Banning LinkBucks/URLCash redirects.

[CFUD]

Now, we're seeing more and more Lb/URLCash links to torrents and direct downloads which are annoying many people on the forum. I know of many forums which have banned these redirects for their own reasons, but to shed some light:

1. They are harmful and on the redirect pages, there are links to malware downloads.
2. People sign up to A-O just to use cash redirects because of its traffic. People will copy download links posted by others, and redirect them to their own URLcash/Linkbucks account, taking advantage of their hard work and making money in the process. Why should they make money fro other peoples' effort? Especially from files split up into 10 parts - the posters make SO much from one file (and they didn't even upload it in the first place!)
3. A waste of time and bandwidth. To get to one link, you will get redirected to at least 2 other pages (which have links to malware sites and can seriously wreck people's computers if they don't have anti-virus installed).

 

[daice]

I as a URLCash user will give my opinion about this.
About harmful redirects, I never had a problem with clicking on redirects links. Major reason for this I guess is that I use Firefox with NoScript plugin that simply disable 99% of the scripts on sites I visit. That way I guess I prevent that pages harm me.
About people copying links posted by other, that's something that really happens. Don't know what to do about it. All links I provide were ALL uploaded by me. I have reasons for doing this but maybe others don't.
About bandwith and time, I don't know if it's that much of a waste. At least LinkBuck and URLCash have the option to skip that redirect page instead of waiting the timer run out so it takes one extra click to get to the page you want to.

I guess it can be clearly seen that for me, the biggest problem about this system is the link theft. I won't deny that the easiest (and maybe only, never though much about it) way to end with this practice would be banning the reason why it happens, that would be banning the sites mentioned on this thread. But as a user(that do not steal links) of those system, I would prefer it to be kept allowed here.

 

[CFUD]

I think that it's a good idea that we cross-check links posted by members with other sites.

I'd say an auto-ban is fair game if you're caught.

EDIT: And it's really easy to tell if you've simply lifted links or not. Take retyrdplayboy for example (The first 'no' vote for the poll). He will "host" on [RS] and [MU] and [SS] and the picture hosting sites vary from picturesets.com to uploadimage or whatever. It's painfully obvious.

 

[techie]

If you dont rely on link bucks for income reasons, see my signature and get 250 Mb space to host whatever. Need more spce, just get another free site, need more space still? See previous sentence. and so on.

No popups, small add at the way bottom, mostly simple image, nothign popunder, frame breakers or any other garbage.

(and no i dont get paid for that, its free)

 

[Skyraida]

I'm with daice on this, i use URLCash for my uploads, i like to earn a little something from uploading so i can earn some cash to access some more interesting sites, that otherwise i wouldn't really pay from my own pocket. But i agree with CFUD's link theft auto ban and auto check. If people can't bother to upload items themselves and do it properly they deserve the boot.

 

[Sakunyuusha]

About harmful redirects, I never had a problem with clicking on redirects links. Major reason for this I guess is that I use Firefox with NoScript plugin that simply disable 99% of the scripts on sites I visit. That way I guess I prevent that pages harm me.

The "if I can avoid it, so can they" argument is an irrelevant and demeaning one which people raise time and time again in arguments over (perceived) "malware rights" and other defenses of criminally-minded behavior on the Internet. At an extreme, there are some people who sincerely advocate for the abandonment of Windows and who expect everyone to switch over to using Linux -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so. Scaling it back to a discussion of Internet browser plug-ins like AdAware or NoScript:
1. How do you know they even use a compatible browser in the first place?
2. What if they can't figure out plug-ins?
3. What if they can figure out plug-ins and would have been happy to try this software out were it not for the fact that they didn't even know it existed until it was too late?

Will you seriously defend the viewpoint that ignorance of anti-malware software equates to deserving it when malware ruins their machines? I'm sorry, but people do not somehow deserve to get infected by viruses, worms, and spyware just because they lack the same resources that technophiles enjoy. They do not deserve to be made to suffer any more than a gunless man deserves to be shot. Would you try that defense in court, sir? "That man was asking to be shot by virtue of the fact that he didn't have a gun." Nobody deserves to be shot. And nobody deserves to be hacked.

So rather than try to convince people that the hackers should be allowed to have their malignant fun and netizens need to wise up and get intimate with browser plug-ins, I think we ought to come to terms with the fact that anyone who takes advantage of another's ignorance in order to cause harm and achieve personal gain is a petty criminal -- whether he's doing it in person or digitally.

