Hello, and welcome to the 'new' site for Professional Locksmiths and Safe Technicians -- LocksmithCommunity.com!

I had originally intended to have this post done before we opened our doors (which we did last night), but as things would go, the cat got let out of the bag a couple of days sooner than we had planned. Heck, we knew it wouldn't be long! This post was, originally, going to be designed to let you know who we are and what is happening in the LocksmithCommunity -- now it seems that it will be that, along with a rebuttal post in response to comments posted over at IL.

abyss -- INTERNET-LOCKSMITH wrote:

I hope you will enjoy running your new website knowing that it's roots will forever be remembered as a stolen product of INTERNET LOCKSMITH. I'm not going to get involved with any legal action but what I will do is to place a black curse on all who are involved in the theft of INTERNET-LOCKSMITH.COM software and database files. You can copy of the files, You can make the site look the same but you cannot duplicate my dedication and vision that drives INTERNET LOCKSMITH. Finally, I guess this is what happens when trust is given to a person that I have never knew or met.

First, let's take a look at the WayBackMachine -- INTERNET-LOCKSMITH, the name, was started by Dan Davies -- the site was started by me. What you may not know is that it was originally started as mysafetech dot com (I don't want it to link here as I don't own the domain anymore and don't know who does!) -- have a look.

I won't get into the nitty-gritty of it all -- to make a long story short, Dan saw my site and asked me if I would be interested in becoming partners with him and moving my site to the internet-locksmith.com domain (I can't give you a way back as I purposely blocked robots from IL) -- after numerous discussions with Dan, I agreed and the "new" INTERNET-LOCKSMITH was born.

At the time, we were running the software "phpNUKE". Some of you will remember the infamous "monkey" incident at IL -- yes, we were hacked due to the software we were running and had all of our index pages changed to a picture of a monkey (by a brazillian hacker group). At that time (the php scripting language not being my strong point), I found that phpNUKE was not secure and decided to convert the site to another CMS (Content Management System), called CPG-NUKE. Shortly after that, CPG-NUKE evolved into "DragonflyCMS", which is our current software.

Upon switching over to DragonflyCMS, my php scripting had improved 10 fold since the time we started IL, and I joined the development team at DragonflyCMS. I have been helping design, modify and debug the software since November of 2004. My DragonflyCMS profile (Note: member groups are now hidden on DragonflyCMS.org -- but hey, do a search in the forums for "safecracker4hire"!)

Since then, I have also joined myndworx.com, which is a development site for add on modules / plugins for DragonflyCMS. You can see my Myndworx profile here. As you can see there, WeblinksPro was one of my last projects for DragonflyCMS. You can also see that I was included in the development of ForumsPro (what we run here as a replacement to DF's forums), ProjectsPro, ShopKeeperPro and a host of others. What you won't see at either of these places are the modules I wrote specifically for IL;

The IM System
Find-A-Locksmith
The LIST Glossary Backend
Access-X-Reference
CombinateIt-IC
Scorpion CX-5
Last Seen
The Legal Module
(and I'm probably missing some)

All modules, written by me, for IL. None of which have been released as GPL. This does not even mention the countless hours of modifications that I have done to the software, again, specifically for IL -- the system was never intended to be used the way it was used on IL -- that was my custom work. More on this in a minute.

The topic of "turning IL into a pay site" was discussed many times by Dan, myself and the Staff at IL -- I clearly stated that I would have no part in a pay site -- this was about education, not money. If the decision was made to go pay, I would walk away -- after all, that decision I could not really influence -- Dan owned the DOMAIN NAME, so my only choice would be to take the site to another server and domain name.

During the first half of 2006, I was extremely disappointed at the direction IL was heading -- the site was becoming what it was never intended to be (I won't even talk about starting thesafeguys.com because I wanted to distance myself from IL). In August of 2006, instead of "taking my ball and going home", I choose to simply walk away, leaving Dan with everything I had ever done for the site. The software is yours to use. At this point, the site was NOT a pay site, nor were there intentions as to such -- so I walked away, leaving the site for the benefit of the Locksmithing industry. You see, my visions for a site of this nature were all based on education for the industry.

