Beyonwiz feed servers inaccessible

[prl]

On about 9 Nov, while the forum was down, the registration of the DNS names beyonwiz.org, feeds.beyonwiz.org and beta.beyonwiz.org appears to have lapsed, and the feed servers became inaccessible and remain inaccessible.

I don't know whether the only issue is the lapsing of the DNS registration, but if that is the reason, could the registration of the DNS names be renewed and anything else necessary be done to allow Beyonwiz devices to access the plugin feeds, and for the links to the latest official firmware release (20211010) to be made to work again?

[peteru]

The domain registration has lapsed and is currently in a grace redemption period. I don't expect it will be renewed or transferred to someone and therefore the domain should become available for registration in the next 35-95 days. It's hard to tell when exactly...

What I am willing to do for the Beyonwiz community is to register the domain once it becomes available again (as long as it is at normal market prices, not jacked up price from a cyber-squatter) and also provide the hosting for the 19.3_20211010 feeds. The cost of this is around US$200/year at 2021 rates, but may be a bit more in 2023.

In order to pull this off, it's important that someone else doesn't register the domain between it becoming available and me getting to registering it. So, please, do not try to grab the domain. If you notice the domain name becoming available, please send me a Private Message so that I can get onto it ASAP.

[prl]

Thanks, Peter. I'm sure everyone would appreciate that.

[sub3R]

... I'm sure everyone would appreciate that.

I certainly do.

[Twizzle]

Me too

[IanL-S]

Your doing this is much appreciated.

If you want a contribution to the cost of registration I am willing to particpate.

Ian

[Gully]

What I am willing to do for the Beyonwiz community is to register the domain once it becomes available again (as long as it is at normal market prices, not jacked up price from a cyber-squatter) and also provide the hosting for the 19.3_20211010 feeds. The cost of this is around US$200/year at 2021 rates, but may be a bit more in 2023.

Excellent news.

[Paul_oz53]

Your doing this is much appreciated.

If you want a contribution to the cost of registration I am willing to particpate.

Ian

As am I.

[gawaterman]

Me too

[peteru]

Thanks for the offers. Let's see how it goes and how much it costs first. I might put out a call for donations later.

One thing that may be worth contemplating is to pre-pay for 3-5 years, to guarantee availability, rather than having to attend to the matter every year during holiday season.

[rfmoore]

I'm in.

Reg

[Twizzle]

Me too

[stevebow]

Count me in as well.

[gibster]

And me also

[MrQuade]

AND MY AXE!

[jhtemail]

As Beyonwiz no longer sell any products as the web site is out of stock is there anyone still working at Beyonwiz how can confirm it they ever will start selling any products again. I have a T3 and T4 both of which are faulty and need to replace them. If Beyonwiz is no longer manufacturing or selling any products I will change and get something else. But if Beyonwiz is just awaiting more stock I can probably wait. However there are bad signs Beyonwiz is not coming back. The website went down for quite some time, the phone lines are cutoff, they do not answer email. So my question is this product dead or not ?. Is there anyone from the company which monitors this forum. If not a company which does not look after its web site, has no products, does not answer phone, email or forum requests must be dead. So I just want to know.

[Paul_oz53]

Hi Jhtemail.

Beyonwiz still sell remotes and other oddments but communication is abysmal. No PVRs.

IceTV is selling an "IceBox", which looks promising or you can build your own if you repurpose an old PC. See https://www.icetv.com.au/icebox/.

Apart from that, I have a rebuilt T3 sitting on a shelf. If you pay all the postage I will swap it for your T3 and T4. It was about $25-30 per box when I last checked. Keep your old HDDs and T3 remote. Let me know if you're interested.

[prl]

is there anyone still working at Beyonwiz how can confirm it they ever will start selling any products again.

The last post from someone at Beyonwiz was on 3 Aug 2021. Don't hold your breath.

[peteru]

The beyonwiz.org domain name has been taken over by cybersquatters. As a result, all the feeds pointing to beyonwiz.org should be considered as compromised and a possible injection vector for malware.