 

[desioner]

BAN THAT SHIT! outright. None of this or that arguments. Ban it.
I don't even look at or download that shit when it doesn't even tell me what I'm getting.
desioner

 

[Axandra]

At an extreme, there are some people who sincerely advocate for the abandonment of Windows and who expect everyone to switch over to using Linux -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so.

I take it you happened to read one of my suggestions posted in another thread? If yes, please read further; if not, I'll apoplogize but I'll go on anyway.

Right at the end of your post you state:

I think we ought to come to terms with the fact that anyone who takes advantage of another's ignorance in order to cause harm and achieve personal gain is a petty criminal -- whether he's doing it in person or digitally.

I am too of the opinion that malevolent persons shouldn't be treated differently just because they act in the digital world. Still, this doesn't make them go away, and certainly doesn't justify lack of prevention.

And this brings me to my problem with the first mentioned quote: it should be just as common sense to anyone by now that the Internet is populated and put in movement by people from the real world, being nothing more than an extension of the latter, and therefore not even so different.

If I were to apply the analogy to the real world, the stand on advocating a more secure OS would sound somehow funny, something like this:

"At an extreme, there are some people who sincerely advocate for the abandonment of totally open doors to strangers attitude, and who expect everyone to switch over to locking and securing their establishments -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so."

Peace.

 

[daice]

The "if I can avoid it, so can they" argument is an irrelevant and demeaning one which people raise time and time again in arguments over (perceived) "malware rights" and other defenses of criminally-minded behavior on the Internet.

I didn't said that if I can avoid it, so can they. I just stated how I do it. Now everytime you explain something to someone you are saying that "if I can, so can you"?

At an extreme, there are some people who sincerely advocate for the abandonment of Windows and who expect everyone to switch over to using Linux -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so.

Yes, there are people who think that way but I do not think that way. I never said that everybody should quit using one browser and migrate to another one that is safer. Again I just stated how I probably avoid the malware. Probably because I'm not 100% sure that the plugin itself is the only reason.

Scaling it back to a discussion of Internet browser plug-ins like AdAware or NoScript:
1. How do you know they even use a compatible browser in the first place?
2. What if they can't figure out plug-ins?
3. What if they can figure out plug-ins and would have been happy to try this software out were it not for the fact that they didn't even know it existed until it was too late?

Again I just stated what I do. I never said that they use a compatible browser, never said that they can figure out plug-in nor said that they will not be late on finding out it's existence.

Will you seriously defend the viewpoint that ignorance of anti-malware software equates to deserving it when malware ruins their machines? I'm sorry, but people do not somehow deserve to get infected by viruses, worms, and spyware just because they lack the same resources that technophiles enjoy. They do not deserve to be made to suffer any more than a gunless man deserves to be shot. Would you try that defense in court, sir? "That man was asking to be shot by virtue of the fact that he didn't have a gun." Nobody deserves to be shot. And nobody deserves to be hacked.

You're simply speculating over a statement I did on my post. I never said that I defend the viewpoint that ignorance of anti-malware softwares leads to deserve being infected by malwares.
Though I don't know if I agree that nobody deserves to be shot not have their machines infected, I do agree that the fact that one does not have a gun doesn't leads to him deserving to be shot nor one without knowlodge of anti-malware programs deserve to have their machine infected.

So rather than try to convince people that the hackers should be allowed to have their malignant fun and netizens need to wise up and get intimate with browser plug-ins, I think we ought to come to terms with the fact that anyone who takes advantage of another's ignorance in order to cause harm and achieve personal gain is a petty criminal -- whether he's doing it in person or digitally.

And again I just said how I avoid it. Saying that is trying to convince "people that the hackers should be allowed to have their malignant fun and netizens need to wise up and get intimate with browser plug-ins"?
If I say how I play drums am I trying to convince that "people should stop trying to play any other music instrument and should all start playing drums as I do"?
If I say how I purify water in my farm am I trying to convince that "people should wise up about water purifing methods and that hospitals should not treat people who got a disease due to their water being contaminated because it's the population fault for not being up to date"?
I'm sorry but I don't think so.
Maybe you thought I defend that point of view because I said that for me the only problem is the link theft. Pretty fair I guess because with that statement I guess such argument could be found.
I guess that with such statement I simply said that I'm fine with what's fine for me. I'm not thinking about everybody, I'm thinking about me.
Egocentric? Sometimes.
Am I the only one? No.

