Destroy all Malware

Bitacle: A Plan for Action

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 20:27:16 GMT

Plagiarism Today: Though education and information are well and good, the time has come to act and act in a coordinated manner. If the aggrieved bloggers work together and act in lockstep, we can stop Bitacle.

http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/?p=343

Randy: Another great idea on stopping Bitacle.

Splogger Challenge V Total Victory

Thu, 28 Sep 2006 02:27:17 GMT

Do we ever fail? Never. Glenn Low, the challenger in Splogger Challenge V, sent me a private email indicating that he will be removing his splogs.

Bitacle is Pathetic

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 14:05:30 GMT

Bitacle.org (<< NOFOLLOWed) is likely the worst case of splogging that I've ever seen. Shel Israel posted Bitacle is Heisting My Content and this set me down the correct path to see just how pathetic this website is. Bitacle is massively stealing full content posts and reposting them with Google AdSense. In fact, they have 1 million blogiarized webpages in the Google index.

Worse than most splogs, these guys even have the nerve to trackback to all their stolen content and provide a comment form on their website where users can comment about your posts.

The best way to stop them is to report their AdSense. Click on the Ads by Google footer in the ad units, then Send Google you thoughts and Report a Violation. Let's get their SplogSense discontinued ASAP.

There's also a Stop bitacle.org blog.

Comment Spammers are so Nice

Wed, 27 Sep 2006 00:04:25 GMT

You have to love blog comment spammers? They leave such nice comments. Samples follow.

Nice resource, very interesting reading... Good luck with your site in the future!!! May be you like my sites?
Hi!!! Excellent resource you've got here!!! Will definately be back!!!
I just like to say that your website is absoulutely brilliant!!! Do you think my sites too brilliant ;) ?
Nice site. Thanks.

Splogger Challenge V

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 23:55:52 GMT

Here we find Glenn Low of Singapore. He's the splogger behing thegooglemachine.com, soccer-gift-magazine.com, all-business-guide.com, your-entertainment-news.com and I imagine many others. You simply have to search the Web for his various email addresses to uncover more and more splogs. Glenn's domains seem to be mostly de-indexed by Google, but I get a lot of referrers from the splog-ful blogosphere search engines. His splogs are some of the worst, because the links in the feeds don't point to webpages that contain the same content as the feed. Rather, each link points to the static content with Google ads occuping most of the viewable window. Further, many of his splogs have buttons that say Zero Spam Tolerance. Digging further, it would seem that Glenn has a comment spam problem on his splogs, so he moderates all comments. A splogger tired of getting spammed?

If you click on Ad by Google in his ad units, then Send your thoughts, you can tell Google what you think of this SplogSense publisher. I've already reported him and if some of you do the same, then maybe Google will get the hint and close his AdSense account. Please reblog this where appropriate to get maximum exposure and get this guy kicked off our Web.

What to do When they Steal your Blog Content

Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:23:29 GMT

John Unger of TypepadHacks has some suggestions on what to do when someone is stealing your content and making money off it. I'd also suggest dropping me an email so I can expose the culprits.

http://www.typepadhacks.org/2006/09/what_to_do_when.html

What is a Splog (results)

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 21:13:28 GMT

Last week, I asked my readers four questions, where I hoped to gauge what people thought were splogs. The four questions basically were a grid of two questions. Was copying the full-content of a post splogging? Was copying content without linking to the source splogging? Forty-seven people responded. The results were very surprising.

	Full Content	Partial Content
Link to Source	54%	78%
No link to Source	77%	76%

Unbelievably 22+% thought that each scenario did not lead them to believe the blog was a splog. Twenty-three percent indicated that reposting full-content without a link to the source, would not lead them to consider the blog a splog.

Another weirdness is that full content (a copyright violation) reposts were less likely to be considered a blog than partial content (not necessarily a copyright violation) reposts.

Vulnerability in Vector Markup Language

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 22:05:40 GMT

Microsoft Secuirty Advisory: Microsoft has confirmed new public reports of a vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows implementation of Vector Markup Language (VML) Microsoft is also aware of the public release of detailed exploit code that could be used to exploit this vulnerability. Based on our investigation, this exploit code could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the user's system. Microsoft is aware that this vulnerability is being actively exploited.

