Why does my school internet hate the Escapist?
- Thread starter Plurralbles
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Wow. The computer security ITs that have blocked that are silly...
That's never happened to me at my school.(Pretty much because only 3 other people in my school have heard of this site)
That's never happened to me at my school.(Pretty much because only 3 other people in my school have heard of this site)
Wow, really? I would honestly have thought better.
Ok, its very unlikely to be an issue directly with chrome, though I cant speak for Chromes capabilities because I personally will not use it.
Lets look at this a little closer. First off it is citing alienradar.ru as the reason for the block. Now that might be the schools proxy definitions that the Admins have viewed Russia as a hot bed for dangerous internet activities, Or just that there is an abundance of illegal and questionable material coming out of russia such as hosts for illegal torrents, and the admins assumed to deny first and ask questions later policy when it comes to .ru extensions.
Secondly, is the fact that a packet on the escapists main page is coming from a .ru extension. Look around on the escapist.. do you see any extension addresses stemming from a russian source? What is entirely possible if this is a school computer, Someone may have well infected that installation of chrome before you and along the way allowed malware to attach to the browser itself and its sending packets back and forth underlying various transmissions.
Thirdly, I dont know if this is a default error page for chrome or not, but if it isnt, It seems like an obvious ploy at trying to redirect to a malware infested anti malware page with the link telling you how to learn how to protect yourself. If it is a default error page, never has a malware propigator ever taken an image of a standard error page and embedded their own redirection URLS undearneath in the hopes of fooling someone.
So if it is chromes fault, its more likely that its actually someone who used that computer and that installation of chrome, and ruining it with unrequested addons.
Im just really shocked no one else mentioned any of this.
Anyway, heres a couple of things.
As suggested above... using public computers. I personally will not run any major application I dont have stored on a flash drive. Its just safer, as well as more freeing. Its nice to have your browser installed on one, and already have your own bookmarks on any PC you go to.
Secondly... if you absolutely have to, there are always sandbox proxy server pages that will bypass this whole issue.
Thirdly... Consider its not your computer, so you could always click the "ignore error" link and let the schools IT staff worry about the potential threat, though that might come back and bite you in the ass later on when you see the school go overboard with proxy blocking.
Ok, its very unlikely to be an issue directly with chrome, though I cant speak for Chromes capabilities because I personally will not use it.
Lets look at this a little closer. First off it is citing alienradar.ru as the reason for the block. Now that might be the schools proxy definitions that the Admins have viewed Russia as a hot bed for dangerous internet activities, Or just that there is an abundance of illegal and questionable material coming out of russia such as hosts for illegal torrents, and the admins assumed to deny first and ask questions later policy when it comes to .ru extensions.
Secondly, is the fact that a packet on the escapists main page is coming from a .ru extension. Look around on the escapist.. do you see any extension addresses stemming from a russian source? What is entirely possible if this is a school computer, Someone may have well infected that installation of chrome before you and along the way allowed malware to attach to the browser itself and its sending packets back and forth underlying various transmissions.
Thirdly, I dont know if this is a default error page for chrome or not, but if it isnt, It seems like an obvious ploy at trying to redirect to a malware infested anti malware page with the link telling you how to learn how to protect yourself. If it is a default error page, never has a malware propigator ever taken an image of a standard error page and embedded their own redirection URLS undearneath in the hopes of fooling someone.
So if it is chromes fault, its more likely that its actually someone who used that computer and that installation of chrome, and ruining it with unrequested addons.
Im just really shocked no one else mentioned any of this.
Anyway, heres a couple of things.
As suggested above... using public computers. I personally will not run any major application I dont have stored on a flash drive. Its just safer, as well as more freeing. Its nice to have your browser installed on one, and already have your own bookmarks on any PC you go to.
Secondly... if you absolutely have to, there are always sandbox proxy server pages that will bypass this whole issue.
Thirdly... Consider its not your computer, so you could always click the "ignore error" link and let the schools IT staff worry about the potential threat, though that might come back and bite you in the ass later on when you see the school go overboard with proxy blocking.
I'll point at this threadPlurralbles said:When I go to this site it says something about going here, "might harm my computer". I'm pretty sure I heard way back in the past that this site does do soemthing that might put up a red flag but I can't remember what it was. This site is obviously technologically harmless(though our social lives safety is in doubt)
Anyone else ever see this screen? What sites does it do it on? just curious if anyone has seen it or not. Something wrong with my computer?
EDIT:Oh crap... you guys underestimate my age. I'm 20. I'm in college. It didnt' do this at home but started up once I got here.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.233451-Poll-The-Escapist-Infected
and the following response in particular
I haven't had this warning yet, either, and my Chrome is completely up to date. I'm in the Pub Club, though, so maybe an ad has been infected.thenumberthirteen said:
Sorry for the double post, but I'll address this as well. Chrome comes with a list of sites that host malware which Google updates regularly. My best guess is an advertisement on the site has/had been infected, so Google added Escapist to their list. Though it's odd, I'm on Chrome and it isn't warning me.viranimus said:
Yeah, which is why I tend to think the issue would be more isolated. Trial and error comes in handy here. See if it happens universally with the browser, See if its across all browsers on the schools net, and see what it takes to reproduce the effect.theSovietConnection said:
I honestly think it sounds most likely to be chrome being infected with malware already on that specific PC, as its very unlikely that chrome would have the escapist malware blocked. As for an infected add, it seems somewhat unlikely because the escapist ads seem to be of higher tier nature and screened and very selective. If it were just an add, you could likely just hit refresh and not encounter the same thing as their external ads tend to cycle.
