[blindkid] blindmicemegamall movie vault

Richard Holloway rholloway at gopbc.org
Wed Jan 15 17:28:32 UTC 2014


There seems to be a lot of confusion going on here with this site, and I think I can help clear up at least a bit of this mess, but it is complicated and will take some reading... One key detail is to know there is more than one site involved— please let me clarify...

I am unaware of any fees charged by blindmicemegamall.com’s site for the access to these files, unless they have newly added this fee, and I KNOW you can download the tiles with or WITHOUT a membership to their site (I will explain later), so I don’t think that they are the source of the nominal fees Heather has encountered. What the site is doing is offering you a directory to files hosted elsewhere. I am working from the assumption that these can be utilized without fees because they are adapted for the blind, much like some books can be had for free once adapted. This is my assumption only, and that’s all I can offer about that matter.

I suspect the teacher who was trying to be helpful selected the wrong links and made a quick assumption about malware, vs. an aggressive (and irritating) advertising scheme, though certainly I cannot verify these links you need to avoid are never going to supply malware. Anything you do online can involve at least a slight amount of risk...

Here’s what is clear:

blindmaicemegamart.com is NOT the host of these files.(The host is the actual hosting service and fileserver— basically physical computer or bank of computers-- which physically contains and offers these files for download.) 

These files are hosted on a service called sendspace.com. 

Sendspace hosts (usually large, or large collections of) files for free or on a fee basis. I think they will host files up to 300MB for 30 days for free, then for bigger ones, or for long term storage, you have to pay hosting feeds. The thing is, as we all know, free things general come at a “cost", like being bombarded with ads...

From the user’s (DOWNLOADER’s) perspective, you can download (at a PAINFULLY slow rate, and only one file at a time), for FREE, or you can pay about $9/month (or more for longer duration or more features) and get much better, much FASTER access.

By default the blindmice links are going to take you to sendspace pages with numerous visually large and attention drawing buttons that say “Download”, “Play Now”, from such services as vilatlads.net, and adnxs.net. This is where the suspected malware is coming from, but as far as I am aware, these are really just irritating ads trying to sell you things, and maybe get you to download things that will bombard you with even more ads. If you don’t click on them, you should have no problems with sendspace itself or the hosted movie audio files.

One MUCH LESS PROMINENT link with a blue background in the center of the page says “Click here to start download from sendspace”. That’s how you get to the files you want. If you pay for the download service to be upgraded, I suspect many (if not all) of the ads will vanish. Download speed will be way faster and you can select multiple downloads and walk away too, but that’s only if you pay sendspace's fee. (This isn’t speculation, I have done this (paid) before with various hosting services.)

Depending on your browser and settings, at least visually, you should be able to see the actual links before you select them. Sometimes, you may have a display in the corner of your browser which shows the actual link address when you hover over it. You may also see a popup will appear and show the actual link name, generally this is the “ALT tag” from the web site, if memory serves, often set to the actual filename of the linked file. In JAWS, many such links / tags will be announced, but I’m not clear as to when JAWS will announce the link address vs the link filename, and if it reads the tag, that is restricted to what the site designer put in for the tag.

A filename would be on the order of filename.jpg (for a photo), or filename.mp3 (for an mpeg file), etc.

A link would generally be more like:
http://www.fileserver.com/filename.mp3

or
http://www.fileserver.com/folder_ahsguwjd/filename.mp3

An ALT (alternate) tag is just whatever someone typed into the alt space. It is supposed to describe what is linked or what will be displayed on screen before you click a file, or after you click but before it downloads and appears on screen. There may even be a different name for this particular tag, but you get the idea,

There are nearly infinite variations. The link is pointing to exactly where the file is and (typically)includes the filename, so since the file can be almost anywhere on the planet, the link must have many, many possible variations available.

Think of it this way— you want to tell a friend where an actual printed file of your is. The file is—

On planet earth, united states, texas, dallas, at 123 main street, 4th floor, office number 6, file cabinet on the left, 4th drawer down, 32nd folder, page 4, second paragraph.

Change one detail— one character, and you miss the file. Same thing with web sites, btw. 

Now here’s the thing— if one is trying to find that file drawer above at 123 Main Street, and one stops at Starbucks in the building lobby and never reaches the file, is isn’t because the file address was wrong. Clicking the big, shiny button on the site, is effectively stopping at Starbucks...

