First of all, many thanks to NCC Group that respected my request related to this post, and they took immediate action.
It’s about time to make some things clear…again!
Shellter has been downloaded thousands of times, and it’s been widely used by the infosec community. Thank you all for that.
Beyond the bright side of the things, I had to deal many times with people that had something to say against it, and especially about the fact that it’s not open source. Needless to say that all the ‘bad’ comments were not technical at all, but mostly a stupid ‘war’ from people that just wanted to grab the source code and disappear without giving a single credit to my work.
Regarding the ‘not-being-open-source’, there is not much to say about it. This is my work, and I offer this tool for free. Instead of attacking me over a personal decision, maybe you should consider saying ‘thanks’ just for once.
Freedom in sharing ideas and our work is not just about open-source. It is also about deciding not to release the source of something and assume that other people will respect your decision. You can call me whatever you want, whatever makes you happy, but I have seen things that make me think twice before making tools as such open source. On the other hand, if you don’t trust the tool, just because of the fact that is not open source, you are more than welcome to seek an alternative solution.
Shellter might become open source one day, but until that day you have to respect my decision. I can’t believe that all these fighters for freedom and open source are not able to respect one man’s decision. It’s really sad, but it tells me a lot. It should tell a lot to you as well.
As mentioned already, developing this tool is an ongoing effort. People download, use it, download the new release, use it, demand to make it open-source, because supposingly they love it, but (except from very few people) they never donated anything. But I didn’t stop developing it. I didn’t stop supporting it. I didn’t stop replying to sensible emails to people that needed my help. I do all this for free. People only see what they want to see, and if you run out of their favorite ice cream flavor, they just attack you.
This tool comes with a custom license. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. If you use it, you need to respect the terms of that license. Not because I say so, or because I will pay a lawyer to hunt you down. You should do it from respect to my efforts to give you something good and useful for free. I wish I could make this more clear, but what else can I say?
Cheers,
kyREcon