Rogue Affiliate hacks Tao of Poker Blog

J S · #1 11-15-2006, 11:41 AM

As many of you guys probably already knew, I figured I'd share what not to do as a poker affiliate.

It looks like an unidentified affiliate of absolute poker temporarily hacked the hugely popular poker blog, Tao of Poker. They had the front page of the blog automatically re-direct to absolute poker via their affiliate link...

here is more of the story about the affiliate who hacked tao of poker.

- One question is why would any affiliate try something such as this? they have to know they are first very likely to get caught as anyone who visits tao of poker can see their affiliate ID in the resulting link at absolute and then they are easily trackable...

And although I don't have a ton of experience with Absolute, i know Shenaz is top notch and that they are a very respectable / trusted program in this industry, as well as a sponsor here at PAW.

It would be highly probable that not only would the affiliate not get paid for the obviously fradualent traffic but that they would shut down any affiliate for good who tried this crap. I guess the shot at the quick dollar but come one... that was stupid.

Graham · #2 11-15-2006, 01:01 PM

Very strange why someone would do that also. Only other thing that comes to mind is someone was trying to set up their competitor. Unlikely, but still possible.

edmc · #3 11-15-2006, 01:12 PM

Dam, that one sharp blog uv got there JS. It looks better than most websites. about the other thing, I doubt a hacker would make it so blatant unless it was a throw away affiliate account or as Graham says.

Brandon · #4 11-15-2006, 02:36 PM

You guys would be surprised how stupid people can be.

It could be either way; but the bottom line is that is sucks it happened to such a great guy.

PPP · #5 11-15-2006, 04:56 PM

Jackass the Affiliate.

Lots of people are idiots.

After investigating to see it wasn't someone trying to hurt a third party, Absolute should disclose the name, to Pauly at least, so he can take legal action, if the hacker is a US citizen.

Kyle · #6 11-15-2006, 06:06 PM

They could have made it look like it was going to that affiliate id and really sent it to another one... couldn't they?

pokermac · #7 11-15-2006, 09:47 PM

Kyle,

Not really. The url bar at the top of your browser shows you the ACTUAL url you are looking at -- cloaking doesn't really apply. It would be shameful though technically a great hack if somehow they cloaked Pauly - so that when he checked his site it looked ok but everyone else was redirected.

I do have this to say though - blogger sucks. I've had blogs stolen. Mercifully returned to me by blogger, but apparently it is relatively easy to hack.

Graham · #8 11-15-2006, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pokermac

Kyle,

Not really. The url bar at the top of your browser shows you the ACTUAL url you are looking at -- cloaking doesn't really apply. It would be shameful though technically a great hack if somehow they cloaked Pauly - so that when he checked his site it looked ok but everyone else was redirected.

I do have this to say though - blogger sucks. I've had blogs stolen. Mercifully returned to me by blogger, but apparently it is relatively easy to hack.

Only way they could have done this is if they used a very similar URL, I.E. absolutepoekr.com/affiliatecode... If they had this set up on their site to redirect to another URL, they might have gotten away with it.