As I said on my post, banning is probably the easiest way to overcome this problem. Maybe the only one, maybe not but surely it's the easiest option. Though I'm not in favour of this option, at least not yet.

 

[CFUD]

I think you guys should stop squabbling over semantics. I thinkt eh crux of the malware argument is that

-All browsers without adblock/noscript plug-ins will have access to 'bad ads'.
-They are harmful.

I admit total banning is an extremity. My suggestion for a zero-tolerance ban on stolen links is pretty solid, however.

 

[Sakunyuusha]

I take it you happened to read one of my suggestions posted in another thread?

No, but I read further anyway.

It should be just as common sense to anyone by now that the Internet is populated and put in movement by people from the real world, being nothing more than an extension of the latter, and therefore not even so different.

I agree and agreed, as I was the one who first pointed out (that because the Internet is still a part of the real world and is not some secondary world with different rules and different ethics) that the defense of websites which intentionally infect visitors with malware is questionable and the motives of the defense perhaps unethical.

I'm going to slightly edit your parallel of my analogy not for meaning but for legilbility:

At an extreme, there are some people who sincerely advocate that we should no longer leave our doors unlocked. They expect everyone to switch over to locking and securing their establishments -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so.

I thank you for this analogy, however extreme it may be, because it illustrates that we are fundamentally not arguing the same case. You are saying that advice to use Linux is sound advice, just as advice to lock one's doors is sound advice. I completely agree. I, on the other hand, am saying that people who choose not to use Linux are no more asking to be hacked than people who choose to leave their doors unlocked are asking to be burgled. In a US court, no burglar would be found Not Guilty if he was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the prosecution intentionally left their house unlocked. Even if he could prove this, he would still be found Guilty. Leaving one's house unlocked on purpose is not the same thing as intending to be robbed. They are two different things.

In fact, I could have every door on my house locked but have signs all over my front yard that challenge burglars to try their luck and to attempt to burgle me. That would be equivalent to a seasoned user of Linux going to a website that attracts experienced hackers and challenging them to crack his security and wipe out his hard drive.

People may choose to leave their doors unlocked for matters of convenience. They are taking a risk being burgled, but that they are willing to take the risk does not equate to deserving to be burgled or to not having a solid argument in court against the perpetrator who burgled them. The exact same thing applies for Windows users, non-Firefox users, etc. with regards to malware.

And the problem, as you full well know but are perhaps reluctant to admit, is much more complicated than a lock-and-door scenario. Even a severely retarded human being can figure out how to lock and unlock a door. Figuring out how to use Linux is something that not everyone has the time or the intelligence for. Smart, young individuals -- medical students, law school students, and college undergraduates and graduate students whose expertise lies in fields that have little to do with computer technology -- do not have the time or the money to install Linux on a spare machine, experiment with it, figure out how it works, and fully optimize it. Do these people run the risk of being hacked in the interim period between school and mastering Linux? Yes. Do they deserve to be hacked? No.

I have an extreme counter-example for you to partner off with your door-and-lock analogy and then I'm done:
Say we have a woman. This woman has normal female anatomy. In fact, she is quite pretty. In addition, her total body weight is beneath your threshold for upper arm strength. Does that mean she can be picked up by you? Yes. Does that mean she deserves to be or is asking to be picked up by you? No. Picking up is relatively harmless; how about abduction? Can she be picked up by you, stuffed into the trunk of your car, and taken 2000 miles from her home? Yes. Does she deserve to be? Of course not.

This woman has a normal human brain. One property of the human brain is that it can be sent into a deep sleep by certain chemicals that are easily administered without the person's knowledge. Does that mean that you could slip a date r*** drug into her drink? Yes. Does that mean that she deserves to be date r***ing if you fool her into turning her head away from her drink and in the meantime you slip some date r*** drug into her drink? No.

Now so far I've provided examples where the woman has little to no ability to change her circumstance. You could argue, "Sakunyuusha, people can learn Linux. People can't change the brains they're born with to be immune to hypnotic drugs." Fair enough. But what about martial arts? Let's say this woman knows zero martial arts. She doesn't know how to use a gun or a knife. She couldn't defend herself if her life quite literally depended on it. Is it true that a defenseless human being can be attacked, r***ing, murdered? Yes. Is it true that a defenseless human being deserves to be attacked, r***ing, or murdered? No. Even though she could have learned karate or judo, the fact that she did not does not mean that you have the legal or (fuck the law) ethical right to do with this woman as you please.

