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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Nov 04, 2018 11:40 pm

Please allow me to be a little bit the advocate of the devil here.

- No result or no difference does not mean that nothing was done. Maybe you are a bit too fast with conclusions?
How long should we wait for a change to a few lines of coding to stop using these sites ? a month? a year ?
- From the many, many people who are following this thread, we have not had even one single confirmation the same thing is happening to them too. Maybe it is not happening to anybody else?
Think about what you just said. It does not take a genius to work out why so many are following the thread. There are exactly the same number of people saying it is happening as are saying it is not happening.

Perhaps now would be a good time for some of them to sign up to the forum and leave a message (I spent some time reading this forum before needing to sign up to start this thread)

And do you really think that several different operating systems on several different devices using several different broadband connections on several different ISPs are coincidentally giving the same results ?
- Ads are annoying and some may be tricky. But anybody who believes to make $14,000 per day, without any skills, basically doing nothing, maybe they deserve to be robbed? Hallelujah darwinism :twisted:
My son has quite severe learning difficulties. Perhaps I should have him castrated for you?


In the first half of the twentieth century there was an Austrian painter who brainwashed much of Germany into adopting your belief that anybody who did not meet his ideals of 'perfection' should not be allowed to reproduce

But, as you have admitted that the scamming of people out of their hard earned money just because they were born with an IQ not up to your desired standards is encouraged on opensubtitles.org, I would now suggest that all of the people following this thread do what I am now doing and getting my subs from the many other sites available.

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SmallBrother
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Re: redirects to malware sites

Mon Nov 05, 2018 12:35 pm

How long should we wait for a change to a few lines of coding to stop using these sites ? a month? a year ?
What makes you think it's just a matter of changing a few lines of code? In fact, it was you who concluded that things were a result from redirect going to redirect going to redirect, etc. As a network security analyst, as you say you are, I assume you know that things may be not that easy.
It does not take a genius to work out why so many are following the thread.
Correct. It's a simple psychological phenomena: give a topic a touchy dodgy title, post very often so it gets marked as 'hot', and use a lot of bold all-caps text, using high drama words like "stealing", "scam", "virus" and "porn". Never mind it's pretty much every time repeating the same thing: lists of URL's using drama wording. Drama and riot topics about porn and scams tend to have more readers than topics about red ants in the Brazilian jungle.
There are exactly the same number of people saying it is happening as are saying it is not happening.
Not really. There is only ONE person saying really bad stuff is happening, all the time, everywhere. The others (plural) are saying it's not really, or really not the case.
Perhaps now would be a good time for some of them to sign up to the forum and leave a message
We have been asking for confirmations or denials a couple of times already, but nothing happened. It does not take a genius to work out why not. Anybody can create dozens of new user accounts today. I think it would be more convincing if existing long-time members join in with their statements, whether confirming or denying. The invitation is still open, as it has been for weeks now.
And do you really think that several different operating systems on several different devices using several different broadband connections on several different ISPs are coincidentally giving the same results ?
The coincidence is that all that alleged really bad stuff on all those devices etc. is happening to one single person only. Or to be precise, this one single person is saying it is happening.
My son has quite severe learning difficulties. Perhaps I should have him castrated for you? (...etc...)
I am sorry, but I have no interest in your son. Please, do not twist things or pull them out of context or proportion. Note my "maybe", the question mark and the irony. The issue is not your son, nazi beliefs or the color of red ants. The issue is if the things you are mentioning, are actually happening, and as you say they are.

I have been putting some things together and I am sorry, but I cannot pull myself away from the impression that you are on a mission to scandalize OpenSubtitles and/or the advertising agency, rather than solving a problem. As a network system analyst with obviously a scientific background, I am sure you agree that impression is not completely unreasonable.

It has happened that an advertising agency was delivering bad content and users (plural) were complaining. That was taken very, very seriously. It has happened that an advertising agency was dumped because of delivering bad content.

