HELP HAS SOMEONE HIJACKED THE FORUM

[angelfj1]

To Basil et al:

Something very strange is has just happened. I tried logging onto the forum about 20 minutes ago. I was using the laptop that I use 99 percent of the time. Instead of entering this site, I got a site concerning selling british cars. Here is a screen capture:

After this happened, I logged on using another laptop and got right into the forum.

So now I am entering this message on the alternate machine.

Oh, by the way, I just tried the original lap top and everything seems OK.

Hey, Basil, what's up. Do we have poltergeists???
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

 

[NickMorgan]

You shouldn't complain. You expected some crusty old car nuts and you got an attractive lady!

 

[AltaKnight]

I'm all for this improvement Basil!

 

[Cyberpyr8]

I think you may have some spyware installed. I would scan it and see.

 

[vagt6]

In the meantime, would someone please give her a membership application?

She can ride in my car, too. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif

 

[jdubois]

I noticed the same thing happen once the other day. I think it's a result of dotsters policy of serving up ads for any unused sub-domains. If they're nameserver has a momentary problem and doesn't resolve the britishcarforum.com URL correctly, you'll get shuffled over to their ad page.

 

[angelfj1]

Wasn't there a recent poll? So, now for sure we know we are older than dirt AND we don't need a survey to prove we are dirty (as in sex always on our minds). /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/banana.gif

 

[NutmegCT]

In case you've missed the news, several ISPs (internet service providers, like Charter.net, etc.) were recently accused of purposefully re-directing internet requests to specific ad-intensive search pages.

Often those search pages "hijack" the name of a popular webforum, so the casual user thinks he/she is getting the website they're looking for.

The ISPs do this to add revenue: if you end up at the bogus webpage, you click a link (like British Car Forum, British Car, etc. in the picture in the first post), and that click actually generates income for the bogus webpage.

Charter.net actually called this a "service enhancement" even when users complained.

Not saying this is what happened to Frank Angelli in the first post, but it happens all over the net more and more. Another way to increase someone's income.

By the way, Frank - did you notice you have 10 "Quick Launch" buttons for Internet Explorer at the bottom of your screen?

Aren't computers fun!

Tom
Edit: Here's some background on the situation I described:

https://www.computerdefense.org/?p=217

 

[Keoke]

In the meantime, would someone please give her a membership application?

She can ride in my car, too. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/devilgrin.gif

Yep this has been going on for a week or so. However, more to the point she may alredy have one. Is the girl Linda! Basil-??

 

[John_Mc]

By the way, Frank - did you notice you have 10 "Quick Launch" buttons for Internet Explorer at the bottom of your screen?

Aren't computers fun!

I think Lucas electronics are more reliable!

As for the girl, whatever she's selling, I'm buying!

 

[jjbunn]

By the way, Frank - did you notice you have 10 "Quick Launch" buttons for Internet Explorer at the bottom of your screen?

Aren't computers fun!

I think Lucas electronics are more reliable!

As for the girl, whatever she's selling, I'm buying!

Looks like she may be selling rucksacks /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif

 

[SilentUnicorn]

I think you should quit using IE. FireFox is a whole lot better.


mark

 

[angelfj1]

In

By the way, Frank - did you notice you have 10 "Quick Launch" buttons for Internet Explorer at the bottom of your screen?

yes, those are unique links to several forums, blogs, etc. If you cursor over them the link is shown. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif

 

[Guest]

Sorry to bring this back to life, but I can say for a fact that it isn't adware, spyware or any other kind of warez.

It happened to me at work this morning. I work for a software company, and we have comapny wide firewalls, virus checkers and warez blockers up the wazoo.

What I will say is that it is bloody annoying when you want to spend a couple of minutes veg'ing with a cup of coffee. I know for a fact that after today I don't want to look at my 401k for entertainment...

 

[Basil]

My guess is you have some spyware on your puter that is re-directing you to somewhere else. That page is definitely NOT on my server. But if it is happening to others as well, I suspect it may be as jdubois suggests because I do use Dotster for my Domain registry by coincidence. I'll make an inquiry with them and see what they have to say.

Basil

 

[Guest]

There is no spyware on this computer. Trust me on that.

We have more scanners and firewalls in this building than I can enumerate and there is a whole department of people who's sole raison d'etre is to keep them up to date...

If it had been on my home machine, I'd have said maybe, but this is server side for sure.

 

[NutmegCT]

Gentlemen - it's not the computer, the browser, or the server(s).

It's the ISP(s). It's "domain hijacking" (see my previous post) - nothing Basil or anyone of us can stop. If an ISP purposefully re-routes DNS lookup requests, only *lots* of complaints to the ISP (Internet Service Provider) can stop it. And I'd bet most folks don't have any way of easily reaching a real human being at an ISP. Plus, with service bundling spreading throughout the old telecomm networks, you may not even know which ISP you're actually using.

My own ISP - charter.net - has acknowledged the domain hijacking technique. But you wouldn't believe the levels of voice menus you have to go through to reach a somewhat sentient life form.

Just my 2¢.
Tom

 

[NutmegCT]

PS - I got the exact same "lovely lass" picture last week at work, when I hit my bookmark for CNN.com - except instead of "Welcome to British Car Forum", the screen actually said "Welcome to CNN.com".

And all the "links" on the left were random "news" links.

By the way, the same problem can occur if your DNS (Domain Name Server) request is temporarily rerouted. Some people use the default DNS provided by their ISP, so there's no control over which DNS you're actually using.

When your computer browser is told by you to go to "BritishCarForum.com", the computer sends that request to your ISP. The ISP sends the words "BritishCarForum.com" to their DNS to look up the IP (Internet Protocol) digital address (like 127.0.0.2, which might, or might not, be the digital address for BritishCarForum, etc.). Your computer's request is then sent on to the server identified as 127.0.0.2, and you get whatever is sent back to you by 127.0.0.2. But it *might* not be from the server you were expecting.

And ISP's can change their default DNS whenever they want - sometimes to increase revenue by doing these stupid re-routes. Yeesh.

Onward through the fog.
T.

 

[TR3driver]

In the past, when my ISP's DNS was flaky; I scrounged around and found someone else's DNS that worked. The setting for which DNS is referenced is normally on your computer or firewall/router; so you can change it if you want.
https://soa.granitecanyon.com/faq.shtml
Fortunately, DNS is one thing that RoadRunner hasn't screwed up yet.