Tech trouble accessing Mudcat

Subject: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 04:21 PM

I couldn't get through to Mudcat using the normal address. Just thought I'd let someone know.

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Peace
Date: 22 Sep 07 - 04:22 PM

Must be a local thing. No trouble from here.

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:18 AM

Works fine for me.

eric

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:31 AM

When I try to access Mudcat via the normal address: www.mudcat.org - I get this messgage on my screen:
"Hi. Something went wrong if your reading this. Good luck"

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 03:50 AM

Most associated with mudcat are sufficiently familiar with the English language to avoid the error in the message cited, hence the source probably is not here.

Perhaps you've acquired a redirect worm, probably from one of those Nigerian Scam emails, that's redirecting your attempts to access this site to somewhere else. If that's the cause, the error message likely is accompanied by the download of additional malware to your computer each time you try - or at random times when you're not looking.

John

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 07:30 AM

Hello,

Yes, Tunesmith,

Sometimes Mudcat does take some time to load...maybe so many catters are using it that it's overwhelmed :0)..or perhaps the server is having a bit of spit and polish!? Why would a Nigerian Scam want to redirect Mudcat? There's food for thought!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 04:09 PM

The error message quoted (which may have been just a sarcastic paraphrase) is somewhat typical of messages posted by lesser kinds of malicious "scammers" on their own sites, to which several kinds of malware may redirect your browser. The "Good Luck" tag especially has been seen with several older malware infections, when viral attacks used to be ego trips to break people's machines.

The "Good Luck" thing has fallen into rare usage more recently, since "modern scammers" don't want to tip you off that they're invading your machine to make money.

A fairly common "phish" is to induce you to "click something" that says "get rich quick and be sexually prolific and successful" but that actually gives a "permission to install" a small worm that rediricts your browser to a site that mimics one you intend, but that is actually created by the scammer to attempt to get you to divulge personal information, or that allows the phony site to download additional "spyware" to your machine.

Since anyone can "view source" and copy the page description for almost any site, the mimic part is trivial, but if you don't visit a site for which the scammer has prepared a "replica page" the initial malware may just pick a "frequently visited" page from the favorites list on your computer, redirect that shortcut to a dummy site name, and give a phony "error message" to distract you while the additional download is dropped.

Bad spelling and illiterate grammar is also a common characteristic of scammers.

John

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 04:33 PM

I think the "Hi. Something went wrong if your reading this. Good luck." message is a Mudcat message. I've come across it before, I think when I went to a Mudcat page that wasn't working. I remember being bothered by the spelling of "your," and being bothered because I was unable to change it.
As I recall, I had logged out, but had another Mudcat window open. When I clicked the "you have 3768 messages link," I think I got the misspelled message in question. Well, I checked that theory just now and not being logged in wasn't what led me there - but I got the same Mudcat page more than once, and my guess it that it's legit. If anyone comes across it, let me know.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Sep 07 - 10:50 PM

OK Joe. I'll take your word for it being possibly a real mudcat thing.

I guess that means we can't shun Tunesmith and make hime do purges and doses of nasty things to get all cleaned up, if he ain't really all dirtied; but how we gonna get 'm to write us some new blues if we're too nice.

I did make a point of trying the "front page" (www.mudcat.org) a few times, although I most nearly always come in at the /thread.cfm page. I got one failure in about a dozen tries; but it gave me the convenional "web page can not be opened" kind of message. I was tryin' to drive carefully but probably just collided with somebody else's packets.

I do recall getting one a couple of years ago here that was a nice little thing about "your packets collided with some others and yours lost," but it's been some time since I've gotten anything but the boring old "404," and recently that usually was a temporary thing that went away fairly quickly.

John

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 12:03 AM

BTW, JiK

Firefox has a plug in that allows you always see the IP address of the site you connect to - if you always have it ticking over at the bottom of the page, you gradually get used to what the approximate numbers are - and you can also get plug in intended to help you check the IP address ids, etc.

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: BK Lick
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 12:17 AM

"Hi. Something went wrong if your reading this. Good luck." is the message returned when one visits http://loki.mudcat.org/.

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 12:23 AM

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Bruce.
That was what it was - old links to Max's old alternate servers, named Shorty, Ragtime, and after various Hindu gods.

http://shorty.mudcat.org/ will lead you to the same message.

Yup, it's a legitimate, Mudcat-based error message.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Rowan
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 12:27 AM

Someone has (or had) a sense of Nordic mythology.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Tech trouble accessing Mudcat
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Sep 07 - 01:08 AM

Yup. Nordic, not Hindu.
I knew that.
My keyboard is possessed and typed the wrong thing....

That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.
Anybody remember the names of the other Mudcat servers Max had in the Good Old Days? Click here for a thread on Loki and Dharma, our Buddhist server...
Short was my favorite. He was a cute little guy.
-Joe-