[SteveFord]

I haven't seen any hints of a virus from audiogon but I will agree that security essentials virus is really bad. 
It stumped my local computer repair shop last year (I'm using Windows 98) and I had to finally just tell them to chuck the hard drive and I'll start over.

[Letitroll98]

I definitely got something from A-gon, not sure what it is but it has hijacked Chrome, Google page in French, opens tabs instead of going to a page.  Any idea what this might be or how to extract it, Malwarebytes didn't pick up anything.

[opnly bafld]

I definitely got something from A-gon, not sure what it is but it has hijacked Chrome, Google page in French, opens tabs instead of going to a page.  Any idea what this might be or how to extract it, Malwarebytes didn't pick up anything.

Maybe not..............http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=3204.msg39401#msg39401

[lonewolfny42]

Hopefully other sites like this can take over and fill the void? But where? Where do you go to buy/sell gear now?????

Well.....try right here...

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?board=109.0

[Bemopti123]

I was trying to ask questions and email a seller in Audiogon and they made it so incredibly difficult...can no longer contact a seller directly to ask questions, that I get the impression that Audiogon has killed off much of their potential business in such a stupid way.  I guess now, I will have to scour Ebay for exotics and other sites.  Perhaps Audiogon sellers will begin to flock other competing audio sites....something only from the stupid minds behind Audiogon...giving fuel to the competition.  Complete idiots. 

[tabrink]

Maybe thats why this site is soooooooooooo Slooooooooooow!

[invstbiker]

Pa Leez

[Letitroll98]

Maybe not..............http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=3204.msg39401#msg39401

Ahh, thanks, I had never encountered that before.  Apparently happens in Chrome, which I just started using over Firefox, ironically for the greater security.

[MttBsh]

This begs the question: Is there a competing site out there to turn to for browsing, buying and selling high-end audio gear? It seems like Audiogon has been the single source out there for the past few years.

[putz]

I was trying to ask questions and email a seller in Audiogon and they made it so incredibly difficult...can no longer contact a seller directly to ask questions, that I get the impression that Audiogon has killed off much of their potential business in such a stupid way.  I guess now, I will have to scour Ebay for exotics and other sites.  Perhaps Audiogon sellers will begin to flock other competing audio sites....something only from the stupid minds behind Audiogon...giving fuel to the competition.  Complete idiots.

They probably killed the direct email function with the intent to prevent people from negotiating sales offline to avoid paying fees to Agon.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I definitely got something from A-gon, not sure what it is but it has hijacked Chrome, Google page in French, opens tabs instead of going to a page.  Any idea what this might be or how to extract it, Malwarebytes didn't pick up anything.

The switch to french with Google Chrome is not a virus, it is a known problem with Chrome.  It has something to do with the type of IP address.  If you have a dynamic IP then Google Chrome will some times identify it as France and switch you to french.  I have had the switch happen to me several times.  There is a partial fix for the problem.

[S Clark]

That happens w/ Firefox whenever I go to the Grant Fidelity site... somehow the computer thinks I'm French-Canadian.

[macrojack]

I removed Audiogon from my bookmarks. They don't seem to want to make their place of business safe and user friendly so I get the message loud and clear. Time to move on.

[Johnny2Bad]

This is a cross post I made from the Turntable Porn thread over in the Vinyl Circle.
[snip] ...
I clicked on the pic and immediately had a window popup that was spoofing me as if my computer was being scanned showing all sorts of viruses infecting my computer.
... [snip] ...
After that I went to the Mozilla website and downloaded the NoScript add on for Foxfire. It forces you to accept any Javascript manually for every site you visit (that spoof was Java based).
... [snip] ...

The spoof was JavaScript based. Java and JavaScript are two completely different technologies that have nothing in common. If you have not specifically downloaded Java from Sun Microsystems and use a Windows platform computer, chances are you cannot use Java as Microsoft does not have it either as a default or optional install with an OS or browser.

[NekoAudio]

I'm curious if anyone has identified an association between the reports of scammers and any particular new site feature? I'm wondering if it may just be due to some additional advertising or popularity and so it could have or would have just as easily happened with the old site.

[Letitroll98]

The switch to french with Google Chrome is not a virus, it is a known problem with Chrome.  It has something to do with the type of IP address.  If you have a dynamic IP then Google Chrome will some times identify it as France and switch you to french.  I have had the switch happen to me several times.  There is a partial fix for the problem.

Maybe not..............http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?topic=3204.msg39401#msg39401

Thanks for spelling out what opnly bafld had already answered, but you'd have to click on the link to see that he had.  Without looking at the link, apparently sometimes dangerous to do judging from the posts on this thread, my answer to him was also cryptic.  The fix was painlessly easy.

