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The Misuse Of Your Material

System
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FAO Administrators and Polycounters

Just got off the phone from the police after having no luck elsewhere because this latest online parasite has not replied to my email...

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm talking about online threats where someone steals links to your artwork and uses your name to redirect people to rootkits, trojans and fake anti-virus programs. It's not nice having your name dragged through the mud.

The last guy actually replied to my emails after some threats and removed the links but this one hasn't and is now using a different domain, registered to a different person with a different virus attached.



By The Way...

Deviant art and Polycount images are being used as links to these threats so I urge you to do a little ego surfing. Check google images under your most common online alias and look out for dodgy links. Be careful! If the link contains nspl.co.in don't click it because you may not have the software to deal with the infection. As for anything else I'm not so sure, keep your eyes open!
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  • Will Faucher
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    Will Faucher polycounter lvl 12
    Oh snap! This totally sucks! I hope you end up catching the guy! I'll keep an eye out for sure!
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  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    Hmm... I don't understand exactly. How are they hi-jacking the links?
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  • System
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    System admin
    Yes, it will do the internet a favour to catch this rogue, or team of rogues if he/she has accomplices, so little to go on.

    Deviant art was notified of a hijacked link, the image was of deviant artwork and the link contained deviantart.com but finally resolved to another domain after piggybacking off yet another site.

    I'm no hacker so it's hard to say how they are doing it, maybe it's a case of providing links on their own dodgy site that are controlled by scripts, making them appear like they are somewhere else. When google images re-caches, the new links appear instead of the original genuine ones. If that even makes sense/is possible!
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  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    Can you give a specific example I can easily search for? Could find more information that way on exactly what's going on.
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  • System
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    System admin
    Sure, I have the full link but I'd rather send you a private message in case anyone gets infected. By the way this is what MSE has on this infection...
      JS/FakeAV.L (Authentium (Command))
    • Trojan.JS.Fraud.ba (Kaspersky)
    • HTML/Renos.J (Norman)
    • FakeAlert (AVG)
    • JS/FakeAlert.72367 (Avira)
    • Trojan.Script.Q (BitDefender)
    • JS/AdClickerScript.AI (CA)
    • Trojan.JS.Fraud (Ikarus)
    • Troj/FakeAV-CLJ (Sophos)
    *Bigjohn I don't want you to lose any data, or otherwise be affected by this. If your not 100% sure, let me know.


    Update: This guy has just changed domain again after another email, same virus though. Google security have been contacted, re: his email account. Asked that they not delete or suspend services, instead track his ip address. Not sure if they can.
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  • glottis8
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    glottis8 polycounter lvl 9
    man.. this sounds pretty intense. How did you notice? or did someone else looking at your work tell you they were being redirected?
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  • Bigjohn
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    Bigjohn polycounter lvl 11
    Oh man, that's pretty nasty. Yeah, I looked into it and it's basically him putting images from websites like Deviantart and whatnot on his own server, and those just link to some nasty stuff. But he's doing it in a way where the images come from Deviantart, so google ranks it high.

    The problem is that you can directly link to Deviantart images. So the only thing I think we can do is tell DA about it, and have them ban that domain/IP. But I'm not sure how helpful that will be in the long run.

    Also, I don't know why google would allow a link to something that's not directly an image, and has scripts attached to it. That shouldn't be allowed for this exact reason.
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  • System
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    System admin
    Yeah, maybe google will get back to me about that and be able to do something:thumbup:

    About using images on his own server, it's doubtful that's the case as it would be pretty easy to trace him. He's got to be using free hosting somewhere.

    It could be that his ip was logged when he signed up to some of these services as proxies don't work with google for one and that may be the only avenue to detection. whois information is obviously false.
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  • System
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    System admin
    Contacted google security on 2 lines, images and google mail explaining in full the situation and link locations.

    Also reported urls to a site (badware I think, can't remember) anyway he's changed the attack domain AGAIN! now it's 
    piconip.co.cc

    DO NOT GO TO THIS SITE

    ps: AGAIN I urge you ALL to check google images for your artwork, if the hovered popup contains nspl.co.in it is a virused link and needs reporting.

    gc
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  • Purplepaint
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    Purplepaint polycounter lvl 8
    I actually had some of my Photography work ripped off last year, thankfully they left there names in there websites code, and i managed to contact them with some emails.. thankfully after some persuasion they took it off there website, jerks. The best part was they were setting up to SELL posters etc of my photos... Good thing i caught them right away due to my colleagues ego surfing for me.
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  • System
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    System admin
    Purplepaint wrote: »
    I actually had some of my Photography work ripped off last year, thankfully they left there names in there websites code, and i managed to contact them with some emails.. thankfully after some persuasion they took it off there website, jerks. The best part was they were setting up to SELL posters etc of my photos... Good thing i caught them right away due to my colleagues ego surfing for me.

    That sucks but at least you were able to talk to them. Doing my bit though, reporting to all the companies affected but I'm getting the impression that this person will never be caught or stop :(

    Will justice prevail? *goes to dust off old batman costume...
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  • System
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    System admin
    News Update

    Been in touch with every source possible, I won't bore you with the details except for one: after stumbling on a thread regarding the hacking of google images and leaving a comment I was in communication with the author who reported to google. Shortly afterwards all the dodgy behaviour ceased, no more bad links!

    I wish to thank everyone involved in helping to solve these issues and hope something befitting is in store for the low life responsible:)
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  • Purplepaint
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    Purplepaint polycounter lvl 8
    GCMP wrote: »
    News Update

    Been in touch with every source possible, I won't bore you with the details except for one: after stumbling on a thread regarding the hacking of google images and leaving a comment I was in communication with the author who reported to google. Shortly afterwards all the dodgy behaviour ceased, no more bad links!

    I wish to thank everyone involved in helping to solve these issues and hope something befitting is in store for the low life responsible:)

    Nicely done!
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