Author Topic: Fake or not? Not sure (Read 72438 times)

White Stripes · « **Reply #20 on:** May 09, 2011, 05:19:32 am »

Quote from: Stevi on May 09, 2011, 12:54:55 am

I feel as though if the users leave, you are proving the attackers right, and they are just going to continue.

is installing a security patch or updating software with holes/bugs 'proving attackers right'?

its an application... and an old one at that.... not a religion...

Quote

If they see that nobody cares the attacks are happening, maybe they will stop.

Just a theory.

the lol factor is too high methinks... a simple trick that took very little bandwidth rendering the entire search function useless?

achilles · « **Reply #21 on:** May 09, 2011, 06:58:12 am »

I'm sure those responsible for the attacks are reading this thread so answer me this one thing. Why not channel all that energy into creating a new client or network of your own preferences rather than trying to destroy the network? If you don't like the current protocol of the network / client then do something about it. Attacks on the network will never change one thing about the network that you don't like. We all already know there are exploits / flaws in the protocol, but they could be fixed in time. Many would say we need an entirely new network due to changes in technology, but attacking the network will never achieve that goal. It will only stop it from happening. I also would like to see some major changes to the network, but attacking the network will not make those changes happen any faster. Even if they never happen then I would not be offended because i'm only one user of a very large network. This is a very childish approach if your reasoning behind the attacks are because you disagree with some users opinions here at WMW because that's what they are; "users"! Their members of a community of people helping one another in a common goal, and sharing common interest. We are not all going to have the same plan or strategy of achieving that goal. It's like that in every facet of life. I read some of those responsible for the attacks on the network are doing so because of a disagreement with Ghostship. They think he has some big ego or something. That's not a valid reason for attacking the network unless you have the mind of a child. To be quite frank!, no offense to Ghostship; I don't always agree with GS either, and i'm sure he doe not expect me to. GS does not own WinMX or WMW so the attacks are quite pointless. GS has contributed a lot of his time in helping run WMW, and with the coding in an ongoing project in the development of a new client. He's doing everything he can in achieving that goal on his part. Why don't you do something constructive for a change? If the attacks continue to originate from Tor then I say block all exit nodes of Tor. Very very very... few users would be lost by doing so! The positives far outweigh the negatives! If certain users continue to complain that IP addresses from Tor are being blocked then that just points to them having something to do with the attacks on the network.

curiousminds · « **Reply #22 on:** May 09, 2011, 04:12:33 pm »

Here, here!! I'll agree on some of that. Anyway just tried another search to test. Now nothing comes up at all. Sigh!!

wonderer · « **Reply #23 on:** May 09, 2011, 05:40:07 pm »

And thanks again stripes for your positive contribution, it has been very helpfull

curiousminds · « **Reply #24 on:** May 09, 2011, 08:12:49 pm »

Tried a search again. This time, it worked. I hope it now stays that way.

White Stripes · « **Reply #25 on:** May 09, 2011, 08:22:29 pm »

Quote from: wonderer on May 09, 2011, 05:40:07 pm

And thanks again stripes for your positive contribution, it has been very helpfull

being real doesnt always mean being positive... in fact... most of the time its negative....

considering the way winmx works with searches im not sure trick can be fixed without making a new fixed client completely incompatible with the old...... as for blocking it... that would seem quite possible... if you can find where its coming from....

those of you with peerguardian or peerblock installed i highly recommend primary users stop by iblocklist and add the 'tor' list to your blocks.... ....its not in the offical wmw list.. its in a personally constructed blocklist so kms wmw agreement doesnt hold on that....

wavoka · « **Reply #26 on:** May 09, 2011, 09:58:43 pm »

Since there are no centralized servers whoever is doing this has to be a rogue user on the network. Or someone who tried to edit the code and screwed up royaly.

White Stripes · « **Reply #27 on:** May 09, 2011, 10:21:26 pm »

@wavoka; its not a 'screw up' its being done on purpose....

