StrongBox Script feedbacks

[Mr Cheeks]

sup... just wanted you guys opinions on the StrongBox script. i know this Q? has been posted before, but search is broken

so good, bad? what's the real deal compared to Pennywize? lmk thanx

[Dennis69]

I had Pennywize and then got Strongbox, been using it for 2 years on my site without any problems at all

[Melvin the Dude]

works fine for me

[Kevin2]

I have had it for 2 years on all my pay sites and it is awesome

[Mr Cheeks]

thanx guys. anybody else has it installed?
biggitybump for the morning crew

[YDG]

We had it installed around 6 months ago, but it failed miserbly, we had endless problems with it, as it was forcing members to re-login all the time, blocking ips left right and center, inc us! and it became too dificult to keep using, and members were complaining.

Hate to put a dampner on things as I had only heard good comments also.

I am not saying though it is a bad product. It just did not work for our members.

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by YDG
We had it installed around 6 months ago, but it failed miserbly, we had endless problems with it, as it was forcing members to re-login all the time, blocking ips left right and center, inc us! and it became too dificult to keep using, and members were complaining.

Hate to put a dampner on things as I had only heard good comments also.

I am not saying though it is a bad product. It just did not work for our members.

really? that's not good. but how was the support during that process?

[raymor]

i know this Q? has been posted before, but search is broken

This page links to some threads about Strongbox:
http://www.bettercgi.com/strongbox/references.html

what's the real deal compared to Pennywize?

Some of the differences between Strongbox
and most systems that appear to be somewhat
similar are immediately apparent from looking
over the site, like the fact that with Strongbox
you pay a one time flat fee instead of a monthly fee.
You're probably already familiar with some of
those differences and if not you'll see them
by looking over the site, so I won't rehash
all of those details here. Instead I wanted to
mention a couple of major differences in the
overall philosophy of Strongbox which may
not be as readily apparent.

There are two major differences between
Strongbox and "the other guys". Strongbox was
designed because the other systems
were not at all effective enough for some sites,
in many people's opinions. Other systems were
convenient to use, they had pretty interfaces,
etc. but they just didn't work all that darn well.
Therefore in the design of Strongbox we gave
up some things, like easy installation on some
sites, to gain much better security. I figured
that even if it takes two hours for me to install
and configure it for you but then your site is
secure for the next 10 years that's a better
idea than having something that can be
installed in 10 minutes but isn't nearly as
effective. So Strongbox provides much better security at the cost of being more of a hassle
to install
on some sites.

Also because of the emphasis on building the
most secure possible system, that means a
major emphasis on research and development.
We don't spend a lot of time and money on marketing,
we don't build a super slick web site, we just build
a security system that is second to none by
developing new techniques and refining old
techniques on a daily basis.
For the first year after Strongbox was released
it didn't even have a web page. We were too
busy researching how to most effectively
stop proxy based dictionary attacks coming
from 50 different IPs at once to worry about
making a web page. Later we put up a simple
page, mostly just to avoid answering the same
questions over and over. But rather than making
the web page real pretty so it would sell well
or even
taking the time to finish up the secure online credit
card order form, we went back to the lab and built
the Strongbox Proactive Spider, which actively
spiders thousands of password sites every day
looking for passwords to your site.
Many webmasters have asked about a referal program
so they could put up Strongbox banners or whatever,
which would be great marketing for Strongbox.
However, instead of developing a banner program we
decided to spend the time on geotracking, so
Strongbox could detect when a username
is being used from many different locations.
So in short Strongbox has a very plain web site,
almost no marketing, no smiling sales guys
on the other end of the phone, and it has
the absolute best security in the world by far.
Nothing else comes anywhere close.
(You can call us, but rather than a smiling sales
guy you'll be talking to a mad scientist who
will get all excited telling you about the latest
technology added to Strongbox).

In closing, I'll mention that several of the specific
technologies used by Strongbox that aren't
available anywhere else aren't mentioned on
the site and I'll probably never mention them
in a public post. Some of the things we've
done are pretty good ideas that work pretty
darn well. It'd be easy enough for "the other
guys" to do some of these things and make
their product work better, but if they want to
find out why Strongbox is so much better than
their system they'll have to buy a copy and see why.
I'm not going to lay it all out for them in this post.

