Seminole Heights: Redirected blog

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Redirected blog

One reader has told me that on 2 occasions my blog has been redirected to a porn site. Has anyone else has this problem?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: That person might have spyware on their computer. He/she should download "Ad-Aware" and sweep the computer.; 8/13/2005 11:50 PM
Anonymous said...: I agree. I've never has that problem. The problem is most lilkely on their computer. They should get Spybot Search and Destroy as well as Adaware. The combination of the two usually works pretty well to clean stuff off.; 8/15/2005 6:32 AM
Anonymous said...: Nope. Ran both og them and still getting redirected...; 8/17/2005 10:36 AM
Anonymous said...: URL redirection is done via two basic methods: server side or client side.

If the domain name servers have been spoofed, everyone that uses the same set of servers will also see the porn site. It is difficult but not impossible to spoof the server.

It is far easier and more likely that the client (your PC) has been infected with a virus or other malicious software. It is often too late to get infected and THEN download and run anti-spyware. The Ncase program, for example, is adept at hiding from these things and can even restore itself after removal.

To test the server hypothesis, you need to find other people using the same server as you. That would mean finding other people in your area that use the exact same internet service provider (ISP). For example, I use Earthlink via Cablemodem. Anyone else that lives in the Hampton Terrace area and uses Earthlink from a cablemodem very likely shares my network and servers. If that server is spoofed, everyone that uses it will experience the spoof the same way. And, it won't matter what kind of browser you use. Which leads me to...

A suggestion:

Don't use Internet Explorer. Use Firefox or some other non-IE browser. (And some browsers are IE with a different look, so some care is needed in picking one. AOL, for example, is Internet Explorer.) Configure the browser to reject popups. (This is important.) Don't open any directory windows or anything else (directory windows are IE-based.) Turn on your computer, start running firefox and nothing else. Go to the blog and other sites. If you see popups appear in Internet Explorer windows you have malicious software (virus, spam, whatever) on your computer. If Firefox takes you to the porn site, it's more likely your ISP that has problems. Contact them.; 8/17/2005 10:54 AM

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