Elamb Cybersecurity

Category: blogging

  • Troubles with video

    I’ve had trouble with getting video on my blog until now. If you’re having problems check out Jack Humphrey’s video about the subject.

  • Over 15,000 Comments

    I’m getting thousands of comment spam.  Way to many to sort through.  Its too bad to because comments used to be one of my favorite things about blogs. 

    I’ll have to mass delete them.  Before I was using Akismet.  It was working pretty good against spam until my SQL comment table got corrupt.  I had to go into the MySQL database and clear out all the data.  Since I didn’t back up, it delete all my old comments. 

    I guess I’ll have to turn Akismet back on again.

  • Why Subdomain Hosting is Bad

    “A quick look at why offering non-reseller subdomain hosting is a bad idea and can expose your passwords to malicious hostees.”

    I’m glad I stubbled across this. I was going to host on WordPress Mu, but now I think I’ll stick with Blogware until I can lock down WPMU. WordPress is a superior product (more intuitive, better SEO design ect) But WPMU is just too new. I don’t feel comfortable having a buch of customers on such a shake, new system. I will likely host my own set of blogs on it until all the major bugs are worked out.

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  • Scoble Does Parody of A-List Bloggers

    <OWNED>
    Chris Pirillo, Adam Curry, himself, Dan Winer, Ray Ozzie, Anil Dash, Ray Ozzie, Anil Dash, Dave Barry, Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Lawrence Lessing, Jeff Jarvis, Clay Shirky, Cory Doctorow, Doc Searls, Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold, Joi Ito, Chris Locke, Esther Dyson…

    </OWNED>

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  • What are Social Bookmarks?

    What are Social Bookmarks?

    A social bookmark is a link created by a web user that is categorized and viewed by the public. If you have ever had bookmarks at work and moved to a new job and wanted access to your old links then you will immediately understand the signifigance of the social bookmarks. They offer a way in which users can access their bookmarks from anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and a way for users to have control over the classification of those bookmarks.

    Social bookmark buttons on a blog are especially powerful. These are buttons on a blog and/or website that allow readers to submit articles they like to Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit and other socially moderated bookmarking/news/feed sites at the click of a button. Readers will also be able to add articles to feed readers such as Google Reader, My Yahoo! and Bloglines. This is a great way to advertise as each link from another site (known as a back link) will give more ranking on search engines. It also allows for something known as social marketing optization.

    3spots at Blogspot has one of the most comprehensive posts on social bookmarking and code for blogger, wordpress and Typepad/MoveableType!

    Reference:

    http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

    Nature Publishing Groups. Social Bookmarking Tools (I).

  • Why Social Bookmarking and Service Links: Social Market Optimization

    Why Service  Links?
    Service links are the little buttons you see on blogs that allow the user to submit your article to your online bookmarking account.
          Consider  Social Marketing Optimization (SMO)The best  thing about these service links is social marketing optimization. Social        marketing  optimization is where you allow your readers some control of the ranking,  content or look of your site.  Service Links allows your readers to show their  approval of your content by bookmarking it or saving it in their own accounts  across the web.  These accounts, such as Del.icio.us, actually publish all        user content to the web for all to see. The reader also chooses the labels  associated with your content and exposes that same content to like minded  readers who may have been previously unaware of your presence.  SMO is allowing  your readers to syndicate your content, that is what service link do.  This is the current direction of the World Wide Web (Pakii/SMO).

    For more information on Social Marketing Optimization check out Mr. T.L. Pakii's site on the subject: Blogging for Fun and Profit/SMO!

  • Schools Crack Down on Students' Blogs

    “Some schools are punishing students for things written on their personal Web pages, raising questions about how far a principal's oversight should reach.”

    This sounds like a privacy issue. 

    “It's inappropriate that they're telling my daughter how to behave when she's not at school,” said Joseph Iacovacci, Ms. Iacovacci's father, of the Web posting. “It was such a violation of the First Amendment.” 

    I must agree with the parent.  I do believe that there has to be some kind of control.  But that control should be done through the parent.

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  • Dvorak's Blog Spam Fix

    Dvorak gets no spam, now he gets no blog spam. 

    But my spam problems have just begun:
    I started getting nailed with casino, porn and commercial site spam.  They trackback promoting Disney Trips, penis enlargements or, my favorite, Texas Holdem.  I still get a few spam links about every few weeks or so.  And I'm currently getting and giving traffic to a casino site.. and I haven't figured out how that is happening.  I'm sure these bastards are usings some kind of software to locate vulnerable (anonymous accepting) blogs and nuke them.  I've had to terminate my anonymous comments and I'm thinking of shutting down my Trackbacks.  I also blocked a few repeat offenders.  For me, that is unfortunate because the interaction (free comments, links to and from relevant sites of many different oppinions) is the coolest thing about blogs.  Blog innocence has come and gone over night.

    Appearently, Marc Perkel at ctyme.com has found a way to get rid of all spam providing you are using apache and on word press.

    He does it with this code:

    < location /blog/wp-comments-newpost.php >
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^.*dvorak.org/.*
    RewriteRule ^.* http://www.ctyme.com/comment-spam.html
    < /location >

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  • Comment Spammers Exploiting Open blogs

    I've recently experienced an increase in spam traffic on my blog.
    It started when I got about 20 comments in one day on one of my least
    popular articles.  I could see that the porn spammer had dug deep
    into my site and found a seemingly insignifigant article to place about
    100 links.  I deleted them imediately and blocked the IP from
    whince they came. 

    The very next day I had fifteen more.  I delete those and blocked
    that IP.  I've been forced to turn off my anonymous
    comments.  One of my favorite things about blogs is that anyone
    can say anything – they so refreshingly interactive that they create
    these close relationships with readers. 

    Unfortunately, casino, porn and pill spammers also see the power of
    blogs.  They target blogs with anonymous comments and
    trackbacks.  And they use thousands of hacked computers to act as
    proxies so that even if you block their IP they've got plenty more ways
    to get to you. 

    I've blocked them and I'm still seeing traffic coming from their sites
    which tells me that they have linked to my site and my visitors are
    clicking into their site then coming back to me. 

    Here is a list of Casino Spammers retreived from Netaloid.com

    “Finding our Poker Spammer’s identifying links is easy. Just
    visit one of his web pages by using one of the thousands of spam links
    he left on your site. Like poker.terashells.com, for instance. Then
    click on the links to the casino sites. You’ll see something like (or
    identical to) this:”

    http://www.pacificpoker.com/default.htm?sr=904970&flag=0002

    http://www.partypoker.com/index20100.htm?wm=2445773

    http://www.empirepoker.com/index.htm?wm=2170658

    http://banner.casinolasvegas.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?id=N&member=onlinecas&profile=lv2m

    http://www.888.com/default.htm?sr=611794&flag=0002

    http://www.starluckcasino.com/slcasino/links/56296.html

    http://www.aceclub.com/aceclub/links/1790.html

    http://www.reefclubcasino.com/default.htm?sr=806320&flag=0002

    For more on legally stopping Casino, Porn and other spammers visit:

    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/353566831?ltl=1124161500

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/31/link_spamer_interview/

  • Absolutely Del.icio.us – Complete Tool Collection

    del.icio.us is a very popular social bookmarks manager. This is possibly the largest collection of tools related to del.icio.us and is constantly updated.

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