Spam Site Pretending Greasy Fork

[cyfung1031]

https://greasyfork.org/en/discussions/greasyfork/200905-is-monkey-fork-a-variant-of-greasy-fork-like-sleazy-fork

I have also informed collaborators of Tampermonkey, Violentmonkey and FireMonkey to know that there is a spam site pretending Greasy Fork. Currently those userscript managers have no warning or disallowance for the installation from that website.

https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/1850 https://github.com/violentmonkey/violentmonkey/issues/1889 https://github.com/erosman/support/issues/592

(I might delete this issue to avoid getting into trouble from that spam site owner)

[JasonBarnabe]

This seems to be a scraped copy of the site at a point in time - the newest script is lag behind what Greasy For khas.Some aspects have been slightly rewritten - the name obviously, some languages have been removed, scripts stripped out and added...

[cyfung1031]

@JasonBarnabe

https://www.whois.com/whois/monkeyfork.com The website hosts on Gname.com

Abuse Policy https://www.gname.com/help/295.html

Online Reporting System Of Abuse Domain https://www.gname.com/abuse?lang=us

[cyfung1031]

I have submitted a report to gname.

monkeyfork.com is a fake website mimics greasyfork.org, a famous site for UserScripts. The imposter uses https://github.com/JasonBarnabe/greasyfork to clone the site under a different domain and site name, duping users by copying usernames and script titles. Although I've reported this to the greasyfork.org owner, he claim he can't intervene. It's crucial to shut down the counterfeit site, as it might spread malware and tarnish the reputation of genuine UserScript authors.

But I think it is better to submit from your side too.

[cyfung1031]

Looks like the result is positive.

[joeytwiddle]

Thank you all for the efforts to keep our users safe.

I just want to consider from the other side for a moment:

• What if this person had no intention to spread malware, and simply wants to create a fork? (Which might be good for redundancy, for experimenting with new features, or perhaps to support users inside the Chinese government's firewall.)

• In this case, what should they have done differently, to dispel concerns and earn trust?

My guess: Change colours, so it looks less like an impersonation. And make it clear who the owner is, and what their motivations are. Any others?

[JasonBarnabe]

what should they have done differently, to dispel concerns and earn trust?

Made it clear that it was fork of Greasy Fork for purposes x, y, and z, provide a link to the original, not make it look exactly like Greasy Fork, abide by the various licenses involved (both for Greasy Fork and the scripts posted)...

[JasonBarnabe]

Looks like it's gone, so closing the issue.