Great advertisement, free publicity.
  • dsamuilov
    I wonder if Mobitv will threaten Sprint to "cease and desist".

    ;)
  • Robbie
    "It seems that a user of Howard Forums has discoved a URL within the MobiTV website"

    The hofo member didn't discover it, he/she was just reposting it form the Sprint forums....!
  • dsamuilov
    Thanks Chris, I also found a "contact us" webpage on his website and posted a reviewed (more detailed) version of this post. I surely hope that he gets either of these posts and can get Mobitv to stop bullying him.
  • Thanks dsamuilov, Howard is getting a ton of support on this and I'm pretty sure this will go away really quick with all of use sharing this. I have sent this link over to Howard for him to consider just in case.
  • dsamuilov
    Chris,

    I have a few comments about this issue:
    + If one's security is based on the ignorance of others, it is bound to fail. Mobitv has done this and based their security on users not knowing of a publicly accessible URL.
    + Mobitv claims that their URL is not publicly accessible because nobody knew about it...
    + Mobitv has created a publicly available URL (i.e. ayone can see, it's out in the open, no login restriction, no user limitation from unauthorized access, no control of approved users vs. unauthorized access) showing their complete disregard for protecting their copyrighted materials with a preventative method. Ignorance of others cannot be claimed as a preventative method of access.

    The ironic thing about the DMCA is that it allows for any person being pressured under the DMCA to sue back for defamation if it can be proven that the accused (Howard) did not break the law.

    If Howard knows you, please forward this information to him, I'm sure it will be useful in his defense.

    Finally, even if he does not want to litigate with Mobitv, he may still have to do so. In that case, I can only recommend the people at EFF (www.eff.com) with whom I am not connected or related in any way other than knowing and having read about their work defending consumers against abuse of the DMCA.
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