AgXphoto.info
Service updated at AgXphoto.info.
Thanks.
J.
# # #
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
Digging Out
by John O'Keefe-Odom
AgXphoto.info
Our nameserver is still bogged down, but some of our pages are more accessible. For the time being, I locked up the directories for a little while. Since I've been posting service messages about the state of the website, I don't feel as comfortable about immediately emerging from the DDOS with the crowd. I will have the website wait a little while.
We'll stay here for now. Our addresses would normally be agxphoto.com and agxphoto.info.
Thanks.
AgXphoto.info
Our nameserver is still bogged down, but some of our pages are more accessible. For the time being, I locked up the directories for a little while. Since I've been posting service messages about the state of the website, I don't feel as comfortable about immediately emerging from the DDOS with the crowd. I will have the website wait a little while.
We'll stay here for now. Our addresses would normally be agxphoto.com and agxphoto.info.
Thanks.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Blekko Bot Plus Spam Equals DDOS
by John O'Keefe-Odom
AgXphoto.info
Program: Blekko Bot "scoutjet"
Symptoms: DDOS Attack; "scoutjet" in URLs in server access logs; DDOS storm IP addresses often blacklisted as "commenter spam."
Targets: Self-contained primary content like JPEG and PDFs.
Trends: 18 month old URLs (old enough to be old; new enough to be new); violates website's Terms of Use for Service and Content; over-aggressive spider.
UPDATE: We have noticed that Blekko's bots are not only in the middle of the arriving requests in our logs during this DDOS attack, but that Blekko is in the business of providing "crowdsourced" ratings of websites for its commercial search engine.
It may be that Blekko is the core participant in the DDOS; it looks like they have a financial motive for seizing content.
Fault can't be determined just from reviewing access logs, but Blekko's bot is clearly in there. So, if they are not a part of the DDOS, at the very least they are trying to scrape data during someone else's DDOS Attack.
Once again, review your files and know your system. Blekko's bot got my attention because these guys never show up to my website.
Some of the files Blekko has tried to gain access to from our website have been registered with the Library of Congress. As our faithful readers know, some of the content files have been sold for thousands of dollars.
Blekko has not attempted to contact us for use of those files in accordance with our website's Terms of Use. We have sent them an email advising them that they are coming close to receiving our bill, should they persist.
Blekko investors have made millions on promises of commercializing "crowdsourced" search engine optimization. Effectively, it's a large popularity contest in which investors get rich and content providers, like us, get paid nothing.
The Blekko bot was easily detectable in server-side access logs. Inside a swarm of IP addresses associated with "comment spammers", the Blekko bot's URL is plainly visible.
Look for "scoutjet".
The Blekko bot seemed to favor PDF copies of our original content, like equipment reviews. The PDF, once taken, would not need to be linked back to our website to be reused.
The URLs they were using were at least 18 months old, and were neutralized by our periodic system improvements.
Blekko's website features some quaint instructions for webmasters; effectively telling us that it is up to us to keep their spider off of our website. We're told to set the rate of query and to build our bots.txt file to keep it out of there. It's not our program. It's Blekko's.
If they had put even a minimal effort into actually reading our website, they would have seen our publicly posted passwords. I hand them out on business cards to actual people interested in reading the content. I don't think I gave any to Blekko.
They would have had to read the card and adjust the bot to negotiated the password challenge; which, by the way, is just as easy to program a spider to do as it is to tell a person to do.
Instead, Blekko's bot and its cloud of surround-sound ____ decided to hammer the nameserver with a 1980s war-dialing of antiquated URLs.
Blekko's sales pitch is that they know where the good stuff is.
Well, hell, we gave them the password.
ORIGINAL:
Our nameserver has been bogged down, on and off, for the past day (12 NOV 2010 to 13 NOV 2010) with a DDOS attack. Our files are still intact.
The DDOS time frame coincided with the arrival of the Blekko bot and an international comment spammer at the same time. Nothing but love for you both.
A check of our logs shows that right in the middle of this attack, unwanted and previously unknown bots from "Blekko," a search engine from http://scoutjet.com, were hammering our website with antiquated file requests.
According to their website, webmasters can limit how frequently their bot crawls our site.
How quaint.
Coincidentally, those files Blekko's bots were looking for are available on the website for people who read it. The addresses they went along with have long since been phased out, deleted, and human readers have been referred to replacement directories. It's obvious, from just looking at the URLs, that no one actually read and evaluated these directions given to the Blekko bot. They're just grabbing whatever to start up their search engine.
