The Gazette ... Issue: 201 (07/21/2003)

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Topics in this issue

Johnny's Ramblings
In the Crosshairs
A Word from Our Sponsor
Forum Watch
Coders Corner
Hosting Hotsheet
Scumbag of the Week

Net Economics & Ethics

Looking inward at the effects of the Internet on the Economy, as well as tackling some issues related to security, fraud, theft, and generally "being bad" online...

Johnny's Ramblings

'Net Economics 101 -- According to John

The economy started tanking about 3 years ago, and really nose-dived not soon after. As much I'd love to blame it on a former President, and as much as some of you would like to blame it on this one, the fact of the matter is that it's our fault. We netizens have caused the US economy (and with it, the world economy) to tailspin, and it's up to us to fix it. The first step is to admit our collective mistakes. Everybody, repeat after me: "Hello, my name is _______, and I operate a .com business. I'm sorry."

The root of our evil is greed, and underlying that, a sense of entitlement. I could write volumes about the greed and waste that I've seen in my travels -- .com office complexes, housing thousands of employees, wine-tasting breaks, on-staff massage therapists, solid gold toilet flushers, marble lunchroom floors, and so forth. I could talk about venture capitalists pouring billions of dollars into .coms with no product to sell other than traffic and the hopes that banner ads would pay for their private jets. I won't do that. Instead, let's look at some of these mistakes.

Let's look at the bandwidth that's being sucked dry by all of the peer-to-peer file sharing networks. That costs money. It also takes money out of the economy, because millions of us are no longer buying CDs or software. Instead, we're stealing them.

Let's look at the thieves that are raping the paid per click (PPC) advertisers. You know the drill -- they register as an affiliate of a PPC, put the feed onto their Web site, and then turn a bot loose on it to drain competitors' accounts, or be more sneaky and random about it and "earn" some extra commission. This hurts the advertisers' bottom line, causing them to raise their prices. This hurts the PPCs, who now have to employ full-time staff to address this, which causes them to raise their minimums, which again, gets passed on to you.

Let's look at spammers not only wasting bandwidth, but time (which is equivalent to money) -- and now wasting lawyers' time (and clients' money) -- and in the future, wasting Congress' time.

Let's look at hosting. Word on the street is that any more than $10 a month for hosting is a screw-job. News flash: You get what you pay for! You're not entitled to free anything, you're not entitled to free hosting with all the bells and whistles, and you're not entitled to make money from your affiliate programs.

Now let's look inward. Stop stealing music and software, and discourage everyone you know from doing the same thing. Be gentle with PPC listings. You know where they are -- they're obvious. Click them when they're interesting, ignore then when they're not, and never (ever) click for clicking's sake or to run some automated program at them. Report any offenders that you know of. Don't spam. And don't waste your time or money replying, calling, or griping about it. Just delete it. If 100% of the world's spam gets deleted on acceptance, 100% of the world's spammers will stop sending it.

There are thousands of other examples of we simple Internet users taking advantage of things, acting on some sense of "entitlement," and in general, being greedy, seedy, and wasteful. Millions and millions of dollars are thrown away and taken out of the economy each day by we Internet users -- we can make a difference in fixing a problem that we helped create. We made it possible for the .coms of the 90's to kill the economy, and we're making it possible for the new breed of ugliness to fester. I challenge myself, and all of you, to ask yourselves in all of your online endeavors, what effect the action you're about to take is going to have in a "trickle-down" sense. Do the right thing and good things will happen. Karma is funny that way.

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In the Crosshairs

* There are lots of things in our gun sights. As you recall from the last Gazette, I was raving about SpamArrest, the spam killing service that has saved my life. While I still enjoy a spam-free Inbox (I'm still amazed by that!), it has been brought to my attention that behind the scenes, SpamArrest may be up to some dirty tricks. As their offices are just down the road from me, I'm planning a visit to talk to them in person, do some investigation, and will report back to you. If need be, I'll happily retract my endorsement and find a similar service that we can all trust implicitly.

