Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains 179
blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."
Misspelled domain data (Score:5, Insightful)
Jim -- http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net] -- A workout plan that doesn't feel like homework.
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah. Thank God, we can rely on Google to not do anything like that. Can you imagine what potential for misuse there would be if a company like Google recorded your web surfing habits?
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
It claimed to be a spyware detection site and tried to download some
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2, Informative)
A neighbor of mine made that typo year or two ago and her Windows98 computer quickly filled up with adware/spyware.
Making it more obnoxious is if you have the history feature turned on, when you type go.... it will "guess" you wanted goggle com rather than google.com once you have visited the wrong site... (until you flush the history)
Where is Elliot Spitzer when you need him?
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
In other words: nope, absolutely no chance at all.
I just looked the domain up,
Registrant:
Knowledge Associates
PMB # 308 94 Gardiners Avenue
Levittown, NY 11756-3753
US
Domain Name:
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
Consider that some browsers (well Firefox anyway) will do a Google "I Feel Lucky" search on misspelled URLs. What happens when the first recognisable term is "http"? That's right...
Simple explanation (Score:2)
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
If I've learned anything about history, it is that power corrupts. Religous, secular, white, black, rich or poor, it does not matter. Give it time, and Google will abuse their power.
And the diff
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2, Redundant)
I must agree. If this tool reports back to Microsoft, I wouldn't recommend it to my customers. On the other hand, if it didn't and only protected you from winding up at bad sites (like the goggle.com mentioned below) it would be good. Problem is, can we trust Microsoft not to make it report home and to keep the blacklist up to date? I rather doubt it.
It seems to me that perhaps someone could make an open source equivalent. It wouldn't be that difficult, since you could use some of the same blocklists that
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:3, Insightful)
In fact, as of yet, Google still (in my book - the whole China thing has nothing to do with me and it is not my place to impose my values on another country, regardless of how I feel) hasn't done anything evil. MS, IMHO, on th
I wish they have a funky paper clip that says: (Score:5, Funny)
Hi there, I noticed you are about to visit a TLD web-site.
The address www.apple.com/macosx appears to be a misspelling of the address of a legitimate site http://www.microsoft.com/Genuine/.
Sites that use spelling variations of legitimate sites and companies may be used in "phishing" schemes to trick users into revealing their access accounts, credit card data, and other personal information.
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
[1] pun intended.
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
Re:Misspelled domain data (Score:2)
That sure is a good headline (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Steve Ballmer Microsoft tool? (Score:2)
first one up: (Score:5, Funny)
Did you mean "search.msn.com"?
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:4, Informative)
It's pretty bad. A popup got around firefox, automatically starts a file download gsetup.exe, etc.
Re:first one up: (Score:1)
Re:first one up: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:2, Informative)
The point is, many, many people are not computer savvy and regularly just accept the pop-up, click it to get rid of the "annoyance factor", and get on with whatever they were
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
The typical user should not be one unintuitive click away from screwing up their computer.
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Tried that (with FF 1.5.01), and got a blocked popup, and Firefox asked me what to do with a file. Quite normal behaviour, take a look on your configurations, to see if you didn't have a default action for .exe files.
That said, the page is obviously phishing. The download is probably a piece of spyware, and lots of IE systems will probably run it without user intervention, and lots of users will probably click 'Yes' on the box "Are you sure you want to run this program?" without reading.
Obviously it is a fake (Score:3)
Silly rabbit! (Score:2)
That's what VMWare [vmware.com] is for!
Re:The ones I hate are ones that are based off MS (Score:2)
Re:The ones I hate are ones that are based off MS (Score:2)
Intermediate jump (Score:2)
hxxp://lsjmp.com/12/135.htm?r=135&u=519
which is in turn called from:
hxxp://www.goggle.com/
Put "spybouncer" and "lsjmp" in your ad filters to stop this (I added them to my Proxomitron filter set).