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by raymor
This page links to some threads about Strongbox:
http://www.bettercgi.com/strongbox/references.html




Some of the differences between Strongbox
and most systems that appear to be somewhat
similar are immediately apparent from looking
over the site, like the fact that with Strongbox
you pay a one time flat fee instead of a monthly fee.
You're probably already familiar with some of
those differences and if not you'll see them
by looking over the site, so I won't rehash
all of those details here. Instead I wanted to
mention a couple of major differences in the
overall philosophy of Strongbox which may
not be as readily apparent.

There are two major differences between
Strongbox and "the other guys". Strongbox was
designed because the other systems
were not at all effective enough for some sites,
in many people's opinions. Other systems were
convenient to use, they had pretty interfaces,
etc. but they just didn't work all that darn well.
Therefore in the design of Strongbox we gave
up some things, like easy installation on some
sites, to gain much better security. I figured
that even if it takes two hours for me to install
and configure it for you but then your site is
secure for the next 10 years that's a better
idea than having something that can be
installed in 10 minutes but isn't nearly as
effective. So Strongbox provides much better security at the cost of being more of a hassle
to install
on some sites.

Also because of the emphasis on building the
most secure possible system, that means a
major emphasis on research and development.
We don't spend a lot of time and money on marketing,
we don't build a super slick web site, we just build
a security system that is second to none by
developing new techniques and refining old
techniques on a daily basis.
For the first year after Strongbox was released
it didn't even have a web page. We were too
busy researching how to most effectively
stop proxy based dictionary attacks coming
from 50 different IPs at once to worry about
making a web page. Later we put up a simple
page, mostly just to avoid answering the same
questions over and over. But rather than making
the web page real pretty so it would sell well
or even
taking the time to finish up the secure online credit
card order form, we went back to the lab and built
the Strongbox Proactive Spider, which actively
spiders thousands of password sites every day
looking for passwords to your site.
Many webmasters have asked about a referal program
so they could put up Strongbox banners or whatever,
which would be great marketing for Strongbox.
However, instead of developing a banner program we
decided to spend the time on geotracking, so
Strongbox could detect when a username
is being used from many different locations.
So in short Strongbox has a very plain web site,
almost no marketing, no smiling sales guys
on the other end of the phone, and it has
the absolute best security in the world by far.
Nothing else comes anywhere close.
(You can call us, but rather than a smiling sales
guy you'll be talking to a mad scientist who
will get all excited telling you about the latest
technology added to Strongbox).

In closing, I'll mention that several of the specific
technologies used by Strongbox that aren't
available anywhere else aren't mentioned on
the site and I'll probably never mention them
in a public post. Some of the things we've
done are pretty good ideas that work pretty
darn well. It'd be easy enough for "the other
guys" to do some of these things and make
their product work better, but if they want to
find out why Strongbox is so much better than
their system they'll have to buy a copy and see why.
I'm not going to lay it all out for them in this post.

i saw it last night, installed on another paysite (http://exploitedteens.com/sblogin/login.shtml/members/) with a visual password feature. is that a new feature in the script?

[raymor]

Originally posted by alchemist
really? that's not good. but how was the support during that process?

Of course this is a question for YDG to answer,
not for me, but I wanted to give you my impression
of what happened with that situation, the the best
of my recollection anyway.

As some GFY webmasters know, satisfied webmasters
are very important to me and I'll spend many
hours working with you to get any system I build
working how you want it, working with your other
software, etc. so YDG's experience kind of weighs on me.
This is especially true because YDG seemed
to be a really nice, gracious person, the kind
of person you want to do good work for.
I would very much have preferred to have been
in closer contact with YDG so I knew what
problems were happening and could have
helped to resolve them.

I was ICQed once or twice with a question about
"why was this username blocked?" or whatever,
and I
responded as I normally do showing the webmaster in the reports what happened -
whether that username had tried to log in from
5 different countries or whatever.
This is normal for webmasters to take a
couple days to get familiar with the software,
how the reports work, etc. and they often have
such questions initially.
Then a couple weeks later I was told they were removing it.
Maybe I didn't communicate well enough that
if there were any problems or questions
please let me know so they can be taken
care of.
I didn't feel like I was given any opportunity to
provide the support they needed. Some of these
problems I hadn't heard about until this post.
If users were getting kicked back to the login
page there was a glitch that needed to be corrected
and could have been corrected had I been contacted
when the first member complained.

