Slashdot Mirror
The Next Ad You Click May Be a Virus
Jay notes a Wall Street Journal report about ad networks unintentionally selling empty space to malware loaders (the link is to a syndicating site that doesn't require a subscription to view). The submitter comments: "The labeling of the fake ad sellers as hackers is pretty bogus; there's no hacking involved. Simply sign up for one of these networks, create your fake site, put up another company's creative, and you're good to go." The incidents being reported go back a few months, but the pattern of this criminal activity seems to be coming clear only recently."EWeek.com, a technology news site owned by Ziff Davis Enterprise, in February displayed an ad on its homepage masquerading as a promotion for LaCoste, the shirt maker. The retailer hadn't placed the ad — a hacker had, to direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis."
I mean really, its all just semantics (and semiotics) and we're all infected...cookie anyone?
/strokes adblock
While the internet is a wonderful thing; I can't help but wonder where did all of the douchebags come from. Every liar, cheat, grifter is taking their shot at fucking up the sandbox we all play in. Its all fun and games when windows users get hosed, but after awhile even that gets old. I am just a tired old man. It makes me sad that my poor view of humanity gets reinforced every time I turn around.
...having that "Disable Advertising" checkbox from Slashdot :)
"As our way of thanking you for your positive contributions to Slashdot, you are eligible to disable advertising. "
Thank you for preventing my Gentoo Linux system for being infec...
Oh, wait...
Segmentation Fault in "Life, Universe and Everything" at line 42. Don't Panic.
Or it may win you ... A NEW CAR.
Are you prepared to take that risk?
Hmm ... that's not appearing like it should. It's spelt B-L-I-N-K, right?
Ads link to malware sites?!? YAWN!
That was quite a loud yawn.
"direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis."
Do these affect Linux or Apple PC's? I'm guessing it's the good old Windows .exe and .dll again, an exclusive Windows issue disguised as a "PC" issue.
"direct users to a Web site where harmful programs would be downloaded to their computers, says Stephen Wellman, director of community and content for Ziff Davis."
Do these affect Linux or Apple PC's? I'm guessing it's the good old Windows .exe and .dll again, an exclusive Windows issue disguised as a "PC" issue.
Yes, this is a "PC" issue, more specifically it is a "moron PC user" issue. Trust me, if the Linux and Mac marketshare were actually worth targeting for malware writers, you would see the very same kind of malware attacks succeed, because if the user clicks "Yes" to all prompts, what's there to prevent the malware from doing it's thing if it's actually designed to run on Linux.
Not clicking on banner ads isn't enough. For years I've been fine with letting any non-Flash banner ad through, but I a few months ago I finally installed Adblock after finding one too many PDF exploits being loaded through banner ad display code.
It works like this: You are minding your own business browsing some perfectly legitimate web site when suddenly you get a dialog box asking if you would like to execute the JavaScript in "this PDF document". There's no PDF in sight, no other windows, nothing else suspicious.
Oh, but you only get this dialog if you have JavaScript disabled in Acrobat (most people don't).
Internet Explorer does. Internet Explorer is so awesome, you don't even need to click on an add to get infected. It's will do all automatically for you, there is this new wonderful M$ caching feature that keep clicking the whole Internet for you. Join the botnet close to your home now, all free today thanks to IE9! Remember, iexplore.exe will be always there for you.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
You know, back in the good ol' days of yore, when the internet was young and so were we, we created a beautiful garden. We, the geeks, we came together and we built. We created flowerbeds and hacked away the weed so people could find a path through the wilderness, we invited other geeks to join us in our creation so they would maybe build something even greater on top of ours. We looked at it and saw it was stunning and beautiful, and we looked outside for the "others", the "mundanes", the average guy and we thought, wouldn't it be a great idea if they, too, could see how beautiful and magical it all is? Imagine, when we, a handful of geeks, can create such wonders, what miracles are waiting for us to see if we just let others join in the creation?
Sure, they were no gardeners, so we paved a few ways through our wonderland, lest they got their feet dirty on the muddy paths we used to walk on. And the people came. They came in, and they looked. Few wanted to create, actually, most just enjoyed the view (hey, how many gardening exhibits do you know where you can see exotic plants without having to pay admission?), some tried to plant but soon got fed up when they noticed they'd have to know a bit about gardening.
And of course, in came also the ones that find pleasure in destruction, who wanted nothing but to destroy the creations. We had to fence them in, we had to hire guards for our creations so they wouldn't get destroyed. Often enough, those guards were not good enough and quite a few beauties are no more.
Personally, I wonder if it was a good idea to unlock those doors and pave some ways.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.