Is autobookmarking/auto favorite adding really illegal?

[qpabani]

im just wondering if it really is illegal or not, cause i have had my homepage set sooo many times this last week.

Is there any proof that it is illegal? if someone open up dozens of (sponser) browsers and makes ur IE crash, is that illegal?

anyone know?

[Arthur]

No more or less illegal than propogating non-malicious viruses or trojans, I would think.

Equally as ethically bankrupt though, IMHO.

[sonicpuke]

It may or may not be illegal. It probabbly depends on where you are and the effects of the bookmarking.

In some areas it may be illegal to just change settings on your computer without permission but this will depend a lot on where you are and what the laws there are.

It would for sure be illegal if you could prove that some damage was done to you. A virus that actually causes damage is almost always illegal (Might be hard to prove that being forced to look at porn if your a porn webmaster though I think)

Internet law is very new and many things that are not illegal today WILL be illegal tommorow. It may where you are in fact already be illegal but you'd have to find out. I know in washington state send spam is technically illegal (People can actually be prossecuted for sending spam if your willing to follow through)

In most places spam isn't technically illegal.

BUT

As you probabbly know even though not illegal in most places if you contact a host/isp/whatever you can get people shut down for it.

I would think the same would apply but even more. What do you think and ISP/HOST etc would think about a site that is spreading viruses. (Mcaffee thinks it's a virus so that's something)

Also microsoft has "fixed" this with both a patch and in it's newer version so if it isn't technically a virus it is still a security breach taking advantage of a security hole. (Damn I wish everyone would use netscape instead. I hate microsoft especially thier fucking browser they tried to cram down my throat by integrating it into win98 so it WONT RUN without it. No worries though cause I still use netscape 99% of time so I haven't got ANY extra bookmarks. http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/wink.gif Say what you want about netscape at least it's not full of security holes like that.

Still I worry about my surfers getting thier shit fucked up so I screen any galleries that use this off my tgp before listing. (I use my little bot. It always catches those fucks.)

sonic

[qpabani]

well in that case, wouldnt opening up 10 sponser pages be illegal if it crashes ur browser?

or downloading a program like bearshare and have ur homepage set to bearshares?

[qpabani]

or how about a popup? you didnt want it to load - it loaded.. is that illegal??

[sonicpuke]

Well if you read carefully I think I said

->>It may or may not be illegal.
On the first line in fact.

Please read slowly before replying.

As for your questions though.

wouldnt opening up 10 sponser pages be illegal if it crashes ur browser?
Well who knows maybe it will be. There are stupider laws on the books now. (I think someone posted a list of stupid sex laws in america) If you somehow harmed the user there might be a case even now though I think you'd be pressing it. Really it's pretty dumb if you can't write code that doesn't crash browsers. ;(

how about a popup? you didnt want it to load - it loaded.. is that illegal??
Well I don't think this would be illegal and it's certainly not changing settings on your computer. I never said anything about what you do or do not want. (Maybe you were talking about the spam thing I pointed out. Yeah that's kinda dumb to me but there is a law in washington already on the books that makes sending unwanted emails illegal in itself)

This autobookmarking stuff aint gonna mean LESS dumb laws though. There will be new laws coming as new crimes are capable of being commited by use of the internet and lawmakers catch up. Could take a long time. Maybe not so long. The stuff people are pulling these days aint gonna slow it down any though I think. (Autohomepage a high ranking senator so it screws up his computer so he gets a page full of porn when he meant to show some constituant what a tree hugger he is and how much work he's doing for them and that law might come a LOT sooner than you thought http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/wink.gif

Popping a console and taking advantage of a security breach to change setting on someones computer are light years apart. Not sure why your comparing them. (I guess because the console and the autobookmarking are both such a pain in the ass?)

Do what you wanna do man. I don't like it much though.

If I were to find some security breach on your computer and starting changing settings or getting info from your computer I know how you'd feel about it though. (And what would be the difference. If it's ok now to muck around in surfers computer then why not just download thier credit card #'s and skip the middle man.)

It a security breach and it's changing settings on surfers computers. This is hacker stuff. If the new thing for webmasters to do is this then I think there's gonna be trouble though. (There ARE some laws already on the books that cover hacking and that's what it is so it may be illegal is some places already) The way people are using those things though I bet laws are coming to a place near you soon.

Call me crazy if you want. (I'm sure you do)

[Arthur]

Have to agree with most of what you've said, sonicvomit.

The really scary part of this exploit is what it's capable of. (ok, to placate you I won't elaborate on that http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/smile.gif) Because of this, I'm grateful to those who choose to share information like this -- I now know what it is, what is does, how to recognise it, and how to decipher it. The fact that some assholes will choose to use the knowledge for nefarious purposes is just life.

[toker]

However you do understand with this same little hack im able to actually deltree your entire disk. Its not really hard although requires a bit more work to setup and you must remember today its a homepage tomrrow you have an exploit allowing free access to your entire system and no way to stop it.

And yes i do have code that will allow me to plant any .exe or other filetype onto your desktop then set the keys to exploit it on startup and you will never know what hit you.

So my reccomendation kill the idea before it spreads or you become tempted to try it or you just might end up the victom of such.

I used to provide support on exploits over IRC and was a #helpdesk OP on dalnet for over a year and have seen VB scripts passed around that will allow somone to do anything they wish and its all setup via an .html page. I have also developed counter defenses to protect mIRC users from this type of stuff.

I think its time you 16yr olds and the likes as so many enter the world of net commerice learn this is not somthing that will increase your revenue and will eventually land you in jail. If i find a site that does this bookmark shit i do everything i can to shut it down and will continue to do so.

[qpabani]

thanks all for your replies

i saw soo many sites doing it (and obviously making shitload of $$) and i was getting pissed off at why they are still going strong, and here i am with the code to do all that stuff, getting nowhere because i didnt know if it was legal or not.

Now to start getting these sites shutdown, so i can feel better http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/smile.gif

[freap]

well i can tell you from experience that this fucking thing can reformat your hard drive,all was fine till i turned it back on the next day, no warning what so ever,i turned it on and within a minute i got a message on the screen format 23% complete,
and it fucked up my hard drive, it did something to the boot sector,its toast.
i lost everything.all my banners,codes,content,bookmarks, everything.
don't take this shit lightly,it can be very nasty

[Brandon]

heh, government will never have control over the net. Perhaps certain people would like to think they do for their own mental security but anybody who doesn't have their head up their anus knows otherwise.

[viper2K1]

Get your browser fixed here (last time I'll post this http://bbs.adultwebmasterinfo.com/ubb/wink.gif):
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q275/6/09.ASP

[shane]

seems nothing is illegal on the net...