Strongbox normally doesn't block IP addresses
very readily, so if their IP got blocked or
more than one legit user's IP got blocked
something was almost certainly broken.
YDG is talking about Strongbox, but rather a
broken or misconfigured copy of Strongbox.
Strongbox might occasionally suspend a
username for a couple of hours do to suspcious
activity, but rarely if ever have I seen it
block an IP that wasn't actually attackign the site,
so if in fact the post is correct in stating that
several legit IP got blocked there was a major
misconfiguration that I was never made aware
of so that I could take care of that for them.

[raymor]

Originally posted by alchemist
i saw it last night, installed on another paysite (http://exploitedteens.com/sblogin/login.shtml) with a visual password feature. is that a new feature in the script?

Yeah, fairly new. About 3 or 4 major features ago.
We add new stuff darn near daily, so something
from a couple months ago seems like old
news to me, but yeah, that was added in the last
few months.

[raymor]

There was a typo in my earlier post.
It should have read:
YDG is not talking about Strongbox, but rather a
broken or misconfigured copy of Strongbox.

[SquirtingCarly]

I am more than happy with my decision to have my site protected by Strongbox.

Ray is very professional and was always prompt when I had a question or concern.

[Mr Cheeks]

Ray, what's your email addy?

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by alchemist
Ray, what's your email addy?

ignore that. did not see sig

[Mr Cheeks]

Ray,

I sent you a couple of emails about the install of the script. I already payed through epassporte. let's give this script a test run let me know what's going on...

[fulcrumstudio]

Gotta say that strongbox has blocked sql, brute force, and other frequent attacks and kept our members area safe and secure with no hassles...Ray is always there when we have questions or need help. We can't recommend StrongBox enough.

Ace

[Easton]

i have pennywize on there right now but want to make the switch over to strongbox

how easy is the process? and how long would it take?

i've been told my server is "set up differently" on several occasions, so sometimes the simplest stuff like cronjobs and what not never work right without 3 tech guys getting involved for me

i want to avoid that kinda headache again

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by Easton
i have pennywize on there right now but want to make the switch over to strongbox

how easy is the process? and how long would it take?

i've been told my server is "set up differently" on several occasions, so sometimes the simplest stuff like cronjobs and what not never work right without 3 tech guys getting involved for me

i want to avoid that kinda headache again

dunno man.. i am having doubts now. i emailed Ray since thursday night. shot him another one Friday. but still no preplies.
he was on this thread like a hawk yappin about how good his script is. here we are more than 72 hours later, script been paid for and not even a single email from him

[Easton]

Originally posted by alchemist
dunno man.. i am having doubts now. i emailed Ray since thursday night. shot him another one Friday. but still no preplies.
he was on this thread like a hawk yappin about how good his script is. here we are more than 72 hours later, script been paid for and not even a single email from him

hmmm, thanks for the info

i'll think it over some more

[raymor]

Sorry Alchemist, my 'net connection started fucking
up on Friday and was pretty much unusable until
about noon today, so I got way behind. Bad timing
too as interest in Strongbox has really been high
these last couple of weeks. Anyway, I'm replying to your email now.

[Melvin the Dude]

id just like to back what everyone else has said....nothing but good words for htis script

and Ray has been very easy for me to get in contact with...try ICQ , much faster than email

[raymor]

Originally posted by Easton
i have pennywize on there right now but want to make the switch over to strongbox

how easy is the process? and how long would it take?

i've been told my server is "set up differently" on several occasions, so sometimes the simplest stuff like cronjobs and what not never work right without 3 tech guys getting involved for me

If your server is screwy it might be a bit of
a headache, but that's my headache, not yours.
I set everything up for you. It's hard to say much
more than that having been told only that your
server is "set up differently" and takes 3 tech guys
to add a simple cron entry. I have been doing
programming and sysadmin for while, so sometimes I can get things figured out and done
a bit faster than your average code monkey.
On the other hand I think I mentioned in my
other post that where I had choices between
making Strongbox easy to setup or making
it secure I went with secure, so it's not always
the easiest thing to set up. Which is one reason
I set it up for you while you are doing whatever
it is that you do best.

