Adware Spreads Through Myspace 209
Sandbagger writes "Here's an interesting problem for MySpace — groups of websites that entice MySpace users into placing videos onto their profile pages (under the guise of 'free content'), without disclosing a key piece of information that might make them think twice. When someone visits one of these profiles carrying the video, a DRM acquisition box pops up and attempts to install Zango adware. In all likelihood, the profile owners don't even know these videos are doing this to their visitors. The end result is an Adware affiliate effectively removing himself from the distribution chain and letting kids promote these videos instead, in a strange example of viral marketing gone wrong."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is that a rhetorical question? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is that a rhetorical question? (Score:2)
Reminds me that great joke about the prison inmates, the bar of soap, and the fire extinguisher... oh the laughs!
Re:Is that a rhetorical question? (Score:5, Informative)
All good marketing is viral (Score:5, Interesting)
The same problem appeared on blogger a year back. I don't know if they ever got the problem under control (I learned to stop using the next blog button), but it was a real pain.
There are two problems here, first MySpace should get a clue and eradicate the infestations. Second IE should have taken steps against forced downloads back in 1998 when it was only realplayer and flash that kept asking if they could install fifty times a day. At least that was only a consequence of the pages having the active content rather than a deliberate attack to put the malware on the machine.
The reason I use Windows is precisely because you don't notice this sort of stuff if you spend your time using Firefox. I want to know the next attack while it is going on.
As an absolute rule it should never be possible for active content running in a user application to crap on the operating system internals. It should never be possible for any program to install itself in a way that is intended to prevent removal.
Windows is trying to introduce this separation but running a Windows box without access to administrator or super user privs is pretty miserable. And to an attacker super user is administrator in any case.
Re:All good marketing is viral (Score:2)
Re:All good marketing is viral (Score:2)
unfortunately the site is WAAAY to popular for it's own good now, and the maintainers are way over their heads as far as being able to handle these 'outbreaks' - if they even care in the first place.
Re:All good marketing is viral (Score:2)
Re:All good marketing is viral (Score:2)
Bzzzt! Wrong! Viral marketing refers to any marketing tactic that is spread by word of mouth from person to person (hence the "viral"). Yes, the tactics had begun to emerge pre-internet, however the advertising industry (which I work in) didn't officially recognize these tactics as its own form of marketing strategy until recently.
Re:All good marketing is viral (Score:2)
Maybe this would be a good argument if Microsoft was offering free administrators to home users, but it seems they are not. The typical home user doesn't and never will have a cluefull administrator around, regardless, those are by far the largest number of Windows installs.
In other words, while in theory true, your statement is absolutely not helpfull in the r
Re:Is that a rhetorical question? (Score:4, Funny)
Marketing is like rape to sex.
Or:
Marketing is always wrong.
Has a nice ring to it, that last one.
Re:Is that a rhetorical question? (Score:5, Funny)
Here we can see a fine example of the tragedy of the commons.
On that note... (Score:5, Insightful)
On Adware and Myspace: it was a pandemic waiting to happen. One of those nasty traits of a large populus, is that when something becomes sufficiently commonplace and comfortable, it becomes an easy target. It's my understanding that myspace is riddled with holes, bugs, etc. That being said, it's only a matter of time until those are found, and exploited.
Though I understand it doesn't end with Myspace, as the attack used is not explicitly limited to that social networking service; it simply is the vehicle for the delivery, and a prime candidate with a vulnerable userbase.
Unrelatedly, I heard a random statistic that said that some asinine percentage of the net's streaming video traffic was due to Myspace. I brushed it off, as, well, that's a sortof silly thing to take to heart, but I wonder if there's any truth to it.
Re:On that note... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On that note... (Score:4, Insightful)
And you could have walked up to any of them and said "Excuse me, I have a paper to write and I need this computer." And if they refused to give it to you, had them removed by lab staff. University computers are for academics first, and anyone who needs them for that purpose can boot off anyone who is just goofing off.
