Discerning Porn Merchants And Rogue Dialers
Malaysia is feeling the heat from the rogue dialer, or Internet dumping, scammers. The Malaysian Communications & Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said on Wednesday in TechCentral that most of the victims had been unwittingly downloading the offending software while surfing porn sites:
“Since it occurs mostly on adult and entertainment sites, we would like to urge users to be more discerning when accessing these sites as it may result in high IDD (international direct dial) call charges,” said Adelina Iskandar, head of corporate communications at MCMC.
I rather like the idea of trying to be more discerning while surfing for porn. I suspect that by the time the person has decided to head for those kind of sites, the need to be discerning is somewhat low on his list of priorities.
Anyway, it seems as if Malaysia’s main problem is coming from Papua New Guinea, where most of the international calls are getting routed to. In its latest effort to curb this problem, The Star’s TechCentral reports, Telekom Malaysia will be blocking all IDD calls to Papua New Guinea as most of these sites are hosted there. Effective immediately, customers who wish to make calls to Papua New Guinea will have to call 108, Operator Assisted International Services, for their calls to be connected.
It is not just porn dialers. There are pay per download games and pay per track music that rely on premium dialers too. Often its kids and teens that are less than discerning, all too eager to get what they want without regard for the financial consequences. Malicious dialers also exist that suggest you can click "no" but go ahead and proceed with the download in any case. Broadband users may not be subject to the expensive dial up costs but can be repeatedly disconnected and removing these dialers can be quite a nuisance especially if they have parasitic adware or spyware (as many do) embedded.
The next exploit using this type of technique is on its way. Your mobile cell phone gets threatened as reported by the B.B.C. (among others).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4208873.stm
S.S.D the developers of the stopITnow! software have a software solution for Nokia phone users.
Posted by: Stuart Norton | January 28, 2005 at 11:13 AM
Well I dont go to just any porn sites I go to porn forums, where the posts are moderated by members that love porn....
Just gotta be careful out there.
Posted by: Big Jake | February 08, 2008 at 09:07 AM
Dialers are no longer as effective as they used to be a few years ago. This is because of the fact that lesser people use dialup modems.
More information: Spyware2.net
Posted by: BadGuy | September 05, 2008 at 11:56 PM
You can block this kind of activity easy enough with a decent firewall can't you?
Posted by: Spyware Free Removal | September 09, 2008 at 03:12 AM
The private surfing options coming out in the next Firefox and IE should sort this out
Posted by: Stop spyware | September 22, 2008 at 10:57 PM