GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum

GoFuckYourself.com - Adult Webmaster Forum (https://gfy.com/index.php)
-   Fucking Around & Business Discussion (https://gfy.com/forumdisplay.php?f=26)
-   -   Sponsors please STOP this THEFT (part#1) (https://gfy.com/showthread.php?t=610065)

woj 05-17-2006 04:50 AM

150.......... :arcadefre

Trixxxia 05-17-2006 05:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SPeRMiNaToR
i'm 1:80ish with princess cameron. does that make me a swapper? :error

SPeRMiNaToR - this is not to you, but there will be a few disregarding alot of what's being said because they think *it can't be* because I'm still converting well.

To me, that means they either haven't had the opportunity to signup to that program/they got shutdown for other reasons/they haven't opened another account yet under another alias/or they figured the sites aren't getting enough traffic overall to make it worth it them.

Jay 05-17-2006 05:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Troels
Morozov, Alexander
555 8-th Ave #1001
New York, NY 10018
US
+1.2127367465

Although probably not real info.

I can tell you that address is a problem. Western Express I believe they are called. They are some sort of check cashing place that sends the money over to Russia, or any where in Eastern Europe.

If one of your affiliates has that address in their profile, I would take close look at their account.

Troels 05-17-2006 05:45 AM

It's the seo guys domain whois, but I know now it's fake. I don't want to post more before I get any proof, but with 3 attempted trojan installs to all surfers who land on his landing pages... well it stinks.
He gets over 100,000 surfers a day (probably a lot more), and has been installing those trojans for months now.

jimthefiend 05-17-2006 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quick Buck
Did you say rags to riches?

The rags were in 1998 when you and I were PEERS posting on netpond... the difference being that I figured out how to make money and you just stood around/stand around whining about why you cant/wont make money.

I had nothing.. shit.. zilch... I was young and poor and I turned it into an empire.

The one lesson I've learned about making money on the web is simple.. if you're hungry you'll find food :)

Weren't you saying how rags to riches was impossible yesterday?




Well said.

mOrrI 05-17-2006 08:00 AM

Sorry, but if they change the id on the urls....
how do u know if the url is fake or original?!

dcortez 05-17-2006 09:25 AM

RE: Trojan-laced sites -- I have noticed that it does not require too many clicks from top SE results to land on pages which drop a Trojan on the surfer (even the SE cached pages are not safe as they redirect).

So, the opportunity to infect large volumes of surfers with 'unfriendlyware' is significant.

But, let's not blame SEO on this - there seems to be a growing binding between 'SE guys' and affiliate traffic jacking. That's an unfair generalization.

RE: Technical remedies for 'unfriendlyware' which redirects affiliate traffic -- Do we know if these Trojans are able to actively update their sponsor link db? If they do not, then maybe sponsors could use EXPIRING affiliate codes which are generated by the afiliate in the sponsor admin area (like 'pin codes' of the old (honest) iBill days) and are passed up to the sponsor from the affiliate's website using a script which knows the correct affiliate code to be sending.

The idea is to EXPIRE the validity of the Trojans by making the codes they send invalid (ie. the infection goes stale).

If the Trojans do actively update their db on the infected computer, then firewalls should be picking up these attempts.

Of course if the Trojan simply redirects to a jacker site which bounces again to the sponsor or substitute sponsor (with the new improved expiring affiliate code) this won't work .

The other angle of expiring the Trojans is to make it more difficult for the trojans to recognize a sponsor. Similar to changing the affiliate codes, it may be cost justified for sponsors to use rotating/expiring domains to receive affiliate traffic - changing frequently enough that Trojans can't recognize sponsor hits.

RE: Affiliates reverting to paysite owners -- After further reflection, affiliates who decide to run their own paysites to recoup more of the conversions for their traffic would still be vulnerable to Page jacking.

As someone indicated earlier in this thread, a jacker can send any traffic to anywhere. So there would be nothing to prevent a surfer from being sent to a Jacker's own family of niche sites from any outbound link (sponsor program or indy paysite owner).

RE: Legal avenues -- It really is unfortunate that this 'industry' is unwilling to commit to galvanizing its constituents and establishing its legitimate place in world economy - instead it's always running from issues shooting backwards (like 2257).