Are you maybe such an ex-advertiser? Or just a competing one? Or a competing subtitle website? A VPN provider or anti-malware manufacturer? Were you maybe about to publish a link to a 'solution'?
I would now suggest that all of the people following this thread do what I am now doing and getting my subs from the many other sites available.
I think that's a great idea.

Some friendly advice:
- Keep your adblocker on.
- Keep your software up-to-date.
- Keep your son away from the internet.
Nowadays a VPN is a must for everyone. A VPN allows you safe surfing and protects you against spying governments and companies.
I advise AirVPN - from € 2,75 per month. Click the below banner for more info.


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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:12 pm

I am very surprised that you think using other subtitle sites is a good idea. Oh well
Are you maybe such an ex-advertiser? Or just a competing one? Or a competing subtitle website? A VPN provider or anti-malware manufacturer? Were you maybe about to publish a link to a 'solution'?
None of the above. I am (was) a regular user of the opensubtitles.org site until they started to force me onto scam, porn and malware sites, and I happen to be passionate about keeping the dross and dregs of society away from users of the internet, particularly the vulnerable and less able. And we already know the 'solution'

I would not be taking my time with this forum if I did not care and I was not trying to help. If I wanted to get rid of opensubtitles.org there are less time consuming ways to achieve this
Some friendly advice:
- Keep your adblocker on.
- Keep your software up-to-date.
- Keep your son away from the internet.
Thank you but I do not need you to decide who should, and who should not be, 'allowed' to use the internet and I am pretty sure your advertisers and potential advertisers will not appreciate your advice of blocking their ads. I honestly don't mind being shown a genuine advertisement if it gives you income.

I was once told but an advertising exec why a company would spend so much money on advertising.
50% of the population, mathematically, are more than averagely gullible
The advertising world believe that half of those (25%) are quite gullible
around 7% to 10% will believe most things you tell them
around 5% are so gullible that they will believe that they have won an I-phone or can make $14,000 in a week from their PC

5% of around 4.5 billion internet users is 225,000,000 people who will believe they have won an iPhone
(although IQ and gullibility do not always correlate. In the USA, for example, even some of the more 'intelligent' are extraordinarily gullible)

@SmallBrother and @oss

This is in no way personal and I am in similar conversations with other popular innocuous looking sites which, like yours, turn out to be potentially very dangerous. I really am just a normal user (who happens to have a family member who needs protecting) and wants to help make life difficult for the scammers and scum.

Your advertisement for "you have won an iphone" is the modern equivalent to the scam where you receive post telling you that you have won a prize. We all know the stories of elderly, confused people spending their entire life savings chasing the big prize and eventually receving a cheap ball-point pen and not the $250,000. These were deliberately aimed at the elderly and less mentally capable. Fortunately, these scum have been mostly shut down with their tricks becoming illegal in most civilised countries (most of the EEC I believe). So the scum have just gone to telephones 'stock pick', 'Microsoft engineers' and online. 'you have won an I-phone', 'make $14,000 a week", "you have a virus; phone this number" "This is the video the banks are afraid of you seeing" (all of these are this mornings redirects from cobalten.com)

As I stated earlier, I think opensubtitles is an excellent site, but I will not be using it until it becomes safe again. Regardless of what you are telling us, it is very simple to stop allowing your paymasters to target the young, less able and vulnerable members of society.

The conclusion is simple. If you carry on forcing users onto bad sites then the users will all use adblockers. If that happens then you will have no advertisers and therefore no income. I suspect that, as there are few other reports of these redirects, most of your users are using adblockers anyway.


But thanks for your time

I will regularly review the situation and will remove opensubtitles.org from my blacklist when they have stopped opening dangerous sites in my browser

And for heaven's sake, please stop offering to show copyright material illegally. I don't have any moral problem with that but I do not wish to see you forced to shut down. It is playing straight into the hands of the anti-piracy lobby. I am sure that whatever lookmovie.ag are paying opensubtitles.org can not compensate for being permanently shut down (or maybe it does and thats the game plan)

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SmallBrother
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Re: redirects to malware sites

Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:25 pm

Okay.
Nowadays a VPN is a must for everyone. A VPN allows you safe surfing and protects you against spying governments and companies.
I advise AirVPN - from € 2,75 per month. Click the below banner for more info.


