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HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

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Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#241

Post by perihelions »

p5a0u9l wrote: post #183
orangepurple wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but the ENTIRE TEAM SECTION ON THEIR WEBSITE (worthitsolutions.co) IS A BLATANT LIE. Not one of those people is real. Every single biography link leads to Lorem Ipsum. It's a shady, secretive sweatshop operating out of Lahore, Pakistan.

Yup, and a couple of the stock photos of "Our team" are duplicates. Crazy. How does an outfit like this get hired?

Here's an archive.org snapshot of the evidence, for future archivists:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220420062828/https://worthitso...

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#242

Post by Nextgrid »

captn3m0 wrote: post #232
Nextgrid wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't want to mention it in my other comment but the mere mention of "Pvt Limited" in the DMCA takedown led me to believe the company is a disgusting boiler room right next to the tech support scammers we all know (if not literally the same scammers moonlighting as DMCA enforcers). It does seem I was right and stereotypes (unfortunately for the legitimate companies from these regions) still work.

"Pvt Limited" just denotes a company registered in India, Bangladesh, or Nepal and this isn't a good heuristic considering the huge number of companies.

Yep, I am aware and that was my point. I’m sure that the vast majority of these companies serving their local area are legitimate. But when it comes to exporting abroad and IT specifically I’ve only ever had bad experiences to the point where it is an automatic red flag and so far that heuristic has served me well.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#243

Post by __app_dev__ »

fadifrancis wrote: post #230
Fordec wrote: post #35

What are decent HackerRank alternatives out on the market at the moment?

interviewing.io

I used that one once. It was great! Pricy but if you have an actual interview with a big tech company it's worth it if you can afford it.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#244

Post by __app_dev__ »

rvivek wrote: post #159

Hello again, Vivek, founder/CEO here. In the interest of moving swiftly, here are the actions we are going to take: (1) We have withdrawn the DMCA notice for sympy; Sent a note to senior leadership in Github to act on this quickly. (2) We have stopped the whole DMCA process for now and working on internal guidelines of what constitutes a real violation so that these kind of incidents don't happen. We are going to do…

Hello Vivek,

Personally I like Hacker Rank and consider it a good way to learn about new algorithms but at the same time I do not like the style of interviews that require it and it makes me wish I could leave the industry because it's a waste of time for people with a lot of practical experience and who have a good portfolio of apps/sites they've created.

That said, I would recommend not doing DMCA at all unless it's really serious. Sounds like your company has a lot of problems with this. Think StackOverflow, there are plenty of sites that copy it but I'm not aware of them going after anyone. If anything all the copying of a site makes it more of an authoritative source because a lot of people reference it.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#245

Post by randunel »

rvivek wrote: post #159

Hello again, Vivek, founder/CEO here. In the interest of moving swiftly, here are the actions we are going to take: (1) We have withdrawn the DMCA notice for sympy; Sent a note to senior leadership in Github to act on this quickly. (2) We have stopped the whole DMCA process for now and working on internal guidelines of what constitutes a real violation so that these kind of incidents don't happen. We are going to do…

Would you have done it had it not come to HN's attention? Don't bother answering this, it's rhetorical, and I'd expect a lie for an answer, anyway.

You've abused many other projects, some linked in the comments here, but you only seem to act when there's sufficient apparent public outrage.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#246

Post by throwaway2037 »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #16
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way for HackerRank to do the right thing would be to sue WorthIT for breach of contract and loss of reputation. Their contract must have included some requirements for due diligence on filing those notices, and having these bogus DMCA notices does hurt HackerRank’s reputation, especially with its target audience. Only way to make this stop is make companies like WorthIT feel financial pain from their actions.

There's also an argument to be made that this is on HackerRank. Just because they're using a contractor to do the dirty work doesn't excuse them from responsibility for this sloppiness.

This is how the US Sarbanes–Oxley Act works. During giant accounting scandals in late 1990s / early 2000s, corps were using the onion approach with external vendors to cover-up shady/illegal practices. SOA basically says "no" to this now. We need the same for DMCA.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#247

Post by jaysonqpt »

manquer wrote: post #231
jaysonqpt wrote: post #206

Many people doesn't seem to understand what pain individuals undergo when their content is taken offline by Google or Github due to a fake DMCA notice. They would have built something over years and one morning entire thing is taken offline due to a fake DMCA notice. Then they have to issue a counter notice with all its legal implications and it also exposes all your private information including full address, name a…

You could fight them by counter claims and following the DMCA processes which on paper have stiff penalties for abuse. Practically I have never heard of major abuses being punished, so wouldn’t count on it. As a technologist perhaps solve it with tech, the first step would be to host your own content instead of using a third party app based in U.S. There is not a lot of deep tech to what GitHub gives as a githost, a…

In theory, self hosting works. I have my content self hosted. In this case, they sent a DMCA request to Google and they delisted my webpage from Google. 99% of my traffic simply dropped.

In addition, all Google properties picked up the DMCA action on Google index and started sending me warning and suspension of ads etc.

I have sent a detailed counter notice. But even after 12 days, I am yet to hear back from Google.

So self-hosting may work for Github, but not if you want presence in Google index.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#248

Post by Sephr »

orangepurple wrote: post #165
Andoryuuta wrote: post #8

This same DMCA company (WorthIT Solutions) previously tried to DMCA the php docs range function page on behalf of HackerRank [0]. Pretty crazy. [0]: https://www.mail-archive.com/php-webmaster@lists.php.net/msg...

Not only that but the ENTIRE TEAM SECTION ON THEIR WEBSITE (worthitsolutions.co) IS A BLATANT LIE. Not one of those people is real. Every single biography link leads to Lorem Ipsum. It's a shady, secretive sweatshop operating out of Lahore, Pakistan.

Wow, how did HackerRank end up hiring them? Incompetence all around.

Re: HackerRank (YC S11) DMCA'ed the SymPy Docs [fixed]

#249

Post by lifeisstillgood »

perihelions wrote: post #241
p5a0u9l wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, and a couple of the stock photos of "Our team" are duplicates. Crazy. How does an outfit like this get hired?

Here's an archive.org snapshot of the evidence, for future archivists: https://web.archive.org/web/20220420062828/https://worthitso...

is that a joke? I mean a bunch of stock photos of white hipster people with an address in Lahore?

No - that does seem to be their site. I mean that is disturbing on all sorts of levels. From "that's just poor web dev copy paste", to "those americans won't hire anyone who looks like us" to ... hell I don't know.

that just bothers me

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