Most industries can engage considerable market/trade/legal resources for problems like this one. If someone tried the equivalent of jacking Hollywood properties, you can be assured that the FBI would be on the case.

This (jacking) is commercial fraud, but because the DOJ assumes that the 'Porn' industry is always 1/2 step from illegal by (their) definitions, we don't stand a chance of garnering the kind of defence that other industries enjoy by default.

So, here is a great reminder for all of us that we really should consider working our way up a notch or two. Rather than running like lemmings to FSC whenever there is a scary peep from DOJ, we should be sorting this biz out (including serious critical peer revue) and demonstrate to those who malign or act aggregiously towards us they are subject to the same legal wrath anyone else messing with an established trade is.

SCORE Ralph 05-17-2006 09:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Troels
Yep it gives you a 404.
Go to google and search for this:
site:niigata-bandaijima.com + amateur
Have your anti-virus in order before you click a result.

Have your anti-virus up just in case... but not all on this guy's pages go to a 404, take a look at the sites listed in http://www.osee.net/1/

This guy is an affiliate of:
flashcash (id for one site:MjcyNzM6NTo4)
etu-cash (id:dcruto)

he's also pushing a bunch of other sites that dont seem to be tied to a particular program. They all have the same layout, no webmaster link, any ideas?

AlienQ - BANNED FOR LIFE 05-17-2006 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PR_Tom
We address this sort of electronic means of altering links or ID's in our terms of service for a reason (do all of your sponsors include such clauses? Maybe time to check.). As stated already, any new "whales" will always be under scutiny. Newbies dont just pop online one day and then start sending 100 joins per day.

If anyone see's this sort of thing, we absolutely want to know about it so we can confirm the activity and take action. Same with content theft, or any other attempt to defraud or mislead.

PimpRoll
AdultElite

ps: a "bounce" script could be as simple as:
Code:

<?php Header ("Location: http://www.yoursponsorcode"); ?>


V ROCKS, Pay attention to this.

V_RocKs 05-17-2006 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AlienQ
V ROCKS, Pay attention to this.


The problem with that bounce code is that you will send the surfer to the website, then every link to the join page at the website will be rewritten to include the swappers code.

SCORE Ralph 05-17-2006 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by V_RocKs
The problem with that bounce code is that you will send the surfer to the website, then every link to the join page at the website will be rewritten to include the swappers code.

Not all scripts are necessarily coded the same way. This could help against some scripts I would assume.

CaptainWolfy 05-17-2006 11:52 AM

tnx for sharing whit us good to know!

JD 05-17-2006 04:17 PM

hmmm am I getting shafted here:

1st page: 1283
2nd: 242

JD 05-17-2006 06:09 PM

bump for justice

Bake 05-17-2006 07:33 PM

Some points I would like to make.
If this problem gets big enough good afilates will leave and go eleswhere.
Ive been hacked riped off and endless other problems and there are days when I wonder why I bother. I dont really need to do this to make a living.
If the margins get even smaller. It comes dwon to whats in it for me.
I know theres a hundred newbies wanting to fill my shoes.
But none of them will last long enough to learn if his costs out strip his sales.
I guess these days maybe 1 in a 1000 newbies make it to full time and I see that growing less and less.
Sponsors that take this type of stuff seriously will get my traffic.

Tempest 05-17-2006 08:32 PM

This thread is sort of ironic given the number of sponsors happy to promote RansomWare.

dcortez 05-17-2006 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tempest
This thread is sort of ironic given the number of sponsors happy to promote RansomWare.

Exactly.

I have sponsors who swear their console-free links are clean, but when I get exits and popups pointing to sites like Movie.tv on their 'clean' links, I'm not surprised they are holding top revenue positions in the biz (and have the advertising resources to stay on top).

mryellow 05-17-2006 09:27 PM

Quote:

by now we are all well aware of these toolbars and trojans
that rewrite pages with their ref codes..
Yeah been around for ages now.

