Crosswinds Has Been Cheating Death

[Cracker]

It seems like the longest lasting "unlimited space" FWP, Crosswinds.net, is on the verge of death, somewhat. Here is an e-mail I received from Crosswinds' Vice President, Tony Holmes, after I sent him an e-mail concerning the continuing large file download problems (look below dotted line).

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From: Tony Holmes <tony@crosswinds.net>
To: Ryan Mangin <cyberryan26@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Almost One Month after your "service upgrade," and Large Files Still Won't Dl
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 09:06:14 -0400


On +Jun 13, Ryan Mangin wrote:
> MONTHS already, and I've heard that even your paying members are
> experiencing the same problem. In fact, these problems are so bad that other

That's not true. The b/w limit exists only for free sites and only until we
can get a grip on some warez boys we've been battling.

Just to put it in perspective, we're not out of the woods, fincancially, yet.
I am personally in my 10th month of no paycheque. Still we are not shutting
CW down and since I am the last remaining tech (who is getting sick - something
I can't afford the time for 8-) things are prioritized.

I need to implement anti-warez methods, but don't have the time yet. These
-------s setting up the warez sites increase our bandwidth costs 10x if we
didn't clamp the b/w. That we cannot afford at all. The second we can nail
them effectively, the limit is gone!

> day you guys forced pop-up ads on free sites without warning. Will this
> ever happen?

Hell no. In fact we are still hoping to yank popups. They earn us so little
money it's not funny, but right now, every penny counts. The paid service
is helping and growing as we expected. We will never yank the free service,
but will put more focus on the paid. As the number of paid signups increase,
and the monthly revenues increase, we hire more and put more focus back into
the free sites. As I said in the update, we want GREAT free service and
FANTASTIC paid service. The paid service must come first since people are
paying for it. The free service will hurt for a while until the revenue
from the paid sites increases to a sufficient level. The thing is, if we lose
any more staff at CW, we'll have to shut down - everyone is working for free
right now, so give us a break.

--
Tony Holmes

Senior Systems Architect
Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.

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So, now you see, unless Crosswinds can get enough suckers to purchase their premium hosting package ($4.99 month + one-time set-up fee of $9.99), they're very much dead where they stand. Like a bunch of others here have already said, host with them at your own risk.

[stu]

what's up nimrod? how was your vacation away from freewebspace.net?

[Cracker]

Where have you been stu? I've been posting here for almost four weeks now.

[stu]

really? I guess you haven't made much of a presence..

[stu]

didn't you say you weren't coming back?

[Cracker]

No.

[stu]

i dunno about that man.. a few of your alter egos had quite a few hissy fits...

[Cracker]

Well, this time I promise you no more alter egos. From now on, I'll only post here as Cracker. Also, the last time I left wasn't because of anything anyone here said.

[roblev]

It is funny to see this happening to Crosswinds. Since the beginning their service has always sucked (personally). I have only one account on crosswinds and it serves me good. Anyways, despite the BS that tony @crosswinds is giving you, if crosswinds dies, someone will follow right behind them.

[Kensuke_Kemachi]

Crosswinds was god. Now they're just a disciple of Jesus, regaining power.... In other words, They're the French Army turning into the American Army. Its a big step up.

[Cracker]

I agree with Kensuke_Kemachi. Judging from Tony's letter, they'll either succeed with their business plan, like they have in the past, and become truly unlimited again, or they'll lose another CW employee - I believe they've lost at least three in the past six months - and just cease to exist. If the latter happens, they'll go down in internet history as the greatest martyr of the free internet. It's courageous that they'd rather go out of business than actually charge for webspace and bandwidth over a certain amount. I'm currently hosting a copy of my site on CW, but my active copy (ie, the one my -------- URL is pointing to) is hosted on NBCi, because they don't have the large file download problems that Crosswinds has. Crosswinds may be the nice guys of the internet, but that doesn't mean a thing if some of my site's files won't download.

[Kensuke_Kemachi]

Can I get a hallelujah form the congregation?

[ducktape]

hey kensuke i just wanted you to know i dislike pittsburgh. i came down there about 2 months ago for training for work although its not my first time there everytime gets worse...lol

[Cracker]

I've never been to Pittsburgh before, what's it like there?

