Battlefield 3 Mini-Map HACK *DELETED*

Post deleted by billford

We don't want to know that

Stick it up your Gaming!

Got an affiliate link as well. Have reported it.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Got an affiliate link as well.

So it does did

What's an affiliate link and where do you see it? The link only had "?string".

Beat you to report

An affiliate link is a tag on the end of a URL identifying who provided the link. It's how the cashback sites work when they pass you to the proper URL.

This one had a url of the form url.../uixxxxx

User Id. So he would get a payback, possibly a couple of pence whenever anyone clicked it, or more likely a few quid whenever anyone signed up through it.

Only Bill can say which of us reported first . Your post wasn't there when I went to the Report, and my report was the affiliate link. Plus it being pestilential in this forum.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 13-Jul-12 23:04:10)

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Only Bill can say which of us reported first .

I didn't bother to check

Multiple reports about a post aren't a problem- I'd rather have that than nobody reporting one because they all thought someone else would/had!

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

This one had a url of the form url.../uixxxxx

Yes. I thought it was like that, but in this case it was the top-level, of the web server, filename of the page being displayed, as in http://domain.name/?uixxxxx.

Or where in the URL can it get the page filename? Is it done by look-up?

EDIT: OK, I get it! The "?uixxxxx" is/includes an indirect reference to the actual page.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Fri 13-Jul-12 23:22:07)

I see what you mean . Quite neat that.

The "ui" of course is just how that site works it. They all vary, but I always examine links in that style of post. The style of post being the first alarm signal.

If you examine my TsoHost link on this page you see their method. Interestingly, I see that has a ? as well. I wonder if that's always the case?

Amusingly I didn't know TsoHost did affiliates, until I saw an affiliate link to them on here in a sig, by someone who joined them on my recommendation. I was miffed, as they could have notified the site manually. That was when I got a code and added it there, but not here.

I'm not a Web programmer (much) but I'm just trying to understand it.

The diff is your TsoHost link leads to their home page whereas OP's leads to a specific subsidiary page w/out specifying it in his URL. Is that your neat trick?

HP does it with ".../home/?p=nnnn".
Nectar does it with ".../?clk_rvr_id=xxxxxxxx". .... Oh no, it doesn't! It does it differently with diff sites, not all involving "?"

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

The diff is your TsoHost link leads to their home page whereas OP's leads to a specific subsidiary page w/out specifying it in his URL. Is that your neat trick?

Yes. Only I didn't click his link and have no record of it, so have no idea where it went. I'm taking your word for it that it went to a relevant page.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

HP does it with ".../home/?p=nnnn".
Nectar does it with ".../?clk_rvr_id=xxxxxxxx". .... Oh no, it doesn't! It does it differently with diff sites, not all involving "?"

The '?' is the way the link is telling the other end that it is passing a variable (the characters before the '=' sign define its name) and a value (the bit after the '=' sign) pair to the recipient page. You can also pass several values at once i.e

home.html?p=634&r=yes&user=xrayspecs

and so on with '&' as a separator.

With the last one in that example, it's obvious what value you are passing for the variable named 'user' but with the earlier ones there will be code to look up what value, for instance, 636 means for the variable 'p' in the example above, either in the code or via a database etc. If the programmer has his head screwed on properly, he won't make the variable and its value that obvious though.

If there is no page defined, i.e. 'home/?x=3' which means the 'home' directory, then the parameters go to the default page for that directory (often index.htm or index.php but could be defined to be anything internally).

It's called the 'GET' method and it's not the best way of passing a value since you can easily call the page with your own values substituted if you wanted so the characters are often encrypted to prevent this.

The other way of doing it is via a method called 'POST', such as on a web form where you fill in all the data and hit a button. The values are then all carried within the headers of the web page when sent and so is more secure.

If that basic explanation doesn't make sense please yell!

Edited by tbailey2 (Sat 14-Jul-12 08:01:52)

Ta! Nice explanation & sufficient for my purposes.

I take it that a variable can not only set a data value in the state machine but also determine which page to display next, as in the OP's link (which has now gone, but I have given its form in an earlier post).

Yes, it can basically do anything the original programmer wants.

From simply using the affiliate or other innocent looking link in the way expected and generating the sender some revenue, to, on the down side, also/or redirecting you off to a malicious web page that loads some dodgy software on your machine in a 'drive-by' attack.

Bear in mind that the remote machine will also have your browser info and your IP address via the server it's running on plus other useful information. If that IP is a static one and not proxied, then other possibilities open up such as a port scan to see if there is a way into your machine.They could also maybe be aware of a vulnerability in a particular browser version and be looking to attack people using that browser. The possibilities are endless.

Edited by tbailey2 (Sun 15-Jul-12 09:03:59)