What I'm getting at is, you seem to be somebody who believes that Might is Right. I think that that's an indefensibly inhumane worldview. People who leave their doors unlocked do not deserve to be burgled. People who do not know how to defend themselves do not deserve to be assaulted. And people who do not know how to use better computer security do not deserve to be hacked.

 

[techie]

I seriously doubt INTELLIGENCE is at stake here.
I run linux when i can but on most stuff I do in daily life I am bound by my clients working on windows machines so jumping back and forth is not a choice for myself.

Jumping on peoples intelligence doesnt justify itself as an explanation in this case.

Besides, I agree completely with Desioner as I have personally never clicked, viewed, downloaded or desired to see any of the stuff on linkbucks, as most of us with mediocre IQ or better understands its mostly pay-for junk ads anyway.

Linux -- despite the fact that not everyone has the time, patience, and intelligence to do so.

 

[Sakunyuusha]

I didn't said that if I can avoid it, so can they. I just stated how I do it. Now everytime you explain something to someone you are saying that "if I can, so can you"?

I was not making a personal judgment against you; I was merely stating that the "if I can do it, so can you" response to these kinds of threads is not beneficial nor does it address the actual issue at hand. The question is not, "Can we find a way to safely visit websites that have the potential to infect us? And if so, should we allow those websites to be linked to on Akiba-Online?" The question is, "Do we as a community want to ban websites that have the potential to infect unprotected users?"

Your reply answered the first question very well; if we try to take your answer and apply it to the second question, it does indeed send the message that you don't give a shit about other Akiba-Online members getting their machines wiped out so long as you're protected. If that isn't what you really believe, then it means that we cannot apply your answer to the true question after all. This is why I said, without meaning to offend you as a person, that your argument was irrelevant to the matter at hand.

As for your drums, purified water, and other arguments at the bottom of your reply, those arguments are not the same as the one I replied to. Either you know this and you intentionally attempted to cloud the issue or else you really don't understand the difference. Well I'm going to spell it out for you and for everyone else reading this.

What you advised: let's keep the links to sites with malware because there are safe ways of visiting them and for those of us who know how to do that these sites are really useful. For those who don't know how, here, try out this plug-in for Firefox.
What you think that's equivalent to: Here, play the drums. If you don't want to, though, that's cool.
What it's really equivalent to: let's go perform in Milwaukee. I hear they love drummers there. They give them free food and hotels. Sure, there are a lot of assassins in the audience with sniper rifles but in Milwaukee they never ever shoot the drummer. Even if they wanted to they couldn't -- people in the crowd would take a bullet for a drummer. Now, if you don't want to play the drums, that's 100% okay by me, but we're going to perform in Milwaukee whether you like it or not. I'm not saying I want you to get shot, but I am saying that if you can't find your own way that works for you to not get shot then tough fucking luck. Milwaukee, baby! HERE WE COME!

So yeah. What you're saying is, "Everyone needs to find his own way to browse these sites safely." And what I'm saying is, "Rather than expect everyone to do this, how about our band just doesn't perform in Milwaukee anymore?" Or rather, "how about Akiba-Online bans websites that are notorious for intentionally infecting casual web surfers with malware? There are plenty of friendly, safe alternatives to choose from. The only people who don't want these sites to be banned are those who have a financial or emotional investment in them."

 

[Sakunyuusha]

a bit off topic, but just to reply

I seriously doubt INTELLIGENCE is at stake here.

With enough practice and enough time, I think anyone but the most clinically retarded humans could figure out Linux. By "intelligence," I guess what I am really getting at is "ability to learn." Some aspects of that include:

memory: how much can you remember? for how long can you remember any particular piece of information? how quickly does short-term memory become long-term memory for you? how much repetition do you require?

analysis & creativity: how effectively do you solve problems on your own? how well can you visualize abstract concepts and problems?

You've said that intelligence is not a major issue in learning Linux but I disagree. The "dumber" someone is, the more time it takes for them to learn the same material. Maybe they have a poor memory. Maybe they just don't understand something until it's explained to them 10 different ways by 10 different people and they find the one explanation that works for them. The point is, because of these intelligence-related setbacks, they require much more time. And that time is limited by their commitment to their jobs, families, and other activities.

Ultimately, I would say time is the major factor which determines who learns Linux and who doesn't. Linux users tend to learn Linux in young adulthood (ages 14-30); those who learn it later in life tend to have jobs which do not keep them occupied 24/7 or else who have little to no family obligations. There are exceptions to the rule but the rule still stands.

