International translation of docs - is it a scam?

[Terry Reedy]

On 6/7/2011 8:46 AM, Chris Gonnerman wrote:
> On the 30th of May, I received an email from a man (I'll leave out his
> name, but it was properly male) offering to translate the docs for the
> gdmodule (which I maintain) into Belorussian. He wanted my approval, and
> a link from my page to his. This seemed fair, so I told him to tell me
> when it was ready.
>
> This morning, I received an email from him that it was done. I looked at
> the page, and it looked good. Of course, I don't read Belorussian, but
> it had the right "shape" and linked to my downloads. But at the same
> time, I received an email with a female sender name on it. It was worded
> almost identically to the first email, but was offering to translate my
> WConio page into Belorussian.
>
> The Belorussian gdmodule page is here:
>
> http://webhostingrating.com/libs/gdmodule-be
>
> Now, webhostingrating.com is a site that rates web hosting providers,
> and at least on the surface seems legitimate. I can't find any links
> from their front page to the section with the Belorussian
> translation(s), which strikes me odd.
>
> What's going on here? Has anyone else been approached by these people?

It does seem odd. http://webhostingrating.com/libs is a listing of 3 
similar translations (but not yours, which I presume should be 
included). So it seems that the site is being used for storage of files 
linked to from elsewhere. This is all disconnected from the front page. 
Question: is the storage done with permission or via hacking? The very 
bottom of the front page has a 'Contact Us' link. The contact page has 
address in Vienna and Moscow. The latter supports the idea that Russian 
translations are legit. But send a message explaining that you are the 
original author of one translated text and are being asked about another 
and ask if legit.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy