Fake RapidShare Links - A New Threat

[phillia]

As you all know, RS recently changed its skin, but unfortunately some people's practices to steal from unsuspected users their premium accounts haven't changed.

For that reason, 2 users were permanantly banned today.

I would like to ask from all of you to be very carefull where you put your personal rs premium information, since the fake login rs page might look like the geniune rs login page!!


Therefore, for your own safety:

• DON'T download from threads that contain live links!!
  All links should be coded.
  
• And DON'T download from threads that contain links from link protectors or of any other kind..
  In general, if the link is not directly from some web host (rapidshare, megaupload, easyshare etc) DON'T download it!
  Link Protectors are not allowed anymore, since they are also thought to be suspicious of phishing premium accounts.

If you see such dubious threads, plz report them immediately to be removed, by using the report button found on the left of every post.

[corporatelab]

Thanks phillia,

I know that I, and I will bet that a lot of others, have wondered about how easy it would be for "link protectors" to catch our paid Rapidshare accounts and steal their numbers.

I know that this new precaution will make a lot of us breathe easier. I certainly direct no offense towards our treasured hard-working contributors. I thank them for their continued help. They are great. At the same time, I very much feel that discontinuing "link protectors" is for the good of all concerned here.

Again, I am reminded of the exceptional community we have here.

Good luck to all.

[wildsnake]

yes i totally hate link protectors...

i reported them once but moe didn't agree...no offence meant

[NeoMalfoy]

Could I make the suggestion that when downloading from Rapidshare that people use either the Rapidshare manager so they don't have to login via their web browser 2 their permium accounts or as I do use the firefox plugin Downthemall


Link to Downthemall for Firefox (Compatible with Firefox 3.0 and up)
From Mozilla Plugin site:

Long Description

DownThemAll is all you can desire from a download manager: it features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

DownThemAll is fast, reliable and easy-to-use! It lets you download all the links or images contained in a webpage and much more: you can refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want!

DownThemAll is absolutely freeware and open-source. No Adware, no Spyware.

From DownThemAll's Site:

http://www.downthemall.net

Complete integration with Mozilla Firefox

You can easily access DownThemAll from the context menu, by right-clicking on any webpage, from ‘tools menu’, or simply by adding our cute handy icons to your toolbar.
Have your page spidered with a single click

The dTa ‘Select links’ window lists every single link, image or embed object contained in a webpage. This is a dream if you need to download a large amount of files in just a few seconds: simply select the files you need and you’ll be ready to start.
Have all the files you want with just one click

dTaOneClick downloads the files of a page using the last filters and the last renaming mask you set. So, if you are surfing the web downloading mp3s or pictures, for example, you’ll just have to find the page you want and to click on dTaOneClick… and all your downloads will start. No need to select them first.
Filtering has never been easier

Selecting the files you want to download can be even faster, once you’ve set your personal inclusive filters. In this case you’ll just have to select the filter you want to apply, and all the files matching your criteria will be automatically downloaded.

All filters are configurable from dTa ‘preferences’ window and can include wildcards [’*’, ’?’] as well as regular expressions.

There is also a live-filter that allows you to refine your selection dynamically!
Advanced auto-renaming options

All files downloaded by dTa can be easily auto-renamed according to your personal needs. There are plenty of tags you can use to build destination filenames and directories, including: date and time of download, website URL, link description and many more!
Increase your download speed up to 400%

DownThemAll features a smart download technique called ‘multipart download’. It splits files into multiple sections, which are downloaded simultaneously. This maximized use of bandwidth increases average download speed up to 400%.

You can manually add or remove sections whenever you want during the download, and you can choose the maximum number of chunks every file is split into.
Pause and resume your downloads

DownThemAll can pause and restart downloads at any time, without losing data.

You can move your files up and down in the queue in order to give them a priority order.
And much more:

* In case a file already exists, you can choose whether your downloads have to be renamed, overwritten or aborted just by setting a default behavior.
* You can customize time-out interval, as well as the maximum number of simultaneous downloads.
* Customize notifications, choosing between Firefox sidebox alerts, alert boxes, or simply nothing at all.
* If you want it, dTa can close the source tab when the download starts.
* You can choose to close dTa automatically when all downloads are completed.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201

Rapidshare Manager:
You can check if links are valid, download and upload using this one
From Rapidshare.com:

The RapidShare Manager (RSM) makes it easy to upload and allows multiple downloads at the same time. You can resume interrupted uploads and downloads and, as a Premium user, you can store files of up to 2,000 megabytes in size at RapidShare.