 

[techie]

As for my personal memory, its damn near photographic most of the time. Especially for URL's and numbers.
PHP - 4 days to learn
MySQL 3 days to re-write the manual for my students and so on...

In re. to your What You Advised... purified water and stuff, is clearly to be filtered as we're not talking about water at all so why even cloud the issue more.

All I'm saying is, to each their own, and the sites spreading malware should be self cleansing after all.

Why not simply recommend people not to follow the links if you know they spread garbage, and when you use them to make a) money or b) store stuff in spite of this knowledge, does this not constitute agreement and support of spreading malware?

It can't be that much money involved that its really worth kicking a fuss about for heavens sake. You would be better of handing out leaflets for $5.25 an hour a coule of hours a week, and get some fresh air too, rather than relying on some junk-mailer website to begin with.

It's up to you if you wish to use them, but personally I have no intention to either follow the links, downloading the stuff, nor post anything to them when there are apparent better alternatives out there.

After all, posting freebies on the net is not my primary occupation.

 

[daice]

What you advised: let's keep the links to sites with malware because there are safe ways of visiting them and for those of us who know how to do that these sites are really useful. For those who don't know how, here, try out this plug-in for Firefox.
What you think that's equivalent to: Here, play the drums. If you don't want to, though, that's cool.
What it's really equivalent to: let's go perform in Milwaukee. I hear they love drummers there. They give them free food and hotels. Sure, there are a lot of assassins in the audience with sniper rifles but in Milwaukee they never ever shoot the drummer. Even if they wanted to they couldn't -- people in the crowd would take a bullet for a drummer. Now, if you don't want to play the drums, that's 100% okay by me, but we're going to perform in Milwaukee whether you like it or not. I'm not saying I want you to get shot, but I am saying that if you can't find your own way that works for you to not get shot then tough fucking luck. Milwaukee, baby! HERE WE COME!

I don't really see what I said the way you see it but anyway, I don't think I will keep with this discussion because it does not go with the purpose of this thread.

I just keep my statement from my previous posts here. I do agree that banning the sites IS the most efficient way to solve the problem and maybe even the only way.
Cross-checking the links to ban links thiefs is an option?
Yes, I do believe it is.
Will is be implemented?
No, I don't believe it will because it'll demand too much effort and also because this won't solve the problem of malware.

Since I'm against banning, do I have a suggestion for solving this problem without banning the site?
No, I don't.
What I have is a suggestion that may minimize problems with said site, that would be to force people who use URLCash/Linkbucks for whatever reason should state clearly that the links are harmful to your pc and that you should click at your own risk and maybe add a tag on the topic (something along the lines of [MU] and [RS] that are already implemented). This may reduce the amount of traffic generated thus discouragin people to use it.
Doing this require less effort than cross-checking and minimize the problem of malware.
Anyway, since I don't have a solution to this I don't think I have the right to complain about the decision that the webmaster takes.

 

[Kipi]

tl;dr

The only problem I have with URLCash type links is that its not about posting something because you want to share it. It's about posting it to try to profit it off it. I say try to profit because I checked out the site and it seems like you only get .01 cents per click, and you need $100 or something to actually get paid.

Simple Solution: If someone posts a URLCash link, just strip the URL and reply with the real link. Those who want to give the guy his .01 cents can click his link and those who oppose can click the direct link.

 

[handyman]

I hated those sites until I realized I could be making money too. So I joined.

Now I use linkbucks with no guilt. Last month I made $0.42 which is obviously shit, so I'll probably just forget about it.

edit: I changed my mind. I now hate that shit

 

[jaylorjepp]

I hated those sites until I realized I could be making money too. So I joined.

Now I use linkbucks with no guilt. Last month I made $0.42 which is obviously shit, so I'll probably just forget about it.

I started on 08/25/2008 and now I've made $2.25 USD......so far I wanna know what would happens if I reached $5.00 USD......

The trick is......make a link to the site that you always visit......and then click it many times!!!!!! :lols:

why wait for someone to click it when you can click it yourself

 

[daice]

Simple Solution: If someone posts a URLCash link, just strip the URL and reply with the real link. Those who want to give the guy his .01 cents can click his link and those who oppose can click the direct link.

That's certainly a good option, force people to post the non urlcash/LB links WITH the urlcash/LB links. If it's not done, someone else can do it.
Anyway, this with my sugestion of posting a warning and/or a tag should help.