My Assistant
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Kaelin'yFiae
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Feb 15 2010, 06:35 PM
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#1
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Group: Furres |
This is a heads up that the original dreamers day link purchased for us last year as a gesture of help has been maliciously redirected to another site. There is nothing I can do about this, unfortunately. I would also like to point that we have no way of knowing or controlling where this link will redirect to in the future and strongly suggest not using it.
The links in the forum threads will be updated soon with the new URL, http://www.dreamers-day.com (remember the dash in dreamers-day.com). This domain will continue to be our domain name. The Dreamers Day staff and contributors are not responsible for the content posted on the link used last year, you have a right to know that. To those of you who helped with Dreamers Day last year, or contributed or attended, I sincerely apologize. The change in last year's link is a direct response to me, and it's meant to be offensive. I'm much more offended at the insult to the event and those who participated and contributed their time and effort, which is what it boils down to. I find it despicable that anyone would choose to drag other people into their problems with me. |
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Squizzle
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Feb 15 2010, 06:44 PM
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#2
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Group: Furres |
Whoever wrote that Encyclopedia Dramatica article on Furcadia really hates this game lol.
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Rat The Unloved
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Feb 15 2010, 06:48 PM
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#3
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Group: DEP Staff |
As before, I'll continue directing folks to the new URL, and try to update all my old links.
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Felorin
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Feb 15 2010, 06:51 PM
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#4
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Group: DEP Admins |
I would just like to warn people against going to the old URL out of curiosity. I went to look at both versions because I feel I should keep track of what's going on with our community, especially involving possibly our best player-organized event ever. When I looked at the old, redirected one and clicked on its main link (which goes to another site), I found a trojan popping up on my computer. It's called Vista Guardian, and it pretends to be an anti-virus or anti-spyware program. What it actually does is lie to you and say your computer has a lot of infections, so that you'll pay for a "full version" to fix everything for you.
I recommend not going to that link at all. If you do get Vista Defender installed on your machine, you can use Task Manager to kill av.exe, and there are full removal instructions at http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-vista-guardian.html that you can follow. I've already removed it, I'm also going to go update my Internet Explorer to the latest version, in hopes they have a fix in it for whatever security hole allowed that website to install this thing in the first place. I'm very sorry that anyone would choose to interfere with or demean all the time and effort that many talented and creative members of our community put into making Dreamer's Day a fun and beneficial event for everybody in Furcadia. Even people who didn't attend have benefitted without realizing it - if you visited a dream this year that used some patches its owner got from last Dreamer's Day, then it touched your life in some small way. I would encourage everyone to check out the info at the new address, and find out all about what was a really great event last year, and probably will be again this year! |
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Xxysthstris
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Feb 15 2010, 06:55 PM
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#5
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Group: Furres |
If possible, you way want alert the domain host, http://ace-host.net/, of the virus and harassment. Typically domain hosts don't put up with that kind of nonsense.
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Squizzle
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Feb 15 2010, 06:58 PM
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#6
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Group: Furres |
Running XP and 2 virus protectors and I didn't get that virus. Going to find a webservice that checks sites to see what you guys are talking about.
Hmm run a WHOIS on the site. Nice info there. Dunno if its data of the new host or original host. |
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Calib
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Feb 15 2010, 06:59 PM
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#7
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Group: Furres |
WTF, man. o.0 Thanks for the warning. You'd think people would have better things to do with their time and money than to pick on volunteer groups...
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Squizzle
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Feb 15 2010, 07:04 PM
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#8
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Group: Furres |
Oh I probably didn't get it cause I'm running Firefox.. Gotta love Firefox.
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Kaelin'yFiae
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Feb 15 2010, 07:11 PM
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#9
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Group: Furres |
I'd like to ask a favor, that if anyone on the forum finds a link to the malicious URL that still exists in a thread somewhere, please PM it to me (or a moderator, if that's applicable) so it can be changed or removed. I don't want anyone to get a virus because of this.
