About the âBlog Massacreâ and Spambots and related isues.
Hello my lovely Kinksters.
I got quite a few questions about what was going on and what to do to secure oneâs own blog in the future.
There are quite a few messages making the rounds with the most likely explanation: Lots of blogs have been deleted, because they reblogged posts that contained malicious code, links to spam and scam sites and/or contained words that are blacklisted by tumblr.
For example, see this very helpful message:
http://cruelcreaturepistol.tumblr.com/post/137314719440/so-i-was-terminated-yesterday-from-tumblr-and-i
So what happened to most if not all blogs that got deleted is, they seem to have reblogged posts that contained malicious code or came from spammer- or scammer-accounts or contained blacklisted key-words. Tumblr has automated scripts that search for this and automatically boot accounts they find doing so.
This seems to be the only way to deal with an increase of such malicious blogs, but it has very negative effects (killing perfectly good, law abiding and active blogs) and, frankly is not the most smart way to go about this. But what do I know, I just have 22 years in the tech business under my belt ;-)
I noticed that many people here are not so tech savy or current on tech affairs and have difficulties understanding what I just said and what is going on. I hope you will find the following helpful if you are one of those people (and to those making fun of people asking twice about such issues: Fuck you, little arrogant pricks, lets find all the thousand topics YOU are not familar with and see how well you do.):
Tl;dr: If you already know what Malware, Spam and Scammers are, scroll down for my 2 cents on how to blog safely!
Q: What is malicious code?
A: Malicious code, is any piece of code, that is intended to have an undesired effect, cause a security vulnerability, leak data or even damage a computer system. This includes all kinds of so called malware, from Viruses to Trojans, to simple pop ups that try to run software on your machine and down to adware that tracks your internet movements to sell it to third parties or sends you unwanted advertisments.
In our case we talk more about the latter case. Links that send you to sites that try to get your personal information or install ad software and such on your system. But those are bad enough and often the gateways for worse stuff.
Q: How can Malicious Code be hidden in a post?
A: There are a number of ways but mostly it will only show up in a few forms, as malware and adware coders are lazy and, frankly donât need to get creative.
Most often you will have a URL (internet address) that leads to a site that tries to install adware or even malware. Often those take the form of shortened URLs to hide their destination. You can spot those by noting the names of shortening services like bit.ly, tinyurl.com, goo.gl or, worst of all, adf.ly.
While those services have a valid reason for existing, they are sadly also used by Spammers and Scammers (see below) to hide behind.
Another way is by pointing to an outside, unwanted site by setting it as the source of a post, so clicking on the source link sends you there instead of a tumblr blog.
Even worse, the code of a post can be altered, so clicking on a picture for example, can send you off to a malicious site instead of enlarging it.
Sometimes such tricks hide not in the picture themselfes but in little pics that are added to picture sets and such.
About the worse that can happen for you as a blogger, is code that creates popups on your own blog that hijack viewers and open browser tabs or pages against their will.
Q: What is a Spammer and what are Spam Bots?
A: A spammer is someone who is sending unsolicited messages, posts and emails in bulk to people, message boards, social media sites and profiles, comment sections and email accounts. Such spam mostly tries to sell services or goods. Sadly, the relative cheapness of online communication still makes this a viable bsiness model, even if only a tiny percentile of spam victims buy into it.
A spam BOT is a newer form of the same, where the actual âworkâ of the spammer is done by a program automatically. Such spam bots are prolific on message boards, social media sites and free email services, creating fake accounts to use those services to spread spam. They are the reasons for all the little captcha queries you encounter all the time.
On tumblr such spam bots take the form of blank dummy accounts. The smarter ones even started to reblog randomly so they donât look empty. Still they can be easily spotted when you aware of them.
A: A scammer is a person who tries steal from another, usually by means of trickery, deceit, and sometimes force. They mostly pretend to be someone they are not and trick people into spending money for non-existant or fraudulent services, items and investments.
While there are countless variations of scammers, in our case the most interesting are sites that pretend to be either elgitimate businesses or offer fake services (e.g. pretend free Dating Services that just want you to register your email so the can sell it to spammers).
A: A blacklist is one of two ways to easily filter data (there are many more but those two are mostly the first things that are being attempted).
Blacklist means to make a list of words, names, numbers, adresses or whatever that are NOT acceptable. They are either blocked, deleted, marked or flagged whenever they come up. FOr example, if you would do a simple filter to protet your kids while surfing on the internet, it would include words like âanalâ, âcocksuckingâ, âbesitialityâ and urlâs like www.teeniehookers.com. So every time your kid tries to google or navigate one of them it would be blocked and youâd be messaged.
A Whitelist is the opposite. WHile a Blacklist leaves everything open that is not on it, the whitelist blocks everything unless it is on it. So in our example, your list would include âSmurfâ, âJesusâ, âwww.potteryfortoddlers.comâ and those would be ALL your kid could look at.
Well we all must be more careful and check out EVERY post we reblog.
First of all, do as the tumblr support message cited in the link above said:
Method 1:
On your Dashboard, click on Posts on the right side (click the blog menu just above Posts if you need to switch to another blog).
Start from your last post at the top of the page and scroll down while looking at your posts captions.
If you see one or more small gray rectangles in the caption under a post please delete it. Click the Gear icon to see the delete option.
Method 2:
Go to your Archive (add /archive to your blog URL, e.g staff.tumblr.com/archive).
Next, open the most recent post and look for the undesired content.
Continue opening posts in reverse-chronological order until you find a post thatâs misbehaving.
Then, delete the post by clicking the trashcan icon in the top-right corner of the post.
If youâre using the Queue to publish on your blog, review the posts in it using the first method (click on Queue instead of Posts on the right side).
If youâre still experiencing pop-ups, redirections or ads when visiting your blog, it means there are still malicious posts to delete on your blog.
Do this not only once, but every time you reblog something. You should probably delete captions and such by default if you are unsure. As much as this troubles me, for people without much experience this might be the only way.
If you like a particular caption, copy paste it into windows editor or such and then copy paste it from there into your reblog (this way it looses formatting).
Also, check the source of a post and make sure it points to a tumblr blog or an outside site (like flickr or youtube) that is indeed legit.
Make sure by clicking on a pic or link that it goes where it is supposed to or really just opens a bigger view BEFORE reblogging.
Check blogs you reblog from. If they look like a Spammer- or Scammer Blog (no avatar, not changed from the standard at all, empty or with just a couple of random posts), unfollow them and donât reblog their stuff.
Sadly I do not know what is on Tumblrâs blacklist, although I would wager Iâd be able to guess a lot. Naturally nobody can post a list here or be deleted, but I hear there are images of it out there, but I was not able to find one yet.
SoâŚI hope this helps a bit. Stay safe. Stay kinky. Follow my âMediocre little blog with the unoriginal nameâ and have fun guys ;-)
Edit: Removed some typos and awkward syntax. I am sure there are still plenty of both, but itâs almost 3 am and I am slightly drunk, so I call it a dayand this a finished product. ;-p
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