Slashdot Mirror
Google's Chrome Web Store Spammed With Dodgy 'Pirate' Movie Links (torrentfreak.com)
Unknown third parties appear to be exploiting the Chrome Store's 'theme' section to offer visitors access to a wide range of pirate movies including "Black Panther", "Avengers: Infinity War" and "Rampage." From a report: When clicking through to the page offering Ready Player One, for example, users are presented with a theme that apparently allows them to watch the movie online in "Full HD Online 4k." Of course, the whole scheme is a dubious scam which eventually leads users to Vioos dot co, a platform that tries very hard to give the impression of being a pirate streaming portal but actually provides nothing of use. In fact, as soon as one clicks the play button on movies appearing on Vioos dot co, visitors are re-directed to another site called Zumastar which asks people to "create a free account" to "access unlimited downloads and streaming." Google services have a history of being exploited.
YouTube is full of these videos that are titled after movies and are the correct length. But it's just a robovoice saying DMCA stops us from uploading here click the link in the description. Then they try to infect you.
The biggest search engine company in the world offering services which get exploited to help scammers make money? Say isn't so!!!
This is a scam run by Hyuna International, headquartered in Barbados, with tie-ins to the companies Playster inc., ad-center.com, adsurge.com, jomedia inc, and others.
I've been assisting the authorities with investigation of these companies for quite some time.
If you look at each of the scam sites you're redirected to (list below), you'll see that they each have their own shell company attached. I've scraped that entire list and researched most of them, and found that they're all registered to a handful of persons. You can find their names with the same method.
The scam operates on the principle of a compiled template scam page, which then auto-generates thousands of fake sites. They use eNom (known as the dodgiest of domain name registrars, they ignore all DMCA complaints and reports of spam from their hosted domains) to register the associated domains, slap on one of the shell companies and use them to launder the money and evade CC chargeback closures (when the bank refuses to do business with one shell company due to too many scam reports and chargebacks, they retire it and use another)
Anyway. Don't worry about these guys. They may be annoying for now, but the FBI is hot on their asses.
The article states that sometimes you get to zumastar, sometimes you get redirected to etnamedia. I have the full list of scam sites that you are redirected to:
(Note that due to the nature of this scam, they can regenerate and add as many sites as they like in a very short time period. This list is long, but it's not exhaustive, and it changes constantly.)
www.akaad.net,www.allriza.com,www.alriza.net,www.amoye.net,www.arvia.net
www.atlasspro.com,www.auntiefun.com,www.axele.net,www.ayito.net,www.babymedia.net
www.baconplay.com,www.basilplay.com,www.bikerplay.net,www.boinkplay.com,www.bonread.com
www.bonymedia.com,www.bookentertainment.net,www.bookfunlife.com,www.bookrefuge.net,www.bridlee.net
www.briemedia.com,www.buddyplay.net,www.coolvillehub.com,www.crushsaga.net,www.dalimedia.net
www.daydreamplay.net,www.dewymedia.com,www.dirtgame.net,www.discsplay.com,www.droolplay.com
www.ecoutenow.com,www.eonsmedia.com,www.etnamedia.net,www.etuimedia.com,www.etymonfun.com
www.eyrieplay.com,www.faderplay.com,www.favgame.net,www.filmnow.net,www.filmpleasure.com
www.fishedfun.com,www.flogame.com,www.flowerfun.net,www.funacumen.com,www.fundancer.net
www.fundimple.com,www.fundonkey.com,www.fungerund.com,www.funhamper.com,www.funlagoon.net
www.funlizard.net,www.funlocket.com,www.funlunacy.com,www.funmanger.com,www.funmarten.com
www.funmatrix.net,www.funmonger.net,www.funplough.com,www.funplunge.com,www.funrevamp.com
www.funtimesmedia.com,www.funtundra.com,www.funwraith.com,www.gamefoo.net,www.gamesheaven.net
www.gamesrockpro.com,www.geeker.com,www.genialfun.com,www.genxgame.com,www.gleekplay.com
www.glialplay.com,www.gnomicfun.com,www.goldenmovies.net,www.gravenfun.com,www.grindplay.com
www.grovelfun.com,www.hazingfun.com,www.herbalfun.net,www.hermitfun.com,www.hiyamedia.net
www.honiedfun.com,www.honkmedia.net,www.hugegame.net,www.hugestfun.com,www.hylaplay.com
www.iambmedia.com,www.iceboxfun.com,www.invokefun.com,www.jabirufun.com,www.jurymedia.net
www.karmicfun.com,www.kelpmedia.com,www.lemonyfun.com,www.liltmedia.com,www.lipsmedia.net
www.lucentfun.com,www.lunemedia.com,www.lymemedia.net,www.manorplay.com,www.mathmedia.net
www.mediahogs.net,www.mediaserf.net,www.melicplay.com,www.melodymaddness.com,www.misemedia.net
www.mossyplay.com,www.movieloving.com,www.moviemediahub.com,www.musicmaddness.net,www.newbplay.com
www.newtsplay.com,www.nipsplay.com,www.oldiesmusiccity.net,www.orcsmedia.com,www.paeanplay.com
www.parryplay.com,www.peltmedia.com,www.phasicfun.com,www.playperks.net,www.playsicko.com
www.praymedia.net,www.pupamedia.com,www.skeinplay.com,www.sutraplay.com,www.urareplay.com
www.xeniaplay.com,www.yaydigital.net,www.zealotfun.com,www.zebraplay.net,www.zumastar.com
Forget about Operation Crossfire Hurricane. This is important news we need to know!
Has anyone seen Dodgy Pirate? I saw Negro Panther but the premise was completely ridiculous. T'chamballa was a well-spoken, civic-minded black person with compassion for his fellow human beings.
Why are themes allowed to have links in them in the first place?
So I assume Google does very little checking of these things to confirm they're not complete bullshit like this?
Sadly, I'm sure a lot of people will just go "wow, free movies" and click on it.
Sadly, those people will apparently hand their credit card information to pretty much anybody, and are the causes of their own misfortune.
Jesus, stop trusting any random website. It's pretty basic stuff.
If you've been paying attention to YouTube, you might well wonder where the news is. Just a new expansion of the old scams. So they found a new marketing channel? The google of increasing EVIL only cares if they get paid for the advertising.
If the google wanted to stop these criminals, they needed to start years ago. Rather late now.
Various details available upon polite request. Otherwise feel free to do your own research.
Instead, let me just note the obvious solution: Wholesale-level anti-spammer tools to deal with the wholesale-level spammers at their own level. From that perspective, the problem is another form of abuse of the First Amendment in favor of the criminals at the cost of civil society.
By the way, I'm not sure what the scammers' real business model is. I suspect it has evolved from botnets to bitcoin mining, but the google has enough data to know for sure. If they cared and they do NOT.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If after years of exploits in the Android and Chrome app stores they still don't get it - they never will. This is the symptom of a fundamental flaw in Google's culture.
google needs to be CHARLIE HEBDO'ed into submission.
All of them need it, aphabet, twatter and faceberg.
Hit their buses with plenty of employees inside, just a few semi automatic weapons should create a nice carnage there, but if possible families and kids should get hit too.
Once that is done, you move onto southern poverty law center and then you move down the above list.
Make it scary to work for the censors.
Make it scary to provide any kind of service or support to the censors.
Make it clear you will lose everything you hold dear.
Put all the torture and mutilaation BATACLAN style on HD video for all to see and remember.
It's a test to weed out the machines. No human would click on the Rampage link.