fifty 1...

from Ukraine ??

you be surprise that alot of hacking spam etc comes from the USA too

sponsors are raising payouts, doing holiday competitions and happy hours, giving free hosting , submitting galleries for sponsors - they are wrong by doing this.
sponsors need to address issues like these. this is serious stuff.

every new member I get I go to statcounter and use the ip address I get in ccbill and see where the sale came from. I would know if they were using my site for this the very first time it happend. I also email affiliates who want to know what site sent their sale. Since I know the sites sending the traffic I would see it as soon as it happens. If it ever did I will make a post with all the info and you can eat them up

Yep on the years of this shit, it is just worse now and more sophisticated. Sometimes it is hard to check your sites several times a day everyday. Then there is the matter of missing something bad. Can't be a guru in all aspects of the industry. Some tools to detect and block the shit would help.

Started IP and domain blocking with .htaccess but soon realized that was gonna be out of control. So not a real or total answer to the problem.

bump, this subject should be taken seriously

you made me hungry :(

let's sombody makes some sort of site where we can submit all of the sites that contains some sort of illegal stuff.. video codec downloading, hitbots etc...

Spyware/adware is starting to become a huge problem for both adult and mainstream internet business. The only way to make this problem go away is to make sure each surfer has adequate protection installed. We need a good free program that users can get from a safe site.

Thanks! Happy to talk to you!

This is only one of a multitude of possible problems with my proposed approach... if, for example, we are running various specials for affiliates and the monitoring software doesn't know about it, it would also trigger unusual pattern detection, and I'm sure there are other possibilities (such as very sophisticated algorithms in the malware designed to evade detection) that would make this difficult. However, I do believe that sponsors who put the energy into it can come up with some ways to combat and limit this sort of fraud, even if it isn't 100% eradicated.

Honestly, though, I would like to believe any sponsor who is on his game would know something about the affiliates who are sending larger amounts of traffic. If the malware is in fact sending/stealing a substantial number of joins, then that affiliate should be noticeable... and if the sponsor asks questions and gets evasive answers, that, combined with whatever information can be had from statistical analysis should provide a reasonable indication of which affiliates are the likely problems.

I can also imagine a scenario wherein something akin to a handshake or checksum or unique identifier could exist between the ad, the affiliate who placed that ad, and the software (such as NATS) at the receiving end, such that if the click comes through, but with a mismatched handshake or checksum, then the software can identify the join as stolen. Of course, there's no existing mechanism for that within current affilate marketing technology, but that sort of trusted-source handshaking technology certainly exists and it shouldn't be too difficult to adapt it for use in the adult industry.

Yes, it's a pain, but this industry is remarkably adaptive and I suspect if the crooks are getting to be a big problem, it's just time for the sponsors and affiliates to work together to find a solution.

Google has teamed up with StopBadware.org to do just that... if Google results turn up a page with malware on it, Google inserts a warning page when you click on the result that warns that you might be visiting a page with malware.

See http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-08-03-n78.html

This is the main reason i turned off all my tgp trade signup pages.

As for my affiliate program, I usually ( or try to ) chat daily with lots of my affiliates and know who sends what.
I would be the first to can someone if I caught someone trying to fraudulently fuck with one affiliate sale.

what affect will this have on seo?

Is there a sponsor program for this spyware thing? Sounds very interesting.

Is there any chance that one day you will be less predictable... or less of a moron... either will work...

Interesting stuff

Here is an example of Google doing that using a Gammae site.
http://www.google.com/search?q=ysbweb
I would bet MSN have a nice little collection of things that would be interesting to see. Anyone here running their own honeypots yet?

ROFLZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!11111!!!!!!!!!!!!

you should be a comedian, seriously!

Bump for more discussion. Scary shit to say the least. Might just be the reason conversions have sucked balls.

I've seen non-adult forums flooded with that kind of shit :Oh crap !!

why does it not surprise me that the scammers are from the ukraine? nothing but thieving parasites there.

The biggest issue is that many programs still see decent conversions, and don't see that anything is wrong. But I suspect that a good look through the stats would find that normal affiliates are suffering with fairly poor conversions, while a few accounts are suddenly seeing better than average numbers.

