muckshifter
09-11-2001, 07:09 AM
An Email to me from ... http://www.htmlgoodies.com/
So, have you been surfing around lately noticing more
and more green or yellow highlighted links these days?
Right there on an otherwise well-designed page is a series
of strange links that really don't seem to carry any rhyme
or reason. Have you seen that?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, well done.
You've kept yourself clean of scumware. I've also seen
the term "theftware" used, but "scumware" has so much
more of a ring to it.
Scumware, as I saw it named by Allan Gardyne of
Associateprograms.com, is the latest in a long line of
methods to steal visitors away from your site and send
them to paying customers.
Here's the general idea. Scumware can be installed in
and of itself, but usually it's placed on a computer as an
add-on piece of software that installs right along with
something else the user downloaded. The user installs
the software and unwittingly places this scumware right into the mix.
Currently, the most popular program for delineating
scumware is named KaZaA. It's a NAPSTER-style file-
sharing program. A few other culprits include:
eZula (http://www.eZula.com)
Gator (http://www.gator.com)
Surf+ (http://www.filemix.net/)
(The Surf+ Website claims to have turned off the
scumware component.)
In each case, the programs claim to do one thing like help
you fill out forms (Gator) or help you stop pop up ads
(Surf+). Granted the software does do what it promises,
but that function is only the carrot to make you bite. The
real deal is to get a program called TopText, or equal,
onto your system.
Once TopText is on yours system, ads can be delivered
from any site through the text presented.
For the sake of argument, let's say I am a bad guy and I
decide to take advantage of scumware and sign up to be
an advertiser. I buy words. When a page loads, the
program looks for my words in the text of the page. If
the words appear, the TopText program lays a hypertext
link, through a layer or equal style of programming, over the text.
If I buy the text "HTML" I can make it so that anyone
who has TopText installed on their system will get a link
to HTMLGoodies.com when the letters "HTML" occur
on a page. Think about how successful I could be if I did
that. Anyone with TopText could go to an HTML help
site and anytime the text "HTML" appears, it becomes a
link to my site. Furthermore, if the site already has
HTML set to be a link, my link overrides theirs. Click
and you come to me.
McDonalds could use this and buy the word "burger".
That means that someone running TopText could go to
the Burger King Web site and every instance of the word
"burger" would be a link to Mickey-Ds.
Gosh.
I hate that this is happening, but you have to hand it to the
people who came up with this. It really is impressive that
anyone would think to do this, set it up to be a covert
operation, and succeed.
By this point, you may be interested in what exactly these
links will look like. Well, here are a few screen shots
from sites around the Web:
http://www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/screenshots-fg.html
http://www.takebacktheweb.com/screenshots.htm
Right off the bat, we can talk about the laws that, if they
are not being broken, are at least being bent. This
includes vandalism of Web sites, copyright infringement,
and fraud just to get us started. But that's not what bugs
me.
When I hear of a new virus being delivered via an
attachment I shake my head. When I hear that it is
flourishing because people just keep clicking even though
the last ten viruses came the exact same way, I tend to
think, "fool me twice, shame on me." This is different.
Most everyone that has this on his or her system was
tricked into installing the program.
Clicker, Beware! :eek:
Mucks
:hat:
So, have you been surfing around lately noticing more
and more green or yellow highlighted links these days?
Right there on an otherwise well-designed page is a series
of strange links that really don't seem to carry any rhyme
or reason. Have you seen that?
If you don't know what I'm talking about, well done.
You've kept yourself clean of scumware. I've also seen
the term "theftware" used, but "scumware" has so much
more of a ring to it.
Scumware, as I saw it named by Allan Gardyne of
Associateprograms.com, is the latest in a long line of
methods to steal visitors away from your site and send
them to paying customers.
Here's the general idea. Scumware can be installed in
and of itself, but usually it's placed on a computer as an
add-on piece of software that installs right along with
something else the user downloaded. The user installs
the software and unwittingly places this scumware right into the mix.
Currently, the most popular program for delineating
scumware is named KaZaA. It's a NAPSTER-style file-
sharing program. A few other culprits include:
eZula (http://www.eZula.com)
Gator (http://www.gator.com)
Surf+ (http://www.filemix.net/)
(The Surf+ Website claims to have turned off the
scumware component.)
In each case, the programs claim to do one thing like help
you fill out forms (Gator) or help you stop pop up ads
(Surf+). Granted the software does do what it promises,
but that function is only the carrot to make you bite. The
real deal is to get a program called TopText, or equal,
onto your system.
Once TopText is on yours system, ads can be delivered
from any site through the text presented.
For the sake of argument, let's say I am a bad guy and I
decide to take advantage of scumware and sign up to be
an advertiser. I buy words. When a page loads, the
program looks for my words in the text of the page. If
the words appear, the TopText program lays a hypertext
link, through a layer or equal style of programming, over the text.
If I buy the text "HTML" I can make it so that anyone
who has TopText installed on their system will get a link
to HTMLGoodies.com when the letters "HTML" occur
on a page. Think about how successful I could be if I did
that. Anyone with TopText could go to an HTML help
site and anytime the text "HTML" appears, it becomes a
link to my site. Furthermore, if the site already has
HTML set to be a link, my link overrides theirs. Click
and you come to me.
McDonalds could use this and buy the word "burger".
That means that someone running TopText could go to
the Burger King Web site and every instance of the word
"burger" would be a link to Mickey-Ds.
Gosh.
I hate that this is happening, but you have to hand it to the
people who came up with this. It really is impressive that
anyone would think to do this, set it up to be a covert
operation, and succeed.
By this point, you may be interested in what exactly these
links will look like. Well, here are a few screen shots
from sites around the Web:
http://www.freegraphics.com/zz-scumware/screenshots-fg.html
http://www.takebacktheweb.com/screenshots.htm
Right off the bat, we can talk about the laws that, if they
are not being broken, are at least being bent. This
includes vandalism of Web sites, copyright infringement,
and fraud just to get us started. But that's not what bugs
me.
When I hear of a new virus being delivered via an
attachment I shake my head. When I hear that it is
flourishing because people just keep clicking even though
the last ten viruses came the exact same way, I tend to
think, "fool me twice, shame on me." This is different.
Most everyone that has this on his or her system was
tricked into installing the program.
Clicker, Beware! :eek:
Mucks
:hat: