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Free Web Hosting a Fount of Malware
daria42 writes "It looks as if free Web space services are increasingly being used to host spyware, with Internet security firm Websense claiming more of such dodgy material was found on free hosting services during the first two weeks of July than in May and June combined. "These fraudulent, free personal Web sites have an average lifespan of two to four days, making them difficult to trace," said an executive from the company."
I'd say that the gov't should make these companies provide more authentication, but all it would do is prove a barrier against legitimate users while the criminals would just find a way around.
Outlawing free/homesteading sites would be likely be found unconstitutional in the U.S. and it would be a big fight to remove the safe harbor provisions for such sites to make them responsible for their users' malicious activities. I really don't know what we could do at a legislative level. At a personal level, I just refuse to visit any sites at angelfire, geocities, et al.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Next thing you know, the malware authors will just host stuff from infected PCs. I'm sure you can run a basic web server pretty easily.
I've been paying GoDaddy to host my Malware all this time?!
Spammers and crackers abusing free internet facilities?! Perish the though.
It's not just fake hosting services with malware and other phishing scams. It's getting so that one gets suspicious of any kind of new service that crops up on the web. The other day, I got excited seeing this service that promised to turn my blog contents into a printed book. I tried it, but then got worried that it was a phishing scam. And cancelled my attempts to use the service. What does mean for the promise of "web services" in general? More on the "blog into book" experience here: ahref=http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/s_11.htmlrel= url2html-21790http://mp.blogs.com/mp/2005/07/s_11. html>
Does anyone know how effective these schemes really are? Is there a study that measures how effective this is?
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
I was wondering, how do these people typically register accounts with free web services? Our site was having a problem with comment spam, so a CAPTCHA test tends to do the trick basically all the time. On the other hand, I've also heard about defeating the test by starting a porn site and then taking the image and showing it to visitors and basically just having them type the right answer and they get to see 10 pictures or something. What we ended up doing was a word riddle, like "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy ___s" or "3 + 5 = _" So if automated registering of these accounts is a problem, that's what I would suggest. Or you could surely just prohibit any files with a .bat or .exe or .whatever extension, and only allow .html, .gif, .jpg, .png, .wav, .txt, and a few more. I mean, if it's a free service, you get what you pay for. If you really need to host programs it shouldn't be too much trouble for you to buy something for $5/month. All in all this doesn't really seem like that outrageous of a problem.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
Considering that it is in their best interest to make their scams believable, I'm actually surprised that they would refuse to pay for legit hosting. I'm guessing hosting costs are a tiny portion of the profit they expect to make.
Of course, these idiots who use free web space are probably bottom-of-barrel scum.
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
The dilemma is... if they got rid of free hosting. Then only those who can afford $$ monthly hosting bills can host. It's tough to shoot for democracy when only people with money can have a voice online. Let's not tear down the tree and the whole neighborhood due to a couple bad apples.
Does anyone know how effective these schemes really are? Is there a study that measures how effective this is?
The type-in is called a CAPTCHA (an acronym for "completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart"). They can be fairly effective, but all they do is block robots from setting up an account. If I need 10 accounts, I don't necessarily need to automate it. CAPTCHAs are more often used effectively to block bulk botting stuff like blog spam, signups for free mail accounts, or other services (like whois at Netsol.com or Godaddy.com) prone to abuse and they can work well if well designed. But, again, they're to prevent robots from doing something, not humans.
Now, as CAPTCHA's get more obscured to try to defeat more sophisticated OCR elements, they become more difficult for humans to read. I recently developed one that I may use on some of my sites that uses identifying the contents of pictures. Demo here. Some of the people I've had test it said it was fun and they actually played it like a game.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
I read that and at first glance thought it was a typo. But it's true that you don't see that word much. "It is a fount and or plethora of ..."
My humor is probably your flamebait
Only people with money can get on-line. The vast majority of blogs and forums out there (Slashdot included) are populated entirely by people wealthy enough to afford an Internet connection of some sort. You don't see working-class people at the library updating their politiblogs because OMG did you see what Koz said this morning about the deficit what a total wonk I am totally trackbacking him right now!!!
For more information, click here.
Calling them a "Security" firm is whitewashing who they really are.
read the article on Censorware.
Actually, fount is the British and the old poetic spelling of font. When this spelling is used, it generally means a fountain, spring, or source. Using the modern spelling, a font refers to a basin for baptizing people or holding holy water, (sometimes also called a laver), although it can refer to the old useage as well. However, I don't think the word can be used to mean "plethora".
...En að Besta Sem Guð Hefur Skapað Er Nýr Dagur
this is why its so important to recognize the unique sociological challenge of the URL.
it is a namespace. thus, portions of it will be a BRAND space.
either people recognize when they are culting, or they don't. times that they do, are often predicated on the formulation of identity.
the URL is a human blank page. if you don't know the URL, don't go there...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
However, I don't think the word can be used to mean "plethora".
I've actually heard it a whole lot, but my parents were always big on vocabulary. At least in US English there's no "u" in font though:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=font
Specifically:
An abundant source; a fount: She was a font of wisdom and good sense.
(you have to look at fount to see that the "u" is deprecated)
Culture is more than commerce
I hope you're not serious.
People that don't know even the basics of HTML, or how to create a website shouldn't be allowed
You're right, only people who already know everything should be allowed to attempt anything. Let's keep math books out of schools and close the freeways, because only mathematicians and NASCAR drivers have any right to numbers and cars. I don't know about you, but my first site was almost 10 years ago on Angelfire, and it was crap as all of them are. Then I bought books, viewed source, and have done a number of sites professionally with all that fancy high-tech wizardry I never would have even known existed if I hadn't started somewhere.
