Now for something completely different - Page 2

Ender · #51 (**permalink**) 11-23-2003, 05:08 AM

[quote="JMac"]Brandon-

>That is a great email you've got there!
>I sent one to the roedu.net people after reading a >post either here or in the other thread on this >topic telling me to direct my emails to "George"
>there. I hae not yet heard from them either.

At this point, I believe that 'George' must have a certain degree of complicity. He hasn't responded to anyone's e-mails, and the only notable response we've received came after I e-mailed the senior leadership of the uni.

There's a chance that all this might somehow be related to legitimate research the university is doing: Check this link out.

http://rilw.emp.paed.uni-muenchen.de...rs/marhan.html

To quote Judith from the other thread, "Kiumars had excellent advise, anyway.....don't try to chase these people all over cyber space."

Why chase 'em? 'Cuz it's fun. 'Cuz they messed with the wrong peepz. 'Cuz we got us a posse here, and it's time to saddle up, lock n' load. :)

But seriously, other than 'keeping up the skeer' to make sure this doesn't recur, I don't want to punish someone who merely made a poor, poor choice of breadwinning strategies for his family.

later
B

pete61uk · #52 (**permalink**) 11-25-2003, 03:07 PM

Hi JMac & Brandon, everyone,

Both: Excellent e-mails.

Fortunately, my stats are already password protected, so I hope their linking to me is a complete waste of time?

I had a look at that academic white paper. Looks innocuous enough though not of a standard I’d have expected for an accredited University.

One thing I do have to take issue with is:

Brandon wrote:

“Again, I have no wish to ruin anyone’s life over this, but do not want my client’s site to be associated with pornography”.

While your compassion does you credit I really don’t think the perpetrators of this scheme have lost any sleep, unless it has taken that long to count the lukka they are earning themselves.

In addition, as they are using illegal methods of promotion this could indicate that their pornographic enterprise is similarly illegal and/or immoral with all the potential for human depravity that could imply.

Something else worth considering is that these seemingly innocent blogs, apart from the links, are also using educational or news articles copied directly from highly respected organisations, the BBC News website for example.

The avenues you have both taken are brilliant, you should both be congratulated, as should anyone else who has done likewise. I thought I’d take a slightly different tack and sent the e-mail (below) to the BBC Breakfast Show so they could (if suitably outraged) complete their own investigation:

Good Morning,

For a week or so now I've been getting strange Web-Log (BLOG) sites listed in my webstats referrer listings. Seemingly innocent, it was not until I found a forum thread about them being used as a ploy to improve the search engine standings of pornographic sites that I became concerned.

This is intensely annoying and, as the BLOB (url below) I've just found claims to be an educational site, and lists a link to a BBC page I thought you might be interested.

Go to url http://www.akksess.com/ and view the source code. What you are looking for is "http://www.akksess.com/adult-webcam/"><img src="/adult-webcam.gif" (about a third of the way down).

Some investigation of these sites has already been completed with the 'supposed' site owners personal details and contact information false. That is illegal and should lead to the site being removed from its ISP server if reported. This is a growing problem, one that should concern anyone interested in the development of web technology.

If you require further information please do not hesitate to reply.

Regards,

Martin Purnell
Student, University of Wales College, Newport

I have received a read receipt for the e-mail and will post any worthwile reply when I get one. I hope this meets with your collective approval?

JMac · #53 (**permalink**) 11-25-2003, 07:16 PM

Hi pete61uk (Martin),

It certainly meets with my approval, though you didn't need to ask. Someone asked me recently "well, if they have Apache pages up, even if they are false fronts, too, why is it any of your business anymore?" The fact is, I agree with you on the point concerning if this is what they're willing to do to improve their promotion, what else are they willing to do? How far are they willing to go? Sure, they aren't 'hurting' anyone, anymore.... but what do we really know about their activities? I can't decide.

{sitting on the fence}

I so favour freedom of speech and expression. That's what it's all about. (Besides your left hand in, and your left hand out...) I would consider it offensive if someone tried to interfere with what people choose to do in the privacy of their own homes. Then again, even that has boundaries.

I hope you hear back from the BBC with the news that somehow, with their clout, they've set up a 'team of specialists' to look into this. Somehow, I doubt it. In the meantime, I'm happy that they no longer link to my (and my fellow WPW members') sites.

Good luck!

JMac

carju1 · #54 (**permalink**) 11-26-2003, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pete61uk

Regards,Martin Purnell
Student, University of Wales College, Newport

Hi Martin,

Are you at the Allt-yr-yn campus? I was there 10 years ago as a mature student. Is Anghard Jones still lecturing there?

Regards
Julian

pete61uk · #55 (**permalink**) 11-26-2003, 12:25 PM

Hi carju1,

Yep, 'sunny' Allt-yr-yn. Was it like a sweetshop when you were here too?

Angharad is still at UWCN. I had her for HCI, VB, and as coordinator for my final year project on the HND. Was she as critical when you were there, and did you have Mary Evans too?

Hi Jmac,

I realise I didn't need your approval, I just thought that as I'm a lowly novice it'd be polite. Besides, if (as I hope) the BeeB do investigate they may well be using the data gathered on this and other forums'. Who knows, that could mean they'll contact others on the forum, including you?

carju1 · #56 (**permalink**) 11-26-2003, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pete61uk

Yep, 'sunny' Allt-yr-yn. Was it like a sweetshop when you were here too?

