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You'll notice Batman, over on the right there. Let's take a closer look:

"Free Online Batman Game"? Well, that's curious because I follow comics pretty closely and I'd be the first to know if an "Online Batman Game" had been in the works (this advert has been doing the rounds on numerous comic-related websites. Visit the URL in the ad - Batmangame.info - and you'll see this...

There it is again - "Online Batman Game". Furthermore, the text goes on to say:

"Batman Online lets you do anything and every little thing you'd like in a Batman game. From leveling up your character to destroying villans, it has it all. Download and play this amazing game now, all for free! I'm sure you'll be playing for hours on end, it's that much fun.

    Level Up Your Character
 
   Explore a Huge Vast World
 
   Play Online With Your Friends
 
   Hundreds of Quests To Finish
 
   Perfect Battle System

So start your Batman adventure today! Download the  full game below and fight them all!"

Note that they specifically call it "Batman Online". It specifically sounds like a text blurb you'd expect to see with a MMORPG. However, something isn't quite right here.

1) The only DC licensed MMORPG anybody knows of is this, and it isn't due out until 2009. It's not Batman-centric, either.

2) The screenshots are lifted from the Batman Begins videogame, which came out in 2005. If you were offering a "Batman Online Game", wouldn't you use screenshots from that instead of an unrelated title?

3) Absolutely no licensing, copyright or legal mumbo-jumbo on the page anywhere. DC and Warner Bros don't roll like that.

4) The website - Batmangame(dot)info - is registered anonymously. Not exactly something you see everyday for websites related to licensed DC franchises such as Batman videogames.

5) "To download and play the Batman Online Game you must download and install Zango as well. It is free, very easy to install and will give you access to the full game."

Shall we continue?


A Zango installer prompt, complete with picture of Batman at the top. If you say "No" to the install, you end up on Google.com. What happens if you click "Start"? Well, you'll get the usual collection of Zango installer screens including one that rather humorously has a guy in a superhero costume.

Once everything is installed, you're taken to another page and from here things just get plain confusing. Remember, up to this point you've been promised an "Online Batman Game", the description of which is clearly intended to evoke images of a MMORPG. However....


All of a sudden, you're being told you're downloading "Batman: Vengeance" on a cheap-looking splash page and shown what looks like an unofficially ripped Batman: Vengeance trailer on Youtube.

In case you're unaware, Batman: Vengeance is a videogame first launched way back in 2001 for consoles (followed shortly after by a PC version). What does this have to do with an "Online Batman Game"? Well, nothing, actually. Aside from the fact you were presented with one thing and are now handed another, things get even stranger when you see the download location:

Have you ever heard of an officially licensed game being offered via Rapidshare downloads? It's possible, I guess, but it seems a little odd. However, the real oddness is reserved for the "Online Batman game" itself.

Remember, we've been promised "Hundreds of quests", "A huge vast world", the ability to "level up your character" and (of course) the "play online with your friends" promise of greatness.


Imagine your dismay, then, when you've installed Zango, downloaded the game from Rapidshare using up around 140MB of bandwidth, installed it and....


Oh dear.

Not only are you given a totally different game than what was advertised, you're given a DEMO VERSION of that game with four short sample levels present, no online functionality and quite a few less quests than the "hundreds" advertised.

Hilariously, you can download a 100% legit copy of this demo here at Fileplanet, sans Adware. Setting aside the issue of whether this file is actually sitting on Rapidshare with either Ubisoft or DC / Warner Bros permission (and if it IS okay to be there, I'm pretty sure it's NOT okay to falsely advertise it as some kind of MMORPG) there are some questions that need to be raised here.

When this guy approached them with his website, did nobody stop to think that this game did not actually match up with the "Online Batman" game it was touted as? Didn't someone at Zango Quality Control actually download the game and see the big "This is a demo" wording as soon as it starts up? Or question why the screenshots on the website don't look like the graphics for Batman: Vengeance in the slightest?

However you look at it, this is a scam, pure and simple. Whoever came up with the idea of an "Online Batman Game" is lying through their teeth. Of course, because their website is registered anonymously we have no idea who the culprit is, unless of course Zango want to deposit them on the steps of Gotham City and let me dispense some Batman-style justice to their posterior.

