Spotting a nulled vBulletin?

[KuJoe]

Not sure if this is the right place or not but here's my question anyways: How would one spot a nulled vBulletin install? Is there any specific files that would be changed? If so which files and what would I be looking for?

The reason I ask is because I run both a free and paid hosting company and I've been seeing an increase of free hosting clients using vBulletin on their sites. I'm not sure how they can afford a vB license but not a domain but far be it from me to start questioning their financials. I just wanted to know if there is a way my staff and I can do a quick check to verify their vBulletin is legit?

I usually don't pry into my client's files but when it comes to free hosting I have to make sure everything is legit, more-so than my paid hosting customers because the free clients have nothing to lose where-as I have much at stake (if you've had a server taken offline due to a DCMA complaint you'll understand what I mean ).

Thanks.

[Hayk]

Hello. You can't check whether a license is legal or not. It can only be checked by vBulletin staff. If you suspect any site in piracy, you must just Report Piracy. And that's all

[KuJoe]

Thanks for the reply but this helps me none and I'd rather not report every user who signs up with my service and uses vBulletin, that will get really old really fast for all parties involved. There has to be some file edits that nulled versions use to circumvent reporting back to vbulletin to, at the very least, compare versions.

[Hayk]

Thanks for the reply but this helps me none and I'd rather not report every user who signs up with my service and uses vBulletin, that will get really old really fast for all parties involved. There has to be some file edits that nulled versions use to circumvent reporting back to vbulletin to, at the very least, compare versions.

Yes, I know. But that's the only way to choose. I don't think that nullers will come here and will share their knowledge with you

[KuJoe]

I don't think so either but if somebody with some knowledge of the PHP within vBulletin *cough*developers*cough* could provide some info it would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise I'm stuck assuming all are legit.

[kentaurus]

KuJoe, why don't you ask your customers to register their forum at: http://www.vbulletin.com/links.php, you would have to hand-verify that of course, but you would validate that they have a license.

Or ... otherwise, restrict everyone from using paid scripts unless they show proof of ownership of the license.

It would be a very bad business practice and bad common sense to report your own customer for using a pirated vBulletin

[Hayk]

Or you can ask them to provide you with vBulletin.com username. It will be useful.

[Colin F]

As has been said, there's no way for you to verify if a site has a license or not. If you suspect a site to not be licensed, please report the URL at http://www.vbulletin.com/piracy.php

[SNN]

Well some users are really stupid and leave a .nfo file in their upload folder that the "nullifier" creates, or "verify.php" is left. (I've had friends that used to do this all the time - all reported)
Check for something like "READ ME.nfo" on the server, "verify.php" or "keygen.php"

[NegativeSmoke]

Well some users are really stupid and leave a .nfo file in their upload folder that the "nullifier" creates, or "verify.php" is left. (I've had friends that used to do this all the time - all reported)
Check for something like "READ ME.nfo" on the server, "verify.php" or "keygen.php"

Edit: nvm.

[JakeS]

You, could also check the index files, they usually have no customer number in them, and have a nulled by text.

Look for something like "ScRiPtMaFiA" or "DGT" in the files also.

[Quillz]

You, could also check the index files, they usually have no customer number in them, and have a nulled by text.

Look for something like "ScRiPtMaFiA" or "DGT" in the files also.

I believe you can remove the customer number from the index files, though.

The best method is just to report any suspicious board to Jelsoft. That's really all you can do, for better or for worse.

[KuJoe]

KuJoe, why don't you ask your customers to register their forum at: http://www.vbulletin.com/links.php, you would have to hand-verify that of course, but you would validate that they have a license.

Thank you, this was the best idea yet and one I will look into.

Or ... otherwise, restrict everyone from using paid scripts unless they show proof of ownership of the license.

This would be digging to far IMO, again I'm trying to find an easy, non-intrusive way to cover both my company's and my client's butts.

It would be a very bad business practice and bad common sense to report your own customer for using a pirated vBulletin

How so? I don't get this.

Well some users are really stupid and leave a .nfo file in their upload folder that the "nullifier" creates, or "verify.php" is left. (I've had friends that used to do this all the time - all reported)
Check for something like "READ ME.nfo" on the server, "verify.php" or "keygen.php"

Thanks!

You, could also check the index files, they usually have no customer number in them, and have a nulled by text.

Look for something like "ScRiPtMaFiA" or "DGT" in the files also.

Thanks, another thing to look for.

[David Grove]

You could manually or automatically check their vBulletin files and see if the "call home" code is intact (the code that allows Jelsoft to check if an installation has a valid license). I assume nulled versions remove this code. I'm hesitant to post the specific code here, for obvious reasons.

[KuJoe]

You could manually or automatically check their vBulletin files and see if the "call home" code is intact (the code that allows Jelsoft to check if an installation has a valid license). I assume nulled versions remove this code. I'm hesitant to post the specific code here, for obvious reasons.

That's the code I'm looking for. Can you tell me what file that is in or maybe just the directory? Or maybe a line around the code so I can just search through my own vB files?