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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Dec 02, 2018 3:01 pm

One month on.

Plenty of time for the management of Opensubtitles.org to remove the ilegal watching of Copyright material from its site - not done

Plenty of time to stop the redirects to scams, porn and malware - not done

What a pity that a site that started with good intentions has now sank this far

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oss
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Contact: Website

Re: redirects to malware sites

Thu Dec 06, 2018 9:18 am

mike, totally understand you, you are can feel free to make better subtitles site, so it will run in long term on with nice ads (good luck with google adsense and so on). We would be the most happy, if there are no ads at all, believe us. Running this operation in pure cost thousands of dollars. Those money must be made somewhere.

Become VIP member and support us, you will not get all these problems, right ?

You have still choice.

mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Tue Dec 25, 2018 1:52 pm

At last you have admitted what you are doing. But why did you try to hide it for so long ?

I just opened your site to look for subtitles for 'Frozen'

within seconds I was looking at pornography

Cobalt are still redirecting kids to porn sites. There are ad companies who will not , but maybe not pay you so much

Become a VIP member? Your site should make it very clear that "Unless you pay us we will redirect you and your kids to porn, scams and malware"

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oss
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Re: redirects to malware sites

Wed Dec 26, 2018 3:05 pm

Hi,

I never got these kind of ads, you are only one who complains, maybe you have some virus, or some special IP where these ads appears. You can always send URL and send it to our ADS provider. For me, only clear pops appears, so it is very very hard to fix something what is not happening here.

Anyway, we are working on http://www.opensubtitles.com - you are welcome there and I hope you will have much more better feeling from the site.

mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Wed Dec 26, 2018 5:18 pm

So, you are back to denying it again ?

If it is a virus then it is in 4 different PCs including Windows 10, MAC OS, Linux (2 different distros) and Firefox, Edge and Chrome and from 4 different IP addresses

I normally leave my ad blockers off so that the sites that I visit can earn their keep. Yours is the only one to bombard me with sex, scams and virus

For your ad provider: ***************** other readers do not follow these *****************

First PC Linux/Firefox

First cobalt redirect - a scam using a lot of lies
http://www.favorite-job.com/landers/dra ... b5=firefox

second redirect - sex site
http://dedating.online/X-ALL.C/index-en ... id=1983476

third redirect - same sex site again
http://dedating.online/X-ALL.C/index-en ... id=1983476

fourth redirect - - same sex site again
http://dedating.online/X-ALL.C/index-en ... id=1983476

fifth redirect - "Dirty Tinder" sex site with photographs of naked women
https://bestdateshere22.com/?u=7pfk605& ... 76_proads2

Switched to second PC Windows 10/ Chrome

First redirect - Malware/Virus

https://lp.searchdimension.com/10/?v=399#sdapp93

Second redirect - This one rotates through a few ads, Sex Games and scams
https://informereng.com/?rzi=1983476&rsz=1983476&rid=

Third redirect - Malware
https://install.stream-all.com/?pid=540 ... 5562980354

Get the picture NOT ONE genuine advert in first 8 redirects

and on your landing page there were 7 ads, 6 for scams and one for sex site. Or is that a virus on all of my machines and browsers as well ?
And I see that your site is still providing multiple links to illegaly watch copyright material.

Do you really think I am the only person you are doing it to? 20,000 + views of this topic.
Hey everybody. Only visit opensubtitles.org with your adblockers ON

svaraej
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:03 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sat Dec 29, 2018 10:12 pm

Since requested in the thread.

I don't get any ads since I'm a gold member so I obviously logged out before testing. All tests are done with incognito/private mode both enabled and disabled. I've tested via different internet connections and multiple VPN servers. The systems I've tested on are Mac OS 10.13.6 and iPhone iOS 12.1.2. On my Mac I also tested from a new user I created for this. Any and all adblockers were completely disabled or not installed.

