NOW FIXED: Ad bombing blocking story and site access

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1

EDIT: This has now been fixed as of 10 PM GMT (give or take), thanks to site admins for their swift response! :slight_smile:

Just clicked on a story on GaySpiralStories while logged in and was immediately redirected to another site (see below) that spammed my history so I wouldnā€™t be able to return if I clicked the back button, tried to make me click a button to verify my age, and requested the ability to send me browser notifications. This effectively disables story access completely, and gets right past my ad and script blockers somehow. If someone could please ensure itā€™s disabled, that would be much appreciated.

Its URL is: Age check

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Iā€™ve just been getting it too, My antivirus was blocking it so I didnā€™t know what was happening but itā€™s apparently a known thing to them so clearly whatever adware this is, is known. The story pages open for a split second and then direct to the ā€œAge checkā€ link.

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This happened to one of my stories and it is really frustrating. Can it be fixed please? The origin appears to be a comment I received on the story.

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Seems to have been happening since at least 4:19 Pm UK time
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Can confirm, same thing happens to me. Obviously I didnā€™t click anything, but canā€™t access any stories at the moment.

6

Happening the same with me. Any story I choose gives me the ad and makes the site inaccessible.

7

This is specific for stories dated 30.10.2023 sbut not for 29.10. Plus I happened to try extract the text with a tool, I came across this string:

{
  "request": {
    "pageUrl": "https://www.gayspiralstories.com/story/show/10007941",
    "api": "analyze",
    "version": 3,
    "resolvedPageUrl": "https://a.topdatingparty.top/18plus/?u=wuq82k7&o=q0henuv#"
  },
  "humanLanguage": "en",
  "objects": [],
  "type": "other",
  "title": "Age check"
}
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8

This is obviously a malicious third party attack on the site. Iā€™m certain when Martin sees all this, heā€™ll deal with it. Until then, please be patient :slight_smile:

1 Like
9

Yeah, itā€™s a third-party attackā€¦ From what I can tell, itā€™s infested the comments section with ā€˜spamā€™ comments, which (if loaded) force-redirect the site to spam pages.

So pretty much, any web page that you load which has the ā€˜spamā€™ comment on it will now automatically redirect. That includes (a) loading any story that the bot has commented on, and (b) loading the entire comments tab itself. (And also, loading up the user profile of the bot commenter itself, which I discovered when trying to look at it.)

Iā€™m not a programmer, so this is just my observations from trial and error! I think @Corin will be able to fix this once he is available and has time to do so. In the meantime, yes, weā€™ll try to be patientā€¦ :sweat_smile:

4 Likes
10

And just following up to say that Iā€™ve made an announcement on the site proper about the bot, so people are aware of the problem and know itā€™ll be looked at soon.

5 Likes
11

Yay, itā€™s fixed! Big thanks to @PhilipK and @Corin for so quickly responding. :slight_smile:

3 Likes