That’s why they are so often linked to nice, easy-to-remember URL’s (Universal Resource Locators). Every address like google.com also has an explicit ip address— a much harder to remember, unique code to identify the site, and every page on every site has a separate, explicit address.

This may all be confusing, but this stuff is important if you suspect when something is inappropriate with your downloads or web access (from any source).Like braille to the sighted, it isn’t impossible to decipher, but it is unfamiliar, and often confusing at first.

Here is the actual link to Animal Farm from blindmice’s site:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/mbn7as

Note the sendspace portion (and no mention of blindmice), but that doesn’t mean you’re home free— you have to select the right link from the SENDSPACE page. If you want to be more certain of what you’re after, look for the something like what follows— the direct link to the file from the sendspace page itself:

http://fs12n1.sendspace.com/dl/3c16d22ac75e42717789812d647bb5bd/52d6b08c2ebf3da3/mbn7as/Animal%20Farm%20US.mp3

Note that it is still a sendspace link, but this is pointing to the actual physical location of the file, with a big, complicated path. 

And if you actually study the link (above) for a moment, it is still a sendspace link and file you want is actually named after all the seemingly nonsensical characters in the filename:

Animal%20Farm%20US.mp3

The actual text file name is "Animal Farm US.mp3”

All the “%20” means is this is a space. Spaces cause problems in some situations for web sites and they are invalid in web addresses, so they have to be replaced, and this is the typical solution.

The link is long because this is one of MANY links, and ALSO to make it really hard to guess links to files you aren’t supposed to be able to find on your own…

If you use Facebook, you will notice similar links/addresses— with lots of long random-looking number/letter strings. They aren’t really random. If you know the right string, you can even access many access-limited items like photos and videos. That’s how you can give someone a link to your files even of they aren’t a “friend” with access through your page directly, but guessing the right link is virtually impossible.

If you select that big link above, it will probably work to download animal farm, but also be aware that sometimes the hosts move the files (physical server location), and sendspace will generally self-correct from the first (shorter) link, but I don’t think it will redirect from the explicit (longer) link. This service is hosting thousands— well probably millions of files and they are in this business as a business— they are not trying to get shut down by attacking people’s computers with a virus.

If you want more information on the concept of file hosting services, check out wikipedia on the topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services

It is a very similar business to WEB HOSTING where web sites are physically located and from which they are similarly served to users like ourselves. Just like file hosting, web hosting has to make money somewhere, so you pay to have sites hosted, or the sites you host will be filled with ads to generate revenue. We’ve all encountered add laden sites like those before.

No matter if visually or through a screen reader, the usable links are gong to need to contain sendspace.com and there should be a way to preview the link name BEFORE you select it.

You may need to enable the “Status bar” for your web browser to see these addresses I’m mentioning before you select them. On my browser, you go under “view” and select to show the status bar. (I’m on a Mac with the newest OS.) Your browser may be different, but there should be a way to view a status bar or something similar.

What you want to AVOID are situations like the following-- Notice that I am intentionally breaking the links below by inserting "*** DO NOT USE LINK ***“ before the .com or .net, so that nobody gets into the links by accident. The only way to get to these links is to remove the "*** DO NOT USE LINK ***" so even IF they contain malware (and I don’t know this to be the case) you won’t link there just by reading or even clicking the text.

http://www.adperium.*** DO NOT USE LINK ***com/

http://optimized.by.vitalads.*** DO NOT USE LINK ***net/click.php?b=1056&z=1&c=1160

Especially with links like the vitalads link, what is going to change is the stuff after “php?" because that is what selects which ad is being used at the moment. Don’t worry about that. What you’re looking for is the first part of the link— when you see “vitalads” or “adperium” or anything similar, you’re pointed to their sales attempt, not the hosted files, so move onto the next link and check it. If I’m not mistaken, you can do the same with JAWS— listen to the link and check for ad related names and content, vs a sendspace link.

If this is all new to you and you want to just start learning how this works, when you web surf, look at the http:// and what follows up top in your browser as you move from one web page to the next, and when you select a link, perhaps from an email, look at what comes up. If you think you are, for example, on a web site from your bank, and the first part of the address says something other than your bank name, you may have a big problem., and in fact for any SECURE site, expect to see the address begin with https:// (note the “s” for secure). I will stop there before I go too far on another tangent. Save to say we often have many hints on web pages that are easy to overlook, but easy to find once you know where to look, and they can tell us a lot.

