Mattl.com (links to dubious content)
December 23, 2000 9:58 AM   Subscribe

Mattl.com (links to dubious content) Is it an error/javascript on my client software, or does Mattl.com look like it's been hacked by linking to dubious content ?
posted by williamtry (11 comments total)
 
Sorry if this offends anyone by me posting this on MeFi, but I'm curious to know if it's just happening to me ?
posted by williamtry at 9:59 AM on December 23, 2000


I got it too. I do beleive Matt has been cracked before and somone put something weird on his page. Could be.
posted by tomorama at 10:02 AM on December 23, 2000


It is quite common for porn sites to register names which are nearly the same but not quite identical to those of major brand names, in hopes of pulling in people who make typos. In this case it appears they're trying for a near miss on "mattel.com". (Which is probably how you found it.)

They also grab names which people might enter by mistake. "Whitehouse.com" is a porn site as opposed to "Whitehouse.gov" which is the official site for the White House. Likewise, "jennicam.com" is full of ads for porn sites, trying to pull in people looking for Jennifer Ringley's "jennicam.org". (They got me that way.)

Swapped letters, left-out letters, and using a ".com" for something which is actually some other domain; these are their favorites. Take some famous brand name, chosen at random, and start trying variations on it which look like typos, and there's a good chance that you'll eventually wind up at a porn site. This has been going on for a long time.

I'll make a prediction without checking it: I bet "senate.com" is a porn site, leeching off of senate.gov which is the site for the US Senate.

posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:11 AM on December 23, 2000


Well, I was wrong. It appears "senate.com" is intended to be a privately-run alternative to "senate.gov". It's "under construction". Maybe they're just holding the name looking for a buyer.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:12 AM on December 23, 2000


Steven: MattL.Com is not a cybersquatter.
posted by rcade at 10:19 AM on December 23, 2000


Yeah, Steve, the point is that Mattl.com is a (former) active weblogger. "One of us" if I might say.
posted by williamtry at 10:41 AM on December 23, 2000


Metafilter: Your source for accidental porn.
posted by waxpancake at 11:59 AM on December 23, 2000


Nothing dubious about it. That was actual porn.

The javascript is embedded in the source for the home page, which hasn't (apparently) had any new content since September -- when a new design was promised.
posted by dhartung at 1:32 PM on December 23, 2000


Another annoying tactic is registering wwwname.com and hoping people leave out the dot. For example, wwwcnet.com, wwwwired.com, wwwapple.com.
posted by jed at 6:30 PM on December 23, 2000


Matt Lavallee lets anyone post captions to a photo on the front page. I host his site, and I can assure you the box hasn't been hacked, but I bet someone posted a caption that was pure javascript. I'll let him know about it.
posted by mathowie at 7:01 PM on December 24, 2000


Matt wins the bet; that's exactly what happened.
posted by hijinx at 10:14 AM on December 26, 2000


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