5 ms·

This is common. I help develop a small browser MMO game-- 50,000 monthly active users. There were at least three sites that iframe'd our site, put ads on it, an

This is common. I help develop a small browser MMO game-- 50,000 monthly active users. There were at least three sites that iframe'd our site, put ads on it, and made money off of it. Code was added in to detect this and redirect users.

user5994461 7y ago
Any chance the site was blocked in schools/workplaces? If it was, users didn't have a choice but try to use a mirror. You should setup some mirrors to help them.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  iframing a site wouldn't typically work to dodge school/work content filters.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Oh right if it's just an Iframe. I found for my sites that some copycats do simple Iframe whereas some do url rewriting or content injection.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Iframing is ideal for that purpose, it pushes all the costs on the original content creator and pushes all the profits towards the assholes.
      - RomanBob 7y ago
        >asshole I guess if you start a free play in town and try to sell bus tickets to bring people to town, and I drive my friend there and ask him for money, I am an asshole. what a world
        throwaway2048 7y ago
        Its more like pretending you put on the play and taking ticket money at the door without giving anything back.
ben_jones 7y ago
If you don't mind sharing, what's the name of the game? I got my start in programming through Runescape back when it was still a java applet run through the browser, so I'd love to check it out.
- mikorym 7y ago
  Were you the guy with that interesting story some time ago about the autonomous bot you made/improved upon?
  - ben_jones 7y ago
    Yes! I got my devops start managing linux servers which ran various automation software for the game which made some nice pocket money for a high schooler. I actually made pretty good use of the Microsoft Azure launch because they had a very generous free tier for the time. Sort of a grey hat activity all things considered.
    - mikorym 7y ago
      It's a cool story. I wish you all the best. I remember how, as a 10 year old playing Diablo 2, my knowledge of obscure weapon names and adjectives for armour in the English vocabulary was probably much better than that of adults. And we are all the better for it! I kind of view my hierarchy of needs in terms of gaming. Do I have enough money to buy this or that? And if I don't, then I just tell myself: Well, StarCraft was never fun with the cheats, now was it? Hobbies are also like that, it's like happiness is like hacking a game to be fun for you rather than getting to the end point.
Hedja 7y ago
You can avoid loading your site in an iframe using headers. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Frame-Options https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Security-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Co...
- mettamage 7y ago
  You can go around that as a web developer by redirecting traffic through a server and kicking that header off.
  - askmike 7y ago
    After which the original source can ban your server's IP. Let the whack-a-mole games begin.
    - winrid 7y ago
      Proxy the script and alter it... Whack. :P
  - Hedja 7y ago
    That's pretty much the case for any remote content. Proxy and rewrite the response. But that added step is usually enough, especially for something as complicated as a Browser MMO. Also, web servers should have rate limits set which would make proxying less viable, even for IP ranges.
XCSme 7y ago
Welcome to HTML5 game distribution. I also worked on a .io game with about 200k MAU, most games actually want this, because 1) the game has potential to grow, be known, and you get more user base. 2) if you have IAPs (in-app purchases) then you can also potentially monetize those users, even if they already see ads over the iframe.
phreack 7y ago
Yeah, the exact same thing happened to my partner. Did the same at first to redirect, but ended up deciding against it since it brought more visibility and players to a very niche multiplayer game.
- brycesbeard 7y ago
  Can you talk a bit about how this felt? As an outsider, it seems like it would be conflicting. On one hand, people profiting off your work without asking. On the other, increasing the network effect increases the games value.
  - sillysaurusx 7y ago
    There’s a reason photoshop is easy to pirate. Ditto for Windows. They know they want more people using their product. Especially for an online game, it’s probably a win. If you have an ingame store, more people playing = more people buying. Offline games are more problematic. Piracy is a big deal just because there’s not much incentive to pay for anything. People are lazy and often take the path of least resistance. If your game pops up on piratebay for free, people are less inclined to pay for it. I keep talking about piracy here because it’s conceptually similar to the iframe hijack thing. They’re “pirating the content” in that sense. But sometimes it’s smart to let piracy happen.
    - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
      Photoshop is not easy to pirate anymore or even have a trial. Things have changed a lot during the cs era unless you want to use old versions.
      - pixl97 7y ago
        Because the market got large and growth slowed.
resoluteteeth 7y ago
It sounds like you're describing a situation where actual users were duped into accessing another site which was displaying your content in an iframe, but that's slightly different from what this article is talking about. The sites this article is describing do copy content from other sites, but only to make it look legitimate at first glance. They aren't trying to get actual users to access the site, but instead using bots for click fraud.

