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Spammers and Hackers, and Bots oh my! It’s like the land of Oz.

~ Ron Walker ~ 12 Comments

I picture some millennial in a basement 

It took long enough, for a bit I was starting to worry. Since I moved from my other hosting account to here, the spammers ceased for a while. I imagined bits and bytes of spammer data, reaching the old address and coming up empty. Of course its human master has no idea I’m gone, unless the mindless machine reaches a predetermined failure point, and alerts him that he can use the CPU cycles better harassing someone else. I picture some millennial in a basement of his parents home, computers humming, raking in some spending money for the weekend, by making others miserable spamming their sites or inboxes.

 

Strangely, I’ve never studied the actual business model of spam. It must pay something, or there are just some twisted individuals behind the keyboards. They get paid by click. They send something stupid, many times just gibberish, then someone somewhere clicks on a link in it, and they get paid for that click. Anyway, I’m no longer lonely, I have a couple every 3-4 days drop in past the Askimet filter. Such is life.

Frustrated Spammer

I’ve watched for months, as some automated bot tries tons of different names in an attempt to login as a current member on my forum site. Every couple hours, it submits a login 4 times, then has to wait as it was auto locked out for 15 minutes. Then it returns later for another round. It always appeared to come from random countries, making it impossible to block by IP. The crazy thing? It’s a really stupid bot. Of course, it was set up by some human of equal intelligence. It tries to login with Jnosedkl or tnir*com#f!. It appears to be trying random passwords (probably from a list), in the name box. Now that, is some backwards logic.  Mindlessly, for the last 5 months, every few hours. Anyway, I’m getting too deep into all that. Very boring to most people. 

How much spam are you suffering from, these days.

Comments always welcome,

Change is a’ coming to WordPress.

~ Ron Walker ~ 16 Comments

If you haven’t heard, WordPress is getting a new editor called “Gutenberg”. It will be in the WordPress 5, whenever they roll it out.

Many of us dislike change. Especially when it’s not asked for, but thrust upon us without much input. Windows 10  was that way, and I fought it, and won. At least in my mind I won.

This change, while very different, is fresh, and needed. WordPress has had the same editor for ages. While I don’t need a full suite of fancy tools to make a post, I do hate when you try to do something nice, and you have to spend your time untangling the mess made by the current editor. Such as the “center” option wanting to center everything close to the area you’re working in, and you have to find out where it went wrong. Wrestling with photo plugins so you can do an album display.

I have tried the new Editor. I hate change, but I actually found myself liking this. It is almost as if you’re using a WYSIWYG web page editor. Drag and drop, one click options, photo gallery using just drag and drop. I’m sure many of us will dislike it, many will love it, either way it’s coming down the pipe.

Over the years, blogs have gone from our personal, interactive sharing sites, to commercialization, with huge splashy pictures that take up the entire monitor screen, greeting you. Business, and websites are shifting to Blogs, even forums. For good or bad, change is a’ coming. Only problem? No one seems to know when.

This is but one link, of many that you can check out for more information.
https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/

Comments welcome,

Spammers on your Blog.

~ Ron Walker ~ 14 Comments

Spammers, the bane of the Internet. Spam helps spread malware and viruses. It is said that the first spam mail was sent in 1978. Gary Thuerk, an employee of Digital Equipment Corporation, figured out a way to send mass emails, and fired off a mass email to 398 others, to notify them of a product demonstration. From there it mutated into the monster of today.

I thought I would share a few tips that I have used or learned for those of you that are not sure what Spam mail really is. Spam mail is, in a word, unstoppable. You can slow it down, you can stop the majority, some will still make it through. The filters that our ISP’s and even WordPress use just serves to slow it down some. Sometimes the filters even catch our subscribers to our blogs.

Most Spammers are automated, and just firing off an ugly response to one just goes back to a robot/computer that lists you as “alive” and then they share your email address among every spammer in the world. Most of the spammers get paid for every time they post a link for someone. That is why you get a nonsensical email or blog post in your spam folder. Among all the gibberish will be one or more links to a product. There are times that spammers just grab a chunk of test out of an e-book for filler.

There are two golden rules you should follow regarding Spam.

  • Never EVER click a link contained in spam email.
  • Never respond to spam in any way.

Spammers come from everywhere. Sometimes they hide behind faked IP addresses, to make them appear legit. Should you ever get curious, and not already know how to look up information on spammers etc. Here are a couple of sites that I use.

  • Stop Forum Spam: A free service that allows you to search by name, email, or IP.
  • CIPB (or Country IP Blocks): Free service to look up an IP and see what country it originates from.

Since this past March when I reset my spam counter, I have blocked 4,859 spam posts. I still get a few every couple of days.

This is how I feel, about spammers…

Comments welcome,

Postal Service will never improve.

~ Ron Walker ~ 17 Comments

Repost from a good while back.

Just when you think it’s safe to order something…

Unfortunately it seems the speed at which it arrived must have been due to usage of some new type of transportation system, maybe time warp or a matter transporter from the movie Star Trek. It seems a tad misshapen. I have to give the carrier “A” for effort. Maybe they were trying to keep me from having to drive the 4 miles to the Post Office to pick up the package since it should not have fit in a road side mail box. Apparently after much pushing it did fit.Okay, I grumble about the Postal Service all the time, but for good cause. Today I received a package that I was not expecting until Monday 4 days from now. It made it from California in 3 days! Probably a new world record when it sometimes takes 4 days to come 20 miles around here from the main center in town.

Take note of the Capitalized “NOT” in the picture asking the USPS to not bend the package. Maybe there are breakable items in it? Let’s be fair, it isn’t bent it is just crushed so I guess they get around that part. Fortunately the items were rugged plastic for a GoPro Camera and all were fine, despite the efforts of the USPS shipping and delivery.

Maybe one day they will go out of business and put us out of our misery. Once we get back to the Pony Express delivery the shipping time will be about the same (maybe a tad faster) and we will only have horse hair to contend with once in a while.

Comments always welcome.