Porn Sites More Infected Than Thought 170
nk497 writes "Porn sites are five times as likely to host malware as previously thought, with 3.6% offering up a digital infection of some sort, according to a researchers who set up their very own adult sites for a new study. One reason for the high rate of malware is that the online porn industry makes use of affiliate programs, where one site will drive traffic to another in exchange for links, cash, or simply free pornographic material to use. Because such programs don't check who they're doing business with, and sites use disguised links and other clandestine methods to drive people to different pages, it's easy for criminals to abuse the system to spread malware. Researcher Gilbert Wondracek said, 'They inadvertently have created an ecosystem that can easily be abused on a large scale by cyber criminals, and that's worrying.'"
That's ok... (Score:5, Funny)
What? You mean risks to one part of the internet make it less safe for the rest of us? Gasp!
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I used to be involved in the porn business (no, I didn't fuck any girls on camera but I did get a blowjob now and then).
Did you get paid fairly once your job responsibilities spiraled?
Re:That's ok... (Score:4, Funny)
You are here cruising Slashdot, where visitors can post links and such to stories, news articles, photos, and even porn sites posted by trolls. Just because you don't visit porn sites intentionally, dosen't mean someone with bad intent won't provide a link to a site. Mods often mod them down to troll before the general public provides lots of traffic.
How do you know the link below is safe? The name of the site doesn't always indicate the contents.
http://crazybuilders.com/ [crazybuilders.com] Note, the link is safe for work.
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The end of the prop skateboard video - is that behind Arsenal Mall?
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According to quite a few people, yes. Pornography exploits women by treating them as objects or "pieces of meat" for sinful men. There are many who hold such opinions and who argument and lobby strongly for pornography to be heavily censored or more preferable banned in order to protect women and especially children.
Funnily enough, most of these same people beleive a woman's place is in the home, subservient to her husband, and largely
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I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic/rhetorical
Where I come from, we shorten that sentence to "wooosh".
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I thought so too, but then when he said, "One part of the internet make it less safe for the rest of us," I realized he really does think pornsites are bad, in the same way politicians say having a red-light district is bad for the whole city, and then bulldoze those blocks.
Simple one-person solution... (Score:2, Interesting)
For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
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I'd rather use a condom.
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For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
Except perhaps your data files.
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Assuming you mount it...
Re:Simple one-person solution... (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah as long as you don't mount, you should be okay.
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Yeah as long as you don't mount, you should be okay.
That's what SHE said.
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>>>That's what SHE said.
If you really want to satisfy a woman, bring a vibrator. Machines are faster then men.
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Huh, good sexual advice on /., this must be a first in the 10 years I've been reading it...
Then mount them read-only (Score:2)
Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
Except perhaps your data files.
A well-made live CD operating system mounts your internal drives read-only, requiring escalation to administrator (cancel or allow?) to enable writing. Your files are safe.
Re:Simple one-person solution... (Score:4, Insightful)
...nothing on your HD is touched.
What hard drive? ;-)
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"What hard drive? ;-)"
Someone with mod points mod up!
Live CD/DVD booting is handy stuff, and will keep you going even if your hard disk dies.
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(Then watch as he holds his chin, turns his head sideways a bit, and squints at you for a few seconds.)
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Because when I want to take a ten minute break for random browsing, I *really* want to shut down everything I'm in the middle of doing and reboot twice.
OTOH, if more porn sites said they were best viewed on Linux, I'm sure it would help market.. er... penetration.
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For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
Unplug your HDD too. Otherwise your Linux CD can often mount your drive read/write, and if it has a vulnerable version of FF, you're owned since the default user usually has passwordless sudo privs.
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For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
No touching. Nice.
Nope, use a virtual machine (Score:2)
For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
Why not just use a virtual machine and not save changes? It would remove the issues around your local data, and be much faster without a reboot.
You insensitive clod! (Score:2)
nothing on your HD is touched.
Some of us have floppies.
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For random web browsing on assorted sites, boot up from a Linux boot CD. Your entire OS will be in memory, nothing on your HD is touched.
