Author Archives: dontai

The Folly of the Olympic Games

Watched, I did, the Olympic Games. Cheered, I did for Canadian competitors, both those that did well and tried their hardest. Even from the limited CBC Olympic coverage you can easily see the pain and anguish on all athletes, irregardless of country. The Olympics, to them, is the pinnacle of their existence, and to not win is a life changing event.

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extendcp.co.uk: Research, Ban

extendcp.co.uk had a user agent name of “-” so I thought to look them up and prepare if they attack me.

Observation:
web232.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.232

Pattern:
They use the last octet in their host name, but the first three can vary. Three or 4 ip ranges should do for banning.

Research:
web32.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.32 79.170.40.0 – 79.170.47.255 Heart Internet
web55.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.55
mail158.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.158
web227.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.227
web38.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.38
web95.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.95
mail39.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.39
web214.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.214
web170.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.40.170
web202.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.202
web75.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.75
mail42.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.42
Web93.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.93
web127.extendcp.co.uk 79.170.44.127

web26.extendcp.co.uk 176.32.230.26
web252.extendcp.co.uk 176.32.230.252

web62.extendcp.co.uk 217.199.187.62
web58.extendcp.co.uk 217.199.187.58
web59.extendcp.co.uk 217.199.187.59

This is a preview of extendcp.co.uk: Research, Ban. Read the full post (105 words, 0 images, estimated 25 secs reading time)

1-99seo.com Content Spammer: Research, Ban

1-99seo.com looks like a similar content spammer campaign, from South America/Brazil. The style is very similar to fix-website-errors-com by Semalt, which was really terrible.

1-free-share-buttons.com looks to be the same

It is these types of content scraper marketing campaigns that wastes the receiving web site’s bandwidth. They visit the same pages daily, scraping from multiple IP addresses.

This is a preview of 1-99seo.com Content Spammer: Research, Ban. Read the full post (267 words, 0 images, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Virgin Mobile Canada: New Home Internet Offer

Interested, I was, when I read a G&M article, written more like advertising copy, about Virgin Mobile offering home internet service, 300MB for $50/mo.

I went to their web site, input my address, which it acknowledged, but the lookup feature was not working. I therefore phoned and they confirmed that home internet is not yet available for me but is in the works.

They also confirmed that they will use Bell fiber optic lines, which were recently installed on my street, 300G bandwidth, 25mbps download, 15mbps upload. That is a lot cheaper than Bell is offering today.

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secureserver.net: Research, Ban

Not overly annoying, secureserver.net is a regular content spammer on my site. I thought it would be good to track them down. Their host names lookup properly and they seem to ban properly, so there seems to not be anything tricky or suspicious.

Observations:
n1plcpnl0063.prod.ams1.secureserver.net 46.252.205.189
p3plcpnl0342.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 50.62.161.109
p3nlhg1196.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 50.63.196.77
p3slh164.shr.phx3.secureserver.net 72.167.131.53
p3nlhg189.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 97.74.24.189
smtpout16-01.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net 97.74.104.208
Sg2plpkivs-v03.any.prod.sin2.secureserver.net 97.74.104.222
p3nlwpweb375.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 104.238.120.3
N1nlhg336c1336.shr.prod.ams1.secureserver.net 146.255.36.1
p3plgemwbe11-v01.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 173.201.192
sg2plwbeout19-1.prod.sin2.secureserver.net 182.50.144.34
sg2plcpnl0020.prod.sin2.secureserver.net 182.50.132.87
p3nw8shg390.shr.prod.phx3.secureserver.net 184.168.27.206
a2plcpnl0191.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.228.16

Research:
198.71.225.127
a2plcpnl0047.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.225.140
a2plcpnl0054.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.226.42
a2plcpnl0123.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.227.48
a2plcpnl0157.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.228.51
a2plcpnl0226.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.228.65
a2plcpnl0240.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.228.73
a2plcpnl0399.prod.iad2.secureserver.net 198.71.231.45
a2plcpnl0365.prod.iad2.secureserver.net

Permanent link to this post (90 words, 0 images, estimated 22 secs reading time)

tor.exit.babylon.network: Research, Ban

The whole concept of tor is a sound one, allowing those in repressive or privacy-optional countries (Canada, US) to anonymously use the internet. Unfortunately this anonymity has been hijacked by the spamming community, taking a benevolent tool and using it for ill. Any IP or hostname used for spamming is game for being banned, tor or not.

tor.exit.babylon.network has a network of tor servers that are content spamming me. Normally tor server IPs are stable, so once you ban them they stay banned. These guys move around a bit, and there are a number of them. If you ban a tor server, or any other hostname, and they return to spam again, then you know they evaded your security efforts. You need to do more research.

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Check htaccess Deny From lines for Alpha Characters

My htaccess file is getting large as I continually ban more bad bots of the world. As it gets larger there are bound to be more mistakes. One of the mistakes can occur in “deny from” lines, which account for the vast majority of lines in the htaccess. If you add any alpha characters to the ip addresses in “deny from” lines, the Apache server will do all host lookups and try to not return IP addresses. This means that some spammers’ ip addresses will be hidden behind bogus host names. For accuracy it is best for the Apache server to return their IP addresses. Using IPs you can then do host and search lookups, find them and ban them.

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College English Test 4 for China: Word List 大学英语考试四级单词列表下载

This test list was developed for my niece in China, to help her prepare for her upcoming university English Exam, called the CET-4, or College English Test 4, National College English Teaching Syllabuses (NCETS). You can download it, and use it in a spreadsheet program in order to test students.

这个单词列表是给我的外甥女帮助她学习她的大学英语考试四级在中国。 你可以下载和扩大它。 它是个电子表格。 这个单词列表有3,591单子你可以学。原来这个单词列表是4个叶，我放在一起了。 你可以随机化，所以每一次你学习，你的表是不同的。过长时间你肯定都学。

我搜不了个大学英语考试标准的标准的单测列表，不知道要是这个标完全。 重复法的和宗教的已经删除了。

加油，好好学习英文！

This is a preview of College English Test 4 for China: Word List 大学英语考试四级单词列表下载. Read the full post (484 words, 0 images, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Spanner Slotted Screw Head: Hard to Remove and Unnecessary

These spanner slotted screw heads are a pain in the butt. My broken Black and Decker VS200 Heat Sealer used 2 of 9 screws as spanner slotted, the rest were philips. Why go non-standard? photo by Don Tai

These spanner slotted screw heads are a pain in the butt. My broken Black and Decker VS200 Heat Sealer used 2 of 9 screws as spanner slotted, the rest were philips. Why go non-standard? photo by Don Tai

Heat sealing some frozen corn with my Black and Decker VS200 heat sealer, from a 2 kg bag down to 0.5kg bags, I heard a pop, and then noticed the heat strip of my heat sealer was no longer hot. Damn, we are going to need a repair.

This is a preview of Spanner Slotted Screw Head: Hard to Remove and Unnecessary. Read the full post (508 words, 3 images, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

as51430.net Content Spammer: Research, Ban

as51430.net spammed me, so here is the research for tracking and banning. as51430.net is out of Luxembourg. I did not get spammed by its three sister host names, lux-net-ip.as51430.net, nld-net-ip.as51430.net, and swe-net-ip.as51430.net.

Observation:
lu-customer-ip.as51430.net found the following IPs:

91.214.44.48
91.214.45.104
91.214.46.167
79.142.78.169

Research:
Further research found the following host names that change often: lux-net-ip.as51430.net, nld-net-ip.as51430.net, and swe-net-ip.as51430.net. Maybe they stand for Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden? Here is the complete list by ip address, so you can ban all three.

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