Re:Intermediate jump (Score:2)
Go forth my
http://www.leadsponsors.com/ [leadsponsors.com]
Re:first one up: (Score:1, Informative)
Whenever I'm unsure of the spelling of a domain name, I hit my google toolbar bookmark and type the name of the company as a query. Most of the time the top link is the site I'm looking for, but I've been surprised quite a bit lately. Anyway, once I decide a site is worth going back to I just add it to my bookmarks; however, recently I've been lazy... so lazy in fact that I've accidentally typed google in my query at least half a dozen times.
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Re:first one up: (Score:2)
Clippy pops up and says:
"You seem to be trying to access search.msn.com, but have mispelled it as google.com. Would you like to go to search.msn.com right away or visit one of the great set of beginner videos on MS' website that teach you about all the cool features of MSN?
[Go to search.msn.com] [View video training] [Change Clippy Icon to XP Dog Icon]
"
Re:first one up: (Score:3)
Sounds great, but may be damaging to some (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds like a great idea, but I can see some legitimate causes being harmed. For instance, Untied.com [untied.com] is a typo of United, which is used to protest some labor practices at United Airlines [united.com].
I guess the question is, how is MS going to determine the legitimate misspellings from the illegitimate misspellings? Certainly United doesn't like the misspelling above, but it's not anti-consumer like misspelling a company name and winding up at a spam site, or worse yet, a phishing site. -- Paul
Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some (Score:1)
Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sounds great, but may be damaging to some (Score:1)
Like the frame images.google.com adds to the linked site.
Swipe at Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Swipe at Google? (Score:2)
Not the same goal (Score:1)
I'd be more concerned about phishing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'd be more concerned about phishing (Score:1)
Re:I'd be more concerned about phishing (Score:2)
You only have to make sure you type it correctly the first time, then after that you can use auto-complete.
Argh! Dupe! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, for reference, here are all the +4 and +5 comments from last week's installment of this story, so you karma whores can repost them and hope the moderators don't see through your ruse...
Microsoft 'URL Tracer' Hunts Typosquatters [slashdot.org]
Meanwhile, you can blame me for jinxing it.
Ghost Article: M'soft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains [slashdot.org]
Oh, how awful! (Score:1, Funny)
How dare those other companies! Nobody's allowed to exploit Microsoft's users except Microsoft!
Is there really need? (Score:1)
It seems to me that Microsoft is wasting resources on something that isn't really necessary.
Re:Is there really need? (Score:2, Interesting)
An easy mistake. Then, instead of seeing a site that installs XYZ spyware, they see a site that looks exactly like the real site
So they enter their password for online banking, because the site has the little lock in the browser window meaning it is a secure connection. Now, the owners of the fake site have the banking info, including accou
Re:Is there really need? (Score:2)
Re:Is there really need? (Score:2)
Yes, but that money didn't come from their pocket, did it? It came from the advertisers and was wasted because they ignore the ads and go away. Yes, some sleazeball made a fraction of a cent, but it came from another sleaseball, so who really cares?
Yes. (Score:2)
She repeatedly mistyped domains and then totally failed to recognize that she was on a spam ad-farm site - my mother does the same. So does my housemate... People seem to really not notice this kind of thing in the slightest. It's the old 'I don't understand computers therefore I'll play dumb' routine.
never heard of (Score:2)
Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
Besides which, classing mikerowesoft as a typo of microsoft is a stretch even by slashdot standards...
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
Try setting up a delivery and courier service at the domain fredex.com and see how far you get, even if you name is Fred Ex...
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
I agree I would not get far. Still I refuse to accept the combination of greedy brand owners and stupid web users to be a sane basis for domain jurisdiction. First come first serve would be totally ok if I was to decide.
Re:Oh, you mean like redirecting MikeRoweSoft.com? (Score:2)
A shot at Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Google makes a significant amount of money of bulk domainers. Domainers are people who buy domains in bulk, expecting to make revenue off inexperienced users tying words directly into the URL bar, variations/misspellings on popular domain names etc). An example is something like http://www.bloggerforums.com/ [bloggerforums.com].