Re:On that note... (Score:2)
Re:On that note... (Score:2)
Re:On that note... (Score:2)
Re:On that note... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On that note... (Score:2)
Re:On that note... (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess the fact that this has nothing to do with MySpace and is a problem with the design of Windows Media DRM escaped you? MySpace is being targetted because it's the culture there to put free videos of stuff you like on your profile page. There's actually nothing MySpace can do to stop this as far as I can see as the "problem" is simply that they make it easy for people to publish videos they like using Windows Media Player. Short of b
A real reason to block the site (Score:5, Interesting)
Excuse, not a real reason (Score:2)
Re:Excuse, not a real reason (Score:2)
Re:A real reason to block the site (Score:2)
Re:A real reason to block the site (Score:2)
I believe the lack of an editing feature is a conscious decision. It could be used to fix little mistakes, but most likely would primarilly be used by trolls who either 1)post deliberate errors which are sure to get someone to respond, then change the errors so anyone who replies appears to be an idiot or 2)karmawhore post something that is pretty much guaranteed to get modded up, then change it so it furthers the troll's agenda (whether that's linking people to the goatse guy, crapflooding or... whatever.
Re:A real reason to block the site (Score:2)
Technical details? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Technical details? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pandasoftware.com/about/press/viewNews
Re:Technical details? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... what?
I read your Panda link. It describes how the malicious files get downloaded. It does not describe how they then get executed.
I assume that the real license files are pure data files which do not need to be executed after download (the opposite would be an incredibly stupid design decision). In that case, WMP should not have the fun
Re:Technical details? (Score:3, Informative)
You can tick a checkbox in the options to tell it not to automatically download license files.
Re:Technical details? (Score:2)
The real surprise to me is that so many MySpace users would be interested in classical music [wikipedia.org].
As opposed to... (Score:5, Funny)
Strange because things referred to as "viral" so rarely go wrong.
Think twice? (Score:5, Funny)
With all the clutter on there already... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:With all the clutter on there already... (Score:2)
What's so particularly wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd hate this practice too, if it affected me, but why is it any more wrong, than any other children-targeted marketing (like advertising action-figures in between cartoons)?
Re:What's so particularly wrong? (Score:2)
The cartoon is the ad. The "ad" of which you speak is merely the phone number (to get mommy) to call, or the store to go to. Were you asleep in the meeting?
Re:What's so particularly wrong? (Score:2)
Re:What's so particularly wrong? (Score:2)
Should the viewers have more clue? Yeah, maybe. But they don't. And won't. And there are always new ones coming along to take their place.
Re:What's so particularly wrong? (Score:2)
Linux. (although the success is debateable)
Yes...most successful things do prey on the clueless. Just not so much and so blatently.
Re:What's so particularly wrong? (Score:2)
Because the advertising you see on the TV won't embed itself within the TV without your knowledge and pop up ad after ad over the top of the show you're trying to watch (although TV execs would if they could...).
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason people look at you like you're a Nazi is because once you start with "these people aren't fit to vote, I know what's best for them", then you start feeling entitled to make other decisions for them, such as what kinds of jobs they can hold, where they can live, and whether they are allowed to reproduce. The 'slippery slope' card is one that's too often use where it's not warranted, but this is a place where it's obviously warranted, by historical precedent.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: if you think you know better than me as to what's right in my life, fuck you. You have no place making decisions for me, or anyone else. Society really goes to hell, as in labor camps and mass exterminations, when we let right-wing ideologies like yours come into power. We've fought long and hard to get where we are today, and it makes me sick to hear you say that just because you don't like myspace. It's a friggin' website, for crying out loud!
Futhermore, the founding fathers didn't say that most people are unfit to vote. They specfically left out particular groups based on race, ethnicity and gender -- women, blacks, Indians, etc. They did not say that most people are unfit to vote. I would bet that you know, or at least know of, women and blacks that are certainly fit to vote by your standards, just as there are women and blacks that are unfit to vote by your standards. The problem comes when someone starts thinking their standards are the ones we should use to disenfranchise voters.
