Yar! Watch out for the hack mateys!

[Obvious]

Arr, it be lookin' like RTS has been hit by a hacker that had this to say:
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Recieved: 28 Aug 2007, 1:01am

[this is a mass mail to: Everyone]

A 19 year old individual named Zakk Martindale(Captain Morgan) downloaded the entire MafiaBattle software and database of customers when he was doing some work for FinalMotive back in January. He is a very deceptive and manipulative individual -- he proved to be our friend, and then vanished with our code. He then joined up with 25 year old Adam Young(Captain Nasty), who builds porn websites and spam emails for a living, and they started RuleTheSeas.com (which Zakk stole my pirate idea as they knew I was developing PQ. He also ripped off my earlier design for PQ). They have caused problems not only for me and Greg (Killer), but for a lot of other companies, ie. Zakk stole software from his other former major employer and was fired for it.

Our software is copyrighted with the US copyright office on multiple levels and contains programming that Greg (Killer) added to it, as well as other programmers we have used in the past. So if and when these two individuals are taken to court, there are potential major penalties they will have to pay. Multiple times have they broken laws with rewards of up to $150,000. But in additional, not only is this a civil crime, it's also a criminal crime with potential jail time and potential FBI interest. There is substantial and incriminating evidence that proves what they have done, they are guilty as sin.

Now they claim their software has been rewritten -- I DON'T THINK SO -- there are three problems with that. 1) Even if it was rewritten it's a derivative of our copyrighted work. It's still copyright infringement and illegal. 2) We highly doubt the software was rewritten. Criminals are lazy; ie. instead of writing software on his own, Zakk elected to just steal ours. From our experience with him, he has shown a pattern of claiming software was either written by him or rewritten by him, when it was actually stolen, the guy is a 100% liar. We wouldn't be surprised if he was lying to his partner Adam about the status of the software code, unknowingly opening his partner up to more liability. 3) They claim the software was rewritten in a specific way, which in many professionals' opinions is borderline impossible. For example, many publicly available code paradigms suggest it was not rewritten in that specific way; in addition it would have taken many months to rewrite it in that specific way, again something a thief would not spend the time doing, and SPECIFICALLY this particular thief would not spend the time doing, or for the matter EVEN KNOW HOW to do. In our experience and his former employers experience with him, he was not very knowledgeable in anything except lying and stealing.

Sadly, the internet is a very good place for thieves to hangout. They can come across however they want on the internet, as well as hide behind their computer. Things are "easier" to get away with.

All of you guys have seem the similarities... it's the same game! There was a time when they had our car picture as a schooner. Our logo was all over the site. They were using graphics I (Robert Moran) had made. They emailed the entire MafiaBattle database! It's theift, wire fraud, email fraud, copyright infringement on multiple levels, they have cyber squatted registering domains that conflict with ours. It's unfair competition. We have found multiple occurances where they lie to their players. They can't explain how they got the software. There are many things they can't justify.


It's sad people like this exist in America. It's a sad reality we have had to put up with.

On a side note, all the vulnerabilities that existed in our software (hint: dupes), exist in their games. Hmmm... how funny, if it's not stolen how come they have/had the same problems we've had?

As you have seen security on this game is non-existant. Why? Because Zakk stole the mafiabattle code and does not understand how to patch the security leaks. If you want to play a game in which security is a top priority as well as you "The Gamer", I would suggest checking out our list of games on the FinalMotive network(mafiabattle.net, piratequest.net, and vilecity.com). By playing here and spending your money here you are just throwing it down the drain.

- Captain Nasty