(BTW, if this thread gets too off topic, I'll have to play "moderator" here and nuke the entire thread)

[matt3k]

i dunno about this warez business on crosswinds. ive been around the block of the warez industry more than most other people and as far as ive seen there hasnt been anything warez or large program related to crosswinds on any warez site. just adding a little insight. maybe its those bastard canadians. i have no clue. but not american warez sites. not the big-mediocre ones at least. aiight, pizeace.

[Haze]

Matt3k: Whats your beef with Canadians? That is kind of harsh to say "bastard canadians". I think you owe us an appology!

[Cracker]

Originally posted by matt3k
i dunno about this warez business on crosswinds. ive been around the block of the warez industry more than most other people and as far as ive seen there hasnt been anything warez or large program related to crosswinds on any warez site. just adding a little insight. maybe its those bastard canadians. i have no clue. but not american warez sites. not the big-mediocre ones at least. aiight, pizeace.

I don't think Tony Holmes is the type of person who would just lie to my face like that. Besides, I could believe that Crosswinds' offer of free unlimited webspace and bandwidth with unlimited file size could result in a lot of warez hosted sites. I have heard that they're great at deleting such sites, but the warez must be rushing them all at once like they used to rush Worldzone, until Worldzone got a dedicated "warez busters" team. CW would probably do this too, but as Tony said, they're almost running on empty moneywise.

Then again, if matt3k is right, then I'm glad NBCi exists!

[Powderboy]

Free web hosting companies battle warez on a daily basis. Take it from me... the Japanese and other foreign countries use free hosting companies for warez all the time.

I work for one of the top 5 free hosting companies... you'll have to dig deep to find out which... and we battle warez all day. Both warez and porn cost us thousands in bandwidth. We do our best to nuke the chumps quickly, but with millions of sites, it's pretty hard to do.

I can totally see how a small-time free Web space company like Crosswinds is whincing because of warez and abuse issues. They'll be gonzo soon... sorry.

[Cracker]

The situation has become even worse on Crosswinds. They've now disabled FTP for free members because of warez. Take a look at this quote from their main page:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 20, 2001, 10:51am EST - FTP
Well, you can thank a handful of the inconsiderate, idiotic members. FTP is now ONLY available to paid sites. A number of users were creating numerous accounts for warez us. Not just a handful, but HUNDREDS of accounts and handing out the passwords for ftp downloads.
As a result, only paid members will be allowed to use FTP. The rate of abuse for paid members is non-existent since they seem to care as much about following the rules and having a good relationship, than these inconsiderate fools that drive up our costs as they break the law.

We apologize to those it will inconvenience, but we do not have the resources to put into fightings these dimwits at the moment. - Tony

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Still, they continue to cheat death...

[gyrbo]

Just making excuses.

[martian]

wow man, and saying that crosswinds was one of the best free webspace providers in the past... look at them now... :eek:

[Powderboy]

Wow... I can't believe they posted something like that on their homepage. I think they need to develop better abuse tools to curb the warez problem.

The sad truth is that what Tony said is right on. Paid members tend to obey the rules since they are paying. Someday people will understand that free hosting companies can't shoulder the load of a few abusers who insist that they can use up tons of bandwidth at no cost to them. Wake up Dorothy... you're not in the "everything for free" Internet anymore! :rolleyes:

[martian]

Originally posted by Powderboy
Wake up Dorothy... you're not in the "everything for free" Internet anymore! :rolleyes:

Thanks to the abusers...
********!:mad:

[Cracker]

Man, I'd hate to be one of the poor suckers who actually PAID to use Crosswinds because Tony himself said that he'd rather close Crosswinds down entirely than actually charge everyone for webspace or bandwidth over a certain amount.

[Cracker]

Oh yeah, I'd like to add that I was once a die hard Crosswinds fan, until they first introduced the stupid bandwidth limit on large outgoing files in January 2001, therefore damaging the effectiveness of my SP Sounds Site. That was when I first fled to NBCi, although I was highly reluctant to at first, but it turned out that was the most practical thing for my site, since NBCi doesn't have a webspace or download limit. Then, I joined CW again in April 2001, when they appeared to have lifted the limit, only to bring it back a week later, so it was back to NBCi for my site, where it is hosted now (also on Nightsteel and Crosswinds, although I never point my -------- address to my Crosswinds copy for the time being). Yes, it doesn't bother me that CW has pop-ups, it doesn't even bother me when CW has no FTP (I use their browser upload anyway because their FTP sucks when it's actually working), but NOBODY MESSES WITH THE FUNCTIONALITY OF MY SITE, and that's the bottom line, because Cracker said so!!!