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by raymor
Sorry Alchemist, my 'net connection started fucking
up on Friday and was pretty much unusable until
about noon today, so I got way behind. Bad timing
too as interest in Strongbox has really been high
these last couple of weeks. Anyway, I'm replying to your email now.

no prob man. i just want to give the script a test drive. let me know when you're ready...

[newbreed]

We use it on Arika's site and love it. Of all the people it has blocked or dropped, not one has been a mistake. Often after getting a complaint from someone we look at some of the more popular pass trading or cracking sites and low and behold the offenders info is right there. Sometimes it even shows up in the stats when they update.

Also, Ray has never taken more than a few minutes to respond to our questions and help us avoid any problems when we build new pages, etc.

I would recommend SB to anyone, and once we have more sites up I will be putting on all those as well.

[Easton]

Originally posted by raymor
If your server is screwy it might be a bit of
a headache, but that's my headache, not yours.
I set everything up for you. It's hard to say much
more than that having been told only that your
server is "set up differently" and takes 3 tech guys
to add a simple cron entry. I have been doing
programming and sysadmin for while, so sometimes I can get things figured out and done
a bit faster than your average code monkey.
On the other hand I think I mentioned in my
other post that where I had choices between
making Strongbox easy to setup or making
it secure I went with secure, so it's not always
the easiest thing to set up. Which is one reason
I set it up for you while you are doing whatever
it is that you do best.

good reply, thanks... right now pennywize is blocking about 2-3k attacks a day for me... is that normal or high or what?

it seems to obviously be working, but it kinda makes me wonder how many are "getting thru"

i definitely need to look into this some more

[Tat2Jr]

I was on Pennywize, and paying weekly to have a substandard solution to password thieves. I had Ray install Strongbox, and have been nothing but happy with it. Ray went well beyond the "normal" setup, and worked with me for 3+ days to get it working perfectly on my server, and with my plugins.


3 thumbs up for both the software, and Ray.

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by Tat2Jr
I was on Pennywize, and paying weekly to have a substandard solution to password thieves. I had Ray install Strongbox, and have been nothing but happy with it. Ray went well beyond the "normal" setup, and worked with me for 3+ days to get it working perfectly on my server, and with my plugins.


3 thumbs up for both the software, and Ray.

damn okay... well, i'm still waiting to get some love from Ray mydamnself... poeple are only saying good things about it, that's why i want to try it

[Mr Cheeks]

Okay Ray this is getting ridiculous... day 5 and still not a single email from you. I called your listed number, got your voicemail, left you a message with my phone number, and you don't even have the decency to call me back.
i understand that eveybody in this business is one way or another busy. but there are basic laws of business that people should abide by. getting back to people promptly after they have paid for services is one of them. i'll be even happier if you tell me that you don't want my business (for whatever reason), and ask me to go look somehwere else. then at least i'll know where i am standing..

[raymor]

Alchemist what'sd your email addy or phone number
or ICQ number or something?
I think I've replied to all of the emails I've received.
I'm also on ICQ at 7208627

[raymor]

For the benefit of anyone following this thread,
it turned out that Alchemist's ISP was dropping my emails.
All this spam means spam filters have to get so
tough lately.
Anyway we did get in touch through his other
email address and we're setting him up.

[Choker]

Originally posted by raymor
For the benefit of anyone following this thread,
it turned out that Alchemist's ISP was dropping my emails.
All this spam means spam filters have to get so
tough lately.
Anyway we did get in touch through his other
email address and we're setting him up.

Don't forget about me man.

[Mr Cheeks]

Originally posted by raymor
For the benefit of anyone following this thread,
it turned out that Alchemist's ISP was dropping my emails.
All this spam means spam filters have to get so
tough lately.
Anyway we did get in touch through his other
email address and we're setting him up.

I wanted to apologize here to Ray for the total miscommunication that my mail server at candid caused us. Turned out he was actually trying to get in contact with me but he's email were being canned by the anti-spam filter. Sorry again Ray.

Everyhting is being worked out and he's already been working on installing the script. A real class act even though i disturbed him with my phone calls, while he was having quality time with his family Thanx Ray, and sorry again for the mailserver bullshit...