Ive seen many browsers crippled with malware, that give similar blocking errors because underneath every requested page, its sending out packets of data to the malware source and periodically that malware source will return packets back as scan DIR criteria dump lists.
In my last computer science class we observed a malware program that acted like a torrent after it attached to a browser. The browser acted as the torrent client, uploading and downloading one source file. As the program progressed it ended up downloading an embedded program that worked completely underneath the shell of the browser, installed itself within the confines of the browsers protocols and set itself up as a relay node for ghost trace network to scrub ones net tracks. All this, all the while still functioning on vista and bypassing vistas UAE checkpoints so the average person wouldnt notice.
God you got to hate where the net is going thanks to cloud computing.
Well, the only other possibility I can think of is perhaps one of the ads is hosting this one, pretty sure it's alienradar.ru that is giving everyone the problems. It could explain why not everyone is having the problem, since maybe not everyone has the ad show up, and people in the publisher's club just don't have ads.viranimus said:
/shrug.theSovietConnection said:
You might be right, but Ive never seen a russian extension pop up from any of the sites ads personally, and yes I am a computer geek and I do actually read html codes, especially as it relates to flash and scripts. Not saying it doesnt happen, Just saying Ive yet to see it.
Honestly.. it might be a combination of things too.
This has me curious, so I am in the process of downloading chrome now so I can test it out personally.
Just plain banned, I guess. I once tried to load up a cooking recipie, and it said it was stopped because it was porn 
Oh, if I read correctly, it's not banned but just virus'd. Can you just proceed anyways?
Also, LFG is a good comic. I congratulate you on your choice.
Oh, if I read correctly, it's not banned but just virus'd. Can you just proceed anyways?
Also, LFG is a good comic. I congratulate you on your choice.
I dont know. I am now posting this from Chrome, and I have spent the last 10 min or so flipping between various escapist pages, between home, forum, and other indexes. I have ran with Peer block on as well as off. I dont have publishers club, So I see all the ads.
Im posting fine, but truth be told this browser runs amazingly sluggish, which isnt solely from the escapist.
I still have a tendency to think its a school proxy issue,the ISP the school uses or possibly the individual PC in question. I would think if its something to do with malware warning lists from google that all up to date incarnations of Chrome would have a similar exp or I would be able to reproduce it after viewing 100 pages or so in it.
Not really sure. But its like this. Would be much easier just to use a better browser anyway. Well better would be in my opinion. Until someone can show me a browser that balances functionallity and resource usage in a more balanced fashion with firefox, Ill stick with it.
So, if not a better, try a different one. If it happens on multiple browsers, then it is likely the PC has bigger problems anyway.
Im posting fine, but truth be told this browser runs amazingly sluggish, which isnt solely from the escapist.
I still have a tendency to think its a school proxy issue,the ISP the school uses or possibly the individual PC in question. I would think if its something to do with malware warning lists from google that all up to date incarnations of Chrome would have a similar exp or I would be able to reproduce it after viewing 100 pages or so in it.
Not really sure. But its like this. Would be much easier just to use a better browser anyway. Well better would be in my opinion. Until someone can show me a browser that balances functionallity and resource usage in a more balanced fashion with firefox, Ill stick with it.
So, if not a better, try a different one. If it happens on multiple browsers, then it is likely the PC has bigger problems anyway.
I HAVE THAT SAME PROBLEM!
The problem is that Alienradar.ru is apparently malware, but I don't even know where that is on the Escapist.
Perhaps some staff can help? Or they can continue making us laugh and informing us of important events that concern us as well as managing this site.
I could go either way really, but I'm not giving up chrome. The only other installed web browser I have is IE9 and that crashed my computer and itself on the first try.
Calumom: Why don't you do your work?
The problem is that Alienradar.ru is apparently malware, but I don't even know where that is on the Escapist.
Perhaps some staff can help? Or they can continue making us laugh and informing us of important events that concern us as well as managing this site.
I could go either way really, but I'm not giving up chrome. The only other installed web browser I have is IE9 and that crashed my computer and itself on the first try.
Calumom: Why don't you do your work?
It's a school based Internet network..and they hate fun and with the Escapist being so fantastical and not-boring they decided to falsely accuse this site of being harmful.
Your college is doing that? The only thing I notice about that picture is the fact that you are using a modem and that makes me jealous... I can't use a modem at my college... -.-
Well then download and set it up at home, you can even put it on a jumpdrive with Firefox portable and run it from a school computer. Worst case scenario, or if you want to torrent, just hide a wireless router in the library or something, and plug it into a spare Ethernet jack. I did this all through grade 12, and gamed on steam, torrented, abused the internet.Death God said: