Porn Spammers Knocking Blogs Off The Net

Vanity | October 14, 2003 | Thud

[Thud]

It appears that porn spammers have developed a script which lets them insert spam into the comments sections of weblogs (blogs) which use Moveable Type.

They have just started doing so and this uses up all the monthly paid-in-advance bandwidth of many blogs such as WindsOfChange.net who permit reader comments. That knocks those blogs off the net. I noticed this when I attempted to log onto the excellent TerrorWatch blog, which uses the Winds of Change web site but does not have a comments section. All of Winds of Change is off-line. I called a friend of mine (Freeper Dark Wing) who posts a lot on Winds of Change, asked what had happened, and he just explained this to me.

This is definitely bad news for bloggers.

[Always Right]

I remember the good ole days before spam, viruses, spyware, adware, etc.

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[John Jorsett]

They may have to go to something like CAPTCHA to alleviate this problem.

[ChadGore]

Re: I remember the good ole days before spam, viruses, spyware, adware, etc.

These are the good old days. This will get worse before it gets better.

[MonroeDNA]

Hi folks,

Don't you just love this place? Are you becoming addicted to FR? I am a Freepaholic. I have to tune in every day. This is the best place on the planet to get unbiased news, and the best analysis, bar none. You know that. I know that.

Because of the free exchange of information, and high level analysis, this site is one of the top sites in the world. There are over 1 million threads here, for you to peruse. And your comments are seen by everyone, in every country.

Did you know this site was started by one determined, stubborn son-of-a-gun who is in a wheelchair? Do you know that to this day he is still in charge? Do you know that this place is funded entirely by donations? Nobody’s getting rich off this place. It’s 3 months at a time.

Some of the brightest people in the world come here daily, to learn, and read what YOU have written. People like Rush (bless him), Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, both Houses of Congress, their staffs, World leaders, and all freedom lovers come here.

In some countries, you could go to jail for posting here. For real. It's that powerful.

Communists in power HATE this site. They can't control the propaganda. Come to think of it, communists NOT in power hate it, too. So does the Democrat leadership.

Do you want this site to stay here? There is no membership fee. The fundraisers are to keep it going, 3 months at a time. Think about that. 3 months at a time.

China would love this place to fail. So would Chavez, Castro, the idiot running North Korea, Tom Daschle, and Hillary.

I know it sounds like such a little amount, but I am humbly asking you to consider donating just $3 a month. A dime a day. I know it sounds like nothing, but it is everything. It really is. Put it on a credit card, and that's that. The link is at the bottom of the main page, way, way down. You will join us freedom lovers who are committed to spreading the word, and letting people all over the world have a place they can get unbiased information. Your dime a day is 100 times more than the guy in China who is reading this can afford. And he will go to jail if he is caught reading this. Think about that.

I've been here since '97, and know how this site has changed the world. Become a permanent part of it. I am asking you, personally.

Please. Your pride will swell, and rightly so. It feels good.

That guy in China, wanting freedom, depends on YOU.

[JoeSixPack1]

These are the good old days. This will get worse before it gets better.

When you've survived deadlines with a 286, dos 5,word perfect, and autocad loaded on an 8 meg HDD, the internet, a p4 and a cable modem with all the pitfalls is not 'worse'.

<|:-)~~

[Prodigal Son]

You might be interested in this (because of your blog).

[Always Right]

When you've survived deadlines with a 286, dos 5,word perfect, and autocad loaded on an 8 meg HDD, the internet, a p4 and a cable modem with all the pitfalls is not 'worse'.

Gee, but I liked WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, as long as you had the handy templet that told you what all the function keys did.

[freedumb2003]

You had a HARD DISK?? And DOS?? Man, you had it made in the shade!

Try 2 8-1/2 inch floppies, CP/M on a Z80, Visicalc and, yes, WordPerfect. And I ran a secretarial service with that!

And the bits had to go uphill! Both ways! I had to write my own CCW strings! In Binary! Yeah, that's the ticket! (actually, the previous pph is 100% true)

[Poohbah]

You had floppies? I had to rewire the core memory every time I wanted to save a program!

[JoeSixPack1]

ROFL! Yes!! I'd forgotten all about Lotus 1-2-3!

[freedumb2003]

I had to rewire the core memory every time I wanted to save a program!

Been there -- this, and a Heathkit (wish I kept that -- what a conversation piece it would be!)

[Poohbah]

Wonder if you could write a TCP/IP stack and a browser for that and FReep (c8

[Joe Bonforte]

Try 2 8-1/2 inch floppies, CP/M on a Z80, Visicalc and, yes, WordPerfect.