[Johnny2Bad]

I'm curious if anyone has identified an association between the reports of scammers and any particular new site feature? I'm wondering if it may just be due to some additional advertising or popularity and so it could have or would have just as easily happened with the old site.

There are a number of possible vectors. The obvious ones are a malicious user deliberately made a listing on Audiogon with the exploit embedded, or the Audiogon site was the subject of a PHP injection exploit.

Many sites are vulnerable to PHP attacks and there is a need to specifically guard against them in configuration and vulnerable software updates. This software that this site uses (AudioCircle) for the forum itself uses PHP. There is really no way an ordinary user can monitor the competence or security practices of a web site they use.

In the past it's been typical that PHP injection was used on non-secure commercial sites that accept credit cards, since they can modify the site's own page links to hijack any information entered on the site. If you ever are on a CC page and some links on the page don't seem to work (go nowhere) it's a good indication you should exit immediately. If you enter all information, click submit, and nothing happens, chances are you just gave it all up to the bad guys.

Its a good idea to make some phone calls and take the time to make sure your CC companies ship only to addresses you specifically authorize and are listed with them. This will help them flag possible unauthorized use of your info, since the thieves will want to make some purchase to verify the card works. Often the first transaction will be to attempt to pay one of their web hosts for another year of one of their enabling sites hosting fees, since this does not involve shipping a product.

These days CCs are becoming more secure so perhaps they are just moving on to flogging scareware, which still makes money.

Since Symantec was recently broken into and the source code for many of their anti-virus and security applications was stolen, we might see some exploits in the future that are specifically crafted to avoid being flagged, or that might attempt to silently modify a Symantec installation for their own nefarious purposes.

Symantec first denied the theft of the source code was possible; the thieves then responded by posting it online. So, the source code is public now in the Black Hat world. Access to source code allows you to modify the software  and also examine it to see how it works.

[saisunil]

I would love to see more traffic on audiocircle / especially on the trading side ... as an offset to audiogon ... perhaps there can be a friendly fees structure so it makes sense for all concerned ....

[Johnny2Bad]

I would love to see more traffic on audiocircle / especially on the trading side ... as an offset to audiogon ... perhaps there can be a friendly fees structure so it makes sense for all concerned ....

I am not personally in favour of that; not in the sense that I wouldn't want to see more traffic, but in the sense that popularity breeds attention, and sooner or later attention brings evil. I am satisfied that if I want to buy or sell on AudioCircle I can interact with more like-minded people than I could, say, through the local Kijiji. That is a good thing; I don't want Utopia since all Utopias devolve into chaos eventually.

To a large extent the reason things work here is we have a relatively small reasonably trustworthy community. Popularity kills that. Bad Guys know search engines better than the average Joe; when the average Joe can find a place to sell audio equipment person-to-person with a quick perusal of the first two result pages, it's too late and the damage is done. I don't see it as a matter of "if some is good, then too much ought to be perfect".

You could probably make an argument that it has harmed Audiogon which also used to work very well at one point in time, not to say it's doesn't still work, but there is a difference between then and now.

I have my short list of places where a person-to-person audio transaction is in my opinion reasonably safe. I would never post them in a forum, however ... it's only a matter of days before a forum post becomes a search result worldwide ... (a quick check while I was posting this shows 92 spiders crawling this site at this moment) but anyone could PM me or any other AudioCircle member if they wanted to know. That's as public as I am comfortable with.

[tmij]

I was trying to ask questions and email a seller in Audiogon and they made it so incredibly difficult...can no longer contact a seller directly to ask questions, that I get the impression that Audiogon has killed off much of their potential business in such a stupid way.  I guess now, I will have to scour Ebay for exotics and other sites.  Perhaps Audiogon sellers will begin to flock other competing audio sites....something only from the stupid minds behind Audiogon...giving fuel to the competition.  Complete idiots.

Paul, I'd like to invite you and fellow ACers to check out the Gearsomniac Bazaar.

Quick features: non-members are able to view the listings; members get to post ads with pictures (max 3 uploaded, unlimited linking to pictures) and embed videos, search listing titles/descriptions/item location/zip. Basic ads that include all these are free. Featured ads get pushed to the front of the list and cost less than a shot of espresso

Our angle is not to build a business off classified ad revenue. We're hobbyists ourselves and are aiming to build a community of friends across hobbies. Just bear in mind, Gearsomniac is "real name culture" and we hope you'll see the advantage in this approach as we start leveraging "social" into our applications.

Thanks and best wishes,
Tito
Gearsomniac Founder

PS. sorry if this sounds like a commercial post, mods, please feel free to remove/delete if it doesn't pass your smell test.