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Whoops! Extentrix cuts-and-pastes their product documention from EPA Factory.

Written on Jan 13 2008 8,533 views, 12 comments


by Brian Madden

One of the cool features of Citrix's Advanced Access Control is the end-point client scanning feature, called "end-point analytics" (EPA). This is the feature that performs a security scan of a client device before establishes a VPN tunnel to determine how secure the device is. While these EPA scans held a lot of promise, many people were disappointed that Citrix's "out-of-the-box" scans didn't have enough functionality. Fortunately Citrix released an EPA SDK which allowed people to write their own scans.

A few of these people got together and formed a company for this purpose called EPAFactory. Over the past few years they've really established themselves as Advanced Access Control experts, and they've presented on this topic at BriForum in the past. EPAFactory didn't really have any competition in the end-point analytics space until a few months ago when a company called Ententrix sort of appeared out of nowhere.

Ententrix has a few different products, but only recently did I take the time to download their EPA scanning package. I unzipped the download to find the following file structure:

The documentation was available in an external PDF. But clicking into the license.doc file I found something interesting... Hmmm... This file.. It seems that I've seen it somewhere before. Just for kicks I figured I'd take a peek at the properties of the Word document. Here's what I found:

Whoops! The Ententrix documentation lists a company name of "epafactory.com." Worse yet, it lists the author as "Brian DaBinett," a friend of mine and one of the founders of EPAFactory. I talked to Brian recently and he most certainly is not working for Extentrix. So if Extentrix is cutting-and-pasting the documentation from EPAFactory, what else are they copying from them?

And a note to vendors: Stuff like this has happened before. If you're gonna blatently rip off a competitor, please have someone else proofread what you've stolen before you do it! (Oh, and be sure to blame the hired help.)



Comments

Aaron Parker wrote Web Site
on 01-14-2008 4:30 AM
Looks like they cut and paste from Microsoft.com and Citrix.com too. A quick look around their web site looks very familiar.
Guest wrote Exposed
on 01-15-2008 7:28 AM

Thanks for exposing this unethical company.

The owner (should be named) and the company employees obviously do not have integrity. 

I will never recommend Extentrix regradless of what they come out with.

Perhaps they should be spelled Extentricks.

Thanks for exposing them.

Guest wrote Re: Exposed
on 01-15-2008 11:56 AM
I am very thankful for them for offering great scan packages at affordable price. The fact is that they have fascinating products.

 

 

Guest wrote Re: Re: Exposed
on 01-15-2008 1:33 PM

They may be cheaper because the Extentrix people in Dubai may have copied the EPAfactory code. 

Guest wrote Re: Re: Re: Exposed
on 01-15-2008 2:24 PM

I doubt that. If they copied the code they would have the same packages as EPAFactory. They are smart in their offerings and marketing. I give them thumbs up. Keep good work.

Guest wrote Re: Re: Re: Re: Exposed
on 01-15-2008 2:57 PM

Hmmm, I think this person works for them.

Brian DaBinett wrote Imitation is the greatest form of flattery
on 01-15-2008 3:37 PM

Well this has generated some comment and I don't like posting as a Guest so thought I would take a moment to reply.

They say imitation is the greatest form of flattery but we were certainly surprised to see the similarity in the products and documentation released by Extentrix; especially as they signed an NDA with us last year and one of their products was an exact replica of some the scans we had created! Competition can only improve the quality and breadth of products that are released to market, so it can only benefit the community longer term and we have been waiting a long time for someone to come along with their own products.   Indeed, we are making some exciting new product announcements at Citrix Summit. I don’t want to tell too many details in case anyone tries to steal our thunder (or ideas ;)), but there will be a new entry level AV product and some really cool features in the full blown EPdetect version, both of which will detect over 300+ AV products. Plus some other stuff already announced on the website (www.epafactory.com). 

Extentrix should help drive the market forward but next time hopefully they can generate their own ideas and documentation.

Thanks

 

Guest wrote It looks like they are copying each others.
on 01-15-2008 3:37 PM

Extentrix copied the EPAFactory None Disclosure document.

 

EPAFactory followed Extentrix naming and packaging conventions:

Extentrix are the first to come up with Essential name and package many EPA scans in one. EPAFactory followed them.

 

Extentrix are the first to package AVs and FWs scans in one package. EPAFactory followed them.

 

It is the competition. We are the customer who are benefiting from this.

Guest wrote Re: It looks like they are copying each others.
on 01-15-2008 10:51 PM

Also they are the first to offer Essentials @ US$999. EPAFactory copied them.

They are the first to offer unlimited users license model for their scans @ one price. EPAFactory copied them.

Heat it up.

Guest wrote I think the notice that Extentrix copied doesn't need a genius to write it. It is the same that Citrix offers.
on 01-16-2008 12:21 AM
If a person wants to compare, let him/her compare what functionalities there are in the Packages. Creativity lies there, not in a documentation you can find over the whole internet, not just in epafactory.

I am sure it's a market play that aims to distort the good reputation of Extentrix. You know both are competing.

Guest wrote Its not the document which come from No where
on 01-16-2008 1:25 AM

Lets say The document was taken as template from EPAFactory and yes its a amistake that Extentrix forget to edit the properties .What about the contents?

Thats what matters ,

I have great curiosity to try Extentrix EPAs.

Benny Tritsch wrote Documentation and license agreements are part of a product - they have substantial value
on 01-16-2008 1:52 PM

Being a book author I may have a slightly different view compared to some other people when it comes to copying a document. Yes, it can happen that you accidently use text for your own documents that was originally created by someone else. But you should be very careful about such things in a commercial product. Just to make things clear; seen from a legal perspective the documentation belongs to a software product as does the source code. So copying documentation is like "borrowing" someone else's car without asking him, just because the car happens to be standing in front of your house. Intellectual Property is a serious thing, even if it is only a license file. The last time I needed a lawyer specialized in international software licensing he charged me 300 EURO (= US$500) per hour. Taking the licensing document from a competitor is definitely cheaper. Guess what Citrix would do if you wanted to build a business on creating a tool including some features Citrix also provides (= legal, as long as you didn't steal their code) and then distribute your tool with an exact copy of the Citrix documentation (= illegal). The Citrix legal department would definitly sue you, and nobody would blame them for doing so.

Benny

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