XBMC scam spam

I receiveda phishing scammer email today. Wonder how they got my email. I imagine they got it from the XBMC site somehow.

From news@xbmchub.com

Pasted email body.

Dear Friends,

http://iem4.smtp.com/link.php?M=612142&N=4&L=1&F=T

We're contacting you today with much excitement to introduce the open
source XBMC media software, which basically gives you on demand viewing of
every movie and television show ever made, at no cost whatsoever. It also
gives you the ability to watch live sports, events, international channels
and much, much more! It's now time to drop that tired old satellite or
cable subscription and get with the future of entertainment as we know it.

Millions of people across the globe are already using this costless system
on a wide array of devices. It can be easily installed on any computer
(Windows or Mac), Apple device, and has recently been made available for
Android devices and set top boxes such as the new Jynxbox Android HD
receiver. It's extremely easy to get started and no technical experience is
needed at all. Once it's been installed, you basically just point and click
and you'll be watching in seconds; no ads, no hassles. It's so easy your
grandmother could use it.

http://iem4.smtp.com/link.php?M=612142&N=4&L=1&F=T

Best part of it is that it's entirely legal. It basically just connects to
existing online streaming web sites in order to give you viewing of all the
content imaginable. There's no breaking of anyone's proprietary network,
nor encryption changes, meaning this system never goes down. Everything
updates itself automatically, so if you want to watch a show that's on
television at 9 PM tonight, it'll be up on the system within an hour of it
finishing. You can watch the latest movies that just came out in theatres,
or the shows that aired for a week in 1972, it's all there for your
enjoyment.

Hopefully we've stimulated some of your excitement by now as well. We're
very eager to have you join our friendly community and have you be there as
we grow and continue to make XBMC a household name. This is just the
beginning and it's guaranteed to impress anyone that takes the time to see
what it's all about. Please take the time to check out our web site and
within no time you'll be more than impressed, you'll be watching everything
you've ever dreamt to see.

Best Regards,

XBMC HUB Staff
Marketing Department
http://iem4.smtp.com/link.php?M=612142&N=4&L=1&F=T



--
If you don't wish to receive further correspondences, you may remove
yourself from our contacts:
http://iem4.smtp.com/unsubscribe.php?M=6...3b&L=3&N=4

Main Street, PO Box 636, Charlestown, Saint Kitts and Nevis


End of paste.
-Tom

looks more like they got it form XBMChub - do you have an account there?

hmm... well, i guess i'll better stop referring users to their site for certain addon support then.

It's not really a scam, but it is at least three things:

1. Spam
2. A misrepresentation of XBMC. They make it sound like they are an official XBMC website and/or they created XBMC. They also make it sound like XBMC provides the media content.
3. A few lies. This part, "Best part of it is that it's entirely legal" is completely untrue.

The sad part is that when the s**t hits the fan about facilitating access to questionable content, some people won't make the distinction between the official XBMC.org site and this other site.

It really looks like the xbmchub-team itself send the e-mail.
Can you give us the headers of that E-Mail? At least we could try to figure out where it is coming from and make it public.
If it indeed is sent from the xbmchub-team itself (or even more disturbing: They sold the adresses), we could at least warn the users who are on this board.

Also, to go the hard road here (and bring the "xbmc hub" to finally change their name to something distinctive from XBMC):
Is XBMC a registered trademark? If so, you could probably use that to force a name-change upon them.

Isn't this a questionable to drum up hits and get ppl clicking the links?

I would disable the links on that post and put warning not to visit or visit at own peril, just a thought.

uNi

xbmchub itself isn't actually harmful to end users. We normally direct traffic their way for add-ons that can't be discussed on xbmc.org due to our piracy policy. Like I said, it's not a scam, it's just spam. It's unfortunate to see them spending out spam and to see how the represent themselves and xbmc. I don't know if this is a reflection on the entire group behind xbmchub or just a few, so I wouldn't be so quick to banish them from the forum. At the very least, we should give them a warning that we're concerned about these kinds of messages. If at all possible, it would be nice to maintain a friendly relationship, as we do with other XBMC community websites.