Dirty tricks and pop-up adds

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-04-11 10:14pm

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v177/ ... kTrick.jpg

Ran into that pop-up add today. Thats a fucking nasty trick. Even people who know some thing about computers could be duped. The entire warning is a fucking clickable link. They try and click the cancel and they still activate the damned link.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2005-04-11 10:24pm

Old, I'm sorry to say. Still fucking obnoxious, though. People need to learn ALT-F4 for dealin with that shit.

Spacebeard · Post by **Spacebeard** » 2005-04-11 10:31pm

Well, nobody who uses a real operating system is fooled by any of those advertisements imitating a Windows dialogue box, since it's brazenly inconsistent with the rest of the user interface. This is another example of why a software monoculture is dangerous for security: an advertisement imitating the user interface of one specific operating system would never work if the desktop market share was more evenly distributed.

Nice wallpaper, by the way.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-04-11 10:41pm

Wallpaper courtesy of Reaperman from SB.com.

The wallpaper itself if your interested

(edit) Bah, Photobucket size restrictions

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-04-11 10:47pm

Oh, I hate that one, because it's simply evil. I admit that I almost just barely fell for it the first time it popped up for me, but then I realised that it didn't match any of my programmes or system um, thingies. For someone who truly doesn't know better, that could be just awful...

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2005-04-11 11:05pm

I second Destructionater. That is a kick ass wallpaper.

Coalition · Post by **Coalition** » 2005-04-11 11:15pm

Well, nobody who uses a real operating system is fooled by any of those advertisements imitating a Windows dialogue box, since it's brazenly inconsistent with the rest of the user interface. This is another example of why a software monoculture is dangerous for security: an advertisement imitating the user interface of one specific operating system would never work if the desktop market share was more evenly distributed.

One stunt that the page could try is to detect the browser in use, and trigger the appropriate pop-up. Similar to browser exploits. If IE, use IE style exploit, if Firefox, use Firefox exploit, etc. Just update the appropriate exploit based on security holes found, and you can keep going.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2005-04-11 11:37pm

Well, it's more difficult to spoof *nix since there are a bazillion different themes that can applied and usually are due to fugly default themes and the fact that us *nix users are more apt to customize things.

Also, keep in mind that the cursor will change to a hand when placed over one of these.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-04-11 11:41pm

Not always anymore. Now some of them have the cursor only turn to a hand only when you hover over the buttons.

They should be legally required to do what newspaper ads that mimic articles have to do, and say in legible text "ADVERTISEMENT" along the top.

Spacebeard · Post by **Spacebeard** » 2005-04-11 11:44pm

Coalition wrote:
Well, nobody who uses a real operating system is fooled by any of those advertisements imitating a Windows dialogue box, since it's brazenly inconsistent with the rest of the user interface. This is another example of why a software monoculture is dangerous for security: an advertisement imitating the user interface of one specific operating system would never work if the desktop market share was more evenly distributed.
One stunt that the page could try is to detect the browser in use, and trigger the appropriate pop-up. Similar to browser exploits. If IE, use IE style exploit, if Firefox, use Firefox exploit, etc. Just update the appropriate exploit based on security holes found, and you can keep going.

Detecting the operating system from a user agent header wouldn't work for browsers which don't advertise it, or for intervening proxies that sanitize it. Furthermore, Windows is about the only case where the real operating system will randomly interrupt you with graphical dialog boxes bearing vague warnings of 'critical updates'. Even if you managed to include a fake dialogue box consistent with the visual appearance of every conceivable GUI, it would still be completely inconsistent with a user interface which doesn't rely on random interruptions to communicate with the user.

As for the browser exploit issue, which is unrelated to the thread: if the bad guys were forced to target several completely different combinations of browser, operating system, and hardware platform, it would substantially raise the bar of difficulty for their job. Writing and employing several completely different exploits is NOT just as easy as being guaranteed to affect over 90% of desktop users with only one attack.