There isn't as much motivation for the programs to look into it, because the sales are still there.

Fake codecs and other misleading sales techniques are killing things.

Sponsors should be able to spot these accounts quickly, especially if they are only re-writing on clicks to the join page. Either way, it should be easy to spot and ban from a sponsor perspective.

The problem is that most sponsors don't give a shit about affiliates. Just look at what AFF has done with Zango and allowing their ads on password/file sharing sites/torrent sites. This is up to the sponsor to stand up and not allow these affiliates into their system.

Yet another reason I only trade traffic with myself. :mad:

Anyone that installs that kind of shit deserves a good ass kicking

bump to the top....

What pisses me off about it, is that the Feds are chasing most of us over the 2257, instead of going after the C P and the shit like this.

Nothing can be done to completely eliminate this problem.
Think about the following:

1) Removal programs / Cleaners will not be effective at cleaning this up. They will only be able to remove DETECTED files. This accounts for a small sample, and well known methods such as public codecs. It is very likely they use these files for public spreading, and then update to an undetected version or addon that performs the actions you are stating here.

By the time the malware is detected, there is already 5 more undetectable versions out. Any good malware has built in update features which will update to the latest version to keep from losing traffic. It is insanely simple to re-pack the new malware with any # of packers out there, or make small changes to slip detection once again.

2) End users are ultimately responsible, wreckless use and poor education increases the magnitude of the problem. Poor security such as patch management, lack of any sort of antivirus software or spyware detection software adds to the problem.

3) Sponsor's need to drastically crackdown on this type of spyware. If there is no money being paid out, or it is too difficult to make money with these methods, the scammers will move on to greener pastures. I think what it comes down to is the sponsors looking the other way because they make their money either way, it is the affiliate who takes the hit. It is alot easier for them to look the other way, then to spend money to develop and implement methods to fight this type of fraud.

4) There is alot of money to be made. Whenever this is the case, expect people to do anything they can to take advantage. It seems this industry is ripe for the picking right now, and it will only get worse as more scammers learn of these techniques to make easy money.

If anyone has copies of any malware, I wouldn't mind analysing them and posting the results I find. Including traffic origins, ref codes, sponsors targeted, and more.

Send me a pm with a link to malware.

In this context that doesn't help you at all. The problem is one of infected PC's whose owners are just as likely to visit one of your sites as they are sites engaged in third-party trading...

^^quoted for emphasis^^

Some sponsors may need to have some pressure applied to get their collective asses in gear over this. While they might not have an instant solution available, they can certainly utilize their affiliates to help track down who is spreading these type of trojans, what sites they are being distributed on, and share information with other paysites/processors about which affiliates are the 'cheats' or are suspected cheats whose traffic needs to be watched more closely. If sponsors would cut the money off from these twits this problem could largely go away within a week, at least for those responsible for this current batch of trojans.

i have no problems with competition but this.... is NOT about competition. Swapping refcodes on the the join page is fucking theft. :321GFY

This type of hijacking is not related with affiliate IDs and how they are stored, neither with cookies. When a computer gets infected it has to contact hijacker's DNS to resolve each domain. Hijacking takes place before even reaching the domain itself. At any given time hijacker aside a paysite can target any domain and point it anywhere including your own free sites.


My suggestion is the adult industry needs a 3rd party operation that will offer a free scanner and removal tool daily updated that surfers will use. At the same time make available those updates to other antispyware companies. It has to be certified by an organization so surfers to be able to trust it. All adult webmasters then will have to link to that.

I posted this a year ago and no one seemed interested at the time...

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=573522

Don't know if this is the source of what you're talking about but it's extremely similar.

