find-now.info scum ass home page changing bastards...
 

Just want to thank them personally for changing my home page and modifying files on my system.

See you in court, suck asses.

Alex

That bites Alex |pissed| good luck |rasta|

Re: find-now.info scum ass home page changing bastards...
 

Are you talking about some of these sites that change the home page setting on Microsoft Explorer? That really infuriates me.

I was poking around GFY and somehow clicked on something that not only changed my browser home page, but tried to force me to download a dialer.

All of these dirty tricks ruin the industry for everybody. It only takes a couple bad apples to make the public think that ALL adult webmasters are out to prey on unwary surfers.

Even some of the forums are damaging, in my opinion. Not to put the spotlight directly on GFY, but I question some of the behavior on those boards. Adult webmasters want to be treated as professionals who operate a legitimate business, yet the personal conflict and hate language I frequently see there undermines even the best intentions. I always enjoy spirited discussion and debate, but people should remember that disagreeing with an idea is different from attacking an individual.

Ooops...

Sorry, I didn't mean to get on the soap box. Alex just got me thinking about a couple things that were running through my mind.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.


|goodnight

Get the suckers Alex! |lightsabe

Fisty, sneaky attempted to change browser settings are one thing... but this one also went in and modified the hosts file to redirect ALL searches (google, yahoo, etc) to their search page. That goes beyond a simple "screw with the browser" and changed network settings on the entire computer. This without any prompts or any other action. I have not downloaded or installed any new software on this machine, so this had to come as part of a web page or other.

Will be touching base with legal people in the morning. If I find them in the US (and the hosting says they are) then I might also forward copies off to FTC and possibly the FBI (it's a hack, after all)... if I can find the code or webpage that did it, then microsoft gets a copy as well.

fuckwads.

Alex

That really bites the wax tadpole. I'm constantly amazed at unscrupulous types that think they can get away with such crap.

Apparently I am not the only one getting hit with this one...

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/tr...=find-now.info

From nothing to ranking int he top 20,000 websites on the net within a couple of days? Hmmm....

Hello, FTC?

Alex

Alex...

Write a review for them.......

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/wr...find-now.info/

|satan|

DD

I think you'll see a heck of a lot more of this as yesterday some idiot federal judge ruled that this was ok...things like gator and others were noted as something the surfer "chose" to install therefore the courts wouldnt block the companies that install those "helpful" tools. I understand that we run into the scum suckers that do it without notifying you but they totally ignored that part of the equation and basically said go for it to these companies

Linkster, I read about that case, and all I can think of is how poor a choice of legal arguements was made, trying to using copyright issues. More improtantly, I think that they failed to show how Gator (or When U) and similar products are loaded with disclosure that is NOT complete (Gator mostly as part of a thing called "world time" that keeps your PC clock set to the right time ). There is little or no direct disclosure at the time of download of the nature of the entire product, nor disclosure of their main revenue stream, which is the entire point of the product. Setting your clock is the last thing they care about.

That they pay to have their scumware included into downloads of other products, or pay advertising companies to start downloads without request means that many of the people who have gator on their systems didn't want it to start with, and were confused / forced / errored into installing it. The uninstall process is MANY TIMES MORE DIFFICULT THAN THE INSTALL.

All of these points serve to show that the download and installation of the product is less than voluntary, and as such, the end users have not consented to having these ads shown, and therefore are not being shown in good faith.

This judge was ignornant enough to put on record saying:Freaking moron just made it easier and legal to spam, to blow a thousand popups and such because it is the burden of using the internet?

Apparently this was a tech case argued in front of a non-tech judge.

Alex

Yep...judge must use AOL :)

watching another case in Pa...looks like ISPs and colleges in Pa were directed to not allow access to hundreds of sites without a legal order...and have been (without the surfers or owners of the sites knowledge) blocking access to numerous porn sites...kinda blows up to a bigger deal since alot of ISPs cant filter sites locally (state by state) so they have filters running throughout their entire ISP network.

It will be interesting to see how many of us were affected by it...I think the EFF would love a class action on this one :)

Guys have you got an article or transcript of this "case"..

This sounds like a serious fuckup on the part of the judicial system, or something the australian government would do.. |pissed|

DD

Re: find-now.info scum ass home page changing bastards...
 

I went to find-now.info to take a look at their code but didn't see anything in the code. Maybe they served me a different page since I was using Mozilla or maybe since I'm using a Mac.

Anyway changing stuff on people's computers is just wrong. :(

Cleo, there are not doing it off their front page, it is part of some other page, probably one of the hundred plus console clusterfucks that get submitted for "review". I only found out when I started a new browser and the home page was different. Running a couple of scumware tools found about 50 redirects in my hosts file for most major search engines.

I think the idea is to get a ton of traffic, then redirect it or otherwise attempt to profit from it.

I have contacted the ISP, and I have gotten NOTHING back from them. The next version will be faxed, and the following version will go by registered letter... after that, it's lawyer time.

scummy bastards.

