Anyone else notice the fake DU sites?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

They usually have a similar URL to DU. Seems when you search for an article on Democratic Underground some of these come up.

I've clicked on some of these sites in the search results and got a warning from my anti-virus software that the site is not safe.

Just a word of caution.

[MineralMan]

1. Similar in what way to DU's URL?

Do they not have democraticunderground.com in the URL?

Are you searching directly on Google or using the internal DU Google search?

A little more information would be useful.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. The internal DU Google search brings this up

and yes they have democraticunderground.com plus some additional stuff.

[MineralMan]

3. If they have words ahead of democraticunderground.com

they're probably links to servers, but are still DU links. The warning you got may come from some ad on that page or something like that. It's probably not really an issue.

URLs like upload.democraticunderground.com are normal.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

20. Here's one where I get the warning

https://metamorphosis.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x3739442

[MineralMan]

21. Yeah, that's an https issue.

I think it's because it's an older page and there's a conflict between http: and https:

This has been happening for a while. It's nothing to worry about and has been discussed in ATA.

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Those are aliases for DU servers

Google happens to have recorded those aliases for many pages. Now that DU has started using 'https://', those that were recorded before the switch with a name other than "www" can give a security warning. Just replace that word ("betterment" is one, I think) with "www" and it'll work.

[RKP5637]

4. Take a look at this. It's exactly the same as DU except with a "." at the

end and an un-activated login. I reported it to "ask the Admins." but never heard back.

https://www.democraticunderground.com.

[MineralMan]

6. Where did you encounter that?

It makes sense, though, that it would lead to DU with no login.

[RKP5637]

8. Someone had reported it as an error on DU. My login app wisely blocks it. n/t

[MineralMan]

9. Hmm....it looks normal to me, except that

I'm not logged in and there are ads. It still looks like DU, though. I don't know.

[RKP5637]

13. It could be a test site for DU. Also, could be a nefarious way for someone to collect

DU logins, I guess.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Since it's exactly the same, I suspect that is just a side-effect of security

Your (and my) browser doesn't recognise it as democraticunderground.com, so it can't give the site the cookie necessary to say "already logged in", but the trailing '.' doesn't mean anything in a URL, so it's stripped before use and thus goes to the true democraticunderground.com .

[RKP5637]

14. Interesting, thanks!!! n/t

[MineralMan]

15. Yes, I think you're correct on that.

I think the original poster was talking about stuff like archive, etc. ahead of democraticunderground.com. That stuff often shows up in Google searches made with the search box on DU.

the .com. thing seems like a different question that the OP was asking, and I think you've interpreted it correctly. DU doesn't load the cookie, so you aren't logged in.

[xor]

17. There is an implied . at the end of all domains like that.

We just don't usually deal with it on our everyday usage.

DU also has several other servers (or at least subdomains. I haven't checked if they point to different servers) One is elections.democraticunderground.com. There is also metamorphosis and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head. Either way, those are all under DU's control.

[RKP5637]

18. Thanks!!! n/t

[RKP5637]

5. Yes, see #4. n/t

[countryjake]

7. They're not fake DU...it's the archives.

If you've been searching here for articles that were posted before the most recent DU upgrade, they'll normally contain such words as metamorphosis or sync and a few other odd words, in the URL.

Elad has told us before that it's simply the way he has configured the access to the archives.

Getting the "Unsafe" warnings is something fairly new happening that I'm not sure the owners of this site even know about. There have been questions asked about it in the Ask the Administrators forum but so far, not enough follow-up included for Skinner to understand what the problem is.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. See #11 - replace sync with www and it'll work without a problem (nt)

[countryjake]

16. Hey, thanky much! Your solution works like a charm!

You should make a thread in Skinner's help forum with that nifty answer to the problem so that other DUers might quit wondering; I looked around over in Ask the Administrators a minute ago and there are several questions relating to this exact issue, but the people posing the questions never responded back to Skinner when he requested more info.

Actually, I had been wondering if it was just a nicer way for them to clean up some of the infighting and various circular firing squads we're experiencing here now by effectively blocking the frenzied digging into other DUers long-past statements.

Your explanation makes much more sense, ha! Thanks again!

[MrScorpio]

19. I tried to log in a DU site today, noticed that I was logged out

I put in my login and nothing happened.

So I went to the URL in my favorites and found out that I was already logged in.

I promptly changed my password. I suggest that everyone do the same.