Nmap Development mailing list archives
Sourceforge Hijacks the Nmap Sourceforge Account
From: Fyodor <fyodor () nmap org>
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 00:56:23 -0700
Hi Folks! You may have already read the recent news about Sourceforge.net hijacking the GIMP project account to distribute adware/malware. Previously GIMP used this Sourceforge account to distribute their Windows installer, but they quit after Sourceforge started tricking users with fake download buttons which lead to malware rather than GIMP. Then Sourceforge took over GIMP's account and began distributing a trojan installer which tries to trick users into installing various malware and adware before actually installing GIMP. Of course this goes directly against Sourceforge's promise less than two years ago: "we want to reassure you that we will NEVER bundle offers with any project without the developers consent" --http://sourceforge.net/blog/advertising-bundling-community-and-criticism/ So much for that promise! Anyway, the bad news is that Sourceforge has also hijacked the Nmap account from me. The old Nmap project page is now blank: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nmap/ Meanwhile they have moved all the Nmap content to their new page which only they control: http://sourceforge.net/projects/nmap.mirror/ You can see at the top that the owners of the Nmap page are now 'sf-editor1', and 'sf-editor3'. You can click on those to see other projects they have hijacked. So far they seem to be providing just the official Nmap files (as long as you don't click on the fake download buttons) and we haven't caught them trojaning Nmap the way they did with GIMP. But we certainly don't trust them one bit! Sourceforge is pulling the same scheme that CNet Download.com tried back when they started circling the drain: http://insecure.org/news/download-com-fiasco.html We will ask Sourceforge to remove the hijacked Nmap page, but more importantly we want to reiterate that you should only download Nmap from our official SSL Nmap site: https://nmap.org/download.html If you don't trust SSL by itself (and we don't blame you), you can also check the GPG signatures: https://nmap.org/book/install.html#inst-integrity Cheers, Fyodor PS: Ars Technica has a good article about the Sourceforge/GIMP fiasco: http://arstechnica.com/?p=673477 PPS: Sourceforge now claims they will stop trojaning software without the developer's permission, but they've broken that exact promise before. CORRECTION: I initially had Michael Schumacher listed as CEO of Sourceforge, but that was a big mistake! He's actually one of the good guys (from GIMP). I apologize for that.
Current thread:
- Sourceforge Hijacks the Nmap Sourceforge Account Fyodor (Jun 03)
- Re: Sourceforge Hijacks the Nmap Sourceforge Account Fyodor (Jun 03)
- Re: Sourceforge Hijacks the Nmap Sourceforge Account Rodrigo Ramos (Jun 03)