A recent trip to my local public library offers some good advice on how to avoid causing just this sort of problem with your bot, if you run one. I recommend the book, "Spidering Hacks" by Kevin Hemenway. Be sure to check out the subsection on not rudely hogging bandwidth. Just a suggestion.
For the meanwhile, we're going to use this blogger site; content-wise, it is close to mirror. Eventually, someone in Silly Valley will realize that Blekko's new bot crawls right around the time this large DDOS seems to be taking place. It unfortunately seems to be the Blekko bot and an international comment spammer at the same time.
We're building a better mousetrap, regardless of what happens with the nameserver.
AgXphoto.info
Program: Blekko Bot "scoutjet"
Symptoms: DDOS Attack; "scoutjet" in URLs in server access logs; DDOS storm IP addresses often blacklisted as "commenter spam."
Targets: Self-contained primary content like JPEG and PDFs.
Trends: 18 month old URLs (old enough to be old; new enough to be new); violates website's Terms of Use for Service and Content; over-aggressive spider.
UPDATE: We have noticed that Blekko's bots are not only in the middle of the arriving requests in our logs during this DDOS attack, but that Blekko is in the business of providing "crowdsourced" ratings of websites for its commercial search engine.
It may be that Blekko is the core participant in the DDOS; it looks like they have a financial motive for seizing content.
Fault can't be determined just from reviewing access logs, but Blekko's bot is clearly in there. So, if they are not a part of the DDOS, at the very least they are trying to scrape data during someone else's DDOS Attack.
Once again, review your files and know your system. Blekko's bot got my attention because these guys never show up to my website.
Some of the files Blekko has tried to gain access to from our website have been registered with the Library of Congress. As our faithful readers know, some of the content files have been sold for thousands of dollars.
Blekko has not attempted to contact us for use of those files in accordance with our website's Terms of Use. We have sent them an email advising them that they are coming close to receiving our bill, should they persist.
Blekko investors have made millions on promises of commercializing "crowdsourced" search engine optimization. Effectively, it's a large popularity contest in which investors get rich and content providers, like us, get paid nothing.
The Blekko bot was easily detectable in server-side access logs. Inside a swarm of IP addresses associated with "comment spammers", the Blekko bot's URL is plainly visible.
Look for "scoutjet".
The Blekko bot seemed to favor PDF copies of our original content, like equipment reviews. The PDF, once taken, would not need to be linked back to our website to be reused.
The URLs they were using were at least 18 months old, and were neutralized by our periodic system improvements.
Blekko's website features some quaint instructions for webmasters; effectively telling us that it is up to us to keep their spider off of our website. We're told to set the rate of query and to build our bots.txt file to keep it out of there. It's not our program. It's Blekko's.
If they had put even a minimal effort into actually reading our website, they would have seen our publicly posted passwords. I hand them out on business cards to actual people interested in reading the content. I don't think I gave any to Blekko.
They would have had to read the card and adjust the bot to negotiated the password challenge; which, by the way, is just as easy to program a spider to do as it is to tell a person to do.
Instead, Blekko's bot and its cloud of surround-sound ____ decided to hammer the nameserver with a 1980s war-dialing of antiquated URLs.
Blekko's sales pitch is that they know where the good stuff is.
Well, hell, we gave them the password.
ORIGINAL:
Our nameserver has been bogged down, on and off, for the past day (12 NOV 2010 to 13 NOV 2010) with a DDOS attack. Our files are still intact.
The DDOS time frame coincided with the arrival of the Blekko bot and an international comment spammer at the same time. Nothing but love for you both.
A check of our logs shows that right in the middle of this attack, unwanted and previously unknown bots from "Blekko," a search engine from http://scoutjet.com, were hammering our website with antiquated file requests.
According to their website, webmasters can limit how frequently their bot crawls our site.
How quaint.
Coincidentally, those files Blekko's bots were looking for are available on the website for people who read it. The addresses they went along with have long since been phased out, deleted, and human readers have been referred to replacement directories. It's obvious, from just looking at the URLs, that no one actually read and evaluated these directions given to the Blekko bot. They're just grabbing whatever to start up their search engine.
A recent trip to my local public library offers some good advice on how to avoid causing just this sort of problem with your bot, if you run one. I recommend the book, "Spidering Hacks" by Kevin Hemenway. Be sure to check out the subsection on not rudely hogging bandwidth. Just a suggestion.