Files that are larger than 200 megabytes can be downloaded only by Premium users, unless the owner of the file covers the cost of the download. Find out more about it here..

Premium Account

Log into your Premium Account with your access number and password. All settings are stored, so that from now on each upload is carried out with your access data. The tool is also for Free users or owners of Collector's Accounts.
Upload

Uploading your files with the RSM is quite simple: Open the tab Upload and drag and drop all the files you want to upload into the list. Alternatively, click on the menu bar on the blue button "Add" to select the files. You can choose between several accounts (Premium, Collector or Free). If the upload is carried out using a Collector's account, enter the appropriate data and then click on "Upload".

You decide for yourself how much is uploaded at the same time. Uploads in the queue start automatically when on ongoing upload is completed. To get to the download link, right-click on the relevant line and select "Copy download link".
RSM Link

You can create an RSM-link that refers to several files for other users of the RSMs. Choose those entries from the list of uploads that you want to combine in the RSM link. Marked entries will be shaded in blue. Then click on the menu bar on top on "Create RSM link".

Now open a new window. On top, you will see the links that you have selected. You can change the combination again, add further links or copy a text in the field, from which RapidShare links will be automatically extracted. If you want to delete the entire selection, click on "Clear text".

You also have the facility to write a comment that will be displayed to other users during the download. The "Generate RSM" button creates a link that can be moved to the clipboard by clicking on "Copy URL". It can be pasted into an e-mail by right-clicking on the mouse.

Please note that not all users work with the RSM, and therefore you may also want to offer individual download links as an alternative.
Download

Open the tab Download and click the blue button "Add". You can either copy RapidShare download links into the list, or insert any text containing links. By clicking on the button "Transfer links", they are extracted from the text and checked.

A message informs you whether the links are correct and the files are available. If you do not want to download all the links that have been found, you can uncheck the unwanted ones by reversing the selection. Then click on "Download".

You have the option to change where the files are saved and enter a comment regarding the download. You can check this comment at any time, change it or insert one afterwards. Click the right mouse button on the relevant entry and select "Show comment".

You decide how many downloads should happen at the same time. Waiting entries start automatically when the ongoing download is completed. When a file is saved completely, it can be opened with a double click.
Account/Settings

The RSM has many functions, so that you can customize it. For example, you can change proxy settings, language, notifications and many more options to your liking.

http://rapidshare.com/rsm.html

[harukachan212]

I was thinking of getting a rapidshare premium account soon, thanks for the heads up.

[billybobt]

Hi, i'm from a link protector site (smsdl.com).

I completely understand your stance on protected links, but I hope I can offer a solution. Having being racking my brains trying to figure out how to deal with phishers and spammers (believe me - they're a great concern), i suggest that:

At the moment, smsdl.com doesn't show ads or any intersitial page between the user clicking the link and the destination loading.

What about if we insert an intersitial page comfirming the destination domain - i.e. 'Please click proceed to continue to RAPIDSHARE.COM'.

This way, the user gets to check the destination domain is the domain they were expecting and not r4p1dsh4r3.com?

Let me know your thoughts if any, especially if you guys can suggest any other ways to protect the end user - i'd be glad to hear them via pm.

Cheers, billy.


>> Edit: I have now implemented the suggestion above and so far, it seems to work well - i welcome your comments.

An example -

http://www.smsdl.com/1

would lead to

http://www.msn.com

[m1o1e1]

all of the warez sites have gone to not allowing redirected links.. all of those types of sites no longer get used by anyone other then phishers and they know it.. the safest and best way to protect the end user is to simply not allow any redirected links..

[Mr.X v2]

I couldn't of said it better myself m1o1e1...

[billybobt]

Thanks for your quick reply m1o1e1, i appreciate your thoughts.

[logicone]

I received an email yesterday from rapidshare stating that i had been hosting illegal downloads on there servers... i have an account with them but have never hosted anything on there site... sounds like what might have happened here...