[WARNING: Scam site]Found a site which is looks just like SF site, and we are also its members??

Just stumbled on what apart from the site name, seems to be an exact clone of SciForums: http://www.sarahdream.com/
Can someone in admin please explain what the hell is the purpose of having this clone? Or is Sarahdream.com the true original? Or have I slipped into an alternate reality?
While we're at it, are there any other clones out there? If so let's have a full list.
[In case anyone is wondering - I had not seen this thread before just earlier starting my own one entitled Sarahdreams Forums = Sciforums!!! (yeah I slightly misspelled.) So my thread disappears but post got redirected to here.]
Blast!
 
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Q-reeus said:
Just stumbled on what apart from the site name, seems to be an exact clone of SciForums: http://www.sarahdream.com/
Can someone in admin please explain what the hell is the purpose of having this clone? Or is Sarahdream.com the true original? Or have I slipped into an alternate reality?
While we're at it, are there any other clones out there? If so let's have a full list.
[In case anyone is wondering - I had not seen this thread before just earlier starting my own one entitled Sarahdreams Forums = Sciforums!!! (yeah I slightly misspelled.) So my thread disappears but post got redirected to here.]
Blast!
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Q-reeus, did you read the OP of this thread, the mods have told us to stay clear of that site. Apart from that and some others here probing that site???...we haven't heard nothing from any admin/mods. I did come across another clone site my post #74, and see my post #76 for something real scary.
 
sweetpea said:
Q-reeus, did you read the OP of this thread, the mods have told us to stay clear of that site. Apart from that and some others here probing that site???...we haven't heard nothing from any admin/mods. I did come across another clone site my post #74, and see my post #76 for something real scary.
Click to expand...
Yeah thanks for warning. I checked out betterkitchenutensils.com and it's just some Chinese cheap goods website that looks legit.
Drop-down 'allow Sarahdream.com' issue seems to be fixed, but I note post #77 - incident report to XenForo - was 17th April but nothing fixed yet. How pathetic.
What bugs is I can't recall if I did log into the fake site - got so dammed confused checking one to the other. Thankfully password used here won't help anyone get my banking details.
 
Since my 'NoScripts' experience, If I were one of those considering a financial donation to Sciforums, I would now be really suspect of the 'workings' of sciforums.
If admin start to wonder why there's a drop-off in contributions perhaps they might push things along. Just keep your eyes on the'NoScripts' drop-down when on Sciforums.
 
sweetpea said:
If I were one of those considering a financial donation to Sciforums, I would now be really suspect of the 'workings' of sciforums.
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Didn't know they were accepting donations. Is that done through PayPal? Always thought their revenue was by way of ads.
 
Bowser said:
Didn't know they were accepting donations.
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Hold on. If thats true, then why did I have to give my bank details when I joined Sciforums:confused::confused:

I must have got this site muddled with another, just shows how much I get around here.
edit to add: No,that other site is not the sarahdream wotnot site.:)
 
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Just noticed, someone has tacked a “[ WARNING: Scam site] “ to the thread title.
Why not pin the thread at the top for a while if it's a warning?
By the way, could a nice mod delete the word “is” from the thread title...I may be an idiot, but I'm trying to keep it quiet.
 
this is where upgrading the site to SSL would be useful, it makes it a little more difficult for someone to "clone" a site since it requires the certificates to have the correct DOM.

Rogue sites are usually done to pretty much either up the number of SEO results, or to pretty much use the "popularity" to increase their sites value or placement. This means they might try to sell the name for a profit at a future point, or use the domain to house things that otherwise would be pulled offline while trying to gain the same level of popularity (Warez, pirated stuff, kid porn etc)

I would definitely suggest blacklisting such domains and avoiding them.
 
Have the scam sites gained access to the database?
A note from my host...
Check the incoming Port for MySQL, If its 3306, then close it. If this port is left open it can pose both a security and server abuse threat since not only can hackers attempt to break into MySQL, any user can host their SQL database on your server and access it from another host and so use Or abuse your server resources.
 
It is much more likely that the other server is a caching proxy designed to inject the pages it gives you with ads or malware than it having a database copy.
 
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