Please don't post a comment linking to it, lest curious players might go there and click without realizing. |
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Turquoise
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Feb 15 2010, 08:26 PM
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#10
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Group: Furres |
Just to clarify some things:
When I go to [link to old dreamer's day page removed by moderator] there is NO automatic redirect and nothing suspicious embedded in the page. the image link WHEN CLICKED directs you to [link to Encyclopedia Dramatica removed by moderator] TO CLARIFY: THERE IS NO VIRUSES ON THIS PAGE. STOP SCARING PEOPLE FOR NO REASON. The ED article on Furcadia, which may or may not have a popup ad no different then you might come across any time you are surfing the internet, may or may not be assocuated witha false antivirus software. I have seen those popups everywhere. I have not managed to receive the popup claimed to be associated with this website. It is a simple non threatening website setup, not worth scaring people over. And, to quote the page source, showing no faulty content to frighten this community QUOTE <html>
<head> <title>Furcadia DreamersDay 2010</title> <meta name="description" content="This is the website home of Furcadia's Dreamers Day 2010! You will find all the information you need about Furcadia's artists, patches, and the entire Dreamers Day 2010 event."> <meta name="keywords" content="Furcadia, DreamersDay, Art, Artist, Patches, Portraits, Free"> </head> <body> <center><h1>Furcadia is like a bad dream.</h1> [link to ED removed by moderator] <img border=0 src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bo8CefvclIg/SoyZ...0/Bad.Dream.jpg" /></a> <h3>Dreamers Day 2010!</h3></center> </body> </html> |
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Nemo
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Feb 15 2010, 08:34 PM
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#11
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Group: Furres |
Regardless of whether or not the site contains a virus (I have reason to believe that ED was responsible for my getting a virus on my old computer), it still contains pornographic and homophobic comments, along with many other things that reflect the bad taste and inhumanity of its authors, and therefore isn't exactly the kind of site that should be linked to on these forums, IMO.
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Turquoise
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Feb 15 2010, 08:44 PM
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#12
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Group: Furres |
That is a valid point and likely the ONLY thing that people should be made aware of.
I have visited the ED website hundreds of times, with no issue of virus or trojan, personally. However to make this out to be some kind of malicious attack on peoples hard drives is an unnecessary arousal to people. |
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Rat The Unloved
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Feb 15 2010, 08:47 PM
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#13
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Group: DEP Staff |
The site still claims to be affiliated with Dreamer's Day. It is not, this is false at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Accordingly, it ought to be changed.
To someone unaware of the situation it looks like, maybe, the event has been given a "theme" for this year (nightmares), and that the main .com is a splash page, linking to the site proper. They do not anticipate a need to carefully screen the URL on their browser's bar before-hand, seeing as it was formerly the short-hand to get to DD's google pages. ED is an extremely vulgar, offensive, site in and of itself. While a few articles are informative about certain things going on (Anonymous' Raids on Sci-centers), the language is intentionally, overwhelmingly, hostile. Pages are routinely topped with rather graphic (even pornographic) imagery, and linking persons to this without informing them of what it is is in very poor taste. Of sites I routinely visited in the past, ED gave me the most virus warnings by a large margin (followed by netphoria and Devart). Not everyone will be effected, however, it's a pretty serious security risk to go to that site, especially if you are not computer-savvy (i.e. running the latest browser or antivirus versions, and unaware that things can spoof and pretend to be something they aren't... like websites you used to go to). The whole picture can sum up rather poorly to someone unaware of what's going on. They went to check out info about this year's DD, they clicked a link, they saw some really nasty photos, rude language, and confusing stuff about the game, they may even get a rather nasty virus. They think what they're looking at is officially associated with DD, and are understandably mad. If someone wants to take a jab at Kae, why do something which impacts the -community- so adversely? |
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Dream Dancer
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Feb 15 2010, 08:55 PM
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#14
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Group: DEP Staff |
ED uses an unscrupulous ad server which will not be mentioned that uses a seriously twisted means to acquire the contents of the advertisement for the popup, a practice generally used by scammers and spammers to hide the true source of their content. I decrypted returned objects 4 deep before giving up on following the train.
ED itself is a troll site anyway, posting content for shock value over any actual real content. |
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Matter
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Feb 15 2010, 09:23 PM
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#15
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Group: Furres |
ED is definitely not a site you want to stumble upon unprepared for obvious reasons, but I've never picked up any sort of virus or spyware from it. I get more spyware/virus warnings from DeviantART than pretty much any other site I browse on the internet and its content is harmless. This is the risk that comes from browsing the internet; you will come across another website with malicious programs eventually. Yeah, you might pick up a virus from ED, but you might also pick up a virus from Disney.com or some other completely innocuous site; you should concern yourself with basic safety procedures, such as acquiring a firewall (like Zonealarm), good virus and spyware removal programs (Spybot, AVG, Avira, Avast, etc.), a browser with adblock support, and ideally NoScript (both of which can be added to Firefox and keep you pretty much completely safe from whatever sites you happen upon unless you specifically give them permission to run scripts).
While I'm obviously not applauding what this guy has done, I don't think it was his or ED's intention to infect your computer with viruses. Just make sure you do your part in keeping yourself safe from malicious programs. |
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Felorin
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Feb 15 2010, 09:29 PM
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#16
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Group: DEP Admins |
It was my assumption when I visited the site that the trojan probably came from ED, and not from that initial page linking to ED. I still felt it was important to warn people about it, as many/most people looking at that bogus Dreamer's Day page would be likely to click on it, the large central image links to ED from anywhere you click. Those that click could easily run into the same trojan I did.