Quote:

If not ill explain a little.. there are many ways to do it , but
lets say i hacked into gfy and altered the vbulletin
database so when it displayed certain banners for
say "TCG" it would add my webmaster ref code onto the
end , randomly, only to third world ip's , ok maybe thats
atricky example , but if you dont know what im talking
about then you prob dont need to worry about it
Trojans have NOTHING to do with servers. They are a
client side program that rewrites stuff on the CLIENT-
SIDE. This is a terrible example and has nothing at all to
do with trojans. Hacking GFY's banners on the server end
would get noticed and switched pretty quickly. Doing it on
the client side is much more effective.

Quote:

Ok so we all know the problem exists , but im suprised
more isn't being done to stop it..
Like what? If morons install spyware on their computer, all
u can do is try and edumucate them, like TheHun does.


Quote:

When a good new sponsor comes onto the scene , many
people notice better ratio's , some of this is due to the fact
that these "trojans" and such havent had the time to
signup to that sponsor yet so you arent getting "shaved"
on your links to them..
This has always been a rule of the industry, since LONG
before trojans and toolbars appeared. Smart webmasters
get on early onto good sites with good content. They
promote them heavy before anyone knows about them,
even getting better payouts for giving a new site such a
boost. Then once the TGPs have wasted out the content
and the conversions drop u move to a new fresh sponsor.
Sure trojans will hurt conversion rathers, but surfers
having seen the content before is a much bigger factor.

-Ben

darnit 05-17-2006 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TopBucksTrixxxia
Another thing we can do is - cleaning it up - stop it by starting to do something to fight back by getting the word out and getting these surfers' computers clean and get them protected. Let's pull out a list of different solutions to common problems/virus scanners/trojan removers/toolbar removers and put a FPA between your disclaimer and your TGP/MGP/Hubs - put links in your member's areas, put posts in your blogs, if you do only SE work put a link to a reliable source - Let's get the VIRAL EFFECT TO WORK FOR US INSTEAD OF AGAINST US - it will only help your bottom line in the end.

I think that is a great place to start and is a very simple and effective tool that webmasters of all sizes can use to combat the problem.

Great thread. Lets keep the discussion going as this is a very real problem that has a very real impact on everyones bottom line.

KrisKross 05-18-2006 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darnit
I think that is a great place to start and is a very simple and effective tool that webmasters of all sizes can use to combat the problem.

Great thread. Lets keep the discussion going as this is a very real problem that has a very real impact on everyones bottom line.

Someone pointed this out earlier, but I think it was glossed over.

Most anti-spyware programs remove cookies as well. So until more programs start tracking via other methods, this isn't a very good idea.

frank7799 05-18-2006 02:36 PM

Hi Smokey,

would you mind putting me on your iCQ contact list?

I´ve got a question for you...

154-723-327

SmokeyTheBear 05-18-2006 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m4yadult
Hi Smokey,

would you mind putting me on your iCQ contact list?

I´ve got a question for you...

154-723-327

:thumbsup

frank7799 05-18-2006 03:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear
:thumbsup

Thank´s! ICQ sent. :)

pstation 05-19-2006 02:10 PM

One of my mainstream sponsors just opened an inhouse aff program. Switched things over last night and it's 2PM PDT i'm at $324 so far for the day in sales, whereas before i was lucky to break $200 a day before with *exactly* the same traffic. Kinda makes ya go "hmm".....

mryellow 05-21-2006 11:29 PM

Hang-on..... Think I have an orange here somewhere.....

Anyone have an apple?

With that switch there were probably something like 5000
lil changes. Can't exactly take anything from that. The
change in ratio could be due to any combination of
thousands of things.

-Ben

The Ghost 05-22-2006 01:30 AM

This is an amazing thread. I can understand the thinking some of the bigger programs are involved, since they would be larger (and possibly easier) targets. A $1000 at 7-11 is extremely noticable. A $1000 at a casino doesn't bat an eye. Some follow up questions I would have on the issue are:

1. How is the traffic that is skimmed determined? It seems that the skim may be set to a percentage of overall traffic sent to a certain program(s). Or it could be to a certain range of referral information. Once more information is collected, there has to be some things they all have in common.

2. Let consider the possibility that the traffic is not being sent to the same sponsor as the original refferal, or even to a public program at all. Quite a few of the large programs have similar style names and sites that are easy to emulate. Hell, it may be a hidden tour designed to look like the original.

