Skip to main content

The AFF Splog Farm #3

The Blogosphere currently has a real problem - active hacking, and obnoxious unwanted commercial "adult" content, is in 1 out of every 3 blogs being published. Do some "Next Blog" surfing, and see what I mean.

I wrote, originally, about this problem a little over a month ago. I published an update last Friday, indicating that the problem isn't going away, and Blogger hasn't done anything to solve it.

Yesterday, the problem changed direction.

This is what we had a month ago (and last week). That's a dead web site.

http://aff-friend-finderwvghpcb.blogspot.com/

Note the blog name, in the URL.
aff-friend-finderwvghpcb
aff-friend-finder <== Name
wvghpcb <== Suffix


Possibly to make their blog setup faster or more scalable, the sploggers stopped using dictionary words in the blog names.

Here's a (slightly altered) entry taken from the Recently Updated Blogs list, during the morning of 10/15/2007. That's not the actual URL, as I do not link to sites serving malware or spam. If you really want to see some, just go surfing for 5 or 10 minutes. This example should tell you what to look for.

http://049768cqslzid.blogspot.com/

Note the blog name, in the URL, now.
049768cqslzid
049768 <== Splog Number: Always 6 digits (right now).
cqslzid <== Suffix: 6 - 12 alphabetic characters, possibly dictionary filtered.


But name change or no, it's the same crap.


This is what you'll see, if your computer is properly protected, with a layered security strategy.


They can't even spell "Blogger".



If your computer isn't properly protected, you'll probably see different content.


This is approximately what you'd see, if your computer isn't fully protected. If you didn't use Microsoft Paint, there would even be pictures in place of the white space.

I don't see this crap on my primary computer, because I use a Hosts file based site blocker. So simple - and requires very little effort to install.





And thanks to Firefox, and its pop up blocking, I don't see this either.



All of the ads in the latter two pictures change constantly. What you see there is purely a vague approximation, provided to give you a hint of what the splog master is doing. Sometimes, what he's doing may make your computer the newest member of the botnet being offered, if you're not protected.

>> Top

Comments

Dan Kelley said…
I'm guessing that most of the traffic these splogs see comes from the "next blog" button on the nav bar.

Perhaps this is something Google should remove all together. With all the slogs with possible malware, its just plain dangerous for consumers.

Popular posts from this blog

Adding A Link To Your Blog Post

Occasionally, you see a very odd, cryptic complaint I just added a link in my blog, but the link vanished! No, it wasn't your imagination.

What's The URL Of My Blog?

We see the plea for help, periodically I need the URL of my blog, so I can give it to my friends. Help! Who's buried in Grant's Tomb, after all? No Chuck, be polite. OK, OK. The title of this blog is "The Real Blogger Status", and the title of this post is "What's The URL Of My Blog?".

Embedded Comments And Main Page View

The option to display comments, embedded below the post, was made a blog option relatively recently. This was a long requested feature - and many bloggers added it to their blogs, as soon as the option was presented to us. Some blog owners like this feature so much, that they request it to be visible when the blog is opened, in main page view. I would like all comments, and the comment form, to be shown underneath the relevant post, automatically, for everyone to read without clicking on the number of comments link. And this is not how embedded comments work.