Shareaza.com Hijacked and Turned Into a Scam Site
Written by enigmax on December 24, 2007Shareaza.com, the home of the hugely popular Shareaza multi-network sharing application, has been hijacked by scammers. Unsuspected visitors to the site will be completely unaware that they will be tricked into downloading something that isn’t Shareaza at all, but subscription-based malware infected software instead.
The announcement on the SourceForge page of the Shareaza client was ominous:
“As of December 20th, “Shareaza.com” is mirroring “Shareazaweb.com” - A known scam site. While we are working to resolve the matter, any help to contain this would be appreciated.”
The site looks convincing enough, labelled as it is “The Official Home of Shareaza” with the new operators of the site having seen fit to steal some of the original Shareaza artwork (originally created by ‘RocketX and Kid’) to complete the look. So who has taken over the domain?
According to Skinvista, a developer from the ‘real’ Shareaza, the situation is as follows:
“At this time the Shareaza.com destination is now controlled by iMesh/MusicLab LLC, an unauthorized Madison Avenue (New York) based company, with servers in Israel. MusicLab LLC previously acquired iMesh.com and Bearshare/Bearflix.com following lawsuits. It now appears the known scamsite Shareazaweb.com was a placeholder for the planned takeover of Shareaza, relating to another ongoing lawsuit.
It is urgent that people understand the software on these iMesh/MusicLab sites is suspicious, misrepresented, and illegal -breaking GPL and DMCA among other laws.”
As if this strange case needed any more twists in the plot, consider this. On October 26th 2007, the main Shareaza site went down due to unknown “personal matters”.
TorrentFreak asked ‘Wildcard’ a ‘real’ Shareaza developer what happened to the site. He explained: “That’s one of the mysteries. The main hosting server went offline, it had the Shareaza site, wiki and forums on it. The only information that made it this far, was that it was down due to personal problems with the owner of the server machines. what those personal problems were, medical or legal, we don’t know.”
Luckily the Sourceforge site was restored from an earlier backup.
However, the hijacked Shareaza.com domain now points to a server where it is hosted along with some other questionable sites, including bandoo.com, bearflix.com, bearshare.com, daemonsearch.com, imesh.com, imesh.net and musiclab-llc.com.
Apparently, there are lawyers involved now but the loose-knit Shareaza team are advising that it may be prudent to move forward on the basis that the domain won’t be recovered. A source close to this case has told TorrentFreak that Jonathan Nilson, the owner of the Shareaza.com domain has been contacted and he has confirmed that he has sold the domain to the scammers. It looks like the domain is lost forever, a big impact following the loss of the main site in October.
‘Wildcard’ explained that the software on offer from the hijacked site although labeled “ShareazaV4.exe”, is not Shareaza at all but likely a clone of the new malware infested iMesh/Bearshare client and should not be downloaded under any circumstances. Once installed, the software wants to install a search bar and make contact with a central server. Unlike Shareaza - which is abslutely free and has a reputation for being non-profit and shunning involvement with money - the hijackers are touting a subscription based product.
Indeed, the operators of iMesh even tried to trick people into thinking that the reputable GRC site endorsed the iMesh client - an assertion which is completely untrue.
Anyone wishing to find the real Shareaza client should head over to the project’s SourceForge page.
Developing story
Update: A contact of Jonathan Nilson is reporting that Nilson can neither confirm nor deny that he sold the domain to the scammers.
Previously: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent, Christmas Edition
Next: Man Downloads TV Shows and Gets a $54,000 Cell Phone Bill
82 Responses
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Site is garbage anyways
What site? Anyway, shareazasecurity is the home of the forums and security filters. It needs to be shareaza.sourceforge.net
No matter whether you hate or adore Shareaza, those iMesh scumbags need to be kicked in the scrotum!
real links:
http://shareaza.sourceforge.com/ - The Official Site
http://wwww.shareazasecurity.be/forums - The Official Forums
http://sourceforge.net/projects/shareaza/ - Shareaza Project page
http://www.shareazasecurity.be/ - Security Filters for Shareaza
http://shareaza.sourceforge.net/help/?wiki - Shareaza wiki
Shareaza was the software i used before i discovered torrenting really. Shame, although there probably is a lot of money to be made in selling the domain to scammers, specially if the sourceforge page is still up and running.
Regarding the, personal matters. I assume the server crashed, and the server admin wasnt avail to restart it. Maybe a HD crash, though that doesnt explain why there has BEEN no explanation.
x
/The site looks convincing enough, labelled as it is “The Official Home of Shareaza” with the new operators of the site having seen fit to steal some of the original Shareaza artwork (originally created by ‘RocketX and Kid’) to complete the look./
“Stealing?” Maybe they are just using BT to share the images?
