Campaign Commercial [ Edited ]

[deesy58]

Just now, when I changed from the "NOOK Tablet Support" forum back to the "Community Room" forum, my speakers suddenly began broadcasting an anti-Obama campaign commercial.  When I promptly logged out of the B&N Book Clubs, the audio immediately ceased.  Has anybody else heard this?  Has the B&N Web site been hacked?  Is B&N foisting politics onto their customers and visitors (hard to believe)?  What might explain this?

[keriflur]

B&N is pushing the election-related books right now, so maybe they are foisting politics on us.

As for the ad, I keep my volume turned off so I can't say if it's tried to sway my vote, LOL.  Not that I could be swayed.  I'm so fed up with both parties I'm ready to write in MacMck for president.  Naughty Nurses for all!

[MacMcK1957]

If elected, I promise that all shall be freed from the tyranny of Fifty Shades, and shall receive the blessings of naughty nurses, saucy secretaries and wastrel waitresses.

Be that as it may, I have seen ads on the forum pages, though not within any actual discussions. on the right side of the page  I've never before noticed any with animation or audio, but generally I also keep my audio turned totally off, except when I am specifically viewing or listening to something I want to hear.

Edit: I stand corrected. I just went back to the main forum page and noticed an animated ad for Windows 8. Since my PC is still muted I don't know if it had sound. Maybe B&N gets more money for these than for static ads? Probably.

[bobstro]

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deesy58 wrote:

[...]  What might explain this?

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The voices.

[keriflur]

ROTFL.  I almost choked on my lunch.

[deesy58]

Well, one thing that might explain it is the new Java Exploit.  Of course, it must be gotten from a complicit Web site, and it seems that the B&N Book Clubs Web site might be suspect.  According to some of the information available on the Web from PC World, "This vulnerability is not a 'memory corruption' type vulnerability, but instead seems to be a security bypass issue that allows running untrusted code outside the sandbox without user interaction," Eiram said. "In this specific case a file is downloaded and executed on the user's system when just visiting a web page hosting a malicious applet." [emphasis mine]

The only Web sites I have visited for several days are Barnes and Noble sites.  Is B&N hosting a "malicious applet"?  Alex?  Alex???

In any event, I will remember on Election Day that the exploit was used for illegal, criminal purposes by supporters of Mitt Romney.  How sad!

[deesy58]

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keriflur wrote:

ROTFL.  I almost choked on my lunch.

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Oh well ... perhaps another day.

[BN_AlexG Administrator]

Hi all,

Our forums are here for everyone to participate in, read, converse and enjoy.

However, more and more I receive complaints ranging from rude behavior to flat out disrespect. It saddens me to have to do this and actually make a post in hopes of curtailing some of this.

I urge you all to review our Community Guidelines and make note of their first tenet:

Be respectful.

Respect people's time and attention by asking well-thought-out questions and sharing what you've learned so far in your experimentation or prior research.
Respect people as individuals by keeping your tone positive and your comments constructive.
Please do not post any material that harasses others, or otherwise interferes with another party's use of the B&N Community.

I hope this pattern does not repeat itself and I also want to be clear, no one is being singled out. Collectively, we have to do a better job of interacting with one another.

However, I and your peers would like it to stop.

As always, feel free to PM with any questions/concerns.

- Alex

[keriflur]

Maybe it's just me, but the way I read this thread is that Deesy saw (heard) some strange behaviour that no one could explain, and then there's a lot of joking around.  If there's something malicious here, I guess I just chose not to read it that way.

Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of humor?  I have been known to laugh inappropriately.

Alex, can you confirm if B&N is running political ads with sound?

[deesy58]

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keriflur wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but the way I read this thread is that Deesy saw (heard) some strange behaviour that no one could explain, and then there's a lot of joking around.  If there's something malicious here, I guess I just chose not to read it that way.

Maybe I have an overdeveloped sense of humor?  I have been known to laugh inappropriately.

Alex, can you confirm if B&N is running political ads with sound?

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I am convinced that my computer was taken over by the Java Exploit originally described on the B&N Book Clubs by Doug Pardee.  It would be difficult to imagine that a company like Barnes and Noble would, knowingly, insert politics into a Web site intended for its customers.  It would not, however, be inconceivable, that the B&N Book Clubs Web site might be infecting users' computers with malicious applets without being aware of it.  I don't know about anybody else, but I find nothing humorous about having my computer taken over by an operations center in Singapore using a Web server in China.  I took a cursory look at the source code for the Community Room (all 329 pages of it) but saw nothing that caught my attention.  I assume that Alex and his staff (including Lithium) are investigating this matter even now.  I can't imagine that I picked up the infected Java code anywhere else but the B&N Book Clubs, or, possibly, CNN.com.  I have not been "surfing" the Web. 

If other users are seeing animations and hearing sounds on the B&N Book Clubs Web site, doesn't that imply that it might be the Java Exploit at work?  When other users tell us that they are seeing and hearing anomalous behavior, can they be believed?  Or might this just be additional "joking around"?  Making a joke of a serious security matter is not particularly helpful to anybody, and especially not to Barnes and Noble, IMO.