Doubt the average user would do that since they either 1)don't know its an option or 2)tend to be afraid of Linux. Now, being 'tech support' for my friends I get see to see what they are doing and where. I have to admit, its seems to be quite rare that they are going to porn sites since porn sites have gotten this bad press for causing system issues. It surprised me at first but then I found out where they were all getting their 'porn fix'. Pretty much every torrent site has a 'porn' section with a huge por
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"Right, because I have nothing better to do than reboot my computer 100 times a day."
So use a Linux VM instead. It's trivially easy nowadays.
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So use a Linux VM instead. It's trivially easy nowadays.
And, to get that "live CD" behavior, configure the VM software to revert to the base snapshot each time the VM is rebooted.
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"And, to get that "live CD" behavior," just boot the CD image.
I've set up a VM in which to run LiveCD images, just to compare the various distros. The only "hard drive" available is a small swap file. I don't even need the swap file, but I supply it just in case something on the LiveCD wants to complain about the absence of the swap.
3.6% (Score:5, Funny)
Not like I've been to as many porn sites as would be necessary to be statistically likely to have gotten infected. Several times over. Nosiree!
Yea right (Score:5, Funny)
according to a researchers who set up their very own adult sites for a new study.
Strictly for research purposes :)
Re:Yea right (Score:5, Interesting)
Usage statistics for fetishes (Score:4, Interesting)
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Tags are the way to go for porn. The first person to open up a website creating lists of tag words based or MD5 sums for your porn file collection to import in a file tagging program will be rich.
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Gelbooru
Danbooru
rule34.paheal
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Or e641, but I was targeting video files. Hosting them costs bandwidth and uploading them by users just to get the tags is infeasible, thus the MD5 sums. I'm sure there are thousands of "most popular" files which are shared and not changed but have dozens of file names each. My idea is pretty much MusicBrainz Picard but for porn clips.
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No doubt the professors/ researchers got some volunteers from the local coed community.
(blinks)
So where was this site again?
Re:Yea right (Score:5, Funny)
Professor: For science!
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I blinded her with science!
Uhmm... no, duh? (Score:4, Funny)
Wow... what a shocker! Porn sites have lots of malware! Who woulda guessed?
Really... who on earth is actually surprised by this?
Re:Uhmm... no, duh? (Score:5, Funny)
Unsafe behavior leads to spread of viruses, film at eleven.
(Eleven what?)
"Film at 11" explained (Score:3, Informative)
Unsafe behavior leads to spread of viruses
We knew that qualitatively. The article provides a quantitative measure, which allows drawing stronger conclusions about how to improve security against distribution of malware through ad networks. It's the difference between "are there infections" and "how much".
film at eleven.
(Eleven what?)
Eleven hours after high noon. Before modern electronic news gathering, television news would often report the story at 6 PM and then have the "film" (footage shot on the scene) available for the 11 PM newscast.
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Later on, they realized it's also a good marketing technique. Good for the pocket-lining, not necessarily for the customoproducts[1]. Keeps people drawn in until the money-shot. "Something you eat every day might kill you tonight! Find out more after your dinner is long since consumed!)
[1] We need a new word for this. Television shows, web sites, newspapers, etc. make their money from advertising, but do provide an actual product or service to entice people to view the adverts. In other words, there a
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Before modern electronic news gathering, television news would often report the story at 6 PM and then have the "film" (footage shot on the scene) available for the 11 PM newscast.
I live in the Central Time Zone--my news is at 10, you insensitive clod!
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What would Jimmy Buffet say? Oh yeah - "It's five o'clock SOMEWHERE!"
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film at eleven.
(Eleven what?)
Eleven hours after high noon. Before modern electronic news gathering, television news would often report the story at 6 PM and then have the "film" (footage shot on the scene) available for the 11 PM newscast.
You could have said "o'clock PM" and saved 34 words, but this is Slashdot . . .
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They just did. This article is on exactly that topic. :-P
Weird (Score:4, Insightful)
Weird.
That is WAY lower than I'd have expected.
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Alternatively (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know the stats, but maybe it's more correct to say that malware sites are more likely to host pornography than they are to fall into other categories? It's probably the best way to attract large streams of users.
