By Susan Tsang
Wednesday, May 03 2000 09:23 AM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/hardware/0,39042972,13027806,00.htm

SINGAPORE--The pornography was free, but oh, the phone bills!

That's what happened when some Singapore surfers accessed a pornographic site that offered a titillating experience gratis.

It turned out to be a cyber-swindle. Visitors to the site were told they could only access the pornography if they downloaded a program first.

This turned out to be a Trojan Horse.

After it was downloaded, the program secretly disconnected users, and proceeded to make long-distance calls on their telephone lines to exotic destinations--like Sierra Leone in Africa, for example.

The IDDS connection continued even after users' Web browsers were closed, hanging up only when the computer was turned off.

Users smelt a rat when they got whopping bills for calls to Tuvalu in the Pacific from Singapore Telecoms Ltd.

The Straits Times reported that up to 10 users have refused to cough up about S$1,000 for IDD calls. Others are assumed to have stumped up quietly, to avoid being uncovered for visiting porn sites.

In all probability, the operator of the site gets a commission from telcos seeking to boost IDD traffic. The phone companies may be in on the jig or may actually believe the sneaky pornographers are really respectable business people bringing them good business.

One thing is sure--these crooked operators leave visitors to unsavory sites with a nasty taste in the mouth.