user5994461 7y ago

Any chance the site was blocked in schools/workplaces? If it was, users didn't have a choice but try to use a mirror. You should setup some mirrors to help them.

ceejayoz 7y ago
iframing a site wouldn't typically work to dodge school/work content filters.
- user5994461 7y ago
  Oh right if it's just an Iframe. I found for my sites that some copycats do simple Iframe whereas some do url rewriting or content injection.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Iframing is ideal for that purpose, it pushes all the costs on the original content creator and pushes all the profits towards the assholes.
    - RomanBob 7y ago
      >asshole I guess if you start a free play in town and try to sell bus tickets to bring people to town, and I drive my friend there and ask him for money, I am an asshole. what a world
      - throwaway2048 7y ago
        Its more like pretending you put on the play and taking ticket money at the door without giving anything back.

ben_jones 7y ago

If you don't mind sharing, what's the name of the game? I got my start in programming through Runescape back when it was still a java applet run through the browser, so I'd love to check it out.

mikorym 7y ago
Were you the guy with that interesting story some time ago about the autonomous bot you made/improved upon?
- ben_jones 7y ago
  Yes! I got my devops start managing linux servers which ran various automation software for the game which made some nice pocket money for a high schooler. I actually made pretty good use of the Microsoft Azure launch because they had a very generous free tier for the time. Sort of a grey hat activity all things considered.
  - mikorym 7y ago
    It's a cool story. I wish you all the best. I remember how, as a 10 year old playing Diablo 2, my knowledge of obscure weapon names and adjectives for armour in the English vocabulary was probably much better than that of adults. And we are all the better for it! I kind of view my hierarchy of needs in terms of gaming. Do I have enough money to buy this or that? And if I don't, then I just tell myself: Well, StarCraft was never fun with the cheats, now was it? Hobbies are also like that, it's like happiness is like hacking a game to be fun for you rather than getting to the end point.

Hedja 7y ago

You can avoid loading your site in an iframe using headers. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-Frame-Options https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/X-... https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Content-Security-Policy https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Co...

mettamage 7y ago
You can go around that as a web developer by redirecting traffic through a server and kicking that header off.
- askmike 7y ago
  After which the original source can ban your server's IP. Let the whack-a-mole games begin.
  - winrid 7y ago
    Proxy the script and alter it... Whack. :P
- Hedja 7y ago
  That's pretty much the case for any remote content. Proxy and rewrite the response. But that added step is usually enough, especially for something as complicated as a Browser MMO. Also, web servers should have rate limits set which would make proxying less viable, even for IP ranges.

XCSme 7y ago

Welcome to HTML5 game distribution. I also worked on a .io game with about 200k MAU, most games actually want this, because 1) the game has potential to grow, be known, and you get more user base. 2) if you have IAPs (in-app purchases) then you can also potentially monetize those users, even if they already see ads over the iframe.

phreack 7y ago

Yeah, the exact same thing happened to my partner. Did the same at first to redirect, but ended up deciding against it since it brought more visibility and players to a very niche multiplayer game.

brycesbeard 7y ago
Can you talk a bit about how this felt? As an outsider, it seems like it would be conflicting. On one hand, people profiting off your work without asking. On the other, increasing the network effect increases the games value.
- sillysaurusx 7y ago
  There’s a reason photoshop is easy to pirate. Ditto for Windows. They know they want more people using their product. Especially for an online game, it’s probably a win. If you have an ingame store, more people playing = more people buying. Offline games are more problematic. Piracy is a big deal just because there’s not much incentive to pay for anything. People are lazy and often take the path of least resistance. If your game pops up on piratebay for free, people are less inclined to pay for it. I keep talking about piracy here because it’s conceptually similar to the iframe hijack thing. They’re “pirating the content” in that sense. But sometimes it’s smart to let piracy happen.
  - 9HZZRfNlpR 7y ago
    Photoshop is not easy to pirate anymore or even have a trial. Things have changed a lot during the cs era unless you want to use old versions.
    - pixl97 7y ago
      Because the market got large and growth slowed.

resoluteteeth 7y ago

It sounds like you're describing a situation where actual users were duped into accessing another site which was displaying your content in an iframe, but that's slightly different from what this article is talking about. The sites this article is describing do copy content from other sites, but only to make it look legitimate at first glance. They aren't trying to get actual users to access the site, but instead using bots for click fraud.