Circlefade website & manuals -> spammy links

Plugins & Modules
1

I couldn’t find a more appropriate forum to whine about this, so here I go.

For any of the Circlefade modules, the website and manual links redirect to a fake “Global News” site (at least for my location), and then any attempt to click out or back goes to a pitch to invest in Bitcoin.

The github page doesn’t appear to have any useful docs.

Most annoying. A whois search reveals this…

Domain Name: CIRCLEFADE.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 2610846657_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namebright.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.NameBright.com
   Updated Date: 2021-06-05T12:50:09Z
   Creation Date: 2021-05-09T18:06:18Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2022-05-09T18:06:18Z
   Registrar: DropCatch.com 719 LLC
   Registrar IANA ID: 2199
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email:
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone:
   Domain Status: ok https://icann.org/epp#ok
   Name Server: NS1.ABOVE.COM
   Name Server: NS2.ABOVE.COM

…and the registrar dropcatch.com exists to snap up lapsed domain name registrations, and then auction them off.

1 Like
2

If I remember right, this was a French dude who also did hardware. He was on FB, but I’m spacing his name :confused:

Edit: Max Circlefade. Looks like he’s disappeared there too

Maybe this should be removed from library

1 Like
3

I dunno, not if the modules are still useful. Maybe just remove the affected links, and label it as an unsupported plugin or some such.

Random and Random2 look intriguing. It’s just a question of figuring out what they do.

4

I’ve so far resisted the urge to look into module code as programming is my day job so I want to just use VCV for music making, but is the rack built in such a way that it is nigh on impossible to upload a module to the library that could steal cpu to do bitcoin mining, for example, and communicate results with an external server?

Never occurred to me before people would think of using VCV for nefarious purposes before, but well we do live in the real world…

5

As far as I know, any code changes for the plugins provided via the library are reviewed for anything suspicious before being built and distributed.

@Vortico can probably confirm this though.

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6

If Max can’t be contacted, could someone fork the repo, remove the URL or replace them archive.org links, add a or something to the version, and submit their repo to the existing issue on GitHub - VCVRack/library: Database for the VCV Library?

1 Like
7

Looks like something has happened to 23volts too.

The github account is still there 23volts, but the plugin repo has been deleted 23volts-vcv modules.

Update: As of June 17, the 23volts-vcv repo is back online!

8

oh oh- I use his Midi devices all the time, useful to map button/rotary knob controllers… Quite a few other useful things he makes too! I emailed him to see what might have happened…

3 Likes
9

That is pretty weird. Deleted the 23 volts repo, left up two clones repos. Must be a good story there.

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10

No News about a Circlefade V2 version?

11

This was so long ago.

It’s not really anything to do with “using VCV for nefarious purposes”. It’s a case of somebody allowing a domain name registration to lapse for, I don’t know, maybe financial reasons, or waning interest. It was the documentation that was hosted on the lapsed domain.

True Story:

Way back in the olden days of the interwebs I was a volunteer editor for ODP (the Open Directory Project, sponsored by mozilla.org), an ontologically-arranged collection of websites, with brief descriptions provided by volunteer human reviewers. One of the sections under my care had the link to freemanpatterson.ca listed. Freeman’s a respectable nature and art photographer, and he had his portfolio there. Then one day he decided to let that domain name lapse and switch everything to freemanpatterson.com . He notified us and we immediately changed the listing in ODP. However, one of the features of ODP was that they regularly made the database available for anybody who wanted to have their own version of the directory, such as Netscape, AOL, and even Google, for a while. They were typically a few weeks or even months behind the current ODP one.

His problems arose when one of the domain name squatters (like dropcatch.com) snapped up the dot-com domain name and offered it for sale. Since all domain names must actually be a hosted site you can visit, they have to at least put a “parking spot” site there. The new registrant chose to make it a page full of links to porn sites. Since the downstream directories were not working with a current version, all their links for freemanpatterson pointed to the parking spot with all the porn links. Not surprisingly, Freeman Patterson was freaking out, because that’s where people ended up when they searched for him. The new registrant wanted some exorbitant amount to allow freeman to regain the domain name, even if he just wanted to set it up as a redirect to the dot-ca site. A perfectly legal species of extortion. Eventually it sorted itself out, with lawyers and time for directory updates to trickle through.

Hanlon’s razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Or, in this case, probably simple neglect.

12

Max from Circlefade has moved on to other projects, and I volunteered to migrate the plugin to v2. I will try to find the time this week to do it. I think all that needs doing is adding bypass and labels.

3 Likes
13

Thank You so much!!