Art Thieves!

[NapalmArsenal]

Thank you to NPA to have shared the link on Fantasy Attic. Promo renders from the market there was stolen too. So it's not just on Deviantart.
Some pictures (promo renders) from Yurdigital too.
And one of mine I have posted only on Project Dogwaffle site and in the gallery of Fantasy Attic.

It's also pictures from tutorials which are taken. So ridiulous!

Looking on the site (I have adblocker, and my programs don't find virus), I see a Pommerlis promo render for "Red Carpet for Dynamics 06 for Dawn".

In the day, I will share the news on Twitter, and share also on DA. Just time to find words to stay polite

Thanks Aelin!! I appreciate you sharing info with other people and sorry about Fantasy Attic Promos also. Will help you where I can!

 

[mininessie]

wow! i searched for my nickname and found a lot of my images there!
thanks for let us know!

 

[Rae134]

In case it is a phishing site like same have said, don't put in any passwords you normally use and use an email just for this site. And of course never give out your credit card details!

 

[Art_of_Mind]

My images suck so I doubt they stole any of mine.

 

[Rae134]

Your images don't suck AOM, and it looks like a bot collecting the images anyway so no quality control

 

[McGyver]

I looked into this a bit and this site might be a reboot of another earlier site call Wallpart... You know cuz, poster are like parts that are hung on walls and if you are unoriginal that sounds cool... Anyway...
The earlier incarnation of this site wasn't designed to actually sell your work, but to lure artists and buyers in to phish and infect them with malware.
They you can find anything image there that can be found on goggle... I didn't check this through their site, but did an end run around it by searching for commercial ad art through Google and after finding the title of say a Ford or Toys-R-US advertisement poster, or even random junk forum pictures (a picture of a shoe a dog chewed), you can Google that title+Payposter and find a search result there...
Being that the mechanics are similar, I'd say this site is designed for the same purpose.
This article might explain what Wallpart was up to better than I did...
This Website Will Steal Your Photos and Then Hack Your Computer
Perhaps since they are advertising art owned by large corporations like GM, contacting the corporations legal departments might be more effective...?
Either way, don't search their site for your work, or enter any information there.

 

[Pendraia]

Found one of mine and then noticed the comments about phishing...so how do you get them taken down? I've not had this happen before.

 

[McGyver]

The only way to stop them is to have the site shut down... All the images they have are somehow lifted from Google images, even the image descriptions on the advertising images are the same as Google's...
Basically if it can be found by Google, it can be hijacked by them...

 

[Gadget Girl]

Found one of mine and then noticed the comments about phishing...so how do you get them taken down? I've not had this happen before.

The only way to stop them is to have the site shut down... All the images they have are somehow lifted from Google images, even the image descriptions on the advertising images are the same as Google's...

More importantly, it looks like they are probably not actually trying to sell the art work, but have you fill out the form to get your information as part of a phishing scam. So it seems at this point the petition in the first post is the best way to go.

 

[Janet]

So is it safe to go to that site? Payposter.com I want to go there but not at the same time.

 

[Mythocentric]

So is it safe to go to that site? Payposter.com I want to go there but not at the same time.

In short, ABSOLUTELY NOT! Because there are some indications that this site (and it's predecessor Wallpart) are linked to major criminal activity besides it's phishing scam. If your virus checker is allowing you to visit this site I would give serious thought to upgrading your security! Better safe than sorry!

 

[McGyver]

For whatever it is worth, if you go to sites that report on other sites web traffic and basic data you can get some info about most websites... This one, Hypestat says this about Payposter:
"payposter.com receives about 600 unique visitors and 1,200 (2.00 per visitor) page views per day which should earn about $4.80/day from advertising revenue. Estimated site value is $2,322.41. According to Alexa Traffic Rank payposter.com is ranked number 582,909 in the world and 0.00012% of global Internet users visit it. Site is hosted in West Chicago, IL, 60185, United States and links to network IP address 74.122.199.117."
But they are noting a U.S. hosting site in Chicago...
Other site sites that check into site data or scam sites are listing these guys as having origins either in Ukraine or Pakistan, and note "owner data hidden"...
My guess is they are not located in Chicago... Even though these check up sites are notoriously inaccurate and easy to dupe, if you look at the overlapping info, it paints a picture of a site that doesn't actually sell much, if anything and does not have much traffic, and is probably located in areas renowned for shenanigans...

Best Advice... Don't go there, just sign the petition, spread the word about the viruses and phishing and hope lack of traffic makes them close it down on their own... If they are located in either Ukraine or Pakistan, there isn't a lot that will get them shut down unless they somehow offend Coke or Apple or some other big dog.

Even if they are shut down, they will just reopen under a different name... They were temporarily shutdown for linking to porn images of minors... If they came back from that, what is a little phishing scam compared to that?

 

[Janet]

Okay, thank you! I was going to see what pictures I recognized on there but it's not worth it. I did sign the petition though. I wonder where they get the $4.80 a day from advertising revenue. I bet with all that traffic it makes quite a bit more.

 

[Pendraia]

Kaspersky is generally thought fairly good but it allowed going there. I've since run Malwarebytes and had to remove some pup type stuff and also ran a full scan from Kaspersky which did pick up and quarantine a Trojan which I've deleted and I'm now running a second scan to ensure that I'm definitely clean.

 

[Mythocentric]

Malwarebytes is very efficient and stops sites like this dead and I use it as my first line of defence. I also use McAfee which does give you a warning about the site but allows you to overide it by accepting responsibility for your actions. You takes your choice as the saying goes. However, the best line of defence is to sign the petition. Ordinary users like ourselves do make a difference and by bringing official attention to sites like this and, given it's previous involvement with images of child abuse brings it to the attention of worldwide law enforcement agencies who give a very high priority to apprehending those who pursue such evil activities. One small step at a time can achieve astonishing results!

 

[FairyFantastic]

by the looks of it all huve stuff has been removed i went to check and get a link for some one and nothing is showing up in the hivewire section were i saw a lot of peeps art

 

[Pendraia]

I did sign the petition also...just being extra careful and doing the additional full scan with Kaspersky. I used to have McAfee but had problems with it letting stuff through...mind you these was a number of years ago now. I've been with Kaspersky for a while and I generally find it good. I'll probably run Hitman Pro once Kaspersky finishes...that's good too. I find that no one program seems to pick up everything.

 

[aqua1955]

They are busy for some years now and don't have any files. They take them to print from a site, gallery or whatever to sell your stuff. Sometimes you just need to search by name and find your own stuff. It is useless to write, because they won't answer. I even contacted the embassy if they could do something for me, but this was also in vain. I think only someone that lives there can inform the police of their habits. Because they don't keep your files on their server, it is a hard way to get them out of business. My idea is that if you search by name they use it to find your stuff.