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:5, Funny)
It could also be the the little toothbrush mustache and the swastika armband.
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
Too bad that doesn't seem to be doing any good with regards to getting rid of idiot Congresscritters that don't know what their constituents want. Or just don't care.
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:3, Insightful)
First, the concept you're looking for is "authoritarian", not "right-wing". You'll find that authoritarians come in both left-wing and right-wing varieties. The two camps never agree on the problems that need to be solved, but they always agree on the solution -- more power for them, less power for you.
Second, YHBT YHL HAND.
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:5, Insightful)
The good news is that, to some degree, the problem is self-correcting. Those "unfit" to vote are the type that keep well away from the ballot boxes, since they're all too busy picking the next American Idol. In fact up to quite recently (quite possibly the GP post), I was trying to figure out why we didn't implement some sort of internet- or phone-based voting system. Then it hit me - the people who are too fucking lazy to either go down to the voting booths or get an absentee ballot if they can't make it are the exact type of people who will, without any question, vote like sheep. You can bet your ass that shows like American Idol, Big Brother and other call-in-/text-in-/log-in-to-vote shows wouldn't have made it to the second episode if their voters had to head to the town hall or other voting emporium to vote.
The counterpoint to that being that while you tend to keep the dumb sheep away from the ballots, those who have some hardcore feelings about a hot-topic issue DO flock to the polls to get something passed/rejected or someone voted in. Naturally, if you can't be bothered to vote then you've got no excuse when you're not happy with the outcome, but you'll still end up with some vastly unpopular things passed when people don't feel strongly enough to get out there.
The biggest problem is really that voting is just a popularity contest. In the last ten years or so, I've seen one candidate - ONE - who's campaign was "here's my stance on these issues, vote accordingly". Everything else has been "I'm great for pointless reasons x, y, and z" or "the other guy sucks for irrelavent reasons u, v, and w." How completely worthless. It would be one thing if you didn't agree with any of the candidates up for election, but it's something else when you're forced to go in blind because their multimillion dollar campaigning told you absolutely nothing.
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
So what if he said some people aren't fi
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
Futhermore, the founding fathers didn't say that most people are unfit to vote.
I admit it has been quite some time since I studied American history in any depth, but I do think there's something to saying they did; some of them, at least. My recollection is that was the reason they created the whole electoral college, which, at the time, was under NO obligation to vote for the person their state (or whatever) voted for. I think the founders hoped that some day everybody would be fit to vote--and who kn
Founding Fathers (Score:2)
They didn't all think alike. A sizable camp, notably Hamilton, believed that universal suffrage would lead to mob rule because the common people would just get carried away with fads and hysteria. Jefferson championed the other view.
An example of the compromises they came up with: state legislatures used to be the ones who elected Senators, in the hopes of providing a layer of review and deliberation between the partially untrusted peopl
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
White.
Male.
21.
Own Property (ie white-collar or aristocracy.)
Sounds pretty limiting to me. And of course, there was that whole electoral college - that idea wasn't just the popular vote translated to faithful elector formality that it is today. The Founding Fathers expected the electors to be lifelong appointments by states, and that those electors would all sit around in their smoking rooms and rich plantations and pick out
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
Your local police will get awfully busy if someone calls them every time there's a popup for a "search assistant". Better in this case to handle your own security online with software and policies.
>Parents and teens that by now can't handle their own security online are generally irresponsible people
Generally, perhaps, but I acknowledge exceptio
Welcome to corporate America (Score:2)
And that's where we are today. Education today is not geared towards "preparing you for life". It is geared towards making you a good citizen. You're supposed to do your job, but be unfit to do anything else. You're not supposed to make a "qualified" decision, actually it is discouraged in every way. It helps two parties: First, your
Re:America really is growing daft (Score:2)
The Slashdot Parenting Manual (Score:2)
>jobs and policing their kids' MySpace accounts in many
>ways.
