

Our website design was stolen - esamek

I am the lead UI/UX Engineer for a company called HelloWallet in based in DC, and I came into work yesterday and was sent a link to this website: http://themattressboutique.com/<p>Our website is located here:
http://www.hellowallet.com<p>Notice any similarities? We are taking the necessary actions but I am curious, what would you all do in this situation?<p>Here is the traceroute:
xe-7-2-0-32767-sur01.floridaave.dc.bad.comcast.net (68.85.81.181)  9.943 ms  13.016 ms  10.529 ms
 4  ae-20-0-ar04.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net (68.85.115.201)  35.839 ms  22.171 ms  12.891 ms
 5  pos-5-7-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.85)  33.425 ms  20.759 ms
    pos-4-3-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (68.86.90.173)  17.624 ms
 6  xe-11-1-0.edge2.washington12.level3.net (4.26.6.21)  20.346 ms  19.578 ms  17.183 ms
 7  vlan51.ebr1.washington12.level3.net (4.69.146.190)  78.736 ms  76.601 ms  76.790 ms
 8  ae-6-6.ebr1.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.148.105)  78.316 ms  77.705 ms  77.245 ms
 9  ae-63-63.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (4.69.148.241)  77.589 ms  79.110 ms  78.466 ms
10  ae-7-7.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net (4.69.134.21)  78.302 ms  78.583 ms  80.935 ms
11  ae-3-3.ebr2.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.132.77)  76.571 ms  77.794 ms  76.753 ms
12  ae-82-82.csw3.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.137.26)  78.186 ms
    ae-92-92.csw4.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.137.30)  77.761 ms
    ae-62-62.csw1.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.137.18)  83.570 ms
13  ae-2-70.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.78)  75.762 ms
    ae-3-80.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.142)  79.727 ms
    ae-4-90.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (4.69.144.206)  77.652 ms
14  * * *
15  * * *
16  web04.lax1.pronethosting.net (209.151.224.237)  107.211 ms  76.224 ms  77.021 ms<p>And here is the web hosting company that is hosting it: http://www.coolhandle.com/<p>Flattering, huh?
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rtehfm
I work in the security/abuse department for one of the largest web hosting
companies in the world and we see these types of complaints regularly. The
best way to go about this would be to email the abuse@ email for the IP which
is abuse@pronethosting.net. If you can't get a hold of them that way, contact
the colocation company directly. Their website is
<http://www.cyberverse.com/>.

You can find out more about this process at:

[http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-
noti...](http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice.html)

Network Information:

DNS Zone source: <http://leafdns.com/index.cgi?testid=329C603D> DNS Zone
source: <http://www.intodns.com/themattressboutique.com> IP WHOIS:
<http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-209-151-224-224-1/pft>

Let me know if you need any other information.

~~~
esamek
Thanks for the info.

We are taking appropriate actions. We have some of the best on our side :-).

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jwcrux
Also, they are hotlinking to some images you are hosting.

You can have fun with this by changing the image to something "not ideal".

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jedimike
Now I'm not one to promote petty revenge (unless it's VERY amusing), but there
are a few scripts and images that they're loading from the hellowallet.com
servers, and from filostudios.com, who I presume did your design.

If someone were to change these files, they could dramatically alter the look
and behaviour of themattressboutique.com quite easily...

~~~
esamek
They did not do our design.

Have no idea who they are.

~~~
ukandy
I'm sure they will be getting an awkward call from their client very soon..

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mromanuk
Probably they are Picasso followers "good artists copy but great artists
steal"

Blatant copy by the way...

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BSousa
No idea what plan you will pursue, but try and contacting the company first.

This isn't the first time I see something like this, where the infringing
company outsourced the design or even bought a design from ThemeForest like
site and had no idea they were infringing.

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jordigh
I hope you alert the authorities about this theft so that you can quickly
recover your stolen property. Is your business being impacted in the meantime
due to your deprivation of this property? Do you have a backup design you can
use until you recover the stolen one?

~~~
esamek
Unsure if we are impacted, but doubtful.

No need to have a backup design IMO. This is just our marketing site.

~~~
tnorthcutt
jordigh is being sarcastic.

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renbyrd
Filo Studios is indeed the design company that created the site. You can see
that they were hosting the dev version here:
<http://filostudios.com/websample/>.

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kris121
you should send a mail to department of abuse to hosting company where they
copycat monkey have host their site.

i have experience with a image copy and here is a solution we made ;-

if their is too many people have stole or hotlinking the image from your
server then change the image to 'this image is stolen and something lorem
ipsum'. change the image to another name and update it on pages where you have
used them.

this way you can show on the people site that they hosted something illegal.
tough but solid way.

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somid3
Shugs, that is terrible. I would contact them company directly and let them
know. Could be that they used a separate web-design company who is to be
blamed

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musiic703
Esamek, I was wondering if you can contact me by email. I have a few
questions.

Ruben.leija@me.com

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notjustanymike
Putting a single document.write(""); in one of your script files should solve
this pretty quickly...

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jwcrux
Should be pretty obvious... they have hellowallet references in the page
source.

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ante_annum
Cuurently `en constracion`. Looks like your takedown worked.

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anons2011
They've even got your GA code in the source!

~~~
thrizzle
Also var disqus_shortname = 'hellowallet'. Sad.

