Port attacks from ads

No Such Agency

New member
WTF?! After Tony\'s latest exasperated departure due to some kind of ad-based malware attack... I think the ads for this site need to be restricted to ones that we can actually trust. And \"subscribe to the site then\" is not a solution, a reputable site - even a free one - should not serve content that attacks the users\' machines.
 

Dragonsreach

Super Moderator
Staff member
As Chern Ann stated in a previous thread on this topic:-

Please let him know the origin of the offending advert and he will do what he can to get it stopped.



In the meantime please take care to ensure that your pop-up blocker is correctly set up and your Anti-virus and Mal-ware protection are up to date.
 

krom1415

New member
lol, ok heat of the moment sort of thing, but I did cut my last post down considerably.

There must be a solution to all of this.
This site is the best there is, of that I have no doubt, but first we have the continued voting snipers, which could easily be eradicated by using what already in place and, stopping people voting when not logged in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then we have this.......... the solution is in our hands
 

DrEvilmonki

Active member
While there is nothing wrong with being passionate about the site most of use hang out on (and cherish so) we should give Chern Ann a bit of a break.

He has asked for information so that he can figure out what ad is causing the problems.
If you are having an issue then get the info so something can be done about it.
 

Ogrebane

Active member
Thats something we must all remember. This is not our site it belongs to Chern An and Borg and they do need to make some money so this site can stay afloat. Help him out by reporting the offenders to him.
 

Queequeg

New member
First, let me say that I just wanted to give a heads up. I am new to the site and forums, and I didn\'t take the time to search for related postings. I didn\'t want to start a flame, and this sort of thing can snowball into just that. I used to play Unreal and Unreal Tournament. A good friend and I ran Unrealengine.com and it was a one-stop-shop for people in the community that wanted the latest news from Epic megagames, download user-made maps, tips, etc.

That being said, running a website of this magnitude is a MASSIVE endeavor.

Being lucky enough to catch the eye of advertisers and having them pay you for placement is a huge bonus. Without it, most of us who create, manage and maintain websites like these would just have an entrepreneurial seizure and go tits up. Been there.

So, I\'ll do my best to track the attack. It tried to get in on port 2818 as I recall. I\'ll do some more digging.
 

Queequeg

New member
I got another attack to happen, different port attempt. I took a screenshot of the norton alert this time:


security_10_14.gif


Culprit is atdmt.com

ATDMT.com is a TRACKING COOKIE (Any cookie that is shared among two or more web pages for the purpose of tracking a user\'s surfing history)

There are hundreds of such cookies, this one has been around for about 3 years. It is hard to say which ad it was attached to, since the ad was unable to be viewed thanks to the block that I have Norton set up to perform. I would take this up with the company that is farming the ads to you, tell them that they are ass out if they don\'t clean up their act. I am sure that once you let them know that you will just go with someone else that they will go out of their way to keep the business.

-Q
 

MPJ

New member
Yeah, really disgusting! :cussing:

I\'m in training to be TBS who is in training to be Krom.

Seriously though, advise Chern. I don\'t have the problems... A) Paid da monies and B) Own a Mac. :drunk:
 

airhead

Coffin Dodger / Keymaster
I know that spybot just had a major update of their detection stuff.

I am on here constantly, and have never had a problem come from CMON. I am not saying that it could not happen. Just I am wondering if the popups are from cmon adds or from other software on your machine allowing popups?
 

Queequeg

New member
Sorry Airhead, that\'s not it - I can duplicate the issue by merely going through galleries here. It\'s not something else. It\'s media whores at their best trying to find a new way to squeeze pennies from your pocketbook.

For instance, if they had sucesfully installed the tracker on me, and successfully installed the tracker on say, 20,000 other visitors, you might be able to generate some pretty good data on what websites people from CMON frequent, what they buy, how much time they spend on the internet, the time of day tthey are most likely to be online, etc. Maybe even go so far as to target specific users, generating ads that they know someone might click on based on their history. It\'s a beautiful, brave new world...
 

Chern Ann

Only when they're green
Staff member
A cookie isn\'t an attack, it\'s used by the external ad agency to do ad capping and determind ad delivery, and is NAV blocking attempts to read the cookie when you visited our site, for another site that probably uses this cookie as well.

You can turn off external cookies in your browser, but be this may lead to frequency capping not working.

I have yet to verify any drive by installation attempts or exploits from any of our external vendors.

Tony just wasn\'t very happy with the type of advertisements that were coming through, and didn\'t like being asked to apply for a Green Card for a fee, a lottery which is free to enter if you know what you\'re prepared to do the work yourself.

In case that was not clear, this is harmless unless you are very strict about your privacy to the extent that you refuse to allow any sites you visit that serve EXTERNAL advertising to use cookies. That port 80 cookie retrieval is a normal part of your web browsers function.

Queequeg, if you have a log of the 2818 attempt, I\'d like to see it to check where that was coming from.
 

matty1001

New member
Originally posted by MPJ
Yeah, really disgusting! :cussing:

I\'m in training to be TBS who is in training to be Krom.

Seriously though, advise Chern. I don\'t have the problems... A) Paid da monies and B) Own a Mac. :drunk:


YEA!!! GET A MAC!!!
 

Queequeg

New member
Thanks Chern, you are right. This particular \'attack\' is harmless. But it did raise my eyebrows.
I just worry that something more serious might get under the radar, but we\'d surely catch it before it went very far.
At least you know you have people looking out for ya!
 

Mr.S.Marbo

New member
Originally posted by Wolf Fang
am i the only non suscriber not having any problems???

I am not having any problems. :)

If you have Windows then keep it up to date, always run a firewall and an up to date antivirus, be carefull what you install and what files you accept and you should have no problems. Indeed I have never had any problems whatsoever from cmon. I use firefox too...

I see nothing wrong with the adverts - keeping this website up and running costs and to me it is perfectly fair that revenue has to come from either adverts or people subscribing to the site. I rarely notice the adverts and although I shall probably shortly(ish) become a member it will be to support the site rather than to get rid of the adverts (which really don\'t bug me).
 
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