But the previous chapter of the Slashdot Parenting Manual says that if I don't give my kids private unfettered broadband access and let them play racy games, then I'm a Nazi.
So which is it? I'm supposed to monitor them every second*, or give them complete freedom?
* and if I don't monitor them every second, then everything's my own fault - no complaining to Nick Jr. if Dora suddenl
a href's (Score:2)
basically, anchor refer tags do not always point to what they are supposed to. myspace is bringing back to the forefront lots of little details/problems from the late nineties from 'user' made websites, mostly geocities. it is reminiscent of when someone would like to
Holy smokes (Score:3, Informative)
Problem solved.
Re:Holy smokes (Score:5, Funny)
Myspace (Score:2, Interesting)
TreasureTrooper (Score:2)
Let me put in a shout for TreasureTrooper - no adware, but mobs of dorks are spamming YouTube video comment streams on their behalf
adware scanner (Score:2)
MySpace is a lost cause (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure enough, dozens of "Web 2.0" MySpace clones appeared, offering better features and the same "fight for the little guy" mentality that MySpace had become famous for. I expected those MySpacers would be off in no time. Being that I'm a tad too old (26) for those "wacky kids", I diverted my attention and awaited the sound bite that "the MySpace phenomena was over".
A year later, I'm still waiting. Meanwhile, the juaggurnaut that is MySpace continues to grow like WalMart on crack, and other News Corp properties (FX, Fox, Fox News) have jumped on the bandwagon. Call me naive, but I expected the "corporate parent" to stay well hidden from MySpace for fear of losing their main demo (Q: what are you rebelling against? A: what do you got?). Instead the opposite has happened: MySpace and fox passed the "sell out" threshold months ago, and millions more have poured onto MySpace as a result (I find myself meeting people well into their 30's and 40's with freaking MySpace accounts these days!).
So, the simple answer here in regards to the recent scam-ware MySpace epidemic is: duh. My opinion of those "60 million" antidisetablishmentarianist (take THAT grammar nazis) hit rock bottom awhile ago.
So why do I get so fired up about a website I never used in the first place? Because I give people too much credit, that's why. I was first exposed to MySpace by searching technorati and ending up in "the blogs". Believe it or not, not ALL MySpacers are completely illiterate retards. A few made excellent points regarding DRM, media and political collusions, and the evils of Fox News. But when all of this "dissent" can be bought up by "the enemy" in 5 minutes, and NO ONE EVEN CARES, it simply blows my mind.
But then I admit to myself that I still use Google, and therefore, am an ugly stinking hypocrite according to my own psuedo-morality.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson: D'oh.
Don't worry, MySpace is doomed (Score:2)
* Insert your value for eventually to see if doomed applies to you.
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Apathy 2.0 (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:3, Funny)
antidisestablishmentarianists
you: 0
grammar nazis: 1
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
You see MySpace as a threat? I didn't read that in your parent post. Care to elaborate?
Well, since you asked so nicely, sure. Ok everyone, tinfoil hats on...
Turn on your TV. If you're like me, you probably have well over 100 channels available to you. As such, you would probably mock any talk of "conspiracy" as absolutely silly; after all, who could control all those channels? But take a closer look. How many of those channels are owned by News Corp [wikipedia.org], Warner Bros [wikipedia.org], Disney [wikipedia.org] or Viacom [wikipedia.org]? Why, almost all of t
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
But I don't see the big problem with MySpace, i.e. with MySpace being a threat. Of course, I'd rather like it to be independant and not controlled by a big media corp
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
As long as they don't censor anything (e.g. if you can't blog about how the latest product of parent company sucked), I don't see the threat.
Threat: they *could* censor.
Bigger threat: are you sure they don't already?
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Bigger threat: are you sure they don't already?