Yawn... Real programmers learned to program with punched cards - not even a text editor no those machines. And once you've punched a hole, it's reeeal hard to unpunch it.

[Thud]

Counter-measures are available. Winds of Change has implemented some. Check out its posts on the subject here and here:

http://windsofchange.net/archives/004158.html

http://windsofchange.net/archives/004141.html

[JoeSixPack1]

hey, you want old school?

Try a 1970's era IBM MTST selectric word processor! As big as a desk armorie with a continuous tape cartridge like a double sized 8-track.

How many times I used the same piece of paper, front and back, to type out and proof read documents to make corrections.

Ten years later 10(?) inch IBM floppy disks were cause for a weeklong celebration!!

[freedumb2003]

Wonder if you could write a TCP/IP stack and a browser for that and FReep (c8

Don't remind me -- I remember setting UART in Z80 assembler just to get full-duplex communications (but I was able to telecommute and slave remote systems long before even acoustic couplers and TTY communications were put together).

[ken in texas]

My goodness! The old IMSAI 8080. I had a friend in the USAF that built one of those in the mid to late 70s. He tinkered with that thing for months... and was finally able to get it to write and read data via an audio cassette tape machine.

[freedumb2003]

Try a 1970's era IBM MTST selectric word processor! As big as a desk armorie with a continuous tape cartridge like a double sized 8-track.

You got me -- but only by a few years. I think the exact system you are describing was repackaged as the System/32 (IIRC).

[js1138]

I had the magazine that had the assembly instructions. Popular Electronics, I believe. I still have in my garage two Trash-80s with an additional video memory chip soldered in by me to display lowercase.

[Ichneumon]

You had floppies? I had to rewire the core memory every time I wanted to save a program!

I don't quite go back that far, but I *did* save programs on this stuff:

I also did a lot of program input using these:

Which I had to punch using this:

Floppies, when they came out, were definitely a step up.

[CodeMonkey]

How about in cases like this if you're caught spamming you have two choices: pay back every lost dollar you cost the customer of the service (like the bloggers) or you go to prison for 1 day for every dollar you cost them.

[_Jim]

Try 2 8-1/2 inch floppies, CP/M on a Z80, Visicalc and, yes, WordPerfect.

Try COMPILING applications with that equipment configuration ... basically, break for lunch at that point ...

[freedumb2003]

He tinkered with that thing for months... and was finally able to get it to write and read data via an audio cassette tape machine.

If this thread started as semi-geek it is now 100% pure all-American Geek!

Long Live Those Of Us Who Make Things Go.

[freedumb2003]

Don't drop the deck -- especially the object deck! And PRAY that your compile is clean!

[Cultural Jihad]

They whined about the needing 'respect for their privacy behind their own hallowed closed doors' and it has resulted in the most degrading of sleaze inundating and permeating throughout the culture.

[Ichneumon]

I had the magazine that had the assembly instructions. Popular Electronics, I believe.

I thought the IMSAI was a kit (although P.E. did do a cover story on it).

I know for sure that Popular Electronics had an article on how to build the "Cosmac ELF", which used the CDP1802 processor. Out in the garage I still have the one I made.

Some kind soul has reproduced that 1976 article (and the followup articles) onto the web at http://incolor.inebraska.com/bill_r/elf/html/elf-1-33.htm

[Wilhelm Tell]

When you've survived deadlines with a 286, dos 5,word perfect, and autocad loaded on an 8 meg HDD, the internet, a p4 and a cable modem with all the pitfalls is not 'worse'.

That brings back some memories. I had all kinds of "fun" using a 386 (8 MB RAM and Drive B was the 5 inch floppy drive) and a 486 (50 mHz, wow!), Windows for Workgroups, DOS 6, AutoCad 10, oh, and a 33 mHz Macintosh running System 7.1 and Adobe Illustrator 3. SyQuest 44 MB disks and some of those newfangled SyQuest 88 MB disks. I still write batch files for some tasks. A lot has sure changed in 10 years. Things are too easy and cheap, hence the spam and other problems, but I would never go back to using a 386 if I could.

[freedumb2003]

Take a gander at the rest of the thread -- some real war stories on here about the early days :)

[jennyp]

Ah, the good ol' IBM 033 Keypunch machine!

Er, ah, my MOM told me about those. Yeah, that's it...

(Did you save any of your punchcards?)