* We're about to receive an evaluation of ClickTracks for review. For those of you who don't know, ClickTracks is a visitor analysis system (similar to a log file analyzer like WebTrends), but it spends its time not looking at numbers and building charts -- instead, it focuses on helping you learn your visitors' habits, trends, and actions. In short, it's the missing link between SEO and ROI. SEO will get you visitors, and learning how to maximize that traffic and convert them into actual dollars is where ClickTracks steps in. More information to follow, once I have had a chance to play with it.

* We're making some fun changes in the JimWorld forums. I'm not going to divulge too much information this week, but in the weeks to come, we're going to launch something that'll change the way you look not only at our forums, but forums in general. The major part of the planned forum change is so radical, so different, it can only be classified as "pure Jim." Sit back and enjoy the show, folks -- we're going to make history, with your help, in just a few weeks.

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A Word from Our Sponsor

Because we don't really have any sponsors this week, I'd like to talk a bit about what our sponsorship plans are and what my philosophy is with regards to sponsorships and advertisers at JimWorld. One of the reasons we don't have any sponsors this week, is that we've not yet found the right ones. I firmly believe that while it's nice to have sponsors (they *do* help to pay the bills, after all...), it's important that any sponsor we have is one that not only pays us, but is one that we would pay for ourselves. If I can't honestly say that I'd buy a certain company's product or service, or at the very least, make the argument that you should pay for it, I can't, with a clear conscience, have them as a sponsor here. It's important that you know that any advertising you see at JimWorld, in the Gazette, on the forums, or within the other areas of our network, is not just paying for space, but that they're wholeheartedly endorsed both by me, and by our staff. Hand-picking sponsors may not make much business sense from a bottom-line standpoint, but at the end of the day, what we are offering potential sponsors is exposure to a very special group of people (that would be you), that demand excellence, and who depend on our word. In short, if we're exposing them to you, it's because we think they're a good fit for you -- not just because we need to keep our lights on.

That said, we *do* need to keep the lights on, so for the time being, we're showing Google AdSense banners in the forums (as skyscrapers), and on other parts of JimWorld as regular banners. AdSense is pretty interesting technology. As part of the approval process, Google looked at our Web site (and did a complete deep crawl in the process). This gave them the knowledge they needed to approve us, but also, having a fresh crawl allows for AdSense to analyze the actual page content of every page at JimWorld, so that it can show a set of ads appropriate to the content, in real time. So, in most cases, the Google ads you see should be relevant to the content you're seeing. As mentioned at the top of this newsletter, I don't want you clicking on them if the ads don't interest you, or if you're just curious. DO click on them when something catches your eye. Google takes great care to put relevant ads in front of you, so when an interesting one does appear, feel free to click it, visit, and evaluate the Web site. Google claims to be very interested in feedback, so if the ad takes you somewhere totally irrelevant, let them know (search-quality@google.com). It will help to improve the overall system. I've published an article in the Google Adwords forum (http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/forum::affiliate-programs/thread::1058827031/app::iForum/) in which I report my experience thus far with Adwords. Hopefully, my findings will answer a lot of questions that you may have in deciding whether AdSense makes sense for your Web site.

Google Adsense: http://www.google.com/adsense
Click Tracks: http://www.clicktracks.com
Spam Arrest: http://www.spamarrest.com

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Forum Watch

By now, you've noticed that we've done away with the various forum domains that used to make up JimWorld (searchengineforums.com, gethighforums.com, jimworldlounge.com, and web-programming.com). After hearing all of the feedback and ideas from the membership, I decided to move everything under one domain (jimworld.com) and put all of the various forums onto one master page. This makes for a long page, but hopefully, everything will be easier to find and get to now. Feel free to offer more suggestions. I take EVERYTHING seriously.

On a management note, I realized early on in the process of administering JimWorld that it was a task more daunting than I ever imagined. To this end, I've made my first "executive decision," electing to bring someone on board as a full-time administrator of the forums -- someone to help with the day-to-day clean up, maintenance, and the hundreds of "issues" that pop up each day.

Drumroll please...

Your new forum administrator is Jennifer Laycock (thejenn).

Jenn has been absolutely instrumental in the upkeep of these forums since I took them over 6 months ago. She's been by my side every step of the way, offering advice, doing extra clean up, offering quality suggestions, and doing a lot of the grunt work for me. Without her assistance, and constant badgering, we wouldn't have gotten to even this point, and we would have absolutely no chance at all of moving forward. Thanks Jenn, for all you've done, and for diving in headfirst to take on the very daunting task that lies ahead.