But that is the theoretical "threat" of every website that you don't control yourself. If there is evidence that they censor, I would be on your side, but I haven't heard of any. As it stands now, I would be more concerned about "censorship" on
A healthy dose of alertness is always good, but calling a threat without evidence is uncalled f
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
Re:MySpace is a lost cause (Score:2)
hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hmmm... (Score:3, Funny)
Q. Why won't the AIDS virus infect Scientologists?
A. Professional courtesy.
Terrible Article, Dead wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
The person (author of the article?) got a video link to a video from Zango which was DRM'd. The DRM is what makes your Windows Media Player popup that window. The file's DRM tells the Windows Media Player what URL to pull up. Anyways, all this person did was post a DRM'd video.
What a stupid article.
Re:Terrible Article, Dead wrong (Score:2)
Gone Wrong, Indeed (Score:3, Insightful)
Schwab
Re:Gone Wrong, Indeed (Score:2)
"Viral marketing gone wrong?" Sounds like it's doing exactly what it was designed and intended to do.
I believe that "wrong" is intended in a moral sense, not a functional sense. English is such a fuzzy language....
the world is just (Score:2)
wmplayer alternatives? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:wmplayer alternatives? (Score:2)
Zango at TechCrunch (Score:2)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/10/zango-brings
MySpace are no strangers to the Spyware business (Score:3, Interesting)
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P
It sure sounds alot like it's describing much of what myspace is, and myspace is a "deleware company" in the US and subject to US laws.
As for their kind fondness of spyware, see the citations below for more info.
Birds of a feather they say.
http://www.intermixedup.com/ [intermixedup.com]
"Intermix Management and other Insiders sold approximately $25 million of Intermix stock in full knowledge that the New York State Attorney General (NY-AG), Eliot Spitzer, would soon file a lawsuit against the company for
certain adware promotion activity. Management and Insiders sold vast quantities of stock before disclosing this critical information appropriately to the rest of the marketplace. "
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Bloggers_investigate_
"Actually, MySpace had simply shut down and become ResponseBase-- as evidenced by the "Freebies" newsletter above. ResponseBase also used a list of 8 million e-mail addresses purchased from Xdrive for their newsletters. In 2002, ResponseBase was booted from their ISP as an illicit spam organization-- with Tom Anderson himself listed as their billing contact. And later still, ResponseBase would be renamed to MySpace."
"Intermix Media itself has a tangled history. In 2004, Intermix (then operating as eUniverse) was named as a spammer organization on USENET. It purchased ResponseBase, shut down its operations, and reformed it as MySpace. On April 28, 2005, Intermix was sued by the State of New York for installing malicious spyware over the Internet. According to their press release:"
What bozo at Microsoft put this into their player? (Score:2)
It's not Myspace. It's Microsoft. Why, for whatever reason, should Windows Media Player download and start an executable file from an unknown party?
Here's what Microsoft put in Media Player 10. See Windows Media Digital Rights Management (security) [microsoft.com]. (Not your security; the content owner's security.) To play a packaged digital media file, the consumer must first acquire a license key to unlock the file. The process of acquiring a license begins automatically when the consumer attempts to acquire the pa
Can you lock down a windows XP box? (Score:2)
That being said, are there ways without special software to lock down a windows xp machine so your kid or niece or whoever couldn't inflict this kind of damage on it?
I'm really just curious, this isn't a pressing issue for me.
Let me clear up this misconception (Score:2)
Viral marketing will never "go right" for anyone except the ass-sucking, bottom-feeding marketers who come up with it. Happy to help.
Cross Posting on Myspace.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anytime you cross post to content on another server you run the risk of a "switch" at anytime.
Re:just another reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:just another reason... (Score:2, Funny)
your overconfidence is your weakness (Score:3, Informative)
Re:your overconfidence is your weakness (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not saying that you couldn't infect a Linux user with an exploit of code in a video file, I'm just saying that because of the wide variety of different (video player) software options and system configurations across the
Re:I don't get it? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't it worth it? (Score:3, Insightful)
FYI, most of them are actually guys. Older guys. With all kinds of cooties.
Re:Isn't it worth it? (Score:2)