Category: Blogging

Later tonight

~ Inquisitor

I will be Twittering liveblog coverage of the Eurovision selection, assuming Twitter’s up (and if it isn’t, I’ll be updating it on wordpress.com.) As a preview: I’m not hopeful.

Harassment kills a fantastic blogger

~ Inquisitor

Read this.

I genuinely fear for her safety at the hands of this person (I will refrain from calling someone who picks on children ‘a man’). Three days running he has posted blog entries about her, two of which assume her identity and one of which is attempting to gain money in her name. I do not know where he would stop. Therefore the only way to make her safe is to remove us from his presence.

Get angry.

Left Brain/Right Brain was one of the best autism blogs on the net, unafraid to bash those who credulously exploit autistic spectrum disorders to sell quack cures or promote vaccination scares. Fore Sam/John Best, on the other hand, is an absolute asshole. Losing LB/RB is a loss for everyone and it will be missed.

How long has it been since the BBC started using…

~ Inquisitor ~ 1 Comment

…social networking bookmarks? Every page on BBC News now seems to have a bookmark-on section that I’ve never noticed before at the foot of the article with addition links to del.icio.us, digg, reddit, Facebook and StumbleUpon. I’ve never quite seen the point of these things, since anyone serious about social bookmarking has a Firefox plugin (of which I use the one for del.icio.us to produce the link list on the right hand panel) or equivalent to do it for them, but it is at least an interesting discovery.

New theme, again

~ Inquisitor

So this is the first time I’ve changed it in a while, but I really like the Redoable Light theme so I’ve put it on the blog for a trial run – I think it’s more stylish than the previous layout, although I’m having trouble getting the right blog header for it right now (so it’ll change a bit over the next few days.) Other than that, enjoy the Transformers review – Simpsons Movie and Die Hard 4.0 coming as soon as I can finish them.

Persistent spam campaign on WP.com right now

~ Inquisitor

One of my XBMC posts is continually being hit by someone posting identical spam messages: the text of the post consists entirely of

<a></a>

i.e. a blank anchor. Akismet doesn’t detect this and WordPress’ blank post filter obviously doesn’t hit it, so for a time these posts were getting through to actual comments page. This is basically designed to have their name hyperlink to one of a series of semi-randomly named .biz domains which, incredibly, don’t have DNS right now. Each message is being posted by a different IP from various consumer DSL IPs around the world, so almost certainly a botnet; I am getting an identical post once every two-three hours. I’ve heard that this is how a lot of scumware purveyors work right now – send out the spam, appears blank to start with, and then have the domains pointing at various botnet servers triggering the conversion of more machines into botnet servers.

I have added this blank anchor tag into my moderation list, but can’t bring myself to put it into the automatic blackhole list (because it is a genuine mistake people can make), so it’s merely downgraded from visible to you to just an annoyance for me. I would recommend other wordpress.com bloggers do the same until Akismet fix it.

Support Rachel North – find her stalker

~ Inquisitor ~ 4 Comments

Have you seen this woman? If so, call the cops.

Felicity Jane Lowde is a convicted cyberstalker on the run (old photo on the right). She’s been continually harassing, libelling, threatening and making false accusations against Rachel North, for no obvious reason. Backstory here and here. Anyway, she’s skipped bail and is somehow continuing her harassment campaign while on the loose (and possibly while living rough). If you regularly frequent cybercafes or libraries in the London or Oxford areas, you might see her.

If you do see her, please contact the police, do not approach. Useful telephone numbers follow:

  • Crimestoppers: 0800 555 111
  • Metropolitan Police: 020 7230 1212
  • City of London Police: 020 7601 2222 (within the Square Mile only)
  • Thames Valley Police (Oxford): 0845 8505 505

[Update 10.07.2007: Since FJL has now been found, I have removed her photograph. No need to look for her any more – let’s hope she gets the help she needs now. This post will remain as an archive.]