Jennifer's Profile: http://www.jimworld.com/apps/staff.php/staffer::thejenn/
Congratulate Jennifer In the Forums: http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/forum::members-lounge/thread::1058908781/

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Coders Corner

In keeping with the theme of this week's Gazette, we're going to focus on eliminating another facet of "greed" and "entitlement" -- bandwidth stealers. You know the type... that lazy Webmaster that found the cool images you have on your Web site, and rather than creating their own, or even downloading them and uploading them to their own site, they'll link directly to yours, making YOU pay the bandwidth fees so that your copyrighted images can be shown on their Web site. Pigs.

If your Web server runs on Apache (and most of them do), this problem can be easily solved. It does not require using separate software, but rather an Apache extension called "mod_rewrite." This extension allows you to tell Apache to change (rewrite) URLs on the fly. We use it here at JimWorld in our forums. Try going here:

http://www.searchengineforums.com/apps/searchengine.forums

See what happens? You get dumped immediately to the "right" URL without a secondary redirect. Apache still shows you the right thing, but your browser location bar changes on the fly, and from that point forward, everything works properly.

Protecting your images works in much the same way. What we do is tell Apache that if an image gets called, and the referring URL is NOT from your domain (that is, some other domain is trying to pull up an image), to either show them a broken image, or another image of your choosing (maybe a "Stop Stealing My Graphics" image?). Here's how you do it:

Create a new file in the root of your domain and name it .htaccess. In this new file, enter the following lines:

Example 1 -- Returning a 403 Forbidden (broken image) in place of the hotlinked image:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://your_domain.com/.*$     [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.your_domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG)$        -                  [F]

Example 2 -- Returning another image in place of the hotlinked image:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://your_domain.com/.*$     [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://www.your_domain.com/.*$ [NC]
RewriteRule .*\.(gif|GIF|jpg|JPG)$ http://your_server.com/bad.gif [R]

You will need to change your_domain.com to whatever your domain is, or what your host's domain name is. Also, you need two lines, one without the www and one with the www, so people coming to your site either way will not be blocked from seeing the images. Save this .htaccess file and upload it to the directory on your server containing the images, or any folder lower than that directory.

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Hosting Hotsheet

Your secure site

Maintaining a secure web site requires a team effort between you and your web host. Each has their role and must maintain vigilance to ensure that your site is available and your customers can safely visit.

First of all, your web host should maintain a firewall or packet filtering system to prevent unwanted connections to your web site. Only connections that are necessary toward the functionality of your site should be permitted to access your web server. This is analogous to traffic that may flow into a room. Packet filtering technology basically keeps the windows in your room locked so that visitors can only access your room through the doorway. Your web host must also keep their system software up-to-date. The same way that you need to keep your home computer up to date with security patches, your web host must remain aware of security holes and risks as software updates are released to fix them. A good web host will also have regularly scheduled maintenance periods to install these updates with minimal impact to your site availability and performance.

Your responsibilities to keep your site secure and safe are no less challenging. Your web site may run scripts that perform functionality vital to your site. These scripts can include such things as recording visitor information from a form submission or requesting information from a database. Unfortunately these scripts can also provide a way for hackers to illegally access your site or steal private information. Use the same caution when downloading scripts that you use to download software to your computer. It is recommended that you the time to review the scripts to make sure they are safe. If you write your own scripts, have a peer review them to make sure that they are secure. When you require your visitors to submit data on your site, make sure that the data fields are "bounds checked." This is the practice of ensuring that data fields, such as a phone number, can only be numbers or a street address field is limited to 30 characters in length. By checking these data fields, you can help prevent improper data from crashing your script and allowing unwarranted access to your site. Check out this site, http://www.w3.org/Security/Faq/wwwsf4.html, for some good information on how to secure your scripts.

