Earlier today we were informed that a photographer in Maine had linked their website to the McBrooklyn blog in such a way that it appeared that McBrooklyn or the work on it appeared to be the work of the photographer.
Our tech partner told us that the link had been deliberately written, so we went out of our way to make clear that we had no connection to this photographer.
This afternoon, she contacted McBrooklyn to say that she had no idea how this happened as she no longer uses her website. This evening the errant website was taken down and no longer links to McBrooklyn.
Here's the interesting part:
It now appears that the photographer's website was "hijacked" by a spammer to link to our web site for fraudulent purposes (for a full technical explanation see here).
We thank commenter epc for noticing the line of code used by the spammer, and also a technically savy correspondent (who wishes to be unnamed) who helped us greatly. And again, thanks to the photographer for dealing with her hosting company so quickly.
Go to McBrooklyn's HOME PAGE.
Why would someone do that?
ReplyDeleteTrying to get work as a photographer maybe?
ReplyDeleteIT'S THE HIPSTER GRIFTER!!!
ReplyDeleteBizarre, she/whomever has “<meta http-equiv=REFRESH CONTENT="1; URL=http://www.mcbrooklyn.blogspot.com">” as the sole content of her site.
ReplyDeleteepc: Good observation -- you have solved the puzzle. See:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pandia.com/sw-2004/40-hijack.html
I looked at the link epc provided. I know why Vinny Barbarino rubbed his head and said "I am so confused".
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. Someone has been diverting views from my site (far fewer than yours, I'm sure). I'm guessing it's for advertising reasons. Your post got me to actually start trying to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteWell, I think you guys are super sleuths!
ReplyDelete