Myths/Misconceptions Vs Facts

Here is some more fact. I stumbled across this post from July 1, 2005, in KVS's own words:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/4259614-post3.html

So much for KVS and Terry Quinn's assertions that no one has taken steps to stop KVS from screen scraping/browsing/stealing/whatever data from their website, and that they are ok with it. This combined with FlightStats's changes to their website in order to stop KVS from using their data, tells us that the websites that KVS scrapes from probably don't like it, assuming they know about it at all.

It also points as to why United Airlines is listed as X1 on KVS's website.

ArizonaGuy's comment (made ten days ago) didn't really add much, as no one here has disputed the usefulness of the program. Criticism has been directed at how it does some of what it does and at the fact that this is kept from unsuspecting users.

As we had subsequently determined, the discrepancy was actually caused by a technical issue with the subject website. In any case, the compatibility issue in question was fully resolved back in July 2005 and is now irrelevant.

Nevertheless, we appreciate that some individuals may find enjoyment in building conspiracy theories.

Are you saying that you wrongly accused UA of providing fake data?

You're welcome. I get the reason behind many of the questions - I have them too. The questions are warranted and as long as they're answered clearly and concisely, great. I admit I haven't fully read every single post in two threads about this because some of it clearly has devolved into personal arguing.

I also realize where your data comes from and in fact know how to access most of it. Even so I personally find your tool invaluable because it does in seconds and with a single click what would otherwise take a couple minutes, possibly many tabs/windows and repetitive typing / clicking.

If I'm traveling and dealing with nothing more than my netbook on a slow connection, KVS saves me a lot of time and effort if I need to make a rapid booking change. It's also useful for grabbing onto limited award seats as quickly as possible before someone else with the same idea beats me to it. All one has to do is use the ANA, AC, CO, QF, et al websites for award searching to know it's not exactly a speedy process.

Two niggles:
1. I do find the price a bit high for public information. The value of the top tier level isn't worth the price in my estimation.

2. I also find the machine code registration setup to be cumbersome and annoying. I would prefer a simple user / pass setup. Yes, the risk of someone sharing their credentials exists but permitting 1 to 4 concurrent logins would help mitigate that risk. I could be on any of a dozen machines and I rebuild my systems somewhat frequently, being a nerdy sysadmin / IT geek.

The original July 2005 post has been worded incorrectly and has now been deleted.

The trouble with that approach is that the memory hole idea doesn't work as well in 2011 as it did in Orwell's imagined Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Sadly, I don't think there's much chance of that happening.

It's plain greedy. A product that's as murky a shade of grey as the KVS program is should be given away, or sold underground. Marketing it as legitimate, and charging commercial prices without providing commercial grade technical support or customer service, is what annoys me most.

Also greedy and, as you say, annoying and burdensome for anyone tweaking their systems, switching between multiple computers, using virtual machines etc.

You are just ridiculous. Deleting a 5+ year old post to cover your tracks is a new low, even for you. It was worded correctly, if it wasn't, you would have deleted or fixed it back in July 2005. You just deleted it because you don't want any evidence laying around. The "technical issue" is that you got caught by United Airlines and you know it (in fact, someone told you that's what happened), be a man an admit it. If you were above board, you would have left that post up there.

I think that you have just shown to everyone why you deserve the negative comments you get, you bring it on yourself with your shady actions. It will be shame when you leave your users high and dry after the websites you scrape from eventually shut you down. Your overt greediness is going to ruin it for the rest of us.

We wish to once again re-iterate our position with regard to personal attacks and fictitious and libellous statements, which has been noted above.

We are in a much better position to know whether something we had written was worded correctly or not.

Glad you're enjoying your KVS Tool membership. As always, we appreciate all constructive feedback and suggestions on further enhancements.

It is, indeed, unfortunate, but, at the same time, unavoidable.

Well said!

We are confident that it is not -- please do not let anyone mar your experience as a member of either this forum or the KVS Tool.

My opinion of you're business practices isn't "ficitious", it's very real. If you don't like someone elses opinion, you can go elsewhere, this is an open forum. Oh and cut the "we" act, one person is "I", a real business with more then one employee is "we". Maybe you should look that up on Wikipedia.

And yet you refuse to say why that is, or actually post "correct" information, typical. You're cookie cutter responses of saying that everyone else is wrong without backing it up is old and stale. You are the one who constantly acts like you are always right and anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong. Narcissism is no way to respond to your critics and only shows how precarious your position is.

Everyone is entitled to the their opinion.

