Do not quote "Clickable Link" posts

I know, strictly, I shouldn't be doing this, but I felt I had to.

It seems everyone who is warning everyone else about the posts has quoted the OP. Without removing the link. Although the moderators have removed the offending posts (and I daresay banned the account), they have not (yet) edited the posts containing quotes.

Please don't quote the link without removing it or changing it to something a little more... tame.

ROFL... i just told lonesamurai to go check

I have NoScript, so it didn't really affect me... apart from the parrot.

done and remedied... thought I'd done it, but I was a bit quick

Relax little monk, I've PM anyone who left the link in the quotes asking them to remove them. There was really no need for a thread

Good morning all. I think we removed all funny link posts (they crashed the PC) and quotes from the forum. Thank you to all those that reported the posts.

Just as a reminder, reporting is done via the small warning sign on the left side of the respective post. Look for the red triangle called "Report bad post".

Quoting a bad post is not the best idea for obvious reasons, but I guess you found that out, too.

Enjoy your day,

Dral.

PS: And no, we never sleep ...

Just recently, someone spammed a not-so-good (extream understatment) link on these forums. I will not go into what the link contained. Needless to say, he was banned almost immedeatly, and all posts with this link where deleted.

Reason I am posting this is because, although he was simply some idiot wanting to piss people off, the link may have also contained a trojan, keylogger, or something else similar.

I have scanned my computer for adware/spyware, and are currently scanning for virus'. I have already removed aprox 20 add/spyware, and have found one trojan. I am unable to confirm any of these came from the link, however it is still an EXELENT idea to make shure your computers are clean if you where subject to this link, BEFORE you log onto Guild Wars, or any secure sites such as bank accounts or email, and even forums.

For any of those who dont have programs to remove such virus' or adware/spyware, there are a few free programs out there that do this quite well. My personal recomendations would be:
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
Adaware SE Personal

It is always a good idea to frequently scan your computer to keep it clean. If you dont have these programs, or similar supstitutes, I would highly recomend getting them.


Edit - Forgot to mention that although the account was undoubtably banned, and hopefuly the ip as well, ip adress can be changed, and although most people do not know how, a great many still do. If this person created the link he spammed, I am fairly shure he also knows the relativly simple proccess of changing an ip, and therefore may be able to come back onto the forums. I hope the moderators will be looking for this occurance, but just in case they arnt or miss it, be very careful of what links you open form these forums for a while.

Rule #1

Never click on any link unless you are absolutely positive it is okay, and then ..... don't click on it.

Thanks Dral, sorry for my impetuas quotes on it, however coming over here from TGH I am used to having to be a lil more wary and quick on things, however you guys have a tighter ship, so maybe i can relax and enjoy chatting about guild wars again

Thank god for FireFox and its' auto script turn off plug-in thingy. *phew*

Altho both myself and Gentlebreezes use Firefox and hers went nuts from it, luckily I hadn't tried it, but shes more the explorer than me

It tries to send emails too,
My outlook express started like 8 times,
but it failed to send the mail cause i havn't configured outlook express.
instead it started the wizard for setting up outlook express

Dont recall for shure, but I do believe I saw something in the link about outlook. That was right about the time the computer went off, as I couldnt close it with any of my usual tricks. Got the volume turned off after the first couple of words thankfuly.

i suggest spybot, don't fool by the design of the web, this program is quite good.
http://www.spybot.info/

I bet that was pretty scary, from what you guys are saying.
Even if someone uses a hyperlink with the [ url= ] [ /url ] tags, make sure you hover over it to see what the exact url is. Even then, sometimes that doesn't help as the url can look perfectly innocent. But good job mods on getting to that asap, I hope all of you that were harmed by this can get it straightened out.

LOL. I clicked on it knowing it would be shady and right when I did I said, "Man, why did I do this?" I laughed then forced shut down on my computer... I was going to be late for school.

I_PWN_NOOBS_LOL... you won this time... rofl.

Ok, anyone that clicked it NOT expecting something should just call their ISP and cancel their connection, they dont know how to use the internet. j/k

I click all shady links though. Just to prove most people that make scripts and such are complete retards and don't program very well.

And of course I won this time also no computer shut down for me.

ok im new to this forum. what is this link you are talking about? is it a hax program or what?

All Deleted.

Some guy spammed all over the forum a link.

It was one of those "joke links" that runs a script that shuts down your computer when you run it lol.

There are also links that: Kick you offline, Freezes your computer, etc

is it something you hafto download? ore is it enough that you klick on then it shutsdown? ore does it download something and hafto be removed by antivirus? one guy posted that link but i didnt klick it cause the link looked fishy cause i hooverd over the link and its said some halflife bla bla so i didnt klick it...

It doesn't really matter anymore... Change that K to a C!

It doesn't "shut down" your computer, it just crashes certain systems running certain browsers due to resource consumption. From what you guys are saying about "parrots" and all that it sounds like the same old shock-crap link that's been around now for about a billion years.

As an aside, last I knew the thing relied heavily on an invisible flash file to launch most of the script. Running firefox + the flashblock extension negates everything except the "bird" image IIRC. Note further that a simple fix to permanently protect yourself from future exploitation on that site is to add the site to your hosts file (Windows: c:/windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts - open a notepad window and drag the file into it to open it) with the ip address 0.0.0.0 or 127.0.0.1

Granted, the script exists on multiple servers, but after getting tricked a few times you'll have all the common ones blocked.

i mean can these shutdown files Damage your system and make it unstable?
if you klick the link does it download something ore is it gone after you have restarted you pc? getin worried if this crap continues