3. Programs give as many reasons to themselves why sales are down as they give to their affilliates. Some are valid, some aren't. There are many "X" factors and it is easier to blame things than to look for answers. It would seem that action on the part of programs would dictate whether the loss of funds is really occurring on their end. If it is "everything is rosy for us" then there would appear to be an issue and they are still receiving credit.

4. Sales are really down for many affilliates and programs due to the huge influx of competition in the market place. Yeah, this option sucks. Lets just look at the previous 3. :winkwink:

Accurate reporting of traffic stats by programs and comparing it with your own data seems like the one of the easier ways of determining if this is happening to you. I want this thread to be a sticky :2 cents:

SmokeyTheBear 05-22-2006 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mryellow
Hang-on..... Think I have an orange here somewhere.....

Anyone have an apple?

With that switch there were probably something like 5000
lil changes. Can't exactly take anything from that. The
change in ratio could be due to any combination of
thousands of things.

-Ben

in earth terms please...?

We realise thing change thats what we are trying to figure out..

mryellow 05-22-2006 05:57 PM

pstation said his sponsor changed all their code and the
signups changed. Then tried to relate this to trojans not
being updated with the new URLs yet....... During that
switch so very many things changed that there is no way
to say that it demonstrates any kind of trojan activity.

Yeah ok hijackers are bad.....

but seriously.....

To blame them for market fluctuations is a bit of a stretch.

Want to know why your signup ratio is down from a year
ago? Is it? Look at the market.... Look at the global
economy.... Catch the news sometime.

Lets say you have 2.5 kids, a mortgage and commute 3
hours to work each day. What will you buy first, porn, or
petrol?

-Ben

Quickdraw 05-25-2006 04:34 PM

Here is just a little more proof that this whole scenario is happening.

http://www.benedelman.org/spyware/18...liates/#silent

asdfqwer 05-26-2006 02:44 PM

Sponsors rarely can do a lot to stop it,something more general/powerfull could,a few court cases

SmokeyTheBear 05-26-2006 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mryellow

Yeah ok hijackers are bad.....

but seriously.....

To blame them for market fluctuations is a bit of a stretch.

Want to know why your signup ratio is down from a year
ago? Is it? Look at the market.... Look at the global
economy.... Catch the news sometime.

Lets say you have 2.5 kids, a mortgage and commute 3
hours to work each day. What will you buy first, porn, or
petrol?

-Ben

Have you been reading this thread ? try starting on page#1

It isnt one person saying this , its MANY ESTABLISHED webmasters noticing this trend..

you should really try reading this thread more carfeull instead of making silly correlations like gas prices..

Overall signups are NOT down on sponsors.. its DOWN for honest established webmasters . do you get the correlation ?

And if you think for a second that adware doesnt change trends in buying your oblivious..

Brujah 05-26-2006 02:51 PM

Is Moviepass doing this?

Agent 488 10-03-2006 08:14 PM

http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/2959

will76 10-05-2006 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear
these guys are smarter than that :) lots of money to throw around to fake a name for themselves , im sure a few of them are reading this thread as wee speak and have several "sonofsam" style friends to back them up :) , it just takes a few sneaky people working behind the scenes at different sponsors, and some guts..

I think many sponsors are afraid to disturb the whales even when they do look suspicious because all they see is an immediate drop in sales , but they dont see the whole picture..

Like if i had a whale who was stealing 10% of all my affiliates sales but i didnt realise that , all i would see is 400 sales going bye bye, when in reality they would just be credited to the real affiliates , and not vanish at all .

WOW how did i miss this a couple months ago.

I guess it really does take seeing it happen to you with your own eyes for you to realize how much money you are losing to thieves who push this spyware shit.

SeniorX 10-05-2006 12:53 PM

didn't read the thread, so maybe it was discussed, but if the trojans can change the ref code, couldn't they change the whole url? So if an affiliate program drops one of these whales, they would replace urls to Cam Site 1 with urls to a competing Cam Site 2?

