I did block the updates from the PC attached to the machine. I got a new mac laptop and downloaded the latest version. The mac is never conected to the machine as it now sits in LA with a very good EPS foam supplier the concept was to get our eps preshaped factory direct. Everything was going good I could design send files if I wish. Now nothing…
These guys should know about privacy policy’s. I understand that they ask for permission but still that makes for nervous pc session. I wonder if they can also embed into specific folders?
K brought up a good point last night. Maybe they have outdone themselves and are having issues which they cannot fix? This could be why no response?
I have the original terms and then the changed terms siting on “A FLASH DRIVE!”
We will see… I have our guys on it to. No lack of talent in Boeing and Microsoft’s back yard…
I will keep you updated on what we find and will provide a detailed report on what is truly at risk. We have access to one machine that is running the program but its 2 hours away.
Not sure if you have heard of Hula the Aku which converts Aku files back to APS3000 files or if this even makes any difference to your predicament (I’m not a machine owner I just have the boards machined). My only other suggestion would be keep your computers off the net but you probably learnt this one the hard way anyway.
sitting here celebrating Obama’s victory talking with my friend who works security msoft. The aku program is a hard sniffer and they have confirmed that they can exploit their ability to sniff our personal information. They will contact friends that could shut them down. I have been told!
No software… No email…No custom files to be sent to Ca machine…
I sent an email to our distributor. I’m sorry eps boards will be delayed. I will try to get them him to take poly boards. But it’s highly unlikely he most likely will cancel and spend their money with someone else. We have been getting our fall swells. I did scan the deposit receipts which total 8000USD. Good thing I didn’t cash the check yet. Bad thing is guys that need the work won’t be getting it right now.
I thought long and hard after talking with charles from msoft. He mentioned that the trust certificate is a way to get around the privacy issue. But thought a more detailed document that explained fully what could be at risk would be appropriate. He mentioned that java has a group that would investigate the software as well and the community could also provide insight. He also mentioned that just because someone has the ability to sniff doesn’t mean they do. He said that once in almost anything can be done. He mentioned that it us possible for others to get in which could be the biggest risk.
Let’s see what I findout later today. I wonder if haavard has some input? Or maybe one of the other members. Sometimes the msoft/Boeing guys are a bit stiff and the coversation goes on and on. Kinda like this post may…
FWIW any program running on your computer could possibly sniff just about anything. Since Akushaper uses .jnlp for updates, there should be no network traffic from akushaper once it’s running. If there is IMHO it’s either sniffing or possibly some way of connecting to a server for antipiracy checking. As the M$/Booing guys pointed out, if there is sniffing going on someone could find out for sure. Programs written in java are relatively easy to reverse engineer.
Thanks Charles actually downloaded it a few weeks back but not until this happened did I get re-suspicious. He mentioned that size of transfer was unusually larger then most standard update pings… Luckily we locked down the APS computer way back when we had issues. I’m not sure what they would want? I checked all my credit cards and nothing fraudulent has shown up. I don’t believe Mr Freeze would purposely do something suspect. Maybe they are unaware of the potential monster they have caged? Where we live is the breeding ground for hackers. I contract consult with data centers and have access to the main exchange building which houses most carriers and server farms. While I have airplane guy and window boy researching I will check with some pimply faced doom playin hackers I see at the pub next door. It would be easier if MR FREEZE just came out and said what he wanted as we are fact finding which without an answer leads to speculation… Speculation leads to suspicion and to anger. A terrible combo…
Kalani OUCH… Calm down you don’t live on the west side no more… We really wont get our money back now…
Even though I deserve a refund. Now that this pint of guiness sparked my memory. The split of APS3000 and the AKU team left us short of our contract which was 24 month’s of both machine/software upgrades. The AKu claimed no wings was the result of their machine improvements but in reality it was a software issue. Why can S3d running on an APS3000 eliminate wings? I have bitched about this before and I know others were pissed off as well. The issue is that everyone was afraid to stand up against the rougue aku team as they needed the software to run the 65k machines they invested in…
In reality the AKU team should have offered all APS3000 owners cost upgrades at least as well as the ability to eliminate the wings. Remember you got paid for 24 month’s of upgrades… You claimed the AKU eliminated the wings months before my agreement ended.
This is like a roller coaster… Should I sit back and just say piss the money away? Or should I follow through and go gorilla? C’mon Mr Freeze you must have made at least 320K off all us early investors.
.jnlp is one of the easiest ways in. A person with skills like a developer or hacker could ride in and create havoc. I once heard a story about a key stroke and download spy that was sent in through a similar app. Talking with Mike and reading this makes me laugh who would have thought this AKUSOFT could cause so much discontent.
Now this gets even more interesting… I tried to uninstall the Aku software and it wont let me… It says to contact the AKU site… I have been documenting all these things for well over a year. This is a first as I have uninstalled and reinstalled a few times before… What is even more peculiar is that if I scan my disk it is filled now with trojans and spyware I’m not sure if this has anything to do with AKU maybe just coincidence? . I have attached so that others can see the proof. Aku should provide an explanation? Is their a reason why my machine is now crashing from the PC side? It has never done this before until tonight. I run bootcamp off a MacPro which gets me into xp. I have AKU installed on that side. Trojan pop ups now as well… This happened shortly after my uninstall attempt, attached are the screen shots of what I get when I try to uninstall…It wont let me take it off my machine! Anyone have idea’s AKU?, Charles? Havaard? Miki? anyone?