[prl]

How should the feeds be configured?

[peteru]

The simplest way to protect yourself would be to add the following to /etc/hosts on each of your Beyonwiz machines.

Code: Select all

127.0.0.2	beyonwiz.org feeds.beyonwiz.org beta.beyonwiz.org

That should redirect connection requests to go to the local machine, which should immediately respond with an error.

[prl]

I meant how to configure the feeds so that they worked, or is that not possible?

[MrQuade]

Short of paying the ransom, wouldn't you have to register a new domain (openwiz, neowiz, freewiz?) and push out an updated USB image, and/or a manual patch script to update all the feed URLs.

Not going to help anyone who doesn't read the forums though.

[prl]

IanSav has suggested to me that it's possible to reclaim a pirated domain name by contacting the registrar with the details of the original owner (presumably including some evidence of the prior registration). He said that it's a process he's gone through himself.

[MrQuade]

IanSav has suggested to me that it's possible to reclaim a pirated domain name by contacting the registrar with the details of the original owner (presumably including some evidence of the prior registration). He said that it's a process he's gone through himself.

Is it piracy if they simply acquired a lapsed domain name? (albeit moments after the expiry). Legally speaking, the squatters haven't really done anything wrong. Ethically, yes .

Moreso, since the previous owner was Beyonwiz, us as community members have even less of a legitimate claim on the name. Beyonwiz would presumably need to be the ones doing the reclaiming/appeal (which is a bit of problem).

[stevebow]

beyonwiz.net is available if you can't reclaim beyonwiz.org.

beyonwiz.tech is currently on special, at $5.60/yr down from $74/yr at Vodien.

[peteru]

Registering a new domain, other than beyonwiz.org, is mostly pointless. There are tens of thousands of machines out there all configured to poll beyonwiz.org - most of them will do so once an hour.

The stats that I have from mid-2022 show that there are still machines running the 4.4 series firmware. And not just a handful!

[rfmoore]

The simplest way to protect yourself would be to add the following to /etc/hosts on each of your Beyonwiz machines.

Code: Select all

127.0.0.2	beyonwiz.org feeds.beyonwiz.org beta.beyonwiz.org

That should redirect connection requests to go to the local machine, which should immediately respond with an error.

I'm not conversant with how this is done on my T4 is there a tutorial or could someone lead me through the process as I'm wanting to protect my machine. I'm familiar with processing .sh files

Reg

[adoxa]

If you have shell access I believe you could simply enter echo '127.0.0.2 beyonwiz.org feeds.beyonwiz.org beta.beyonwiz.org' >>/etc/hosts; otherwise just put that line in a .sh file and run that.

[Nickant]

GoDaddy has the domain for sale at $3,177
https://au.godaddy.com/domainsearch/fin ... ected=true

[rfmoore]

If you have shell access I believe you could simply enter echo '127.0.0.2 beyonwiz.org feeds.beyonwiz.org beta.beyonwiz.org' >>/etc/hosts; otherwise just put that line in a .sh file and run that.

Anoxa,
Sorry I didn't make my self clear in my last post. I only know how to run .sh files that you Garus post, not how to put the file together. If a .sh file was available would it compromise the normal running of my T4 or any of the Beyonwiz
devices for that matter?

Reg

[Nickant]

Reg,
if your router allows you to block web sites, you can block off those three url's that way too.

[adoxa]

Here's a couple of scripts to switch the beyonwiz.org feeds "off" and back "on".

[rfmoore]

Here's a couple of scripts to switch the beyonwiz.org feeds "off" and back "on".

Thanks

[peteru]

GoDaddy has the domain for sale at $3,177
https://au.godaddy.com/domainsearch/fin ... ected=true

I checked just then, from my mobile phone, and it came up at $5,499.

Tell them they are dreaming.

I think the squatters monitor the domain for about a week to see how many hits they get and then set the price and put the domain name up for auction. They will be seeing tens or even hundreds of thousands requests every day. None of these are actually convertible to eyeballs looking at the screen, so for most intents and purposes their valuation is completely of the mark.