Angharad is still at UWCN. I had her for HCI, VB, and as coordinator for my final year project on the HND. Was she as critical when you were there, and did you have Mary Evans too?

Pete - It wasn't too bad when I was there, hard work, horrid grey cold buildings, but a nice friendly facility - It probably helped that I was a mature student and both my wife and myself were doing the same course.

Yes Angharad was always critical - bit one of the best lecturers there. Please next time you see her tell her Julian & Caryl Tandy send there regards (We used to exchange x-mas cards with her but lost touch when we moved to the Netherlands).

We had a Mary for some fairly obscure subject or other (Comms?) and Mary Evans rings a bell - what subject does she teach.

Julian

pete61uk · #57 (**permalink**) 11-27-2003, 05:32 AM

carju1 wrote:

"Yes Angharad was always critical - but one of the best lecturers there. Please next time you see her tell her Julian & Caryl Tandy send there regards"

I've just sent an e-mail doing as you requested.

Mary Evans, among other subjects, is the senior lecturer in Communication Skills.

Although I have a great deal of respect for all the lecturers here I don't think I'd have survived the HND without their feedback, both positive and negative.

carju1 · #58 (**permalink**) 11-27-2003, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pete61uk

I've just sent an e-mail doing as you requested.

Mary Evans, among other subjects, is the senior lecturer in Communication Skills.

Thanks Pete,

Angharad has just e-mailed me. Yes must be the same Mary. A very nice lady who (as comminications wasn't REAL IT 10 years ago) must have thought the IT students a bunch of neo-barbs. Yet I suppose as I now have even written an article for WPN-UK at least some of Mary's teaching must have stuck.

Julian

pete61uk · #59 (**permalink**) 12-05-2003, 06:13 AM

Julian wrote:

"at least some of Mary's teaching must have stuck"

I spoke to Mary just the other day, it must have been after you had corresponded with Angharad (?), all I can say is that your positive comments have made at least two lecturers very happy.

On topic:

No reply from the BeeB. However, it has been at least a week since I last had a blog in my referrers list.

Instead, a new twist, I had one referral going back to an MSN Passport logon page and, more interestingly, Program Shareware 1.0.3 in my browser report, which would appear to be a spider looking for guestbooks and email links.

Apparently, anyone leaving an email address in your guestbook can expect to be bombarded with spam ads for (amongst other things) weight-loss drugs.

Could be useful after Christmas? LOL.

Anyone else had similar?

mikmik · #60 (**permalink**) 12-08-2003, 09:36 AM

pete61uk reported

Quote:

Good Morning,

For a week or so now I've been getting strange Web-Log (BLOG) sites listed in my webstats referrer listings. Seemingly innocent, it was not until I found a forum thread about them being used as a ploy to improve the search engine standings of pornographic sites that I became concerned.

This is intensely annoying and, as the BLOB (url below) I've just found claims to be an educational site, and lists a link to a BBC page I thought you might be interested.

Go to url http://www.akksess.com/ and view the source code. What you are looking for is "http://www.akksess.com/adult-webcam/"><img src="/adult-webcam.gif" (about a third of the way down).

Some investigation of these sites has already been completed with the 'supposed' site owners personal details and contact information false. That is illegal and should lead to the site being removed from its ISP server if reported. This is a growing problem, one that should concern anyone interested in the development of web technology.

For you espescially as well, JMac. I just read somewhere, damned if I can find it, but those 'links' to website logs are redirects for spamming!
Seems that is how the creepoids 'hide' their traacks, by using your site logs.

Well I took a quick look but I will have to do some 'dumpster diving' and search my recycle bin, but I found this article on tracking down spammers :http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1309277,00.asp

pete61uk · #61 (**permalink**) 12-08-2003, 12:51 PM

mikmik. An interesting article.

I'm not sure which thread its on but I downloaded Mailwasher earlier, when I have time to set it up properly I'll put it on.

Whereas the software in the article you mention is designed to ascertain the status of e-mail accounts (whether created by people or bots), Mailwasher can be setup to simply 'bounce' spam back at the sender.

Presumably, since this could 'potentially' put a serious load on the webmail servers (such as Yahoo) that spammers’ use, this is why some are investing in the technique? The only problem, as mentioned in the article itself, is for the blind or partially-sighted who are wanting to open legitimate accounts.

vfaulkner · #62 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 08:40 PM

along the same lines as now for something...

when analyzing my site stats, i came across several 'email' referrers that were nonsense addresses. then i found many 404s trying to access formmail, cgi, and the like, none of which on my site.
does this mean that someone was trying to send spam etc by hacking my site email system//

grrr...

paulhiles · #63 (**permalink**) 12-14-2003, 10:09 PM

Hi Vicki,

Hope you don't mind... but I merged your post into the original thread topic "and now for something completely different". By the way, I see plenty of attempts of visitors apparently trying to access formail scripts and the like on my own site.. I wouldn't worry unduly.. it's most likely to be 'potential' script-kiddies simply amusing themselves... however, if there's a major disruption in your email or other web services... maybe then you should start to worry! ;-)

Paul