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Another Use For PKBlogs

Every week or so, you'll see a complaint from someone.
Hey everybody - report http://somehateblog.blogspot.com - it's being used to spread lies about me (my employer, my girlfriend, etc).


And right now, there's an ongoing problem with abusive network activity, and the way that Google is protecting itself, that's generated some nasty side effects. Each day, we see a few complaints
It's been a week and I am still getting the sorry message:
We're sorry...

... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.


The only way to BlogSpot for some readers, right now, may be PKBlogs, and other anonymising proxy servers. PKBlogs was previously developed to provide access to Blog*Spot web sites, when the Pakistan government had a block against "*.blogspot.com". PKBlogs stepped up, and provided that access, as a public service.

But they can be used for any anonymous access to any "*.blogspot.com" web site, and not just for Pakistanis. And what better way than to get around the current
403 Forbidden
blocks?

Yet another use for PKBlogs would be in publicising abusive web sites, as in the first message. It's not a bad idea to alert others to problem blogs and similar websites. But when you do it using an open link, the search engines will be putting that link into their databases, when they come thru the forum and find it.

And that's not hurting the blog, or its owner.

Half the folks reporting the abusive blogs are the blog owners. They want quick readership, and search engine hits.

And if they were to go into a forum, and say
Hey everybody - check out http://somehateblog.blogspot.com!
they would be labeled as a spammer.

But, if they "report" the blog by
Hey everybody - report http://somehateblog.blogspot.com - it's being used to spread lies about me (my employer, my girlfriend, etc).

they are guaranteed instant readers. Just like folks who drives by a car wreck will slow down to look, folks who drive by a forum post
Hey everybody - report http://somehateblog.blogspot.com - it's being used to spread lies about me (my employer, my girlfriend, etc).

will go and look there. They have to look - if they are going to report the problem, they have to see the problem first. And the search engines will be right behind them, pumping up the value of the blog.

And ringing the cash register of the blog owner.

And half the time, the content of the blog will be so lame, it's not even worth reporting. But the blog gets the hits anyway.

So what are you going to do? What better way than
Hey everybody - report somehateblog. Check them out as http://www.pkblogs.com/somehateblog - it's being used to spread lies about me (my employer, my girlfriend, etc).


The public gets informed, and the search engines see no link to the problem blog. Problem solved.

Now note that PKBlogs has a big limitation, which usually isn't a problem for us as Bloggers. They only proxy "Blog*Spot" content. Hence the name PaKistani Blogs.

I like PKBlogs a lot, because you can package the website name in the URL. As in,
http://www.pkblogs.com/bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/
2006/07/help-i-cant-see-my-blog.html


But PKBlogs won't proxy this problem:
hxxp://lostforwordsforum.blogpsot.com

I've been watching the outfit that provides the "blogpsot" domain, for many months. They aren't religious, in truth. I don't know exactly what they are doing (but it's probably legal, if a little shady), but their site contained (at least at one time) security risks, aka "hacks".

So you'll have to use a proxy server, not PKBlogs, because PKBlogs only proxies "blogspot" domains, to visit them. Do NOT go there directly - I got that warning from a security expert that took a very brief look.


Note that the link above, containing "lostforwordsforum", is munged. Click on it and see. But don't ever click on any real links that lead to "anything.blogpsot.com", please, unless your computer is properly protected.

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