From: Tim Topole <ttopole@y...> Date: Tue Aug 5, 2003 12:24 pm Subject: Re: [qcharts] Re: No connection - R.I.P, Quote.com? ADVERTISEMENT As of July 16, you must have a QChart subscription to use third party applications or QLink. You want access to our data, you must have a subscription. You can call QCharts support at (888) 788-1848 for more information. here is a free trial link if you need to sign up. https://secure.ed4.net/qcharts/signup.cfm?r=074G&m=8AH&d=Y&&GetAFreeMonthOfQChartsHere
It's not a "new" policy. It was always their policy. The word is that they had a bug in their authentication system that was improperly validating livecharts subscriber IDs for connection to the qcharts servers. Lots of pissed messages on boards last month from people who had been illicitly using it that way with different programs (even with the qcharts program) and were suddenly cut off. It was pretty obvious that they weren't supposed to have access to the $80/month datafeed for only $10, but as long as they were giving it away... But I heard that it wasn't until some stupid software vendor actually advertised that you could use a livecharts subscription with their software (even though they knew it wasn't supposed to) that quote.com even knew about it and fixed the bug. Loose lips sink ships
the vendor who advertised his software with the livechartsfeed definately has less friends now....imho... go and get 'em folks
i bet in the long run this is good for the ones of us who use qcharts for trading. it may get rid of a lot of freeloaders who suck up data.
Yep and there's probably more still out there illegally pirating the data feed and offering it as a package deal to their own clients. I wonder if its a bug or a data hacker that's analyzing Quote.com's servers and finding holes in it to exploit it. No matter what...it's always good for the paying subscribers to know that if Quote.com's servers get sluggish it's not because of some illegal users overloading the servers. I still remember some guy last year that came into the the chat rooms bragging about how he and his pals were getting free live streaming data from Quote.com By end of week he was pssst about no longer having access. I don't think he realized had he not bragged about it...he probably would still be using it illegally. NihabaAshi
If true then this was a bad mistake by the people responsible for the authentication and validation scheme and data security. On the other hand, anyone stealing the data feed through the exploit would be subject to a number of criminal sanctions if caught - some of which are quite serious within the US. For everyone who thinks this is funny you might not want to laugh too loud. The bottom line is that if you are a legitimate business and you knowingly associate with any organization involved in a criminal enterprise then you not only risk your business but you also might be liable for serious penalties - which might include prison time - if caught.
I do think a lot of the problems Qcharts has had are related to freeloaders over taxing the system. They have a nice product, but reliability has been their serious Achilles heel.