Not even sure if "chhits" is still active or not. I haven't been paying attention to the specific domains lately, just banning the ones that are redirecting or that I "suspect" are going to redirect (based on some known patterns).

yes! that's exactly what we need...BUT getting anyone in adult to cooperate is like herding cats sadly :(

Is the pixpox thief still at it? Seems the domain is up, still has galleries on it.
Smokey brought it up a while ago, but haven't seen much on it since. The guy should have been blacklisted out of the industry.
https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-business-discussion/390522-adult-com-sponsoring-trojan-website.html

Perhaps it's unrealistic, but one approach might be a sort of "best practices" group. Get a handful of sponsor programs to agree to take proactive steps to fight this sort of thing (as well as other sleazy practices that affect affiliates and members), and those sponsors are recognized as part of a "best practices" group. Then, affiliates who wish to can show their support by sending more traffic to the sponsors that are part of the best practices.

Affiliates could do the same thing and encourage sponsors to provide perks for affiliates that agree to adhere to best practices.

It wouldn't be mandatory of course, but it gets around the problem of not being able to get cooperation from people in the industry, by creating a self-selecting group that *wants* to work together honestly to fight these sort of underhanded behaviors.

scammers suck

i have spyware on my damn site, not my my galleries!
as soon as you go to the site probably once a week, there is a pop up
i have to go to the index and remove the iframe
i have no idea how it gets there

sounds like an idea someone should at least think about. I for myself i'am willing to push such sponsors tha actively show they are doing something against it.

ever thought of trying to pay someone and get some professional help or are you just fine to help infecting a bunch of PC's each week? Seems you just accept things like they are. Beside that it can easy give you a nice place on some blacklists and cheater forums if a trade partners gets aware of it and i guess you would have some problems to explain why your site is installing an expoit or any ther shit over weeks. Just a suggestion, get some help, there are good system admins for hire that will fix your problem in lightspeed.

I don't agree. If they do nothing, they will lose traffic because the affiliates that are getting fucked, will drop them (low conversions, fishy stats, etc). Most sponsors won't understand what is going on. For example: An affiliate uses a php script to track his traffic sent to a certain sponsor. Because of spyware installed on a number of surfers computers, only 95% of that traffic will reach the sponsors site using the affiliate's ref code. When the affiliate notices that the sponsors stats are off, he will suspect the sponsors stats aren't working correctly. => The affiliate contacts the sponsor... sponsor has no idea what is going on... sponsor replies "our stats are accurate"... affiliate goes to gfy and starts a thread "sponsor X is shaving (count sonly 95% of the traffic I send them)".


About those cleaners programs:
- there are TONS of fake cleaner program out there.
- alot of those cleaner programs also block/erase cookies. So promoting those programs is like shooting yourself in the foot.
- alot of spyware crap already hijacks traffic going to antispyware sites.

Sounds like your server got hacked, and the popup may be only a tiny part of your problem. Your server could be spamming, or hosting phishing or malware sites, and you might never know.

I would definitely get some help from someone who is really good with site security, some of the rootkits being installed these days are pretty difficult to detect. Hit me up if you need a recommendation, we have a guy we use for such things that does an amazing job, is very honest and fair, and is pretty inexpensive.

There is one out the right now that actually modifies apache, and redirects people as they come to the front page of your site. It only happens occassionally, and it attempts to install malware on their systems if they have a vunerable version of IE, otherwise you get bounced back invisibly.

I don't remember the last time I visited GFY, and I come back to another one of these threads.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new to this. Either it is just starting to come out in the open in the adult world, or people are now finally paying more attention to what it really means for them. On the other hand, for many, this is really news. :(

It is nearly impossible for affiliates to go down the legal channel with adware/spyware companies and win. Most, if not all, of these programs do not rewrite the affiliate code themselves. There's no grounds from an affiliate standpoint. Sponsors would have a much better chance of winning.

What affiliates can do is sue the SPONSORS for breach of agreement. If a signup comes from YOUR link YOU are entitled to the commission. If the sponsor is aware of an adware problem within their own program, they have been provided with proof of codes being overwritten and they do nothing about it... hit them where it hurts most and like someone else said, make an example out of them.

For sponsors just saying that you don't allow this type of advertising or affiliates who promote malware downloads on their sites simply isn't enough. Put it in clear and simple terms in your TOS and what the consequences are and STICK TO YOUR OWN WORDS.

