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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 12:02 pm
  #16  
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Originally Posted by Joshua at WebFlyer
Error safe is a common spybot and may not be detected by all spyware removal software (especially the free ones ) this is an excellent link for removal:

http://www.anti-spyware-101.com/remove-errorsafe/
As deimos said, we are not infected by error safe. This is a case of simple redirecting away from FT to some scum pages which wants us to download error safe and thus get us infected.

Btw. no redirections have happened today (knock on wood...)
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 12:13 pm
  #17  
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Originally Posted by Joshua at WebFlyer
Error safe is a common spybot and may not be detected by all spyware removal software (especially the free ones ) this is an excellent link for removal:

http://www.anti-spyware-101.com/remove-errorsafe/
Thanks. I trust f-secure but tried your suggestion as well. Nothing detected.
I usually start with Flying Blue and proceed to search. Not sure, if this was always the case. It has been an errorsafe-free day today on both computers.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 1:57 pm
  #18  
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While we all look for someone to blame with the ills of the Internet, i took a few minutes to go over those companies that have booked campaigns on FlyerTalk, which includes InsideFlyer.com and WebFlyer.com (note: no one visiting those Web sites report any problems with their time online) and errorsafe is not listed. So I'm at a loss as to where your problem might be coming from. I think the most puzzling part of this is that 40,000 people visit FT on any given day and there doesn't seem to be that long a list of members with the problem. I have asked both Joshua and Tim to continue giving the support you need from our end to make your time on FT enjoyable again, but it does not seems to come from us associating with a dubious company - unless of course you consider some of the frequent flyer programs!!!!

Thanks for letting us know your concerns.

Cheers,
Randy


Originally Posted by Deimos
Nope, I have had the same problem both using IE under win XP, and using Firefox under Gentoo Linux.
I could probably install some sort of adblocker or proxy or something like that, but it really seems to me like a serious website like FT should avoid associating with dubious companies like errorsafe.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 4:42 pm
  #19  
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Thanks Randy for your time in investigating this, I am happy to see that it is taken seriously. I think I have seen this happen in total around 5 or 6 times over the last couple of weeks so it is certainly not something which happens daily. I have also implemented my own "dirty hack" type workaround for a couple of my computers by making them resolve www.errorsafe.com to an IP which will reject connections, so I won't be seeing it on those computers in the future. Anyway, the errorsafe people can be quite sneaky in the way they place their ads, you most likely won't see them actually placing an ad under the name errorsafe. A couple of examples that I found:

Here you can find a story of how they hid their ads on LiveJournal, and made sure they looked normal initially. Those ads were placed by kpremium.com.

Over in the Geekzone forum they seem to have had the same problem recently, and their thoughts seem to be that it came through Google AdSense. I tend to think that may have been the case here as well as it was so random.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 5:08 pm
  #20  
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i assure you, we do take this seriously and you'd be very proud of our volunteer moderators who take companies and spam initiatives like this very seriously. They have shut down thousands of similar stuff. There is nothing better for me than find this stuff and shove it in the face of our ad agency because they know we don't like to be bothered with distraction.

Never hesitate to let us know of anything though there will be things that are more relevant to the Internet than just FlyerTalk.

I'm going to go check the kpremium thing, just to make sure.

Again, thanks for the heads up and the support of FlyerTalk.

Cheers,
Randy


Originally Posted by Deimos
Thanks Randy for your time in investigating this, I am happy to see that it is taken seriously. I think I have seen this happen in total around 5 or 6 times over the last couple of weeks so it is certainly not something which happens daily. I have also implemented my own "dirty hack" type workaround for a couple of my computers by making them resolve www.errorsafe.com to an IP which will reject connections, so I won't be seeing it on those computers in the future. Anyway, the errorsafe people can be quite sneaky in the way they place their ads, you most likely won't see them actually placing an ad under the name errorsafe. A couple of examples that I found:

Here you can find a story of how they hid their ads on LiveJournal, and made sure they looked normal initially. Those ads were placed by kpremium.com.

Over in the Geekzone forum they seem to have had the same problem recently, and their thoughts seem to be that it came through Google AdSense. I tend to think that may have been the case here as well as it was so random.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 7:13 pm
  #21  
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I noticed that all three of the FTers (tsator, nordic and Deimos) who are noting this issue in this thread spend quite a fair amount of time in Scandinavian/Nordic countries. Any geography-related association to this issue? If so, I'd be curious if some of the other more frequent SAS-forum posters were having the same issues or not.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 8:39 pm
  #22  
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tsator too? it was funny i noticed the same thing about the other two posters

if they tell me what forums or threads they have this happen in, ill try and click around for a while and see if i can get it to happen to me.
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Old Nov 14, 2006 | 10:27 pm
  #23  
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Originally Posted by Kagehitokiri
tsator too? it was funny i noticed the same thing about the other two posters

if they tell me what forums or threads they have this happen in, ill try and click around for a while and see if i can get it to happen to me.
Yes, tsator too. tsator is FT's resident Scandic hotel expert. Before tsator, I thought I had done my fair share of Scandic hotels. Little did I know.

I'm just wondering, given my own browsing habits out of the region, why it didn't affect me while it did the Scandinavian/Nordic trio here. Perhaps I'm just barking up the wrong tree.
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 12:04 am
  #24  
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well, just tried going through some of forums/threads tsator has been. loading and refreshing. didnt see any ads other than the usual ones. no errorsafe stuff.
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 3:00 am
  #25  
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
Yes, tsator too. tsator is FT's resident Scandic hotel expert. Before tsator, I thought I had done my fair share of Scandic hotels. Little did I know.
Thanks you're way too kind... Still have a lot of them to visit (e.g. almost all of the Norway Scandics). Anyways, let me also say how satisfied I am that this issue has been taken so seriously. It certainly builds up even more credibility to FlyerTalk!

@kagehitokiri: I am not able to replicate any situation either... Nothing has happened since Monday. If it still occurs, I'll post it here.

Last edited by tsastor; Nov 15, 2006 at 3:20 am
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 7:21 am
  #26  
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"Nothing has happened since Monday. If it still occurs, I'll post it here."

does that go for either of the other two who were affected?
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 7:40 am
  #27  
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Just checked, kpremium is not among any advertiser on FT.
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 9:05 am
  #28  
 
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If you notice this happen again, a screenshot of the ad and the page you were on when the hijacking occurred would be most helpful. You can send those to [email protected]
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 9:57 am
  #29  
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Originally Posted by Kagehitokiri
"Nothing has happened since Monday. If it still occurs, I'll post it here."

does that go for either of the other two who were affected?
Yep, the last time I had this problem was 5 minutes prior to posting my initial message in this thread (Monday).
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Old Nov 15, 2006 | 2:11 pm
  #30  
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Don't really want to waste the tech staff's time too much again (i.e., I think I did that enough when trying to troubleshoot my OMNI issue well over a year ago), but does anyone here have a quick link on how Google's ad service adjusts what gets loaded for advertisements based on regional location or browsing habits?
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