Someone purchased the old domain of a FOSS app, then it's using it to deceive users to download adware
One of those two sites is distributing adware. Which of them?
File Converter (FOSS) by Adrien Allard was hosted on file-converter[.]org since a decade. Then someone a few weeks ago snatched that domain and it's now distributing adware. Almost identical design for the page, 100% designed to deceive users to download a different product, as it's called Zamzar.
45 replies
Report it to safe search so chrome starts blocking the page.
No u
In the github issues the dev is aware of this but he's not completely enraged, just mildly infuriated that the design is too similar and he's politely asking to have a different design.
From the history in the wayback machine i don't see any "parking" page between the switch, so my guesswork is that the dev has been approached with an offer like "we like that domain, we would like to buy it for $$$", unaware that they would copy the design like that in order to achieve maximum deception of users
If you contact the .org registry they'll take it down. .org is for non-profits
Is that really an enforced rule somewhere, or just one of those loose intentions from the early days of domain names?
If it is, it's news to me. I co-owned an education data consultancy (before realizing there was no money in education) that used a .org; we were for-profit.
Sounds like you unintentionally fit the brief anyway.
The people who maintain .org enforce it
TIL
Then they can just buy another domain under .Dev or .app
It's like playing whack a mole
If it used to be a valid website, and is now a scam, that’s a mole worth whacking - even if they’ll try again with a previously unknown url
The benefit of using a package manager like Winget, brew, apt, snap, fdroid is that these attacks are less likely especially with doubly signed reproducible builds like fdroid
i downloaded an old version from 2017 to see what happens when checking updates on the domain that's now distributing the scam. Luckily they're replying with a 404 and not with "install this new update, it's 100% safe"
you'd hope that the updater will at least check if the file is signed by the correct entity
Couldn’t he have sold control of the repo attached to the package managers and this still would happen?
Scummy practice by Zamzar. The actual FOSS app by Adrien Allard is awesome and very lightweight. https://file-converter.io is the correct FOSS version URL.
Unfortunately this isn't uncommon. This us part of the reason I stopped using Google
Not to mention all the malware under the sponsored section
Like Windows
It seems it's not so much they stole the domain, it's that they are using the same name with a different top-level domain. This is a common shady practice in malware. Most people can't afford to purchase every TLD or their domain and so just pick one or two. Problem is that search engines will find the bad TLDs and suggest them over the real TLD if the malware providers do proper SEO manipulation. A FOSS author is unlikely to be able to or afford the time and effort it takes to manipulate search results and most popular search engines are not doing much to fix the problem, and instead relying on "AI" to reduce the costs of maintaining their search results, which does a pretty bad job, IMHO.
originally it was hosted in the .org domain, then somehow it changed hands and it was changed to .io
Ah, thanks for clarifying. I didn't see that mentioned anywhere and the git repo is showing .io
Would fdroid be safe from this kind of practice? Of course there's no web domains involved but the exploit there is potentially the same
Yes, Android apps are signed and Android refuses updates with a different signature.
What I mean is fake apps with slightly different names, does fdroid have the potential to approve them? Even if it's open source, if someone intentionally adds malicious code it can take a couple months to spot, while the scan is going on.
The domain for my country is .ar and most sites that use said domain use .com.ar
Someone registered com under the .com.ar domain so if you add .com.ar to any url that ends in .com you get redirected to their adware site
My last name ends with ar so I tried to get a .ar domain to setup a personalized email but it seems like they are reserved for government stuff, I was only allowed to get .com.ar (last time I checked this was about 4 years ago)
looked up the tld's again
your only choice is to get goofy
Could try .army, .red or .republican (who the fuck approved that lmao)
Gotta get creative to get any decent addresses these days. I've been trying to establish a company name (with an available, short-ish, simple URL) and it's surprisingly difficult, even getting into weird TLDs. Really annoying, especially since a lot of them aren't actually being used.
Finally found a 9 character made-up word that I could get the .us TLD for, and I think that's about as good as it's going to get.
That sounds as if the register for .ar should be out of a job
Mildly infuriating? Sounds more like genuinely criminal
.io vs .org? Different website, old, legitimate domain still intact yes?
legitimate domain changed from .org to .io on 1st feb according to this commit https://github.com/Tichau/FileConverter/commit/0645481801ccb8f46a8e0766e9edac9acf77f468
This is why I refuse to use any download buttons on websites for FOSS apps; if it’s FOSS, it has a link to the source, which has releases, and is the safest way to ensure you’re getting what you actually want.
Forked, malware added?
No, I tried it in a VM and it's a completely different app. It seems like a shitty electron app that sits forever in the tray wasting ram just to upload files in their cloud for conversion instead of converting locally. And then it shows prompt to subscribe from the tray
There was a great windows app called 'dvdshrink' that let you rip commercial DVDs onto blank DVDs (shrinking them if necessary). It got taken down with a Cease & Desist, but the MPAA or whoever didn't worry about who took the domain. For a long time, the site was just filled with ads instead - now it's a bit more sophisticated: no real link to download the software, but lots of genuine-seeming donation requests.
The fake site is at the first search result for that software (edit: it's probably best not to link directly to it)
Makes sense.
Its literally a weekend job and a few bucks to quickly set up a fake site. Even with a single $20 donation are you already recouping your losses.
I'm guessing it's the one on the left that's new.
You've got left and right mixed up.
whoops
🫵🤨British🇬🇧
Ooof! That "View on GitHub" button made me believe it was the real one
Nah you had it right. They mixed up left and right.
This is always what scares me about FOSS having their own websites like this. What happens when that domain runs out and this exact thing happens???