jsmorley wrote:I will put some thoughts together in the next day or so. I think I might know that guy from Netherworld BBS. I was the sysop of the Interconnect BBS (and the president of the Capitol Area Sysops Association) at the time he was running Netherworld.
Hey Jeff, did you get anywhere with him? I'm just about to post a comment at dA that Fiona and Heidi will see and thought I'd check first to see you if you've made any progress.
Re: Warning from the Rainmeter Team
Posted: May 4th, 2011, 5:38 pm
by jsmorley
karmat wrote:
Hey Jeff, did you get anywhere with him? I'm just about to post a comment at dA that Fiona and Heidi will see and thought I'd check first to see you if you've made any progress.
I did not. I have been away and haven't had a chance to ping him. Sorry.
Re: Warning from the Rainmeter Team
Posted: May 14th, 2011, 1:15 pm
by karmat
I have been reporting and reporting and reporting but dA is just not removing them. I sent the following message to Fiona with a copy to OtisBee...
Fiona, there are still 17 skins in the Rainmeter Gallery that are infected with malware. The oldest one has been there since April 17, a month ago. Last time I counted, 16 of these skins had generated almost 4,000 downloads. I have reported all of them, some in the old way, all of them in the new way. Obviously, there is still a problem with malware reporting.
Could I get an update on when these will be removed and if dA is going to implement an antivirus check at upload? Would really be appreciated.
I was sorry to see that Enigma copy pop up there yesterday. I was hoping the guy had gotten bored and moved on....
It is my hope that this is one guy with some stick up his behind and the problem more or less goes away when he is done having fun. It's why I have been keeping kind of quiet, just hoping that not feeding his ego will help some. I don't think we are ever going to be happy with the response from DA. They are a huge site that has outgrown their ability to manage it properly with only paid staff, and unless they change their minds about some kind of area-specific moderation (and I doubt it) I think we are going to have to live in a world where most of the time things go along just fine, but once in a while we get one of these situations, and all we can do is try to beat it into people's heads that if comments are disabled, you don't download the skin.
Fiona responded in the comments saying that they are currently testing anti-virus on submission and have been using this gallery in particular for testing.
I commented back, I hope I didn't overstep my boundaries here, what do you think?
Re: Warning from the Rainmeter Team
Posted: May 20th, 2011, 7:26 pm
by jsmorley
I responded in that thread. I think your post is fine.
Re: Warning from the Rainmeter Team
Posted: May 20th, 2011, 10:13 pm
by karmat
I responded again as well.
Also, I've received about 20 automated replies - all but 4 that I've reported have now been removed and most of the usernames have been banned - finally!
Three of the four that are left don't show any virii when checked by VirusTotal, but they all have an installer.exe file in the zip. The automated replies I received for these ones say that my report is invalid and that... A member of the staff has preformed an independent virus scan on the download associated with this deviation and has not detected any viral component.
How do I explain that to Fiona so that they can understand and delete them?
Also, I've received about 20 automated replies - all but 4 that I've reported have now been removed and most of the usernames have been banned - finally!
Three of the four that are left don't show any virii when checked by VirusTotal, but they all have an installer.exe file in the zip. The automated replies I received for these ones say that my report is invalid and that... A member of the staff has preformed an independent virus scan on the download associated with this deviation and has not detected any viral component.
How do I explain that to Fiona so that they can understand and delete them?
I responded to this issue about the replies I received as well that there were no viruses found in several of them. VirusTotal does find a virus in the Enigma 1.3 .exe, but only 3 or 4 of the engines do. It is either a new variant that the engines have not cataloged yet, or this guy is submitting these bogus skins with nothing but a .exe but no virus, just to cloud the waters.
We really need some kind of local moderation over there. Yes, a lot of them were deleted today, but it is only because Fiona jumped in personally again. She is right that we should not expect to be "fast tracked" like that, and as of tomorrow it will go right back to just how it was. She only gets mostly on top of this when we beat her up, and then goes back to the broken system that doesn't work at all. That isn't fair to anyone. Not us, not her, not her team, and not the rest of deviantART.