"SA-MP Closure" > "Re-opened again"

[CM Daniel]

SA-MP Closure - 7th June 2008

On the 2nd of June 2008 former SA-MP developer 'Jacob', who also goes by the name Simon Jacob Dis, decided to form a hacking group called Zytronics. The purpose of this group was to leak parts of the SA-MP source code and confidential information online and take full credit for it.

With a hacking group such as Zytronics in control of the SA-MP source code we can no longer guarantee the safety and security of SA-MP clients and servers, and for this reason we now advise against using this software.

A deal was initially reached with Jacob, after he published the SA-MP client source code online, that he would delete the SA-MP source code and information he had access to and remove himself from any involvement. Being the sort of person that he is, Jacob did not keep this agreement. He would later go on to assert we had no valid copyright to our own source code and he was free to steal it if he wished.

Information

Mods like SA-MP can not operate while people like Jacob and his Zytronics group freely break the law and show complete disregard for intellectual property rights and the security, safety and privacy of online gamers. For this reason, I recommend that action should be taken against him and his Zytronics group to protect any future game mods from being victimized like SA-MP has been.

After looking up the WHOIS info on website that was published with the source code, I found the following information:

TRC Roofing and Siding
3811 Rogers Avenue
Fort Smith, Arkansas 72901
United States
479-561-9572
479-287-9459
email: [email protected], [email protected]

Jacob appears to have registered his Zytronics group under the name of his business TRC Roofing and Siding.

While there are clearly other people who were involved in the escalations which lead up to this, Jacob has taken the final action which requires SA-MP’s closure.

I’ll most likely be interested in taking action against Jacob myself at some point. By removing the copyright notices from all of the SA-MP source files before he leaked them, he basically deprived the entire team credit for the years of work they had put in. This is unacceptable. If you find more information about this Jacob person please e-mail it to [email protected]

Background

SA-MP was one of the most popular online game modifications ever created. From the website statistics there appears to have been between 100,000 and 130,000 active players at the time of writing – from almost every country on the planet. Record concurrent player counts were reached earlier in 2008 with over 9000 concurrent players and over 8 million downloads have been recorded.

Vulnerability/Threat Disclosure

The SA-MP 0.2 clients are capable of downloading and executing arbitrary code as part of the SAC (SA-MP anti-cheating) system. The SAC system can be activated from an SA-MP server by the server operator. If an SA-MP server requests a client to authorize to SAC, no user interaction can stop the downloading and execution of the SAC code.

The security mechanisms in the SAC client module require that the code be signed with a private encryption key only available to SA-MP developers.

The private encryption key used to sign SAC client authorization code is now in the hands of the hacking group Zytronics. This group has shown a willingness to disclose all private information and SA-MP source code to the public. The source of the SAC module is no longer limited to the code signed by SA-MP developers.

License Termination

The owners of SA-MP.com, and those mentioned as part of the SA-MP Team, no longer accept any liability for the use of the SA-MP software.

Under the following section of the license agreement: “The author(s) of this software retain the right to modify this license at any time.” All licenses to use the SA-MP client or server are revoked.

Quote taken from: www.sa-mp.com

[Aragorn]

This time it seems like for real... As the other side will not give up without fight...
Anyway I would like all Argonath players stay away from flame on any of this sides...
The case belongs more to lawyers, and you have no all/true info, so please stay away from fighting between any sides of conflict...

[MonkMan]

OMFG What an Idoit

I Like this ... are we gunna shut our server down?

[Wolfe]

damm too bad I hope SA-MP be back soon, seems that there will be a huge increase of players on MTA SA.

[Jserg]

As i know Argonath RPG (SAMP) will not be closed..but new scripts never come out..Currently fix all bugs of this script


And i wanna say a big fuck to SAMP team...They are childrens and playing SAMP is dead , We are back , Samp is dead , Hey we came back....

[WDoyle]

Jserg, please dont use that kind of language again.

The developers of Argonath RPG servers always do there best to make sure that players have the best experience in which they can do within there limits.
Therefore we dont care about car limits and new scripts we care whether you guys have the best experience playing here.
Thats why we make changes and some times release new scripts Hope this lightens your path.

[lavamike]

Wow...

Is all I can say

[MasterNeo]

i didnt realise this case is a really 'huge' thing :o

[Kitsune]

This is a side thing, I am happy as long as I can play on the server.

[[Rstar]Razor]

This is a side thing, I am happy as long as I can play on the server.

Yes, I agree, even thou it makes me a bit sad that 0.2.5 will never come out(the great stability and sync are awesome)


Razor.

[Gandalf]

Razor how would you know that ? 

As we do not know all things that happened, all we can do is watch the developments and keep our servers up. As long as it does not cause problems and there are people playing, our SA-MP server will be open. And we do intend to bring out new scripts with bugfixes and some new features.

Who knows from this fight a new development team will rise that will continue and finish the current project.

[winky]

SA-MP is isnt safe anymore:

Vulnerability/Threat Disclosure
The SA-MP 0.2 clients are capable of downloading and executing arbitrary code as part of the SAC (SA-MP anti-cheating) system. The SAC system can be activated from an SA-MP server by the server operator. If an SA-MP server requests a client to authorize to SAC, no user interaction can stop the downloading and execution of the SAC code.
The security mechanisms in the SAC client module require that the code be signed with a private encryption key only available to SA-MP developers.
The private encryption key used to sign SAC client authorization code is now in the hands of the hacking group Zytronics. This group has shown a willingness to disclose all private information and SA-MP source code to the public. The source of the SAC module is no longer limited to the code signed by SA-MP developers.
source: sa-mp.com

[Aragorn]

We do not use SAC... 

[Gandalf]

The vulnerability is ONLY possible to abuse when you go on a server that has SAC anticheat enabled (which we never did, and as is was discontinued no server should) and the owner of the server uses it to send you malware. This means that as long as you do not accept invitations to unknown servers you will be perfectly safe. 

[[Rstar]Razor]

Razor how would you know that ? 

Ive seen a few films on youtube.