By making users aware of what's going on, they'll be more likely to fix the problem themself (instead of clicking one of the sponsored links by Google), thus cutting a part of the revenue stream. (How big? Well, Google obviously isn't going to say, but it's estimated to be way into the hundred of millions.)
Re:A shot at Google (Score:1)
Google's own toolbar shows a little green graph from 1-10 for a page's popularity.
A popular site typo would be 7+ notches lower (Windows Update is a "4" now?!)
Re:A shot at Google (Score:1)
While the toolbar is cool, that won't stop my grandmother from mistaking her bank's website. Icons don't cut it, unfortunately you have to be abrassive with this otherwise users will ignore the
Re:A shot at Google (Score:2)
Re:A shot at Google (Score:2)
Re:A shot at Google (Score:2)
What, you mean Microsoft is being evil by doing this? While that wouldn't suprise me in the least I'm not sure I follow you...
Re:A shot at Google (Score:2)
There is a much easier way.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Block those IP addresses, block the squatters.
Check it out for yourself - fire up your favorite DNS query tool, and plug in some typos.
pron.com (Score:4, Funny)
Tom
Re:pron.com (Score:1)
Tough Calls (Score:4, Funny)
You were trying to access, "whitehouse.gov".
Did you really mean, "whitehouse.com"?
Re:Tough Calls (Score:2)
not just typos (Score:2, Informative)
I've emailed Google several times about this [google.com] awful program. I hate all forms of advertising, but it just makes me mad to see cool domains used for illegiti
Wonder if they'd open the protocol / database (Score:1)
Re:Wonder if they'd open the protocol / database (Score:2)
Only a band-aid (Score:4, Interesting)
Until users stop thinking that they can just add a
Hose IE (Score:1)
I must be missing something (Score:3, Informative)
I enter in a lot of my URLs by hand. I frequently make typos because I was typing them too fast. I see a page that isn't what I was expecting or that is obviously a link farm, I just re-type the URL.
Or I use bookmarks. Or I use Google.
Where's it going to send you? (Score:2)
Win-Win/Win-Lose? (Score:2)
Mind you though, there's a pretty big potential for abuse. What will the protection fees be against ending up on this list?
Seems like win-win from Microsoft's POV though.
Where do you want to go today? (Score:3, Funny)
"there's concern in Redmond..." (Score:4, Funny)
It occurs to me that the only people dumb enough to use MSIE these days are precisely those sorts of users who would be susceptible to the advertising on linkfarms.
I'm not sure whether to praise Microsoft for trying to protect the retards from themselves, or to curse them for defeating the net's version of Darwinian selection...
Re:"there's concern in Redmond..." (Score:2)
Verisign was a big problem because it was screwing with important mechanisms that people rely on. Having a web browser do this may be:
* a violation of your privacy
* providing valuable marketing data to Microsoft
* An attempt to squeeze Google out of the market by taking advantage of the fact that by default, Microsoft controls whatever gets entered in the URL bar.
* Not likely to be that helpful.
* Promote misspelling and ty
lawsuit-bait (Score:2)
Censoring the Net? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nothing is going to change until we shoot the bastards.
Andy Out!
It is good to know (Score:2)
It's sad. I think this is a Titanic starting to sink.
MS tool? (Score:2)
I see (Score:2)
IE: This is a typo-squatting domain. You really meant to go to www.microsoft.com
Seriously: for software to try to determine whether two service names are confusingly similar is a really bad idea; this area is regulated by trademark law and the courts are responsible for enforcing it. What software can do is help trademark owners identify potentially confusingly similar domain names prior to going to court.
Favorite typo domain (Score:2)
It's sad and hilarious - United Airlines completely sucks
Yes (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:1)
Re:Yes (Score:2)
Re:Yes (Score:2, Interesting)
You're on some sort of managed network, such as a business or university system, which is networked intimately to many other systems and has administrators who will have to clean up the machine when you're done, then your browser should prevent you from going to a known malware site. Sorry, I used to have that job, and began thinking, "maybe if I make them all use Lynx and Pine for web and email,