SeniorX 10-05-2006 12:57 PM

[ double post ]

will76 10-05-2006 02:09 PM

bump for what was noticed months ago but apparently nothing was done about it.

borked 03-11-2007 12:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PR_Tom (Post 9914615)
BTW: issues like this are why we dont rely on cookies. They are client side, and vulnerable.

So, basically, affiliates only get credit for immediate signups? And if they bookmark and come back next week to signup, the affiliate loses out? Sure, client-side cookies are vulnerable, but at least implement them for crediting the affiliate if the surfer comes back at a later date... because in the end, the surfer found your site through the affiliate :2 cents:

KingK7 03-11-2007 12:23 PM

Wow, what a bump

germ 03-11-2007 12:45 PM

whats with all the old ass threads being bumped?

pornpf69 03-11-2007 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SmokeyTheBear (Post 9905784)
by now we are all well aware of these toolbars and trojans that rewrite pages with their ref codes..

If not ill explain a little.. there are many ways to do it , but lets say i hacked into gfy and altered the vbulletin database so when it displayed certain banners for say "TCG" it would add my webmaster ref code onto the end , randomly, only to third world ip's , ok maybe thats atricky example , but if you dont know what im talking about then you prob dont need to worry about it

Ok so we all know the problem exists , but im suprised more isn't being done to stop it..

Heres what sponsors can do to help.. and heres why you should be doing this..

When a good new sponsor comes onto the scene , many people notice better ratio's , some of this is due to the fact that these "trojans" and such havent had the time to signup to that sponsor yet so you arent getting "shaved" on your links to them..

Older / established sponsors ratios decline as more scammers rip off their affiliates and their affiliates move elsewhere..

So while you may notice a new "whale" , he might be a wolf in whales clothing :)

What can sponsors do about it.. ? look through your top 100 affiliates rferring urls or write a script and if you notice people making sales from other people's urls , you need to look into it..

Assure us you dont accept these practises , and that you do have security/staff in place to guard against such problems.. and if you dont , make plans to do so or watch as your affiliate base crumbles

this is an old thread and almost nothing has been done about it

Thurbs 03-11-2007 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WiredGuy (Post 9915652)
Ok, so I see a lot of webmasters are in agreement here and from the conversations I've had with program owners and reps, they're noticing similiar trends. So to me, I'm seeing one of two issues, processing or some sort of hijacking going on. I tend not to believe its a processing issue since this has been ongoing for nearly 3 months now and I doubt either processor would put their scrubs like this kind of radical ratios, so the only other case I can think of, is some sort of hijacking. If this is the case, then these joins are going somewhere, there should be some sort of whales who are immensely profiting from any hijacking who is going on, so it shouldn't be hard to find their accounts??
WG

assuming that they don't scale out their affiliate id's much like the scale out the spyware they distribute? just playing devils advocate to that one. :2 cents:

Lanceman 03-11-2007 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germ (Post 12055628)
whats with all the old ass threads being bumped?

If you are a webmaster then you would know!
Take a good look around the board for real posts that pertain to making and loosing money.

borked 03-11-2007 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germ (Post 12055628)
whats with all the old ass threads being bumped?

sorry, but it's not that old, and I've been chatting with a few paysite owners on how to solve this problem. There is a realtively simple (not foolproof) problem, which some are interested in and others don't care about.

It is damn interesting who cares about affiliates and who doesn't.


For those that give a shit, take a look at this link - referer URL is not a simple option. Referer code clearly isn't.

I'm working with a couple of paysite owners on making a transparent option that will solve this current problem. It is not foolproof, but until the next exploit appears, it's foolproof for now.

smutx 03-11-2007 02:01 PM

bump for a great read.... fucking virus's and spyware piss me off

will76 03-11-2007 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by germ (Post 12055628)
whats with all the old ass threads being bumped?

because the problem is still happening and this thread should be bumped until the problem is fixed.

HighSociety 03-11-2007 02:34 PM

if you notice people making sales from other people's urls , you need to look into it..

This is what I do but it seems most that talk about it really do not care. I guess I need to go to the next show and buy a lot more drinks. The two people that signed up today did it for this reason, work with each other on this. You don't have to sign up for my site because I told everyone how I do it, Melissa does it now and when she gets to busy Jen will do it.


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:11 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
©2000-, AI Media Network Inc123