Good, only dumbasses would use shareaza anyway.
“Q: Does iMesh contain adware and spyware?
Answer: iMesh doesn’t include any spyware or adware of any kind. ”
No - of COURSE not…
LMFAO! =]
Merry Christmas to pirates one and all :D
ROFL. What in the hell is shareza, looks like total crap.
agree shareza is not worth mentioning
Idiots and the internet. a bad combination.
shareaza was always just a bad Kazaa clone anyway……..I installed it out of curiosity many moons ago…..it was on my HDD 7 minutes max.
µtorrent + SCT + FTN + BCG + TL = All the content you will ever need!
/.,m
[quote comment="247183"]shareaza was always just a bad Kazaa clone anyway……..I installed it out of curiosity many moons ago…..it was on my HDD 7 minutes max.
µtorrent + SCT + FTN + BCG + TL = All the content you will ever need![/quote]
you idiot it had nothing to do with the fast track network it was guntella gnutella 2 and edonkey. plus it was a million times better then bitorrent dident exist.
Shareaza really rocks.
I’m not talking it’s an excellent G1/ed2K/BT program, but I love G2!
Even if it’s smaller, I can find twice as much audio and video on it :p
I don’t even like BT, because I can get movies from G2. Only for programs I would use BT.
Anyway, Shareaza isn’t a KaZaa clone, far from. It’s a really good program.
Yeah, in the older days it was a buggy, lagging program, but you should check 2.3 out now ;)
And why wouldn’t this not be worth mentioning? Many people will and are scammed by those f*ck*rs, so this is really good to let them known!
[quote comment="247025"]/The site looks convincing enough, labelled as it is “The Official Home of Shareaza” with the new operators of the site having seen fit to steal some of the original Shareaza artwork (originally created by ‘RocketX and Kid’) to complete the look./
“Stealing?” Maybe they are just using BT to share the images?[/quote]
Wow, you almost made a smart comment against pro-torrent advocates. Almost. But what you obviously don’t realize is that we don’t use the material we download to make money, push scam programs, trick people into getting infected with viruses, or claim work as our own. Dumbass.
The torrent community is filled with some of the nicest and more helpful people you will ever meet. Probably %1 use their knowledge to trick or infect people. We had the best community at Demonoid.com until they killed it ><. So don’t make assumptions that because what we do is “illegal” that it’s even wrong or says anything about our character.
regarding the update: “…Nilson can neither confirm nor deny that he sold the domain to the scammers.”
why, does he have amnesia?
Not only the torrent community, the whole pirate community!
Are we bad people? No. I’m a member of the red cross, I run BOINC, I help people out with their computers.
We are actually good people standing up for their rights to own the internet we pay for!
Anyway, those images are from free software. You could use it as your banner, you could paste it on your walls, you could tattoo your butt with it. But making money out if it is cowardly and weak.
[quote comment="247242"]why, does he have amnesia?[/quote]
Nah, he just doesn’t want to respond. He has said once to a(n now ex-) friend of him that he sold it, then he left the scene. He probably changed phone numbers and mailaddress, since you can’t contact him with the information trough WHOIS.
I suggest we roll out our DDOS-cannons and launch an all-front attack! Arr.
[quote comment="247183"]shareaza was always just a bad Kazaa clone anyway……..I installed it out of curiosity many moons ago…..it was on my HDD 7 minutes max.
µtorrent + SCT + FTN + BCG + TL = All the content you will ever need![/quote]
sure brag about ur private sites but the people that aint so fortunate to get these invites they have to look for other alternatives and anny way how do you do for old songs?
[quote comment="247025"]/The site looks convincing enough, labelled as it is “The Official Home of Shareaza” with the new operators of the site having seen fit to steal some of the original Shareaza artwork (originally created by ‘RocketX and Kid’) to complete the look./
“Stealing?” Maybe they are just using BT to share the images?[/quote]
Wyf. You obviously dont know anything about Bittorrent.
[quote comment="247271"][quote comment="247183"]and anny way how do you do for old songs?[/quote]
http://jimmyr.com has a nice and easy search for finding mp3s on google, which works okay. DirectConnect hubs aren’t too bad either.
I got a question. If ron paul gets elected for president of US in 2008 will he legalize file sharing in US?
He says in his page that he will reduce the control of the goverment of the internet. Read on his page:
http://www.ronpaul2008.com/
BTW merry xmas :)
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