Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

prehistoric · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 1207

While searching for software for a friend who is tied to M$ I ran searches for prices on a number of well-known and expensive packages. The spread of legitimate prices for the same thing was astonishing.

One site, however, appeared to be entirely too good to be true: soft-field.net. I began to suspect this was a variant of soft-file.net, which is hosted in Russia. Here's a sample offering:
adobe-creative-suite-6

A check with network whois told me it was located in Croatia (country code HR for "Hrvatska"). Other sources mentioned Ukraine. There was even an old mention of St. Petersburg, Russia.

What these locations have in common is difficulty with prosecution for network scams. There were also mentions on-line of malware associated with downloads, as at file-sharing sites.

Anyone know more about this?

Barkin · Joined: 12 Aug 2011 Posts: 463

Looks very iffy ... http://whois.domaintools.com/soft-file.net.ru

jpeps · Joined: 31 May 2008 Posts: 2417

The student/teacher editions supposedly are discounted 80%. Interesting that "ADOBE ENCORE IS NOT INCLUDED!", since it is included in the ebay version.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Adobe-Creative-Suite-Master-Collection-6-Student-Teacher-Edition-Windows-MAC-/200859719366?pt=US_Image_Video_Audio_Software&hash=item2ec42c16c6

prehistoric · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 1207

I don't know, at this point, that soft-field.net is associated with soft-file.net. That was just free association on my part. I already knew soft-file.net.ru was suspect.

There is much more than a vague family resemblance between soft-field.net and soft-buy.com, which leads in another direction -- to Beijing.

Registered through: godaddy.com

Registrant: Mingxia Zhou

Barkin · Joined: 12 Aug 2011 Posts: 463