Re:Alternatively (Score:4, Interesting)
Ya I think you need to work to separate sites that happen to have porn on them for various reasons, and sites who's business it is to sell porn. Just because a site has porn on it doesn't make it a porn site, at least not for a useful definition of the term. Now while I'm sure there are actual porn sites that are shady, I'm betting that there are far less than shady sites that try to use porn to lure people. After all, if your business is charging people a monthly fee for access, you want to keep them happy. Infecting them would be stupid. So you make a few bucks for the malware infection, but lose $20+ per month because the subscriber goes elsewhere.
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Well, there are tons of ways to attract large streams of users, but I think you are write hear. From what I have seen, most porn sites infected with maleware are literally stealing the porn from other sites, none of it is original, and you can never actually reach good porn, just links to porn that link to virii.
To be honest, it sounds to me like the porn industry hates those bastards as much as we do.
Also, having a stream of users that is not in a clear state of mind, frantically looking for something goo
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I think you are write hear.
Holy homophones, Batman!
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but I think you are write hear.
man, are you using some kind of voice recognition or something?
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Took that long to whack off? You need to visit better porn sites, or work on determining your exact fetish.
Some ROM sites are clean (Score:2)
We saw the same thing with captcha cracking porn and rom sites.
But some ROM sites are clean. Wii Shop Channel has plenty of (legit commercial) ROMs; the only viruses it has are in Dr. Mario Online Rx. PDRoms.de also has plenty of (legit freeware) ROMs; the only viruses are (again) in the occasional Dr. Mario clone.
Just like in real life... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just like in real life... (Score:5, Funny)
Fortunately, slashdot users never run into that sort of "real life" problem.
Funny Off-Topic-But-Related Note (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a facility where a large number of our computers are for public use. We do not filter access (but if children are near someone known to be surfing porn, we have that person stop surfing such material). We all know some people choose to surf porn here, though it boggles the mind why.
One day, I saw an older lady take a wet-nap style cleaning towel from the container we provide and begin cleaning the keyboard with it. I expressed my concern over using a WET-nap for an electronic part (they're for cleaning the desk, seat, hands, etc.).
Lady: But you know they watch porn on these PCs, right? ....?
Me: Yes. We aren't allowed to filter the content. But cleaning the key...
Lady: And you know these porn places are infected with all kinds of viruses, don't you?
Me:
Re:Funny Off-Topic-But-Related Note (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the kind of person that surfs for porn in a public place is the kind you want to clean up after, computer viruses or not. She's making a smart move, if for the wrong reason.
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On the other hand, the kind of person that surfs for porn in a public place is the kind you want to clean up after, computer viruses or not. She's making a smart move, if for the wrong reason.
She should just glove up before keyboarding if she's that concerned. That even reduces the risk of getting a cold. Places that provide public-use computers might even want to make gloves available.
But-Related (Score:4, Funny)
Haha, you said but-related.
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Who and where is this facility? :P
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Bad Advertisers in General (Score:5, Insightful)
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Monetizing adult sites is a difficult proposition. Selling material directly is difficult, with so much available for free. Setting up donations for adult sites is nearly impossible for a multitude of reasons, and mainstream advertisers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft won't touch them. To top it all off, you are paying for even higher bandwidth costs.
So when someone creates a large adult site, and starts feeling the pinch of hosting costs, the "Get 25 cents per visitor who installs our software! We're not
Gambling sites (Score:2, Insightful)
probably take a close second to pron.
It's a ripe environment for scammers (Score:5, Insightful)
You reminded me of this (Score:2)
Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)
Porn Sites More Infected Than Thought
I'm pretty sure "thoughts" aren't subject to the same kinds of infections...
Right but they... (Score:2, Funny)
Yikes I read that title wrong... (Score:2)
At first I thought it said "Porn Stars More Infected Than Thought"...
safe sex (Score:2)
Is there any kind of sex that is safe? Real sex and netsex can result in an infection.
Re:safe sex (Score:5, Funny)
Is there any kind of sex that is safe?
My dog humping your leg?
Anyway, here's a true story:
When I was self-employed, my dog, Jake, used to lay on the floor by the check-out counter.
One day while a guy was checking-out, Jake started licking his balls.
Seeing this, the guy commented, "Gee, I wish I could do that!"