However, based on the way these things tend to go - God forbid anyone ever offer up the identity of someone happily scamming the public at large, even when that person is dragging the name of the company associated with them through the mud by their antics - I think I might be waiting some time for the Bat Signal...

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Install the "codec", and this won't end well. The EXE comes from a site called Favoritetube(dot)com:



A quick check for the safety ratings of that website should be enough to tell you this is a scam. Indeed, there isn't even a movie being streamed here (despite it saying "Connecting" at the bottom of the movie player) - because if you right click on the player itself:

You can see the "player" is actually just a static image (because I'm given the option to "Copy Image Location"). The image is hosted at Favoritetube, just like the "codecs":


There are quite a lot of these sites floating around out there at present:

At this point, it's a given that I'm going to show you what happens if you install one of the files typically pushed from the above sites, right? Well, wait no longer - this....

...will deposit a rogue antispyware tool on your desktop (one of more more obnoxious ones that refuses to leave you alone):


Strange and annoying icons will start to creep across your desktop:

....and you'll have more fake system alerts than you can shake a very large stick at:



This concludes my public safety announcement. I'm off to see Dark Knight again...

I was about as surprised as The Dean was!

To quote a further post from The Dean:

"Well, that's weird. Isn't spywareguide Paperghost's blog? I know he wouldn't spam here. And, the link on the first comment goes to a 404 page."

So, we have someone spamming with broken English, dropping links to 404 pages on Spywareguide. Curious.

Now, I did have some suspicions on this - for starters, the recent blogs regarding the pirate movie websites that pop Zango installers just hit a few news websites. As this article mentions, a lot of the sites involved in this are from Asian regions - China, Indonesia etc. I couldn't help but notice the name of the poster was "Tam" - a common name in certain parts of Asia.

Coincidence? Or a possible affiliate not too happy about this being highlighted? Well, a quick email later and the results for the spammer are in:



A potentially forged Reverse DNS aside, it's a strange thing indeed that they just happen to resolve to Vietnam given that a good portion of these sites are in Asia, isn't it?

I think I'll see if any are owned by someone called "Tam".

When I return from my holiday, of course....

......TV shows (apparently ripped and streamed from Chinese Youtube-style websites), hidden behind Zango installer prompts. Obviously, this is something of a mini industry we have here but I'm faintly alarmed that so many of these affiliates are happily churning out these kinds of sites. I'm also pretty sure Zango doesn't want people seeing what effectively says "Free ripped off movies online sponsored by Zango" on their installer prompts, either.

As a side note, it's not just Zango affiliates doing this - here's another example, this time for something called "Cpalead.com" that wants you to fill in a survey in return for seeing "free" episodes of Lost:


In case you were wondering, my monitor isn't broken, they just grey out the page when the popup appears. The Lost episodes appear to be ripped by end-users and uploaded to Megavideo.com.

The sites above are

lost-stream(dot)com
ietv(dot)co.uk/category/watch-lost-online
watchprisonbreakonlinefree(dot)com
watch-lost-online(dot)info
www.heroesstreaming(dot)com

I guess I ended up with a trilogy after all.

Bestcinemaonline(dot)com. As you can see, the site is similar to the last one (except that site is registered anonymously to an individual in China, whereas this one is registered to someone in Indonesia). Also, the format is different - the last site was more of a "movie repository", whereas this one takes the shape and style of a blog with each individual entry pointing to a film. And what films they are!

Hellboy! (Is that even out yet?)

As you might have expected, a lot of the movies end up looking like this when attempting to watch them:

.....whoops.

I must also give a special mention to one of the most confusing popup warnings I've ever seen - it really threw me, and I admit I nearly installed Zango accidentally after seeing it. If (when prompted with the Zango installer box) you click "Cancel", this appears in the middle of your screen:

"Click OK to Cancel or Click "Cancel" to continue the installation".

.....Whaaaaaa? That's a bit of a brain bender, right there. I hope this set of writeups doesn't become a Trilogy...

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