GhostShip · « **Reply #28 on:** May 09, 2011, 11:30:35 pm »

Just so we are not trivialising the mechanism of the attack here I would like to make clear that yes it may be trivial for a developer or someone with a clue how to edit up computer programs but thats a small percentage of the users, now couple that with those running linux and being developers , thats a whole lot more of a smaller percentage, now finally we need to have all of the previous attributes and a working knowledge of the networking protocols, as you may guess when we get down to this level the numbers of users able to jump all the hurdles becomes pretty small and for some of the attacks we have seen recently some are well crafted and others blunt forced and rather amateur this allows us to surmise there are at least two attackers and one is a good coder and the other is not so good in fact the second one is likley doing a a hatchet job on some pre written code, so yes the attacks are pretty trivial to undertake but the small few with the level of knowledge to undertake them means we are looking at less than a handful of folks, however the danger we face is now simply that by handing out src codes and information to attackers KM has unlocked a door thats not trivial to lock again, not even he is able to fix the damage he has caused if that impresses upon you all the scale of the unfolding mess.

All that said folks are making an effort and we can only hold firm and do what we can to limit the damage to the network by working together as a united force, our friendships have not been built overnight but in weeks and months and in some cases even years and thus we must ensure that whatever happens we fight the attackers with whatever we have available be it anti tor blocklists as Stripes recommends or simply by blocking the known attackers directly, also join a room and make some new friends so you can weather the storm, a fix will appear at some stage and is being worked on but no one here is going to lie and suggest its imminent as thats not the case and we know you want to hear the unvarnished truth.

I myself find it rather stupid that all this mess was supposedly started to "take me down a peg or two" when the reality was I had passed over nearly all my main duties here to others and was only working as a consultant to the blocklisting team and working on a client with another developer so along with failing to "demolish pie" NB and co have also even failed to understand who runs this site these days, will somebody tell him as I,m not sure about the rest of you but this latest stupidity is a straight declaration of war and I for one would not want to be him when the users get riled, its akin to poking a stick into a hornets nest.

twilight43 · « **Reply #29 on:** May 10, 2011, 02:24:39 am »

At least it's not just my machine, although that thought doesn't help much. I noticed the random 'dump' of miscellaneous file names into the Search queues for the past couple of days, and actually re-installed WinMX to see if I could resolve the problem. Nope, same crap coming through the Search Function.
I'm not a WinMX guru, so I have to consider the probability of the function being compromised somehow. I guess, until someone creates a 'fix' to this situation, I'll have to just concentrate on capturing the "incomplete" files I have waiting in my list.

Stevi · « **Reply #30 on:** May 10, 2011, 02:53:23 am »

If there is anything I can do in finding a fix, please let me know! I am always willing to help!

achilles · « **Reply #31 on:** May 10, 2011, 04:22:16 am »

So they are flooding the network with fake files? Is that one of the attacks they are using at the moment? Its been a really big problem with other P2P networks for a long time, but I had never had a problem with fake files with WinMx. I will use my own block list if i have to. All is working good here.

White Stripes · « **Reply #32 on:** May 10, 2011, 04:50:42 am »

they arent fakes the results are real files from real users..... the search function itself is being hijacked...

achilles · « **Reply #33 on:** May 10, 2011, 06:33:15 am »

Ok, i'm having the same problem now. I've been gone a few days so I wasn't sure how bad the problem really was. I just conducted a search for a video file, and WinMX returned 4,948 unrelated search results. None of the results had anything to do with what I was looking for. This is really bad. I will make my own block list now. Until then I will have to go camp out in a room somewhere, and maybe do a little trading that way. I have 68 users in my queue right now, but I usually have 100 or more. At least i'm still able to share with other users.

achilles · « **Reply #34 on:** May 10, 2011, 07:08:32 am »

All is working good again.

White Stripes · « **Reply #35 on:** May 10, 2011, 07:53:07 am »

it comes and goes in waves ....

silicon_toad2000 · « **Reply #36 on:** May 10, 2011, 11:39:07 am »

something that may help in the short term

if you are a member of a room or host a room, running shareguard might help with being able to search for files shared by other users in the room.
shareguard tutorial

wavoka · « **Reply #37 on:** May 10, 2011, 01:23:23 pm »

Search is back pretty much to normal today. Not getting all the weird files but also not getting results I got before the problem started.

wavoka · « **Reply #38 on:** May 10, 2011, 01:50:22 pm »

I spoke too soon. It started out okay and now it's nuts again. Whoever has the screwed up WinMX files must have been offline.

curiousminds · « **Reply #39 on:** May 10, 2011, 09:34:53 pm »

Yeah, have a feeling it's now going to be a hit or miss thing. Sometimes it'll work the way it should, and other times, not so much. Oh well, always someone out there to ruin it for the rest of us who like to trade and share. Thanks.