Apple iPad adware
Ping!
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Posted on 11/12/2016 1:21:12 AM PST by dayglored
As you may know, Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert cartoon strip, is a Trump fan and writes a blog on the Dilbert site that has predicted Trump's win for months.
Tonight the blog (not the main Dilbert page, just the blog section) has been hacked, perhaps by anti-Trumpers, and at least on my iPad, is hijacked to a clearly fake page offering a "Free Apple App". It is inescapable.
I don't know how it acts on other non-iOS platforms, haven't had a chance to try it yet.
Might want to warn the troops.
I’m seeing this consistently on my iPad 2, don’t know about anything else.
My iPad only shows normal Google selected advertising. . . Odd.
I suspect you’ve gotten an ad with a script that will not let go. . . Adware on the ad. Quit Safari, delete the history, and it will go away when you restart Safari.
Good suggestion. Trying, will be back shortly with update....
The latest entry is November 11th, 2016 @ 9:34am, entitled While You Were Looking in the Wrong Direction.
Alas, no change. Wiped my history for all time (had to login to FR from scratch just now), but as soon as I hit the Dilbert blog page, a small overlay appeared in the upper right (”Open” “Get App”) and after 10 seconds the blog page redirected to a scary bogus page and a pop up dialog to download the “Free App”. Same as before.
Bollocks. I guess I’ll check again in the morning. Presumably somebody will write to Adams. Maybe I will if it’s not better tomorrow. And I’ll check some other platforms.
The fact that it offered me an “Apple App” suggests that it can tell I’m using an iPad. Could also be iPad specific, even specific to older versions of iOS (my old iPad 2 is stuck at an older release). I’ll check some other platforms in the morning. Gotta sleep now...
Yeah, it’s funny, I was able to read that one blog post okay, but a few minutes later I got the hijack, and now can’t read that post. Might just have happened then, I dunno...
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Did you actually quit Safari or just close it? Try force quitting your iPad after force quitting Safari. I.e. Hold home and power button for fifteen seconds and then restart.
I encountered no problems.
Using Chrome Version 54.0.2840.71 (64-bit) on OS X 10.11.6.
Also in settings/Safari/advanced. Turn off JavaScript for a bit and see if that solves it.
Turned off JavaScript and deleted all website data. Noticed a website listed that matched one of the bogus sites offering the app. And Dilbert.com had 25kb of data, which might have been the script.
Anyway, it’s gone now. No hijacking. I’ll turn js back on and see what happens.
Turned JavaScript back on and the hijack reappeared.
All for now, gotta hit the sack. Thanks!
Run a good AV and it’ll probably find the embedded code and remove it from HTML code....
It came up fine for me on my desktop...good luck with fixing it!
BTW, Scott Adams is a VERY sharp guy...
Not seeing it on MacOS. Haven’t tried the Pad.
I think I’ve been getting something similar on my iPhone. There may be some tiny type in one of the corners that allows you to “go back to Safari” If you see that, click that, and you should return to the blog.
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