It would sure be nice for someone to provide an explanation.
Little bird… WHY SO QUIET? EMAIL Works very well. I know you can read and I’m most certain you have been following my post… What is most frustrating is I get no information… Will you do this to your NEW AKU customers someday as well? Remember I’m a paying customer of APS3000 you still use that domain and point it to the AKU site and owe me a lifetime license of the software I paid for 12,000USD or more…
I will stop when I get an answer what we all are wondering… What are you doing to our PC’s?
I got the same “symptom”… for some reason Aku didn’t want to be deleted. And every time I hit the Remove button, my computer froze, I had to turn it off… not even Ctrl+Alt+Del worked.
I had to delete the JRE for Aku to go… also had to go in the java console and delete the aku remainings from the java cache folder.
Now, I have re-installed the JRE to the last version… v.6 update 10… and funny thing happened, when running BoardCAD with the Anti-Aliasing turned off the display quality of the curves of the board have changed, it looks like a CRAP anti-aliasing. I’ll try to install an older JRE to see if it reverts back. I like using the anti-aliasing off where the curve looks like a “stairway”…
That probably happened due to an update to the graphic libraries in the last (version 6 update 10) Java Runtime Environment.
When turned on, the anti-aliasing in BoardCAD still works the same as before… very good quality.
No contact from AKU. I will attempt Foilednuts suggestions… The real crappy deal is I’m supposed to be sending blanks to a friend and was going to stuff my eps preshapes for my boards as well. I was real excited to get some real airtight eps preshapes. But for Now NOTHING… I guess I’ll whip out the planer. One of the reasons I like the machines is that I tore my labrum in my right hip surfing. It has caused spurs to grow in the socket which 3 years ago started to really hurt. You could imagine what it feels like now. I had the labrum removed. I have bone on bone on the right bottom of the socket and spurs off to the right side. In fact when Miki was installing the machine day 2 I was getting cortozone shots. Here is a pic If you care to see what it looks like. I wish I could send S3D files to the machine but the old version will not convert the files. I’m shit out of luck and am looking forward to unnecessary PAIN and SUFFERING…
Maybe the old version will handle iges or one of the other standard formats?
For $1000 you can get the export add in to s3d that will export standard CAD file formats that AKU might be able to read.
You can also take s3d designs to BoardCad and see whether AKU can read the step, dxf output from BoardCad (but I think BoardCad’s nurbs conversion from s3d might still be buggy)
Red
PS I’m happy to help if you want to run a test of an s3d export file. (Peter from Empire Foam did this for me a while ago and it really helped make my mind up about the export software - Thanks Peter)
Also my copy of AKU has stopped reading Shape3d but they have advised me they are fixing it for me, just use boardcad and save the file then AKU should open it if not email it to me and I will open it for you and send it back to you as AKU or Shape3d what everyou need to help. I know what it like when file stop working and everything stops but the BILLS keep coming
I have a partner out east said he saw some of your blanks… Do you send blanks to the West Coast? BTW thanks for the advice… If you talk to AKU send them my regards…
The solution we thought failed. We did get Aku to uninstall completely. I put the Communities in Schools (Kids at risk of dropping out of school) outreach program on hold as we were counting on our partner down south providing milled eps for the class as well as for our customer production. We had a truck that makes a trip once a month that could deliver 30 blanks or so which was perfect for the class. On the investigation The geeks confirmed that for some reason it appears the program does more then make updates, possibly captures information. What information would they be looking for if any?
I do remember now that I have had my first cup of coffee that 4.5 years ago MIKi made reference to building a network of machines that would work together to provide remote manufacturing. The benefits could be lowering the carbon footprint, moneys saved on shipping, shapers to have reach into new markets, a way to ensure the machine owners had supplemental income. It sounded really cool. Their were issues like file security. The shapers were nervous about files floating around loose. The machine owners had their own issues like having the brand of blanks on hand that the shapers approved. Lots of hurdles to overcome for sure. We were approached about being a beta test market as we are far enough out of the mainstream to work out the bugs.
As I put together the timeline when the split of APS/AKU happened the network testing was close to commencing. Once the split hit most of the machine owners banded together, talked and stuck with " MIki ". We never new exactly why this went down. Interestingly enough accusations flew about scandals, patent infringement, extortion the list goes on and on. I do many things and when you put all the pieces of the puzzle together their has to be a bigger reason, something much bigger that is worth more money. You can only ever sell so many machines. The laws of sales, marketing and competition will always apply. Therefore you can only make so much money off of machine version software. Maybe this network idea is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Maybe that is why this has all taken place.
Now on my second cup of coffee. I ponder… In todays market what would be the most efficient way to generate real revenue in the surfboard industry,
If you have volume you can bring boards in from China. But the issue is that they are all the same, and for the most part the public has caught on and is considering this LAME.
If someone was able to set homogenous machines in China and have enough cooperating machines around the world. It could be possible to bring back “CUSTOM” boards at a much less cost or just provide more manufacturing flexibility. Putting more money into pockets and it would be considered a custom board. In the mean time everything begins to go to hell in a hand basket… Which could make it a solid option.
What is sad is we have cheap labor right here in the US. It’s called our penal system!
Not sure if this is real but it just crossed my mind this morning. I think this lack of being able to function the way I planned is starting to make me a bit crazy. I have had 8 sleepless nights. I’m gonna get into see the doctor maybe this will cause me to go on medication. I DONT LIKE IT WHEN SOMEONE F’S WITH MY PLANS>