My results:
Mac, Safari 12.0.2
First click anywhere on OS startpage opens a popup that via the site Cobalten opens an ad/webpage from Kromtech that suggests that I download MacKeeper from them. No problems with closing the popup window. No more popups from clicks on non-ads when using the site afterwards.

Mac, Firefox 64.0 (64-bit)
First click anywhere on OS startpage opens a popup that via the site Cobalten opens an ad/webpage from com-fast-macos that beeps like an error notification. The page shows a "fake popup" (an image that's supposed to look as another popup) that states IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED, we have detected a trojan virus yadayadyada, Press OK to begin the repair process. No problems with closing the popup window. No more popups from clicks on non-ads when using the site afterwards.

Mac, Google Chrome 71.0.3578.98 (Official Build) (64-bit)
First click anywhere on OS startpage opens a popup that via the site Cobalten opens an ad/webpage from allsearchreward that congratulates me on having done the five-billionth Google search and continues with giving me links so that I can claim my prize. No problems with closing the popup window. No more popups from clicks on non-ads when using the site afterwards.

iPhone, iOS 12.1.2, Safari
Upon loading OpenSubtitles startpage, an "alert window" (with the options Cancel and OK) shows up before the page is loaded, it states "In Order To Download Subtitles Please Sign Up For Free.". Choosing Cancel closes the "alert window" and the OpenSubtitles startpage loads, no more popups from clicks on non-ads when using the site afterwards. When choosing OK, OpenSubtitles is not loaded. Instead I get sent to, via adk2x, sites/ads from islandmob. When going back to OpenSubtitles the inital popup appears again.

iPhone, iOS 12.1.2, Firefox 14.0
Same as iPhone, iOS 12.1.2, Safari.


ALL BROWSERS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS:
No porn.

Best regards,
svaraej
Last edited by svaraej on Sun Dec 30, 2018 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sat Dec 29, 2018 11:23 pm

So you didn't get Porn

Cobalt just fed you a scam or malware each time

Which is better?

I don't want either thanks

svaraej
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:03 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Dec 30, 2018 2:48 am

So you didn't get Porn

Cobalt just fed you a scam or malware each time

Which is better?

I don't want either thanks
It doesn't really matter which is better. I tested and reported what happens to me to help the OpenSubtitles team with the issue.

From reading this thread it seems to me, although I'm not a "network security analyst", that it's only you that have the recurring porn problem. No one else experiences this or is able to replicate it. Since you state that you experience this on multiple computers, operating systems, internet connections and VPNs it only leaves one common denominator…
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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Dec 30, 2018 3:19 am

I am glad to see that you are also getting these redirects to scams or malware or porn

In your small sample of 4 tries you got four out of four.

You are right. The common denominator is cobalten

svaraej
Posts: 10
Joined: Sun Oct 01, 2017 5:03 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Dec 30, 2018 3:57 am

I am glad to see that you are also getting these redirects to scams or malware or porn

In your small sample of 4 tries you got four out of four.

You are right. The common denominator is cobalten
If you'd read my first post again you'd see that my sample was quite a bit larger than 4.

But still, the common denominator in the porn problem is you, you're the only one experiencing it.
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mike2017mike
Posts: 24
Joined: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:46 pm

Re: redirects to malware sites

Sun Dec 30, 2018 6:47 am

"If you'd read my first post again you'd see that my sample was quite a bit larger than 4."

You documented 4 examples. Possibly you are counting subsequent clicks on each visit. There is a timer element involved. You will not get subsequent redirects immediately. just wait

"But still, the common denominator in the porn problem is you, you're the only one experiencing it."

Yup, just me. That is why there are more than 20,000 views from people waiting to see the resolution to this problem


You seem to have a fixation on the porn element of the redirects. This seems to be clouding your understanding of this thread. This thread is entitled 'redirects to malware sites'. Your samples show exactly that. Redirects to malware sites

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