Alex

Here is a complete list of their redirects... pretty much every search engine going:

127.127.127.127 elite
64.191.95.139 www.google.com
64.191.95.139 google.com
64.191.95.139 www.altavista.com
64.191.95.139 altavista.com
64.191.95.139 search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 uk.search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 ca.search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 jp.search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 au.search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 de.search.yahoo.com
64.191.95.139 search.yahoo.co.jp
64.191.95.139 www.lycos.de
64.191.95.139 www.lycos.ca
64.191.95.139 www.lycos.jp
64.191.95.139 www.lycos.co.jp
64.191.95.139 alltheweb.com
64.191.95.139 web.ask.com
64.191.95.139 ask.com
64.191.95.139 www.ask.com
64.191.95.139 www.teoma.com
64.191.95.139 search.aol.com
64.191.95.139 www.looksmart.com
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com
64.191.95.139 ca.search.msn.com
64.191.95.139 fr.ca.search.msn.com
64.191.95.139 search.fr.msn.be
64.191.95.139 search.fr.msn.ch
64.191.95.139 search.latam.yupimsn.com
64.191.95.139 search.msn.at
64.191.95.139 search.msn.be
64.191.95.139 search.msn.ch
64.191.95.139 search.msn.co.in
64.191.95.139 search.msn.co.jp
64.191.95.139 search.msn.co.kr
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com.br
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com.hk
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com.my
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com.sg
64.191.95.139 search.msn.com.tw
64.191.95.139 search.msn.co.za
64.191.95.139 search.msn.de
64.191.95.139 search.msn.dk
64.191.95.139 search.msn.es
64.191.95.139 search.msn.fi
64.191.95.139 search.msn.fr
64.191.95.139 search.msn.it
64.191.95.139 search.msn.nl
64.191.95.139 search.msn.no
64.191.95.139 search.msn.se
64.191.95.139 search.ninemsn.com.au
64.191.95.139 search.t1msn.com.mx
64.191.95.139 search.xtramsn.co.nz
64.191.95.139 search.yupimsn.com
64.191.95.139 uk.search.msn.com
64.191.95.139 search.lycos.com
64.191.95.139 www.lycos.com
64.191.95.139 www.google.ca
64.191.95.139 google.ca
64.191.95.139 www.google.uk
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.uk
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.au
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.jp
64.191.95.139 www.google.jp
64.191.95.139 www.google.at
64.191.95.139 www.google.be
64.191.95.139 www.google.ch
64.191.95.139 www.google.de
64.191.95.139 www.google.dk
64.191.95.139 www.google.fi
64.191.95.139 www.google.fr
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.gr
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.hk
64.191.95.139 www.google.ie
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.il
64.191.95.139 www.google.it
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.kr
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.mx
64.191.95.139 www.google.nl
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.nz
64.191.95.139 www.google.pl
64.191.95.139 www.google.pt
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.ru
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.sg
64.191.95.139 www.google.co.th
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.tr
64.191.95.139 www.google.com.tw
64.191.95.139 google.at
64.191.95.139 google.be
64.191.95.139 google.de
64.191.95.139 google.dk
64.191.95.139 google.fi
64.191.95.139 google.fr
64.191.95.139 google.com.hk
64.191.95.139 google.ie
64.191.95.139 google.co.il
64.191.95.139 google.it
64.191.95.139 google.co.kr
64.191.95.139 google.com.mx
64.191.95.139 google.nl
64.191.95.139 google.co.nz
64.191.95.139 google.pl
64.191.95.139 google.com.ru
64.191.95.139 google.com.sg
64.191.95.139 www.hotbot.com
64.191.95.139 hotbot.com

Kazaa put a lot of evil shit like that on you system.

Hi DDave...this article was the only one I could still find that talks about an outcome a few days later....it kinda glosses over the details of how many sites were really blocked in Pa and New Jersey
news link

The other case of the gator and whenU ads is here

Jay, no KAZAA, no shareware of any sort, nothing new on my system in a LONG time. This was dropped onto my system from someone's site, even when I am totally up to date on windows and all... someone using a new hole, or has found a new way to hide this sort of download.

Sucks.

Alex

I have a very similar problem for over a week now, and I can't get rid of it!!!

My IE start-up is redirected to http://global-finder.com/ ; this is done via some registry entry and a CSS-Hijack (that's at least what Ad-Aware tells me):

obj[0]=RegValue : SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main
obj[11/3]=RegData : SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Styles (User Stylesheet = c:\windows\web\oslogo.bmp)
obj[12/3]=RegData : SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Styles (Use My Stylesheet = 1)

Ad-Aware claims to remove the bugger, but every day I start up it's back! I removed that oslogo.bmp, which of course isn't a valid bitmap and marked as system file, next day it's back. I replace my start-up with BLANK and the next day it reads a long line like "%g%230%.....more.stuff......blank" and sure goes back to that global-finder.com or some other search page (they change randomly)! I replace start-up with a sponsor URL and the next day it's back to that long line of ASCII+blank and to their search page -
|raygun|

Oh - I love my Netscape, just a shame that some things don't work with it...

George, sounds like they have either installed something in the windows startup "run once" field, or into one of the system.ini type files to make it re-run on bootup. The registry entires are just a part of it, there is a program or programs being run at startup that is setting it back. You can keep removing the registry items, but they will whack you every time.

make sure you adaware is up to date, latest files.

If you feel confident enough to play in the registry, you might want to look for RunOnce ( HKEY_CURRENT_USER/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS/RunOnce) and the "RUN" righ above it (which has a list of what runs at startup. You will possibly find something in there.

Also, check your IE icon properties to make sure they have not added a startup file or page to the desktop icon. That is a very easy way to make sure you run their scumware code every time.

Hope some of this helps!

Alex