A security update to address this vulnerability is now being finalized through testing to ensure quality and application compatibility Microsoft’s goal is to release the update on Tuesday, October 10, 2006, or sooner depending on customer needs.

Customers are encouraged to keep their anti-virus software up to date. Customers can also visit Windows Live OneCare Safety Center and are encouraged to use the Complete Scan option to check for and remove malicious software that take advantage of this vulnerability. We will continue to investigate these public reports. If you are a Windows Live OneCare user and your current status is green, you are already protected from known malware that uses this vulnerability to attempt to attack systems.

Microsoft encourages users to exercise caution when they open e-mail and links in e-mail from untrusted sources.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/925568.mspx

A-List Blogiarism

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:37:18 GMT

I'm more and more amazed at the amount of blogiarism that is being produced by some of our top bloggers. Today, thanks to an anonymous tip, I stumbled onto a blog entry from Robin Good where he basically rearranged all the sentences from a Slashdot posting to produce his own unique content. He says "Based on a book review by Eli Singer". I think he meant, "I simply copied Eli's post and re-ordered all the sentences." It was also hinted (hearsay) to me that the reference to Eli's review at Slashdot was only added after Robin was confronted. I was already investigating Robin's blog on a related issue, when this new issue was pointed out.

Update: Robin gave a reasonable explanation for this stuff in a private email response, which leads me to believe there might be nothing here. Sorry Robin. My apologies.

Getting Even w/ Sploggers

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 17:00:56 GMT

Here's a great tutorial on getting even with some sploggers.

http://www.hung-truong.com/blog/2006/06/22/how-to-stop-rss-scrapers-from-stealing-your-content-plus-revenge/

Splogger Challenge IV Total Victory

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 19:57:50 GMT

A couple days ago, I exposed another splogger. Within about 24 hours, he had removed all his blogiarized content and is seemingly now producing original content. Total victory!

Splogger Challenge IV

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 16:21:33 GMT

Yet another dumb splogger. This guy (my-google-adsense.com) believes that you are allowed to republish anything that is in an RSS feed. What an idiot.

As a secondary mistake, he has the Google trademarks in his domain name. Click on the Ads by Google text in his AdSense ads and report his violations to Google. His AdSense will live a short life.

www.my-google-adsense.com << NOFOLLOWed to prevent Google Juice

Who-is data

Update: I forwarded this blog entry to the email address in the WhoIs information. He sent an immediate response.

Don't worry if anything happens to my google account because of you, I'll be sure to use your publisher id for all sorts of fun things. Don't threaten, or send me crap. I didn't request it.

I forwarded the email immediately to adsense-abuse@google.com and CCed him on the email.

Blogspot SplogSense List

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 03:16:46 GMT

Fighting Splog has a list of 267 Blogspot SplogSense accounts. Well done!

What is a Splog

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 03:08:42 GMT

I'm looking for some feedback as to what exactly is a splog or spam blog. Or at least, what do people think it is. This is a simple 4 yes-no question survey, which should help me understand the communities thoughts.

What is a Splog?

1. If a blog includes only full posts taken from another blog and it does not provide a link back to the source blog entry, then would you consider this blog to be a splog (spam blog).

	yes
	no

Next >>

Current Results

Diebold is the worst kind of Malware

Thu, 14 Sep 2006 22:21:22 GMT

Bruce Schneier: Ed Felten and his team at Princeton have analyzed a Diebold machine.

Randy: Surprisingly, they found the machines were completely vulnerable to trival infection and that vote fraud was simple, if not a feature.

iGOT Too Much Email

Tue, 12 Sep 2006 21:06:28 GMT

The other day, I got an email from someone asking me about a position I posted in a blog entry more than a year ago. I responded with a simple link where the person could submit his resume. He responded that my email was rude because I didn't acknowledge him my mentioning his name, thank him or put a lot of thought into my reply. He then began sending me nasty emails for the next few days with subjects of LOSER and the like.

Now, I don't mean to be rude when I respond curtly to your emails and I do reply to emails with a simple link; either to show the person that I posted his thought on my blog or to guide him to a better place than I. If you feel offended by my curt emails, then I apologize, but you have to understand that I get 5000+ emails per day. Google filters most of them to my spam box and I delete most of the rest without a reply. If I reply to your emails, then it was at the end of much effort.

Last, if you still feel offended by my curt emails, then grow some skin. I find too many people are trying too hard to find fault in others. A curt reply in an email is just that and nothing more.

