Clone blogs

November 17, 2003 2:12 PM

Clone blogs: spurious blogs that look real, but exist solely to purvey smut in a very shady way. They're becoming ever more clever, those spammers.
posted by moonbird (32 comments total)

whois info for each of the offending domains shows different registrants, but all hosted with Stargate.
posted by brownpau at 2:15 PM on November 17, 2003

They look real because they steal the content and design.
posted by riffola at 2:28 PM on November 17, 2003

how is the smut being purveyed again?
oh, right. in a very shady way.

i don't understand. who benefits from this 'conspiracy'?
posted by quonsar at 2:31 PM on November 17, 2003

This explains the mystery of "Laura's blog".
posted by dgaicun at 2:37 PM on November 17, 2003

it's funny. some of my sites have been listing these sites as the referrer in their server logs. i still don't understand why?
posted by glenwood at 2:52 PM on November 17, 2003

i'm sorry, but how do i get to see the porn? i've disabled privoxy and reloaded. nothing.

jennifer reads boing boing. maybe it's just a pseudonym for xeni?
posted by andrew cooke at 2:54 PM on November 17, 2003

Go to the bottom of the page and look for a blank GIF. It links to an "/adult-webcam" page.
posted by brownpau at 2:55 PM on November 17, 2003

Wait, I "look for a blank GIF"? How do I know when I've found it? ;-)

I understand it as not trying to drive *actual* traffic to these porn sites, but to poison the search engines by linking to them.
posted by crawl at 3:00 PM on November 17, 2003

ah. riffola's link explains everything. [on preview - thanks]

except that the link is to the same site. so it's a second order pagerank boost? i mean, if it were a dastardly plan to up the pagerank to a site, it'd be a link to another site, not a back-door url on the same site.

oooh. aren't they nice. they won't charge my cc, they just want it to prove i'm over 18.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:01 PM on November 17, 2003

Something of a reversal, this: blogs pushing smut, not the other way around.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:04 PM on November 17, 2003

think how many kittens this must be killing. they must be stopped.
posted by andrew cooke at 3:10 PM on November 17, 2003

Anti-spam? Or pro-porn? I just don't know how to feel anymore.
posted by Samsonov14 at 3:19 PM on November 17, 2003

funny thing is, the more attention these sites get, the better page rank they get, mission accomplished for them. the more people who "out" them, the more inbound links google finds.
posted by jonah at 3:30 PM on November 17, 2003

The best way to combat this crap is to ignore it, no moving up through page rankings. And everytime anyone finds a spammer/knobbo, it is illegal to NOT kill them.
posted by fenriq at 3:39 PM on November 17, 2003

funny thing is, the more attention these sites get, the better page rank they get, mission accomplished for them. the more people who "out" them, the more inbound links google finds.

It's brilliant, really.

As much as I detest the spam/pr0n hackers, I'm always impressed by their ability and resourcefulness. I have to say, I've been tempted to go over to the dark side, if only to work in a well-paying environment where ingenuity and technical know-how is appreciated.

It saddens me that the general workplace environment is so cookie-cutter that working for sleazebags seems like a step up, at times.
posted by Jairus at 3:44 PM on November 17, 2003

why does it need combatting? why does it matter that "outing" them helps them? do we really care which site comes out top if you search for porn? this isn't generating spam and it's not going to affect non-porn searches, as far as i can see. some people on the linked blogs seem pretty irate, but i can't work out why (unless it's just a puritanical porn is bad type thing).
posted by andrew cooke at 4:54 PM on November 17, 2003

Andrew: Isn't a pr0n thing. These people are spamming MT blogs via comment and referrer spam, and duplicating the layouts/code of blogs ran by people who may not want their work used by pornspammers. Not to mention, they're degrading the usefulness of services like Google/etc for everyone. There are more issues at hand, of course, but these are the ones relevant to me.
posted by Jairus at 4:58 PM on November 17, 2003

The only problems I'm having with these folks is that they're filling up my referrer log--5 or 6 of them the last time I looked, all from the same IP.