Maybe this would also get rid of the million's of those MySpace or Piczo type websites that plague the internet with the writings of illiterate 13 year old girls.
Sure, their sites might be pointless and juvenile, but I can't remember the last time I spent an hour reading a site before slapping my forehead and saying "Oh, now I understand why this sucks, it was written by a 13 year old!" That just doesn't happen, because the only people who ever end up at those sites are the 13 year olds who write them and their other 13 year old friends. This "plague" does not affect most people in the slightest, and if it affects you then perhaps you shouldn't be allowed to use the internet because of a lack of basic navigation skills.
People can be so quick to discourage and dismiss beginners, it makes me wonder how anybody ever learns anything.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Don't numerous ISPs throw some free web page space, quite often WITHOUT pop-up ads or such ad-related garbage?
I mean with Comcast and its millions of customers, you get some web page space to hotlink images, etc. Sure, you can't do certain questionable web pages(hacking, porn, etc), but still it is included with the cost of your monthly bill.
Heck, even AOL has web page space.
Again, if there's malware being sent out on free web page sites, perhaps its time for them to go.
Spammers simply proxy the CAPTCHA images, and re-present them on their own sites. Users of their sites then process the CAPTCHA for them, and they turn around and use the user's input to register on the original site.
For example, say compuporn.com wants free geocities accounts. compuporn.com offers free memberships on their site; when Joe Sixpack loads the signup page, compuporn.com runs a script that starts a new registration at geocities.com, and copies the geocities CAPTCA image, presenting it to Joe Sixpack at compuporn.com. Joe Sixpack puts the correct string in for the CAPTCHA, compuporn.com takes Joe's string, and uses it at geocities.com.
Viola. Compuporn.com has a new geocities account, without any OCR, and without any employees of Compuporn.com interpereting the CAPTCHA by hand.
Your CAPTCHA is not immune to this attack either.
This is why the first amendment is more properly phrased like this: You have the right to speak, but you do not have the right to be heard. There is, likewise, no obligation to facilitate the speech of others.
If it's not feasible to give away web space for free, for whatever reason, it will disappear, the same way free dialup accounts and AllAdvantage disappeared. There is no "they" here, only the collective actions of every ISP and web host in the world. They don't let you on the radio or on TV or in newspapers for free, why aren't you complaining about that?
Researchers have discovered that the Microsoft Windows operating system (all flavors) has been hosting spyware, virus and other malicious crap that comes off the Internet and spreads it to other computers attached to the same LAN at a faster rate than any other time in the last 10 years. Microsoft released a statement saying that Windows does it better than Linux and encouraged all users to immediately upgrade to Windows Vista. :P
John Leyden at The Register has a slightly different take on this story. Essentially Websense is a company trying desperately to sell its "security products" through a campaign of FUD and blatantly obvious "alerts". I think most people here see this as the latter, while most of Websense's target audience probably fall into the former target audience.
This is extremely short sighted. When I graduated high school I had a decision to make. Proceed onto college at a very good and prestigious school, or continue my life of amateur and professional ski competitions (err... the stuff you see in the X-games if you watch that kind of thing). I chose college because I didn't know where I'd be at 30 after a skiing career. Most of my friends went the other route. For three years many of them have been in various ski bum situations where they are homeless living out of a van, or going couch to couch. Internet forums, postings, and bloggings via the public library were the only way for my friends to stay in contact with the outside world and keep up to date on competition updates or aiding the search for sponsorship opportunities. Conversely if you were someone who was out of work and money was tight. You might use the library to search for work, or keep a resume or blog on free hosting in order to better chances (however small) at future employment.
The assumptions you make in this reply are ridiculous. If you own skis you are not poor? This assumes the skis are recently bought. Of course you totally ignore the possibility that they were owned before someone was a ski bum. Slacker living off other people? Tell this to the hundreds of ski bums who spend their nights working restuarant jobs to make rent in the small apartment they usually share with 4-5 other people. Come back home? You assume their parents support them being ski bums... I can tell you that this is definitely not the case. This makes it sound like any struggling artist or writer who is out living in a similar manner doesn't have it rough because they could easily just return home. Besides, who says these ski bums, or artists, or writers are complaining. They're attempting to live their dream! The fact that free hosting services help legitimate people who are currently financially strapped is a postive thing! The fact that people always have a choice to lead a different life that may be more financially secure is a piss poor argument for requiring payment for web services. The world would be pretty stale if everyone only took paths that were financially conservative from a well-being standpoint.
Free hosting, in promoting both free's, does a great job. Unfortunately, it just takes a couple bastards to ruin it for everyone else.
Free as in speech hosting is different. The key here is to not charge too much, and to put in place your hosting policies to afford as much privacy as you possibly can. Here is an example of what I have learned, YIAAH (yes, I am a hoster):
Basically, be honest and up front, know your limits, ensure your operation is financially viable, and know your shit. Getting into the hosting business sounds a LOT easier than it really is. If you get into it for moral purposes like me (as part of a not-for-profit incorporation), it is even harder. Free as in speech hosting is NOT a cash cow. There are also few rewards and thanks. Your days will be spent not only providing services equal to other top hosters, but without the benefit of a fat paycheck (or any paycheck at all).
The rest of your time will be spent always looking over your shoulder for complaint e-mail. If you host bands, maybe one of them slips in a copyrighted song on their hosting, and one wrong move with the RIAA can shut you down. Maybe someone makes a threat via e-mail, and then you have someone demanding user identity, or trying to enforce the Patriot Act on you. Maybe a site ju
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