For the meanwhile, we're going to use this blogger site; content-wise, it is close to mirror. Eventually, someone in Silly Valley will realize that Blekko's new bot crawls right around the time this large DDOS seems to be taking place. It unfortunately seems to be the Blekko bot and an international comment spammer at the same time.
We're building a better mousetrap, regardless of what happens with the nameserver.
# # #
Blekko's Twitter: http://twitter.com/blekko
Scoutjet webcrawler for Blekko: http://www.scoutjet.com/
Blekko.com: http://blekko.com/
Reference for update:
http://www.mwd.com/2010/11/bleko-launches-human-filtered-search-engine/
Title updated.
Scoutjet webcrawler for Blekko: http://www.scoutjet.com/
Blekko.com: http://blekko.com/
Reference for update:
http://www.mwd.com/2010/11/bleko-launches-human-filtered-search-engine/
Title updated.
# # #
Thursday, November 4, 2010
"Suter Falls with Rock" at AVA Salon Show 2010
by John O'Keefe-Odom
AgXphoto.info
We're joining dozens of our city's artists once again at the AVA Salon Show. This year, we offer Suter Falls with Rock, a 22X30" framed silver halide photograph.
The negative was made with Ilford PanF+ 120 black and white film developed in our own Plain Jane Hydroquinone Alpha developer.
The print is Kentmere large roll photo paper, developed in Kodak D-72 Dektol. The print paper is so large the photo had to be bathed in wallpaper trays.The technique used to make this photo print was described in an earlier article.
The AVA All Member Salon Show 2010 runs from November 5, 2010 to December 19, 2010. There is a reception on Friday night, November 5. The AVA Gallery is on 30 Frazier Avenue, Chattanooga. Artworks are purchasable through the AVA representative at the gallery's front desk.
Over $1,430,000 Spent on Buying Tennessee's Federal Lawmakers
by John O'Keefe-Odom
AgXphoto.info
A recent report released by lobbyists at the non-profit organization Public Citizen on their website Citizen.org lists contributions to recent political campaigns.
The report concentrates on funds which were from undisclosed sources outside of a candidate's state.
Over $1,430,000 (one million four hundred thirty thousand dollars') worth of campaign contributions, from undisclosed sources outside of Tennessee, went mainly into two of Tennessee's lawmakers' campaigns.
US Representatives-elect Scott Desjarlais($951,445) and Steve Fincher ($482,309) are listed among the nations' top recipients of contributions whose sources were from outside the candidates' state, but of an undisclosed origin.
Desjarlais Asks Tennessee for Yet More Money
Desjarlais, who is listed as receiving close to one million dollars in unnamed outside support ($951,445), had an ad on his website specifically asking voters to "Help Us Keep This Ad on the Air by Clicking Here!"
The ad featured the spoken and written words, "stop spending on wasteful bailouts!"
The hyperlink associated with supporting the ad went to a secure section of the website listed under the subdirectory of "contribute."
Desjarlais' campaign was headquartered in Jasper. Fincher's campaign headquarters had a Jackson, TN address.
"Low Funds" and "No Funds" Races Also Listed
US Representative-elect Diane Black ($1,830) also received outside the state funding from undisclosed sources, but at less than two thousand dollars' worth of influence.
US Representative-elect "Chuck" Fleischmann (TN-3: Chattanooga-area), who raced against John Wolfe, is listed as --not-- receiving funds ($0) from undisclosed sources outside the state.
Comparable to Governor's Race Dollars
Also listed were approximately $18 million dollars worth of undisclosed, outside-their-state funds of unknown origin which were applied to six governors' races across the US.
Tennessee's governor's race was not listed among those (IL, PA, WI, AR, IN, and $0 spent in North Dakota) which were associated with a partisan change in power.
Some of the amounts listed as being spent on Tennessee's US Representatives are comparable to the dollar values discussed on a recent episode of WTCI (PBS) "Tennessee Insider" as being an influential amount in upcoming governor's elections.
In Season 4, Episode 29 of "Tennessee Insider" panelists discussed how the spending of millions of dollars in advertising had become a practical requirement for running for governor.
That episode shows how this year's Governor's election campaigns already saw candidates concentrating their advertising on selected areas of the state. Bill Haslam, who later on became Tennessee's Governor-elect, was noted as having the most money to spend on advertising.
Managing equity arguably led to some candidates mutually conceding that their opponents were strong in their respective "home" areas. This led to a set of conditions in which the panelists discussed that it was plausible to conclude certain large areas (Nashville, mainly) would become the battleground between two candidates who had the most money to spend.
In these money-dumping schemes of purchasing political advertising, large swaths of the state's votes end up being regarded as a foregone conclusion.