[jennyp]

Long Live Those Of Us Who Make Things Go.

WE are SMART!

[JoeSixPack1]

I used these

with an old FANUC CNC punch press controller. Hey, it had a view monitor!!! But luckily I didn't have to write the code. The programmer would hand me a hand writen sheet of paper with the punch & die positions and all prelim instructions.

Come to think of it, I had a pocket calculater back in the fifties that used a metal probe and a 6 place counter that worked by rotating one column and jumping to the next, it worked pretty good too and actually did fit in your pocket.

[js1138]

You are correct about the elf. All that was out of my price range at the time. I eventually scraped up $800 for a used Trash-80.

[freedumb2003]

LOL!

My favorite episode. Kinda reminds me of LET'S SWING!

[JoeSixPack1]

The true test of a DOS 5 guy was if you could figure out windows 3.0!! And then we all discovered what MAC had been saying about "multi-tasking". Then life started getting complicated!! hehehehe

[jennyp]

I know for sure that Popular Electronics had an article on how to build the "Cosmac ELF", which used the CDP1802 processor. Out in the garage I still have the one I made.

I met the creator of the CDP1802 once at an early trade show - Joe Weisbecker was his name, IIRC. He was an engineer at RCA. He built the CPU out of discrete TTL circuits at home. Then he proposed that RCA turn it into a microprocessor. I thought that was way cool!

Sadly, the only time I ever worked with the CDP1802, I fried it with my soldering iron as I tried to build my own version of the ELF. That gave me an epiphany: I was not cut out for Electrical Engineering after all. That's when I switched majors to Computer Science (i.e. writing software for the machines that other people built).

[NathanR]

That was what those sequence numbers on the end of each card were for.

[freedumb2003]

That was what those sequence numbers on the end of each card were for.

Yeah, but you had to go wait in line at the card sorter! And don't forget those card sorters jammed!

[No Truce With Kings]

That's nothing. Why, back when I started using computers, we relied on mechanical relay systems. And my pa-in-law still tells war stories about programming abacii. To say nothing about breaking the ice on the basin in the morning so that the squirrels that ran the electric generators back then would get a drink of water before getting started.

Punchcard programmers? Eight-inch floppies? IBM selectrics? Bah! You guys were coddled back then.

[jrushing]

I remember the good ole days before spam, viruses, spyware, adware, etc.

In the spirit of things, I had a TRS80 (RadioShak Trashy 80 it was called). It was a keyboard & I attached a TV for a monitor & used a phono jack to connect to a portable cassett player that was used to save programs! (A cassett hard drive!)

The programs came from a TRS80 magazine. I could key in a page of "basic" programming & save the program to the cassette.

[NathanR]

The first programming class I took, the college only had one of those keypunches. You put the deck in a pigeonhole and a messenger took the deck to a computer center somewhere to be compiled and executed. I got a D in the course.

I personally thought "key to disk" (card images to disk) was the only way to go. When I was able to use that I got an A.

[Ichneumon]

Come to think of it, I had a pocket calculater back in the fifties that used a metal probe and a 6 place counter that worked by rotating one column and jumping to the next, it worked pretty good too and actually did fit in your pocket.

If you mean this, I had one too:

It was pretty clever. You "carried" or "borrowed" as appropriate by doing a little "loop" when you hit the bottom(top) which clicked the next column one up/down.

[Always Right]

In the spirit of things, I had a TRS80 (RadioShak Trashy 80 it was called). It was a keyboard & I attached a TV for a monitor & used a phono jack to connect to a portable cassett player that was used to save programs

Yeah, been there. Didn't own one, but did do some programing in 8th grade on the classic Trash80. If I remember, the recorder sounded about like a fax machine when you loaded your program.

[NathanR]

You could actually do it by hand. Especially, if you took a marker and ran a line from the upper right corner of the box of cards to the lower left. (or vice versa) [You marked the cards, not the box.]

[NathanR]

That looks like a glorified abacus.

[6ppc]

Real programmers learned to program with punched cards - not even a text editor no those machines. And once you've punched a hole, it's reeeal hard to unpunch it.

Yup...and paper tape too!

[StriperSniper]

And once you've punched a hole, it's reeeal hard to unpunch it.

Try Palm Beach County. ;-)

[johnb838]

I'm starting to think that the spam and adware etc. is an al-Queda plot to take down the internet.

[jennyp]

The Japanese-built Magic Brain was cool. But the German-built Addiator was much better machined. When you move the columns up & down you don't feel the cheap metal scraping on cheap metal.