Core Web Solutions Blog

I have been having trouble communicating with several clients and potential clients in my local area. I checked my mail-server error log and found the problem. A local ISP warwick.net uses “Magic Mail” which in turn uses MIPspace block list (black list) as an email filter.

I run a small dedicated or VPS server with limited clientele and know for sure that NONE of them are spamming anyone. Because I had just leased a new server on a new network, the new IP seemed to be on many SBLs. One by one with the help of the parent hosting company, we got my IP block removed from all but one SBL… which one? You guessed it… MIPspace.

I went to their website, MIPspace.com and read through their concept. I was struck by the notion that they deem almost every commercial business as spammers essentially. If I send a monthly newsletter (which I don’t) to my customers or contacts, I am spamming people? Really? Most sane people don’t consider a newsletter from a company for which they have some relationship with as spam. But MIPspace doesn’t care. They tout 60% block rates for unwanted email spam. What they don’t tell you is a good number of those are false-positives; email from legitimate businesses just trying to communication with their customers.

I don’t spam anyone, and none of my web hosting clients do either. If you read this blog you will be keenly aware that I am against spam as much as anyone could be. But still, MIPspace blocks my email. How do they do that? They just block the whole IP block… which could be hundreds or thousands of IP addresses and tens of thousands of websites. This is a completely asinine system that just blocks thousands of websites based on one bad IP in a block. It is akin to blocking an entire area code just because one telemarketer was calling from that area code. Stupid!

The funny thing is they are very proud of their system. However, it is a classic case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You must realize that a spammer could spoof an IP address that is otherwise totally innocent, and cause an entire C-class to get blocked. It is beyond absurd, and they are going to find that their “block everything” system will eventually land them in serious legal problems as business owners sue them for lost business.

I am all for anti-spam ideas and new and better systems for fighting spam, but creating a punitive system that punishes innocent businesses without cause is a bit over zealous. MIPspace is an example of everything wrong with the anti-spam effort. ISP’s should wake up and stop using Magic Mail with the MIPspace block list. It is just a big lawsuit waiting to happen. Avoid MIPspace at all costs.

NOTE: I would publish their email, phone or mailing address, but the cowards don’t even publish any of those contacts on their website. What a joke!

General, Web Security spam

I started publishing the culprits of spam on my spammer-log page. It started with email spam that was getting through my Postini filters. However, Postini is so good, there is hardly any spam to report from my email. But my blog is getting spammed now through the back channels. I don’t know how they do it; my blog only allows comments from registered users. Somehow these jokers submit comments without registering by some hack method. That method, whatever it is, is an illicit act since the spammers are hacking my blog to post their crap.

The interesting thing is that these are mostly SEO black hats that were hired by unsuspecting customers who just want to do well in the search engines. So I post the website they are optimizing and note it with my own comment about how the owner of that website basically hired a criminal to do their SEO. If they care anything about their business, they should fire them immediately. Google penalization and banning is not a myth. It is very real, and when more sites like mine post the bad apples, Google will be made aware of whats going on. However, the most common way your site will get the attention of Google is from your competitors reporting you because they see what you are doing. THey basically rat you out, and that’s a good thing because you are cheating.

Bottom line is to hire a reputable SEO that doesn’t do this nonsense and violate other websites for your temporary benefit. Yeah, I’m one of those reputable SEOs that does not cheat. Contact me if you want the real deal.

Web Security security, spam

Today www.ezinearticles.com published my article entitled “Protect Email Addresses From Spammers“. This is my first publication on that ezine site. The website has all the earmarks of a quality content website with strict standards rather than some spammy article directory hosted by a guy named Amjeet in India.  I am looking forward to publishing more quality content there.

Comments welcome!

General, Web Security

I just ran through some logs and discovered that people are stealing my bandwidth by hot-linking to my images. What is this? Instead of downloading images found on the web to use for your own purposes, which is dubious anyway, the criminal actually uses the URL to my site for the src in the img tag. This means that not only are they stealing the image, they are stealing bandwidth which I pay for.

Some people do this unaware that they are actually stealing, others do it to save their own bandwidth when their site gets busy. Either way, it is a real crappy thing to do. Its like running a secret wire from your neighbor’s house to run YOUR electric stuff. Which also happened to me!

My solution? The old switcheroo! If I find a image being linked from my site, I just replace that image on my server with something that the thief would not want on their site. Its kinda funny and it works to get them off your server.

The other option is to prevent “hotlinking” via .htaccess. This is fine, but its not nearly as fun! To all you bandwidth thieves.. enjoy the new pics!

Web Security bandwidth, security

Do you tweet? Ok… for the uninitiated this means, “do you use Twitter.com?”. Well, if you do, new reports indicate that with a few clicks of the mouse a spammer can harvest thousands of email addresses from the mini-blogging service. One developer noted, “You can sit and just watch the email addresses steadily trickle in… I wouldn’t doubt it if spammers are harvesting these.”

So for all you knuckleheads that blindly jump on every Internet novelty that comes along, enjoy your never ending flow of new and exciting spam!

For more information on this visit http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/05/11/spammers-may-have-another-trick-in-twitter

General, Web Security spam