Sorry for the long post, but it is needed info if you want to download files effectively from services such as these, and sites like blindmice actually have no control whatsoever over these services. The sound files are too large and to numerous for them to host without great expense and a logistical disaster, and I am not aware of ANY other way to access these particular files, so if you want them, this is what you have to work with.

I hope this helps a little.

	-RH


On Jan 15, 2014, at 8:39 AM, Dr. Denise M Robinson <deniserob at gmail.com> wrote:

> Heather
> Off of what you are saying...the additional programs that need to be
> downloaded in order to operate the movie come with software that is not
> needed for the computer and not needed to operate the movie....hence the
> spam or malware that comes with it. During setup, it also setup weather,
> and several other programs that are not needed (can't recall all the
> additional things it downloaded as I was getting pretty upset while
> watching it all occur). These additional items cause more issues with the
> students so had to be uninstalled before going on to use the actual movie.
> 
> People may not be aware of the additional items that are being downloaded
> in order to access the moves(as talking software did not speak them all out
> as they were loading) ...this is called spam or malware because it is
> something you do not  want, clutters the machine and is not needed in order
> to operate the program.
> 
> It is most likely something the webmaster of the site should look in to,
> but some sites have this in order to make more money.
> 
> Anyway, it is something to be aware of if using this site. You can do back
> to the uninstall programs and just uninstall all the other things for that
> day if you do use it. You may be shocked at how many other things came with
> it.
> 
> Denise
> 
> 
> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 12:09 AM, Heather Field <missheather at comcast.net>wrote:
> 
>> Hello all,
>> There appears to be some confusion about how this site works. I have used
>> this site myself numerous times.  Thousands of blind people use it to
>> access
>> the sound tracks, with video description, of movies, all the time. It would
>> certainly be all over the blindness specific listservs and podcasts if
>> there
>> was any malware or spam, making the site unsafe. What may be confusing
>> folks
>> is that it requires you to log in before you can access the movie vault.
>> This is a commercial business and this is one way of gathering new email
>> addresses for their promotional list. Also, they are now requiring that
>> people make a small donation to help with the cost of maintaining the movie
>> mall; which, in my opinion, is perfectly legitimate given the number of
>> movies available and the work involved to maintain everything. Also, before
>> actually downloading the movies, customers must download a particular
>> program first. This program enables the computer to access and download, at
>> a fast enough speed, the very large movie file. The man who runs the site
>> is blind himself and runs an online store, hence the name BlindMice Mega
>> Mall. So, to clarify, this site is legitimate and does not contain any
>> malware, spyware of spam. You
>> can email the owner personally, or call him, if you are having difficulty
>> and I'm sure he will assist you. Phone:
>> Call The Order Center
>> (713) 893-7277
>> Regards,
>> Heather Field
>> 
>> -----Original Message----- From: melissa R green
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 4:49 PM
>> To: Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)
>> Subject: Re: [blindkid] blindmicemegamall movie vault
>> 
>> I have used this site many time.
>> thanks for the information.
>> I haven't had any problems with spam and such.
>> thank youfor the information.
>> Blessings and best wishes,
>> Melissa R. Green and Pj
>> "We love because he first loved us."
>> 
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: <hpscheffer at aol.com>
>> To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2014 11:16 AM
>> Subject: [blindkid] blindmicemegamall movie vault
>> 
>> 
>> Hi, as I tried to download the mp3 file for Animal Farm with video
>> description, it took me through the hoops to get there and never did. I
>> sent
>> it to my daughters computer teacher and she figured out it sends you
>> through
>> many hoops before you can get anywhere, full of spyware, malaware, garbage
>> and spam, and not worth going through it.
>> 
>> 
>> Lucy, thanks for your help, but be aware of these issues at this site.
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks
>> 
>> 
>> Heidi
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>> graduate56%40juno.com
>> 
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> *Dr Denise*
> 
> Denise M. Robinson, TVI, Ph.D.
> CEO, TechVision, LLC
> Specialist in Technology/Training/Teaching for blind/low vision
> Private training to your needs
> 423-573-6413
> 
> Website with hundreds of informational articles & lessons on PC, Office
> products, Mac, iPad/iTools and more, all done with
> keystrokes: www.yourtechvision.com
> 
> "The person who says it cannot be done, shouldn't interrupt the one who is
> doing it." --Chinese Proverb
> 
> Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid: humans are incredibly
> slow, inaccurate and brilliant; together they are powerful beyond
> imagination.
> --Albert Einstein
> 
> It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
> --Walt Disney
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