[zz4]

I think fwp's need to find a way to stop the warez,etc. or stay out of business until they do. Its becoming the normal hearing places moaning about the warez and restricting the priviledges of all the normal users as if the normal user can do anything about it.Warez is not going to go away so?


At Worldzone they started some volunteer team to snoop out warez..if it works a good idea..



So I have no ftp at Crosswinds now? Some people have no browser upload ability such as webtv and aol-tv and other set-top gadgets..and...all these new stripped down computers with no hard-drives... (the prior have to use web-based utilities that assist them with ftp)

[zz4]

I've seen some Canadians cursing USA people before.....you f__king yankees,etc.etc.

If you have brains the countries are about identical except each went their own direction 1776 era.(british north america)

[Powderboy]

Unfortunately, the only effective way to cut down on warez abuse is to slim down the free webspace offerings: limit file sizes, reduce ftp usage, etc.

Advertising revenue has dropped so low that bandwidth costs far exceed revenues. That's the truth.

[CJB]

Originally posted by Powderboy
Unfortunately, the only effective way to cut down on warez abuse is to slim down the free webspace offerings: limit file sizes, reduce ftp usage, etc.

Advertising revenue has dropped so low that bandwidth costs far exceed revenues. That's the truth.

Disabling FTP for everyone isn't an effective method for preventing warez distribution. There is a fairly effective method that not only leaves FTP open for all to use, but also prevents the warez accounts from clogging up the FTP server.

Think about it - what's one thing that warez FTP accounts have in common that normal accounts don't? Multiple simultaneous logins from a number of different hosts. This makes warez FTP accounts very easy to detect and disable automatically. Spaceports uses this method. If there are multiple simultaneous logins to an FTP account from various hosts, the account is disabled automatically. Sure, there are cases where peoples' accounts are disabled erroneously (such as when they have a poor ISP that disconnects them a lot but leaves "ghosted" FTP sessions open) but these cases are rare and these accounts are easy to reenable. It's certainly a better solution than just disabling everyone's FTP access outright.

Just my two cents.

[gyrbo]

An other reason might be that you have multiple webmasters working on one site.

[Powderboy]

That's exactly what I meant when i said "limit FTP usage." You hit it right on the dot.

It is VERY easy to detect who is abusing FTP and who isn't that's what we do. We know when it's a warez site when someone logs into an ftp account simultaneously from multiple locations. Bingo... warez. They are shut down and removed from our network.

[stu]

Where do you work at? Which FWP?

[Cracker]

Originally posted by CJB


What's one thing that warez FTP accounts have in common that normal accounts don't? Multiple simultaneous logins from a number of different hosts. This makes warez FTP accounts very easy to detect and disable automatically. Spaceports uses this method. If there are multiple simultaneous logins to an FTP account from various hosts, the account is disabled automatically.

Or, they could just do what NBCi does, and disable downloads of files larger than a certain size (250 kb on NBCi) through FTP but not through the web browser. See, the problem on Crosswinds was that the warez masters were letting others use FTP to download files; well, if one can't download through an FWP's FTP, then that plan is moot.

BTW, Crosswinds doesn't believe in setting up "automatic delete scripts."

[martian]

Originally posted by stu
Where do you work at? Which FWP?


originally posted by Powderboy: I work for one of the top 5 free hosting companies... you'll have to dig deep to find out which...

guess you'll have to dig deep :D

[stu]

common, don't be shy..

[Powderboy]

I work for About.com who owns Freeservers.com, 50Megs.com and thousands of other free Web site communities.

I'm not shy I just don't want everyone to bombard me with questions/complaints.

It feels so good to be "out of the closet" :D

[stu]

cool...

[zazoo]

HEY! you wouldn't be able to tell the differnce between the warez sites we bastard canadians make and your little shanty sites

Canadians use the net more than any other country in the world(percentage wise)... EH!?

[gyrbo]

In this way, I just hate warez.