In case you didn't miss me - I'm back!
This blog has been invisible to anyone apart from myself for a few days; if you were refused entry during this period, please don't take it personally. Regard it, rather, as a little holiday.
This short spell of solitary has been a further step to shift the attention of a nasty little bot which has been "scraping and copying" the content of my blog for years, and reproducing it on a supposedly legitimate website, along with a huge amount of other stuff, including news items and assorted clickbait, to generate advertising revenue. I shall not mention the name of this website (partly since I cannot utter the word without swearing aloud); let us just say that it is US-based, caters for software engineers, offering job adverts, techie tips and presumably providing yet another dark place where they may avoid doing any actual work or meeting any real people. I complained about it some years ago, but was afforded very little sympathy or help either by Google or the regulators.
Things appear to have moved on a little - work has been going on in the US to limit this kind of thing. I am gratified to note that it is now 3 months since one of my posts was ripped off; since this was pretty much continuous for years, I guess something has changed. Maybe the bots finally realised that my work was not quite on-stream for their readership.
Whatever, I've changed my Blogger settings back to "public", which is why you are able to read this, and, without wishing to tempt fate, I may have a beer with my lunch today.
Cheers!
That’ll teach you to post content worth nicking! For some reason I’ve never had the same problem…mmmm.
ReplyDeleteOn one occasion, the bots faithfully nicked a very rude post I had created about their own website! (This is why robots will never take over the world)
DeleteIn truth, it doesn't hurt, it's just vaguely irritating, since they don't credit the original source!
Must admit it was a bit worrying when the message came up but glad to see you are back!! The world of bots and things tend to pass me by and I am not too up on technology etc.!
ReplyDeleteHi Donnie - my understanding of the technology is quickly receding into the past! I became aware of this particular rip-off when a friend told me that had asked Google to search for my blog, and was offered an alternative version - complete apart from some reformatting and removal of the comments!
DeleteI missed you! Welcome back and enjoy the beer, might follow your lead.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rob - I am touched! I was originally prepared for some weeks off the road, but I expect this was "expectation management".
DeleteGood to see you back sir.
ReplyDeleteThank you M le Duc - I hope you are in good health.
DeleteI had a similar problem back at the start (ten-odd years ago) and Blogger/Google did nothing, but he/she (who is still going) no longer lifts my stuff, so 'small mercies' and all that. I just had to sign-in three times to comment, despite being signed-in to my own blog, something else which has been happening repeatedly in resent weeks?
ReplyDeleteH
Hi Hugh. Last time I complained was a few years ago, and at the time (Trump era?) there was no interest since anyone who created wealth from the Internet without providing any useful added-value was regarded as an entrepreneur and thus a great guy. I suspect that the rather more rocky foundations which the social media industry has to cope with now may have encouraged a more decent approach.
DeleteLet us hope the hiatus in content hacking is permanent!
ReplyDeleteYes - I have a friend who follows these developments, and he says there is a lot act-cleaning-up going on the US online - a couple of recent heavy fines?
DeleteAssuming I know the site you are referring to, I had a couple (that I know) post of mine "repurposed" - I didn't really care too much but I did take the opportunity to vent some spleen against the creator/owner of said site .....strangely enough, he now appears on my "followers" list - which doesn't bother me either, really! Hopefully though, having read of many issues people have had with him, his particular style of online content management is on the way out!
ReplyDeleteHi Keith - I believe I may know the site you describe. I have had problems there as well, but at least in that instance some actual person has chosen to reproduce your stuff, which is more or less creepy than a sniffer bot, depending how you feel. There is also an implication of approval, in a weird way.
DeleteNo - my site is mentioned in a post I produced specially for their own consumption, a couple of years ago, when I was getting no help at all from Google with the matter. I wanted to see if the bot was dumb enough to publish it...
https://prometheusinaspic.blogspot.com/2021/03/hooptedoodle-391-laptrinhx-unfortunate.html
It did!!
I feel I've missed out on missing out. I somehow missed the fact you were off line.
ReplyDeleteI guess that's show biz.
DeleteElvis who?
Good to have you back, my coffee intake has increased without your blog to keep me occupied.
ReplyDeleteI can see that's not a good thing, but I'm a bit envious - of late, I can't drink coffee or red wine (of both of which I'm very fond) without being confined to barracks for the rest of the day - hopefully a temporary situation. At least my blog won't keep you awake!
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