If your concern is to say "That page didn't have the trojan, ED did" then posting a link directly to the ED page that infected my computer is not really a good way to help people. Accordingly, I edited your post to remove the ED links so nobody will click on them from here and go run into that (or the offensive material). When I went there I didn't click on anything on the ED site at all, the trojan got downloaded and started running on my PC and popped up in a separate window within seconds. I actually ran into a similar auto-installing trojan a week ago on a different site as well, which is what leads me to believe there's been a new vulnerability found in Internet Explorer and why I suggested people update their browser. In any case, whatever point you're trying to make, please don't post potentially dangerous links to the Furcadia Forums to prove it. Offensive links really aren't appropriate here either. Links that are both dangerous and offensive, we really don't need! I will note that this was not a lying popup ad in a browser window, as mentioned above. I've been seeing those on the internet for years now. This was an actual trojan, running its own separate process (av.exe), which had been downloaded and run automatically on my computer. Which is far, far worse. Any time I run into something like that I'm going to warn our community, especially when it's someplace some significant portion of them may be likely to go, or have been directed to or linked to from any site Furcadia players are likely to visit. I would also say that in general, you're far more likely to run into spyware, trojans, etc. on the more unscrupulous "anything for a buck" type websites who'll let just about any advertiser put stuff on their page if they pay. Compared to sites like disney.com, cnn.com, Yahoo, etc. where they are much more concerned with their reputation, and screen their advertisers (and ad-hosting services) to eliminate the ones that would include unscrupulous or dangerous coding. I'm pretty confident you won't run into that particular trojan on a site like disney.com, ever. But seeing it on a site like ED really doesn't surprise me at all. |
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Farrier
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Feb 15 2010, 10:28 PM
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#17
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Group: DEP Admins |
I searched through the database and updated three posts in the forum that used the old URL. There may be more I missed, but I should've got 'em all.
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Thomart
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Feb 15 2010, 11:32 PM
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#18
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Group: Furres |
The links in the forum threads will be updated soon with the new URL, http://www.dreamers-day.com (remember the dash in dreamers-day.com). This domain will continue to be our domain name. When you click the link you actually go to: http://about:6_0%7Chttp://www.dreamers-day.com/ instead. I think you got some random characters e.t.c in there that need to be edited out. |
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Matter
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Feb 16 2010, 12:29 AM
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#19
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Group: Furres |
QUOTE I'm pretty confident you won't run into that particular trojan on a site like disney.com, ever. But seeing it on a site like ED really doesn't surprise me at all. My point wasn't that you're going to get a virus from Disney.com, just that you should take the proper precautions to protect yourself from malware. Like I also mentioned in my post, I've gotten plenty of malware alerts from DeviantART and numerous other sites without content anything like ED. If I were to rely simply on avoiding ED-like sites, my computer would still be swimming in malware, but by using proper firewalls/malware protection/adblock/noscript functions in addition to common sense and discretion, I can rest assured that I am not going to end up with a bricked hard drive. While I don't doubt ED has some malicious programs circulating through its ad systems, suggesting that only sites like ED have them isn't true. Subscribing to an "abstinence only" policy of malware avoidance is only going to do you so much good until you inevitably get a virus from what otherwise appears to be a trustworthy site.In any case, the old Dreamer's Day URL doesn't contain any viruses and any of the viruses on the page it links to are circumstantial. While it's worth pointing out the possibility of running into some malicious programs, it doesn't look like the person responsible actually intended for anyone to contract malware and the risk should be handled just like any other site you visit, regardless of its perceived trustworthiness. |
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Felorin
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Feb 16 2010, 01:14 AM
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#20
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Group: DEP Admins |
I really don't think the question of intent of the person responsible is a significant factor in A) whether a Furcadia user should choose to go there or not, or B) whether I should warn them away from that site or not. There IS a trojan in at least one of the ads that rotates through ED, right now. It's not "circumstantial evidence", that's exactly where I watched it infect my computer from.
I agree that people should be taking "best practice" precautions now, especially since it appears there's a new browser exploit "in the wild". As I said I ran into a similar trojan last week on another site. This is particularly relevant for people who like to frequent the "rougher", less secure sites on the internet I suppose, but good practice for everyone. Would I encourage people to "make sure your browser is secure and then go to that old site", though? No, as I think most Furcadia users would find it distasteful anyway. So warning people away from it doesn't do any great harm in my view, even if some of them have their computers well enough secured to view ED pages with no risk. The site is rude and inaccurate, it links to a site much ruder and more inaccurate, and on top of that there's trojans there. Not just the "good enough to infect your naive grandma" kind, this one infected me. Thankfully only briefly because I know what I'm doing. I recommend going to http://www.dreamers-day.com instead of the old address from last year. It has actual pleasant, accurate, and helpful information related to Furcadia, instead of a bunch of ED insults and such. Whether you have good quality trojan protection or not, and regardless of anyone's reasons for doing whatever they did, my warning stands against going to the old redirected address, and my recommendation for http://www.dreamers-day.com stands as well. There's nice art there too! |
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