Grandmaster Jogurt · Post by **Grandmaster Jogurt** » 2005-04-11 11:48pm

For some reason most of my popups come in IE or at least look like IE, despite the fact that I use Firefox...

But yeah, I just close everything with the taskbar...

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-04-12 01:26am

I love seeing that popup on my Mac

But yeah, I used to get that popup in IE all the time. Most annoying thing ever. I never had a problem with it since I could tell from the border it wasn't a real Windows error and actually a popup (besides, I generally removed popups from right clicking in the task bar so no need to even look at them), but I knew people like my mother would click on it.

Love FireFox...

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-04-12 01:29am

I use Firefox, and got that popup.

Executor32 · Post by **Executor32** » 2005-04-12 02:01am

Well, there'd be no confusion if you weren't using the fugly default Windows theme.

Methinks you'll like this one.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-04-12 02:06am

Executor32 wrote:Well, there's be no confusion if you weren't using the fugly default Windows theme.

Methinks you want this theme.

OMFG!

That is the worst theme ever!

I just hate LCARS!

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2005-04-12 02:10am

Alyeska wrote:I use Firefox, and got that popup.

Some popunders will show up in FireFox, when the developers take extra steps to code them in using non-normal methods...argh.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2005-04-12 02:14am

Executor32 wrote:Well, there'd be no confusion if you weren't using the fugly default Windows theme.

Methinks you'll like this one.

Why the fuck would I use that shitty theme? I use the Falcon theme for SD.net because LCARs sucks so bad.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-04-12 02:25am

Troubble with pupups and shit in firefox?

Get adblock and then go to this site.

Instructions

Custom Adblock filterset

Follow the guide, it kills a lot of shit dead!

Sharp-kun · Post by **Sharp-kun** » 2005-04-12 09:22am

I don't use the default windows theme, so such ads are powerless against me!

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2005-04-12 02:21pm

Thank goodness for High Contrast Black and Task Manager...

Executor32 · Post by **Executor32** » 2005-04-12 02:42pm

Alyeska wrote:
Executor32 wrote:Well, there'd be no confusion if you weren't using the fugly default Windows theme.

Methinks you'll like this one.
Why the fuck would I use that shitty theme? I use the Falcon theme for SD.net because LCARs sucks so bad.

Meh, it was ST. But you're right, it does suck pretty bad. I didn't realize just how bad it was until I downloaded it to see what it looked like. The horror, the horror.

I use Chaninja Style RC5 myself, with the SubZero color scheme. Here's a screenie:

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2005-04-12 03:02pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Not always anymore. Now some of them have the cursor only turn to a hand only when you hover over the buttons.

They should be legally required to do what newspaper ads that mimic articles have to do, and say in legible text "ADVERTISEMENT" along the top.

Oh, I forgot about the CSS for overriding that.

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2005-04-12 03:03pm

Executor32 wrote:Meh, it was ST. But you're right, it does suck pretty bad. I didn't realize just how bad it was until I downloaded it to see what it looked like. The horror, the horror. I use Chaninja Style RC5 myself, with the SubZero color scheme. Here's a screenie:

Nice desktop!

Where did you get it?

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2005-04-12 03:06pm

Executor32 wrote:
Alyeska wrote:
Executor32 wrote:Well, there'd be no confusion if you weren't using the fugly default Windows theme.

Methinks you'll like this one.
Why the fuck would I use that shitty theme? I use the Falcon theme for SD.net because LCARs sucks so bad.
Meh, it was ST. But you're right, it does suck pretty bad. I didn't realize just how bad it was until I downloaded it to see what it looked like. The horror, the horror. I use Chaninja Style RC5 myself, with the SubZero color scheme. Here's a screenie:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/ ... esktop.jpg

I use the Industrial theme for GNOME: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/16835671/

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2005-04-12 03:19pm

Don't quote pictures, Plutonium.