Many of "Tennesse Insider"'s panelists predictions did turn out to be observable realities.
Given the over one million dollar amount listed as buying influence in campaign advertising for Desjarlais and Finch, above, it's demonstrable that similar sums could be applied to outright buy a future Tennessee governor by funding his campaign.
Look to AgXphoto.info's SSL site for updates and follow-up reports.
References:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Outside-Job-Report-20101103.pdf
http://www.citizen.org/outside-job
Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, 215 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
http://wtcitv.org/video/insider/season-4-episode-29
http://www.scottdesjarlais.com/
https://www.scottdesjarlais.com/www/contribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWki46PRR3k
http://stephenfincher.org/
AgXphoto.info on SSL:
https://guest:agxphoto@www.agxphoto.info
or logon to https://www.agxphoto.info
and manually enter username: guest password:agxphoto.
AgXphoto.info
A recent report released by lobbyists at the non-profit organization Public Citizen on their website Citizen.org lists contributions to recent political campaigns.
The report concentrates on funds which were from undisclosed sources outside of a candidate's state.
Over $1,430,000 (one million four hundred thirty thousand dollars') worth of campaign contributions, from undisclosed sources outside of Tennessee, went mainly into two of Tennessee's lawmakers' campaigns.
US Representatives-elect Scott Desjarlais($951,445) and Steve Fincher ($482,309) are listed among the nations' top recipients of contributions whose sources were from outside the candidates' state, but of an undisclosed origin.
Desjarlais Asks Tennessee for Yet More Money
Desjarlais, who is listed as receiving close to one million dollars in unnamed outside support ($951,445), had an ad on his website specifically asking voters to "Help Us Keep This Ad on the Air by Clicking Here!"
The ad featured the spoken and written words, "stop spending on wasteful bailouts!"
The hyperlink associated with supporting the ad went to a secure section of the website listed under the subdirectory of "contribute."
Desjarlais' campaign was headquartered in Jasper. Fincher's campaign headquarters had a Jackson, TN address.
"Low Funds" and "No Funds" Races Also Listed
US Representative-elect Diane Black ($1,830) also received outside the state funding from undisclosed sources, but at less than two thousand dollars' worth of influence.
US Representative-elect "Chuck" Fleischmann (TN-3: Chattanooga-area), who raced against John Wolfe, is listed as --not-- receiving funds ($0) from undisclosed sources outside the state.
Comparable to Governor's Race Dollars
Also listed were approximately $18 million dollars worth of undisclosed, outside-their-state funds of unknown origin which were applied to six governors' races across the US.
Tennessee's governor's race was not listed among those (IL, PA, WI, AR, IN, and $0 spent in North Dakota) which were associated with a partisan change in power.
Some of the amounts listed as being spent on Tennessee's US Representatives are comparable to the dollar values discussed on a recent episode of WTCI (PBS) "Tennessee Insider" as being an influential amount in upcoming governor's elections.
In Season 4, Episode 29 of "Tennessee Insider" panelists discussed how the spending of millions of dollars in advertising had become a practical requirement for running for governor.
That episode shows how this year's Governor's election campaigns already saw candidates concentrating their advertising on selected areas of the state. Bill Haslam, who later on became Tennessee's Governor-elect, was noted as having the most money to spend on advertising.
Managing equity arguably led to some candidates mutually conceding that their opponents were strong in their respective "home" areas. This led to a set of conditions in which the panelists discussed that it was plausible to conclude certain large areas (Nashville, mainly) would become the battleground between two candidates who had the most money to spend.
In these money-dumping schemes of purchasing political advertising, large swaths of the state's votes end up being regarded as a foregone conclusion.
Many of "Tennesse Insider"'s panelists predictions did turn out to be observable realities.
Given the over one million dollar amount listed as buying influence in campaign advertising for Desjarlais and Finch, above, it's demonstrable that similar sums could be applied to outright buy a future Tennessee governor by funding his campaign.
Look to AgXphoto.info's SSL site for updates and follow-up reports.
# # #
References:
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Outside-Job-Report-20101103.pdf
http://www.citizen.org/outside-job
Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, 215 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003
http://wtcitv.org/video/insider/season-4-episode-29
http://www.scottdesjarlais.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWki46PRR3k
http://stephenfincher.org/
AgXphoto.info on SSL:
https://guest:agxphoto@www.agxphoto.info
or logon to https://www.agxphoto.info
and manually enter username: guest password:agxphoto.
# # #
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