Problematic and inappropriate are your continued and false statements with regard to our internal structure and the alleged nature of our external relationships with 3rd parties, as your are not privy to either.

I'll say it yet again, and I'll keep saying it until you give an answer other then "you're wrong".

Perhaps the back and forth can be taken to a conversation until resolved and the results of which can be placed here if all sides agree? The endless arguing in a thread is getting us nowhere.

Absolutely not, people need to know exactly what they are getting when they pay for the KVS "Web Browser"
the thread going away is exactly what KVS wants.

It would appear that the KVS deflection method of the week is to find something vaguely favourable in a ten day old post and respond to that, with zero new content, and continue to ignore or respond less than truthfully to anything uncomfortable.

You're right about us getting nowhere, but it doesn't seem reasonable to allow KVS to continue to post untruthful messages promoting his dodgy goods unless responses are similarly permitted. Shutting down the KVS group of sub-forums would be the other option. KVS could presumably choose to do that, just as he chose to start them (and this thread).

Actually, the endless 'arguments' (your characterization) would end if KVS would simply and truthfully answer the questions put forth. Instead, KVS cntinues to provide misleading/deflective responses in the hopes that those publicly questioning his shameful business policies and practices will just go away. Clearly, that is not going to happen.

I have never used or researched KVS (I mistakenly thought it was "availabilty")

Clearly from what I've read the guy (or gal) hides in the ether which

doesn't auger well for any up & up business & doesn't deserve to get

free placement on either M/P or F/T

There must be more to this story

Far too many pages in 2 threads for me to go through

As was mentioned previously in the other thread, it is not the KVS Tool that requires "repair". Unfortunately, it's a well-known fact that many issues with Microsoft OS products can only be resolved by re-installing the OS itself.

I think the factual argument is pretty much done and if you're paying attention and we all know the answers...now it's just up to each individual to make an ethical judgment about using the product.

It's pretty clear from the work that vbroucek did above (and then redacted some of) and what Wandering Aramean has shared that the KVS tool accesses certain resources that require a user name and password by providing those resources with a user name and password not provided by the KVS user. Now, the user name and password seem to be for a "demo" and are publicly available if you know where to look. It's also pretty clear from context that, while publicly available, they were not intended for general public distribution.

It is also clear to anyone who has used some of the disclosed resources that KVS runs a query and then aggregates data found in what I would think of as different "pages" (in the sense that you would have to click something, even if just "next," and wait for a new page to load to see all of the data).

As I said though, the factual argument seems done.

Then comes the question of interpretation. Is using a user name and password that are publicly findable (but pretty clearly meant for a limited audience) to allow queries by a much larger audience ethical? Is charging for it ethical?

Is the aggregation that goes on ethical? Is charging for it ethical?

I think it's safe to say that a lot of it occurs in an ethical gray area and that a number of posters here are uncomfortable with it or at least with the way it is done opaquely and for a fee.

It's also safe to say that YQ dumps, bump runs, and many of the other things we discuss here probably occur in ethical gray areas.

Maybe that makes KVS the perfect tool for this community...

Good to have a fresh take.

I don't disagree. Everyone will draw their own lines to separate "light grey" from "too shadowy for me". The commercialisation of the grey areas is more problematic, but still grey-ish. Taking money for something by pretending it's straight up, though, takes things too far.

YQ dumps dn't involve paying a middleman for something he has no right to sell.

If you are able to tell from the error messages that there's an issue with the OS, and what that issue is, why not share details? Otherwise, it has to be more reasonable to conclude that your program doesn't work properly under Windows 7 than that Windows 7 has an "issue".

More to the point, why suddenly give a non-answer to a minor point from one of my posts from five days (and 150 posts) ago? Presumably to try and make this thread so long that no one finds the juicy bits. Sad. Very sad.

There are more posts in this thread than I can count using my fingers and toes that are waaay over the line in terms of respectful disagreement. It's obvious there are strong feelings by everyone posting in this thread. In the interest of not hitting the big red button, I'd kindly ask everyone to take one giant step back from the keyboard, take a deep breath, and proceed in a more constructive fashion.

After being away for a few days and now reading the "new development" here, I feel that I have to make clear (although I did not plan to return to this debate) that I have started to think about redacting my posts due to personal requests from KVS, arguing that I have opened the site in question to abuse by automation tools.

Only after that, I realised that by making those facts publicly available, I was not only proving that KVS was wrong, but I was also making those sites really vulnerable to more missuse.

* This post was edited by me, again upon KVS request, and direct citations of his e-mails to me were removed to prevent unethical use of such posts and to avoid breach of MP's T&C.