If you're afraid of terminating a "super adware affiliate", don't be. It's because you don't understand how it works. An affiliate that gives you 100 signups per day via adware/spyware isn't adding any new sales to your program. Some of these signups could have been from your own SE listings or advertising that shouldn't have been commissionable in the first place. Chances are that you would have had these 100 sales anyway and you would have had to pay LESS in commissions. Now take into consideration all the surfers who got annoyed with all the extra popups or illegal downloads and just closed your site and you just lost even more money.

As long as the money keeps flowing in for adware/spyware companies, they're not going to stop. What you'll see is even more of them popping up. Many have changed their names several times, changed the name of their adware programs, etc., but they didn't go away.

I have links to adware removal tools on all my adult and mainstream sites. Yes many of them delete cookies. But I'd much rather lose a sale to a sponsor because my surfer removed malware from his computers along with all cookies than lose a sale to someone who used adware to steal from me! Next time that surfer visits your site, he might be scum free and you'll get the next sale. But if you do nothing and let him infect and reinfect himself time and time again, you'll probably never see a dime from him.

All those of you who help spreading these apps on surfers' computers by getting a few cents per installs you all deserve to be shot! And all those of you who pay these companies to advertise and steal sales from others you all deserve to be shot too.

This isn't competition, it's called THEFT!

Missie

check the thread i made
maybe you can help out
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=708087

buuuuuuuuump

Would like to see some response from CCBill about that.
Corvette ?

look for my thread about missing sales. Their reasoning is "spring break" yeah that's why my traffic has doubled but ratios sunk like rocks....

IMO, spyware is the biggest threat to affiliates more so than anything else.

Like the orginal post stated, the sponsors still make their money, it's the affiliate that gets fucked.

We need a group of people to work on this 24/7. At very least the trojans should be identified as well as the sites using them. We try to work with all the major antivirus companies to include fixes for these trojans in their next update. We educate ourselves as much as possible. We only trade / buy from people we know or people that are reputable.

We need to put pressure on affiliate programs to do something about this. It really shouldn't be that hard. These affiliate accounts should be over written within a matter of seconds of your affiliate code being set.

For example. my page loads, my cookie is set, you have this trojan on your PC, it detects my affiliate program, and over writes my code, all in a matter of seconds. Now the affiliate company has all the data. They know your ip was set for my affiliate account and they know that "x" seconds later your ip was set again to another affiliate account. If two affiliate codes are set within say 5 mins from the same ip, the second account being set should be flagged. If it gets "x" amount of flags then the affiliate company needs to look into. This should be pretty easy to set up, if they see account "XYZ" is setting a cookie less than 5 mins after someone else 90% of the time than they know there is a serious problem with that account. I would have to think that a surfer clicking your account, than clicking someone else's account with in minutes would only happen a low percentage of the the time.

The trojan fucks can't beat this, if they wait too long to overwrite your cookie then they risk that person signing up through your account before they set theirs. So they have to do it pretty quick, in most cases i bet it happens in a matter of a couple seconds. I am suggesting 5 mins as an example, it could be reduced to shorter period of time.

The part i mentioned above about forming a group is critical. Unless someone is getting paid full time to do the work on behalf, we will never accomplish anything. We are all busy and have things to deal with, it will just be a lose collection of people trying to give an hour here or an hour there. That isn't going to cut it. How about a group with monthly fees of say $50 per person, and $500 per an affiliate company. (EXAMPLES) We hire someone who is very well qualified in spyware to work on this full time. The more people anti up and step up to the plate the more resources we can obtain.

I agree but some of the biggest sponsors out there don't give a flying fuck about these issues :321GFY AFF/CAMS - SEX SEARCH :321GFY

BTW, it is an Affiliate problem, but a sponsor can provide the solution. If you guys do nothing you still make the sale, we don't. It is a major problem for us. In the long run it will hurt you too though but to a lot of affiliate owners the " long run " is considered next week.

If affiliates start losing more and more money, their advertising will be less profitable to the point they lose money advertising, so they die out. Less affiliates generating traffic, less people for the trojans to steal from. Overall sales go down. Not to mention the type ins and the sponsors on advertising that they are geting screwed on too.