If you maintain sensitive data on your web site, you must protect it. Ensure that access to this information is password protected and that the passwords used are difficult to guess. Require a combination of numbers and letters at least six characters long. Do not create protected areas with general passwords that are given to multiple users. Set up unique passwords for each user. It is also good practice to remove data from your web site when it is no longer needed. If your site has an order form, make sure that once an order is placed, the credit card information is no longer stored on your web server. Move that information to a non-public system if it is necessary to retain. When moving data from your web site, be sure to use a secure protocol, such as SSH, which encrypts the while it is being moved from one machine to another. FTP does not encrypt data. If it is necessary to keep sensitive data on your web site, you should also encrypt that data and decrypt it only when it is needed.

At SimpleNet, we've created an architecture and data center that provide you with the cleanest, most protected and effective path to your web site. Couple that with our incredible products and you'll find that your site uses the same infrastructure and scalability of the big sites, but at a much more affordable cost. No other host can provide this same level of service! And, since we've recently re-launched our shared hosting service, now is the time to see what SimpleNet can do for you. Please visit, http://www.simplenet.com/jimworld.html

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Scumbag of the Week

CACA (the perfect name for this piece of crap) is what's known as a "clicking agent." It's designed to perform two tasks, both of which are completely fraudulent -- One is meant to mislead, while one is meant to steal money.

Essentially, CACA is a bot, which will "hit" any page (or all of them) of your Web site, pretending on each hit to be a different user. It uses an army of proxy servers to hide behind, so that each time it hits your site, it has a different IP number. For all intents and purposes, it looks like a different user each time it visits your web server. Part of its goal is to simulate traffic, stuffing your log files and artificially inflating reports to online tracking services (such as Alexa). This makes you appear to be busy as Hell. People ask all the time, "How do these brand new PPC search engines hit the ground running with so much traffic?". This may be part of the answer -- they're pretending to have lots of visitors, when in reality, the majority of their visitors are faceless bots that will never buy anything from your site..

The second aspect of this system, is that it will click on various links on the pages of your Web site. The program's author tells you how to set it up to click your banners, your affiliate links, and your PPC sponsor links. Each hit looks unique, is nearly impossible to detect as fraud, and has the sole purpose of generating a click. Advertisers on the Internet, promoting via banner ad or PPC ad, think they are paying for legitimate traffic -- traffic from a real user that will visit the Web site and perhaps buy something. CACA essentially drains advertiser accounts dry, without ever sending a single visitor. In the end, the advertiser pays a fortune, the PPC makes money on the clicks (but will lose the advertiser due to the lack of ROI), and the CACA user rakes in the commissions.

CACA can be configured not only to use proxy servers to spoof its IP number, but it also can also be set up to keep the number of clicks within a reasonable percentage range, to spread the total number of clicks over a "reasonable" period of time, and further to randomize the time between the clicks. All of this is designed specifically to defraud the advertiser, the PPC, and the publisher, while lining the pockets of the thief using the program. A quick browse of their Web site reveals the shady nature of the author's intent. Digging into their forums, you'll quickly see the low class of user that relies on this technology to rape legitimate online businesses.

There's nothing that a capitalist like myself hates more than someone rigging the system and taking the true market out of the mix. This is a joke. Well, actually, it's not. It's serious business -- and an economy killer. As a group, let's see what we can do about getting these dolts shut down. Any volunteers amongst the programmers out there in Gazetteland can contact John Cokos personally (Private Message me from the forums, userid "jcokos"), and maybe we can collaborate on some detection schemes to counteract this menace.
CaCa's Website: http://www.clickingagent.com/softcaca.html

Comments (1)

Payment Due Notice

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This means that you are granted the right to participate, read, and learn from us, if you agree to contribute. Learn something, from here or anywhere else, and pass it on. If you see a Webmaster who's struggling, help them up. If you see someone making a mistake, offer some fix-it advice. In short, you get out of JimWorld, and the Internet, what you put into it. The more you give, the more you get. Even if you get nothing in return, it's important that you share. Karma always comes back around. Trust me, this will make you feel better, and will help a lot of people get their sites running better.

OK, you're on your honor.

Summing It All Up

The opinions expressed here are purely those of the editor, John Cokos. All other small print clauses apply. Such as: Use at your own risk. Nothing in life is guaranteed. Let the buyer beware. A stitch in time gathers no moss.

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The Gazette ... Issue: 201 (07/21/2003)

Net Economics & Ethics

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