I've been very lucky and not gotten much comment spam at all. Less than 5, total. It probably helps that I'm not really in any search engines and that no one reads my site except my friends. ;-)
posted by eilatan at 5:56 PM on November 17, 2003

If you're using Analog as your logfile analyzer, here's how to ignore all referrals from these sites:

#excluded referrers
REFEXCLUDE http://*jennifersblog.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*malixya.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*bongohome.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*a-b-l-o-g.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*kwalablog.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*wr18.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*mikesblog.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*saulem.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*akksess.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*worldnewslog.com/*
REFEXCLUDE http://*teoras.com/*
posted by Unxmaal at 5:58 PM on November 17, 2003

I haven't been cloned - and I don't know if I should feel jealous or fortunate.
posted by etoile at 7:22 PM on November 17, 2003

For those of you using Dean Allen's Refer, you can paste this into the "exclude" array. (Around line 34 or thereabouts.)

$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'bloogz';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'kooqoo';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'randomcashblaster';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'multicashrandomizer';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'make-money-program';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'jennifersblog.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'malixya.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'bongohome.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'a-b-l-o-g.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'kwalablog.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'wr18.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'mikesblog.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'saulem.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'akksess.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'worldnewslog.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'teoras.com';

(On Preview I just realized I pasted in a couple of other referrer-spamming sites. Bonus for y'all.)
posted by brownpau at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2003

I noticed a bunch of these doofi in the referrer log of a non-profit site I manage, so brownpau, thanks for the Refer stuff. Though I wonder if these guys won't just set up a new set of sites tomorrow or next week. Hard to see the end of this battle, sadly.

I still don't quite get the point of these sites linking to my little N-P and showing in the referrer log since I won't be clicking though to them and there is no public link to the referrer page for Google et al to find. Can someone explain in smaller words?
posted by billsaysthis at 7:41 PM on November 17, 2003

This should work if you're using Dean Allen's refer:

$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'bongohome';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'jennifersblog';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'malixya';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'a-b-l-o-g';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'kwalablog';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'wr18.com';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'mikesblog';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'saulem';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'akksess';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'worldnewslog';
$rcfg['exclude'][] = 'teoras';
posted by condour75 at 7:44 PM on November 17, 2003

I prefer my smut to be purveyed in a very dainty, effeminate way, complete with frills and gimmicks and lots of lace doilies.

duplicating the layouts/code of blogs ran by people who may not want their work used by pornspammers

I wonder how many of them download music? ;)
posted by The God Complex at 7:44 PM on November 17, 2003

shit, sorry. didn't see it on preview.
posted by condour75 at 7:44 PM on November 17, 2003

I don't need fake blogs; my smut is shipped daily, packed in dry ice, and totally organic.
posted by moonbird at 7:57 PM on November 17, 2003

I wonder how many of them download music? ;)

Heh. It's not just duplication, though, it's full-on parading someone else's creative work as your own.

Like Mike Batt's blatant rip-off of John Cage's 4'33. :)
posted by Jairus at 8:14 PM on November 17, 2003

Just this evening, I created the following .htaccess for my blog, after doing all of the same homework discussed here:

<limit get post>
order mutual-failure
deny from 141.85.3.130
allow from all
</limit>

All of the requests to my site over the past month were from the same IP, 141.85.3.130, with all of the refering sites coming from from 141.85.3.*, mostly .100-.130. A broader block can be put in using a CIDR-style IP group, if you've found that you're getting hits from a range of IPs.
posted by waldo at 8:54 PM on November 17, 2003

This thread reminds me of that Critical IP stuff.
posted by MegoSteve at 5:50 AM on November 18, 2003

I, for one, welcome our new smut-peddling blog copying overlords.
posted by leapfrog at 7:41 AM on November 18, 2003

Pfft. I get all my smut from the usual blogs.
posted by Katemonkey at 7:58 AM on November 18, 2003

Isn't a pr0n thing. These people are spamming MT blogs via comment and referrer spam, and duplicating the layouts/code of blogs ran by people who may not want their work used by pornspammers.

Not just MT blogs. I'm getting the referrer spam at Slumberland, too, and I don't run MT. But I also don't have a visible recent referrers list, so it does them no good.
posted by litlnemo at 7:57 PM on November 18, 2003