Many of you may not remember "Ledger World", a convention that used to be run by the industry magazine "Locksmith Ledger". Wow! All conventions should have taken example from this fine organization! All classes were free! FREE! When I first started out as a locksmith, I hit this convention every year and, literally, ran to and from classrooms. I wouldn't be where I am today without it. IL was my chance to give back to the industry (which was the initial goal of mySAFETECH dot com).

However, with the recent announcement on IL that it was going to become a pay site, I was contacted by numerous members who asked if I would, once again, run a locksmith community site. Up until 5 days ago I had NO intentions of ever running another site such as IL -- NONE at all. However, now that IL has officially announced that they will be going to a pay site (and have begun to collect money for membership), the ball has bounced 'out-of-bounds'. I have said since day one on IL -- THE SITE WILL ALWAYS BE FREE -- and I am sticking to that promise. Welcome to the, still free, and new industry standard in Locksmithing websites -- LocksmithCommunity.com.

This brings me to the 'data'. Dan and I both owned the content of the site. Dan owned the domain name, I owned the software -- collectively, we owned the content. Technically speaking, you, the poster, own the posts that you post in the forums. The data is not owned by either Dan or myself. As I have said, I walked away in August of 2006 -- accordingly, the data that I have is from the sites inception to the point I walked away. This data has now become 'derivative works', as laid out in IL's TOU, Section 7A -- the posts, prior to August 2006, are a 'compilation' of posts, which includes the Tech forums as most every other forum has had it's data removed. Private Messages, Downloads, News and anything else that was specific to IL has been removed from this site. The site, IL, was built for the members, by the members. I am not about to see the members who have contributed great technical data, have to pay to access that same data, believing that they would always be able to do so by being under the impression that IL would always be a free site.

As I said, I walked away in August of 2006 - I have data up until that point. Even though IL has only become a pay site in March of 2007, I will not use any data, post August 2006. Anything posted after August 2007 (well, technically, March 2007) is posted under a 'paid' membership and will, therefor, have to be paid for by people who wish to access this new data -- that is Dan's right and I will not deny him that.

As for "duplicat[ing] my [Dans] dedication and vision that drives INTERNET LOCKSMITH." -- I should really put up a ROTFLMAO smiley! Yeah, Dan, you keep thinking you are the 'driving force' behind IL! A lot of my 'walking away' had to do with your lack of presence. Damn, IL went down about 2 months ago and members were calling me asking what was going on -- I didn't know, so I redirected them to you -- to which I was told they had been trying to get a hold of you and could not. In return, I found out why the site was down and never posted the reason -- what I did do was setup temporary forums on thesafeguys.com for the members of IL to use until the situation could be rectified by you -- because I didn't want to see the members suffer. As I've said, the site was built for the members, by the members -- it had nothing to do with you or I.

As for "trust" -- I'm not even going to touch that. I am a stand-up guy -- I say what I mean, and mean what I say. I know who I am and what values and morals I live by -- that's is all that matters to me.

A "Black Curse" -- bring it on! I am a believer in "The Secret". YOUR negative thoughts have no effect on me. MY positive thoughts are 100 times more powerful -- the "Law of Attraction" is very powerful within itself.

Regards;
Kyle Stubbins, CMS
webmaster @ LocksmithCommunity.com
LocksmithCommunity.com
LockAnswers.com

Thanks for clearing that up Kyle. We now can see that you have the moral and legal right to the data compiled on IL prior to the date mentioned. Thanks for adding it here. So i say onward and up ward for this site. You again have my thanks, respect and admeration as a industry proffesional and as a man who cares about the education of others and not allways material advantages. This site will be supported by unsolicited contributions from the membership as the need may arrise.