Blatant Splogging

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 17:38:51 GMT

Here's a very blatant splog. Not only is he republishing content without permission, but he's actually admitting it and copying articles about creating splogs and why they are good. Quote from the blog follows...

This article is written by Graywolf and reprinted without his permission

http://transparentstartup.com/

I didn't put any NOFOLLOW attributes on the links, because his purpose doesn't seem to be making money splogging, but elevating the issue.

Splogger Challenge Total Victory

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 14:50:31 GMT

Splogger Challenge III was a total victory for the blogosphere. Bruce Seah completely removed all the splogs from his Website. I'd like to thank Bruce for seeing the error of his ways.

Sharon Housley

Sat, 09 Sep 2006 06:44:44 GMT

A few days ago, I quoted an anonymous friend who was complaining about FeedForAll. I got a swift response from Sharon Housley of FeedForAll. Here's some quotes from our email exchange.

My legal department has asked that I request from you, the source of the post, in particular the source of the comment that "FeedForAll is Malware", so that they can further research legal options.

In fact my belief is that such comments are well within the category of slander (hence Legal's invlovement).

Whenever I get a swift response like this, I know that I'm onto something big and as it turns out, I was. I have to thank that anonymous source for bringing this to light. It turns out that Sharon manages over 100 independent websites. I've been compiling a partial list, which I'll publish in the follow up. These websites each contain hundreds of duplicate articles written by Sharon. Most of these point to Sharon's various websites. That's quite a link farm. Sharon also uploads all her articles to virtually every article submission site.

Going a step further, the articles are made available for anybody to republish. These are the types of articles that are feeding the splogging industry. Try searching for Sharon Housley on any blogosphere search engine. An endless stream of splogs, republishing the same 150 articles over and over and over. Try searching for a random sentence in one of Sharon's articles in Google. Mostly splogs and websites managed by Sharon.

If you check-out FeedForAll's product line, you'll find they are mostly tools of the splogging trade. It appears that sploggers are using these tools and Sharon's articles to create massive swarms of splogs, with big keywords depth and lots of AdSense and other ads. This results in Sharon's articles poluting search results specifically with reguard to the topic of RSS (one I enjoy).

But the worse part is she tried to threaten legal actions in order scare me off. Sorry Sharon, I don't scare easy.

FeedForAll is Malware

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 22:04:12 GMT

Anonymous: FeedForAll is dreadful too. They republish their articles everywhere. So they show up as fresh in my feeds.

"FeedForAll allows users to easily create, edit and publish RSS feeds."

Randy: Maybe a little too easily.

Andrew Barrow No More

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 20:12:42 GMT

A reader points out in my comments that Andrew Barrow stopped blogging for Weblogsinc's Slashfood blog, 24 hours after I posted the entry on how Andrew was simply blogiarizing content for Weblogsinc. Was he fired? Did he quit? Doesn't matter. This is simply testimony that speaking out against blogiarizers works.

SEO Contests are Malware

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 14:49:19 GMT

Matt Mullenweg: Many times the contestants in these contests use less than kosher means of winning, such as spamming or creating dozens or hundreds of blogs all linking to the same website. [cut] These blogs are not welcome and will be removed when found.

http://wordpress.com/blog/2006/09/01/seo-contests/

Randy: A small step for a Matt, but a large step for the blogosphere. Thanks!

Splogger Challenge III

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 21:06:07 GMT

It's been awhile since I ran splogger challenge I and II. Those campaigns proved very successful with 310powered.com being mostly de-indexed by Google and b-1st.com re-thought their usage. Today, I'm uncovering Bruce Seah, who owns one of the most active splogs for August. The domain is www.adwordsfq.com and he seems to be re-blogging a large set of blogs and placing AdSense in front of them. Here's Bruce's GoDaddy whois record.

http://who.godaddy.com/whois.aspx?domain=adwordsfq.com&prog_id=godaddy

Here's Bruce's Netcraft data.

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.adwordsfq.com

If you want to report Bruce, then you can do so in several ways.

Click on Ads by Google, then Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw and submit the form with Report a violation and note that he's running a splog.
Report a TOS violation to blogger.
http://help.blogger.com/?page=help
Report him to GoDaddy.
http://www.godaddy.com/
Report him to his hosting service.
http://www.ixwebhosting.com/