Draft:TLauncher

Briefly

TLauncher is a popular cracked launcher for Minecraft video game, that allows users to play the game without an official account, offering features like easy installation of mods and optimizations.

Reports

TLauncher has been repeatedly detected as spyware by anti-malware suites, potentially accessing and collecting sensitive data on users' devices. Other accusations are also talking about the installer that includes ad injections and execution programs for mining crypto currencies using user's hardware.

History

TLauncher was unveiled to the public on October 1, 2013, on the rubukkit.org forum. A thread was created there in which the author presented his development and interacted with users. The author was Artur Khusainov (also known as turikhay). This thread has now been deleted, but you can view it in the web archive . In November 2013, representatives of the website ru-minecraft.org approached Artur with a request to create a special version of TLauncher for them. He discussed this in an interview with the MineInterw project. Collaboration with Arthur continued until 2015. And then TLauncher [Ru-Minecraft.org] took on a life of its own.

Trademark and DMCA requests

In mid-2015, the domain name TLauncher.org was registered and, apparently, it was decided to promote TLauncher as a separate project, and not as one of the resources hosted on ru-m.org.

By this time, a specific action plan had already been developed: on May 20, 2016, an application to register the "TLauncher" program was submitted, and on September 21, 2016, it was approved. A copy of the certificate was posted on the TLauncher.org website , and a record of the certificate's receipt is also reflected on the portal of the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS) under number 2016660712.

The first request was sent on October 30. 2016, only nine days after receiving the certificate. The website tlauncher.ru and the VK group "TLauncher Free Launcher" which, while dedicated to the "original" TLauncher, is in no way affiliated with its creators, were the victims of this request.

The last DMCA request was filed on February 20, 2017. Based on this request, the search engine hid links to the TLauncher Legacy (The original version made by Arthur K.) page on VK, as well as to the tlauncher.ru website. Not only resources associated with the author of TLauncher were blocked, but also other pages offering downloads of a launcher with the same name.

The copyright holder listed in this certificate is TLauncher Incorporated (SC). The "SC" designation indicates the country of origin—the Seychelles. This points to TLauncher Incorporated being an offshore company, which could have been created either to optimize tax expenses or to conceal the real owners as the author of the program wasn't specified. The resulting evidence was used as the basis for filing DMCA complaints aimed at removing links to websites where TLauncher was distributed (regardless of which version of the program was in question) from Google search results.

In other words, having received a certificate for the software, the copyright holders began sending complaints to pages linked to another application with the wording "Posted at the link below without our consent and permission." the TLauncher trademark application took a long time to process—it was filed on February 7, 2017, and approved only on November 8, 2017.

This confirms the address of the copyright holder: "TLuncher Inc., Suite 1, Second Floor, South and Vision House, Francis Rachel Street, Victoria, Mahe Island, Seychelles (SC)".

Address given for correspondence is "109431, Moscow, Privolnaya 70, OOO Service Group, Alla Efimovna Kolomeytseva"

OOO Service Group is a patent office that handles cases related to invention and trademark registration. Interested parties can check out this organization's fees to get an idea of ​​how much it cost TLauncher Inc. to file a complaint against the Minecraft TLauncher Legacy and Terraria Launcher communities. The registration of the trademark and the complaints against these communities are closely related in time. Apparently, without the trademark registration, VK refused to consider the complaints.

Having registered the trademark, the "copyright holders" approached VK with new demands. As a result:

The Terraria Launcher community, which is in no way affiliated with TLauncher, was blocked. There were no download links for any version of this launcher. So, the essence of the complaints is unclear.

An advertising manager operating on VK under the name Alisa Fomina explained that the complaint against this community was filed because members of this community allegedly insulted them in the comments. The community dedicated to the former, now TLauncher Legacy, had to change the short URL of the community, and also essentially stop using the word TLauncher in the name of its own product.

In addition to sending DMCA requests to remove links from search engines and appealing to VK, complaints were also sent directly to hosting providers.

For example, the website ru-minecraft.ru was forced to remove an article about TLauncher Legacy. This was done after a request was sent to the hosting provider demanding the article be removed. To avoid hosting issues, the site's owners were forced to edit the article , removing screenshots and the name TLauncher (you can see what the article looked like before the complaint was received in the web archive).

Likewise, threads dedicated to the launcher were removed from the rubukkit.org and bukkit.ru forums. While the rubukkit.org administrators, as usual, ignored my question, the bukkit.ru administrator confirmed that the thread was removed at the request of TLauncher Inc. and provided a copy of the complaint.

A website distributing (among other things) a pirated version of Minecraft commissions the development of a launcher that displays ads. After that, the pirated software is registered and begins vigorously protecting its rights; the author of the program who developed the launcher is declared the infringer of those rights.

This analysis describes financial aspects linked to websites related to Minecraft and their organization.

- TLauncher Inc. is considered an entity connected to the broader Minecraft world. Websites that relate to Minecraft are divided into major and minor.

Major websites: - ru-m.org and ru-minecraft.org can be defined as storage for the stolen Minecraft, Minecraft: Story Mode, and programs or mods.

- en-minecraft.org is the English version of ru-m.org.

Minor websites: There are some additional websites beyond the main two. Their visual design is less appealing and less advertised. They might represent a backup option in case ru-m.org is blocked or additional resources.

Clones of ru-m.org; - mineblog.ru - 5minecraft.ru - minegold.ru

- Minecraftin.rf and Minecrafting.rf refer to the same website where one link redirects to another. As a rule, the name refers to the popular Minecrafting.ru forum.

Social media pages and video channels

- vk.com/ruminecraftorg is stated as a social media page connected to these websites.

- youtube.com/c/MasedGroupTV can be considered a YouTube channel.

Monetization strategy for these websites

- Monetization strategy currently involves advertisements on Google AdSense.

- Previous experience shows that this website has engaged in some invasive activities such as showing pop-ups; however, now the main aim seems to lie in TLauncher promotion.

Ru-Minecraft.org

A popular Russian website for all kinds of Minecraft modifications and addons. When it was created in 2013, it copied the name of ru-minecraft.ru, a project created two years earlier. Clearly, the new project's development concept was based on exploiting the similarity of its name to an existing popular website.

The site's traffic was driven by a very unique method. The project's website began distributing a pirated version of Minecraft, distributed as an installer. One version of this installer had unusual features:

The site's traffic was driven by a very unique method. The project's website began distributing a pirated version of Minecraft, distributed as an installer. One version of this installer had unusual features:

- The installer modified the Windows system files in such a way that when attempting to access any website dedicated to the game (including when attempting to access them from a search), users were redirected to the ru-minecraft.org website.

- Modified the browser launch shortcuts so that when the browser was launched, the ru-minecraft.org website would always open automatically.

These actions were "optional" and were called the "Favorites Feature," allowing the product's "inventors" to claim that "users consented to this." However, no one expects destructive actions from the game installer. Its creators simply exploited the user's trust.

Not a lot of information about these events has survived. However, there is a discussion on a webmasters' forum and a detailed description in an article that has since been archived.

As a result, search engines, for example Yandex, imposed sanctions on the ru-minecraft.org website, and the site's owners quickly registered a new domain, ru-m.org, which is still operational today.

References

https://pikabu.ru/story/podlinnaya_istoriya_tlauncher__populyarnogo_launchera_minecraft_5782634 https://ru-minecraft.ru (this domain was repeatedly flagged as malicious by BitDefender AntiVirus)