I replied, "Go ahead--Jake won't mind.
Re:safe sex (Score:5, Funny)
Clarification:
One day while a guy was checking-out, Jake started licking his (Jake's) balls.
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I was kind of freaked out at first. Trying to imagine a store where someone would put their (naked) balls on the check-out counter. For whatever insane reason I kept imaging it being the local hardware store, probably because there is a dog there too.
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Selecting targets... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think most of us realize that scammers, cheaters, criminals, and fraudsters prefer 2 types of targets:
1) Those who are safe/easy prey.
2) Those who they can justify doing it to, or even deserve it.
Because of too many people find porn to be embarrassing or shameful, some people may not want to report or fight back. They make themselves into easy marks. Also, it's easy to find people who want porn, especially free porn (because of embarrassment, lots of people don't want their identities and payments traced back to them for these sites).
Also, because porn is perceived as such a shady thing, it's easy for some to justify screwing over these types of people.
In the end it's about getting away with it without being plagued by a guilty conscious.
Obligatorily Sinfested (Score:2)
share! (Score:3, Funny)
links, please.
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from tfa: "More than 90% of the 35,000 pornographic domains analysed in the study were free sites."
links, please.
Forget the links.
Pics or it didn't happen.
Bullshit ! (Score:3, Informative)
One reason for the high rate of malware is that the online porn industry makes use of affiliate programs, where one site will drive traffic to another in exchange for links, cash or simply free pornographic material to use.
No, it's totally wrong.
It's simply because the most dangerous ads are the ones which pay the most.
Malware authors know that if they want to infect sites, they just have to propose more money than Google's Adsense and similar companies.
They'll recover this money after a few infections.
Also, I'm pretty sure that a lot of malware authors create free porn sites, just to avoid paying for ads.
I saw that on a lot of cracks collections sites.
Does it correlate with the incidence of STD's? (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be interesting.
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Did they submit their own collections?
Porn SITES .
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I'm eating vanilla pudding.
Did you raid the refrigerator at the F&E clinic?
Re:So basically (Score:4, Informative)
Actually no. Sex professionals take their occupation quite seriously. It is the non-professional who is lose and fast with their machines and their sexual practices. Do you think just "keeping a high moral standard" will keep you safe? Think again.
Just as with computers, preventative measure and testing are needed. For me, I run Linux, Firefox, no-script and adblock. Testing isn't quite as required for me, but I routinely check processes running and the like. Sex workers frequently get tested and people in the industry know what other people in the industry have been up to for the most part. "average people" get sex diseases a LOT more often than sex industry pros.
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How much unprotected 'face shot and swallow" is there? a lot.
How much preventative measures? Very little.
How much testing? Monthly!!
But only HIV will kick you out of the business.
The other STDs are very common if scientific reports are to be believed. Outbreaks for the other stuff prevent work for a week if AIM Healthcare is to be believed.
So if you take infected as being HIV only, sure, porn stars don't hardly have it. The other stuff can be up to 30%
htt [nih.gov]
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They do test, but the window period [wikipedia.org] can be as high as three months with plain ELISA, down to a month if you spend extra for Western blot, and that means that when someone comes out positive, all his/her partners within that period have to be tested as well as their respective partners. It happened in 2004 (5 infected) [msn.com] and 2009 (16 infected) [latimes.com].
Back on topic: I haven't gotten anything from the web *ever*, perhaps for the simple discipline of not authorizing ActiveX components, applets and other gimmicks.
But tha
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Back on topic: I haven't gotten anything from the web *ever*, perhaps for the simple discipline of not authorizing ActiveX components, applets and other gimmicks.
But that's me; I guess less computer-literate *and* porn hungry guys make easier targets - "Yes, Ok, Yes, show me the movies already!".
I do the Linux/Firefox/Adblock/NoScript thing and also don't do the usual stupid stuff.
But that puts me in the minority and I routinely re-disinfect the computers of Windows-using friends and relatives who are not stupid and try to be careful when they browse the web or install software.
There are many ways to infect a system (even Mac and Linux) and more will always be found. It's a battle that can't be won as the economic incentive for the "enemy" is to great to cease their innovation and onslaught and the
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