Used to freak out knowing I was approaching a red light camera intersection back when I lived in the SF bay area. Then, this year when I made plans to move to Arizona, started reading old blog posts about Redflex and their scammy ways. Total relief when I learned killing off the Redflex Plague there was already a done deal.
Unfettered capitalism. Greed, control, arrogance. This is why some laws are just necessary in a society, even if we want more freedom than we get most of the time.
I audit 60 to 80 sites a year. From the smallest mom-pop to enterprise global sites with hundreds of millions of pages.
The vast majority of sites are owned and maintained by small business owners who don't know what they're doing, and barely can afford to implement fundamental necessities, yet they do so nonetheless, and that allows them to participate in the digital community.
As much as I personally would prefer that every site be set up, maintained and upgraded by qualified professionals, it's not realistic in the current environment.
Worse still, I've seen more than several developers screw up some of what I consider the most fundamental technical changes necessary for a site to function.
Then, in the long term, the vendor might decide to represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Bad origins.
Most consumers could well make assumptions (correctly or incorrectly) from how its presented. "WARNING - THIS SITE IS UNSECURE" implies danger.
It wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that many consumers interpret that to be "so dangerous that I should avoid it, without thinking through what this really means in this situation".
As a User Experience professional, I have seen all too often that a majority of end users have a very difficult time applying critical thought to their online decision making process.
So the question here then - does the good outweigh the bad? I say too many site owners who are incapable of adapting will suffer.
I hate social engineering. If a site is informational only, there's absolutely no reason to force it into an HTTPS status. To eventually make it APPEAR that an HTTP site is somehow BAD, or DANGEROUS is a horrific notion.
There are so many perfectly legitimate, valid, helpful and worthy sites that won't go to HTTPS for a plethora of reasons this effort will only hurt more than it helps.
I disagree. If you're not going to allow proper https functionality, the correct best practices functionality should have the https version automatically redirect via 301 server redirect to the non https version.
This ensures that anyone getting to the page will actually get a page.
As someone who audits sites for a living, I can't tell you how sad it is out there. Most site managers / devs who roll out HTTPS make big mistakes.
I've seen it do so much harm it's pathetic. And the bigger the site, the more likely there's a lack of proper QA testing overall long before a site tries to go "all" HTTPS.
"We will make use of whatever technology is available to preserve evidence on cell phones while seeking a warrant, and we will assist our agents in determining when exigent circumstances or another applicable exception to the warrant requirement will permit them to search the phone immediately without a warrant," Canale said. (Canale is from the DOJ)
There you go. Yeah, fine. I read that as meaning "We're going to find ways to help law enforcement get around this"
So as far as I'm concerned, the DOJ still does what it wants and conspires with others to ignore the constitution.
"permanent secretary of the Information and Communications Technology Ministry"
So exactly how permanent is such a position in a country like this? I mean is it "permanent as long as this coup lasts" permanent? Or is it "permanent even if some other group stages a coup later" permanent?
I think before they shut down all social media entirely (because you know - fomenting unrest during such an important period of unrest is wrong), they should be more clear in the titles they issue to people...
I agree. Its a difficult issue for sure. However it definitely emphasizes the concept of proper due diligence. Something seriously lacking in the business world.
oh - forgot to mention credit for the word for word transcript and my being alerted to this goes to an article from Barry Schwartz over at SearchEngineLand
Matt Cutts, head of Googles Search Spam unit stated on the record over on TWIT.TV their intent with the way they are going after spammers:
"If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is sort of break their spirits. There are lots of Google algorithms specifically designed to frustrate spammers. Some of the things we do is give people a hint their site will drop and then a week or two later, their site actually does drop. So they get a little bit more frustrated. So hopefully, and we’ve seen this happen, people step away from the dark side and say, you know what, that was so much pain and anguish and frustration, let’s just stay on the high road from now on."
So my position that it IS punishment, in my opinion based on this statement,is correct. Punishment is designed to break people of a bad habit.
ah thanks for the nofollow factor - I totally failed to check to see if they were nofollowed. Proving my "forensic SEO audit" skills aren't always used when I comment on the web. :-)
Okay as an actual SEO professional (one who only advocates real, sustainable SEO, and not crappy spam tactics), I will add this:
1. It IS punishment. Spam has gotten so far out of hand over the years that previous efforts to discourage and otherwise eliminate otherwise undeserving results from the organic listings were not getting the message across. Spam just became a massive business.
So to really send the message across, Google is now much more SEVERELY penalizing sites that use spam tactics, one of which is crappy link techniques. The notion here being that when a site gets a manual penalty for crap links, it becomes a very daunting task to clean up now.
Couple that with most of those sites then needing to re-earn (or in actually earn for the first time in legitimate ways) rankings, and more sites are doing all they can to become good netizens.
2. Leaving spam comments up just to spite foolish site owners is NOT helpful to TechDirt. And it doesn't contribute to punishing those site owners because they'll just disavow the links if you leave them up.
In fact, where it CAN be a problem for TechDirt is if Google's system detects too many spam comments, this site WILL be penalized.
I doubt there are that many on TD, so it's highly unlikely that this scenario would happen (as compared to sites like Mashable or others that have free-for-all comment spam where those are more likely to see some sort of hit).
3. Charging site owners to remove their links is a possible revenue stream, however the overwhelming majority of site owners or link-clean-up providers who encounter a fee situation ignore it and just disavow those links.
And for those site owners who come to me for an audit after they've been penalized, that's exactly what I recommend to them. Along with noting in their tracking of their clean-up those sites that attempted to charge for the service. Because that's potentially subject to being viewed as an extortion scheme under some circumstances (not a TD scenario though either).
How many more sleazy lowlife lawsuits are you intending to file in your lifetime? I mean, isn’t the impending doom from the fallout of your shenanigans with John enough to get you to run for cover at this point? Do you believe you can continue to trash the American legal system for every penny you can squeeze out of unsuspecting American citizens who are tricked by your tactics?
Do you feel no remorse? Do you completely disregard human decency? Do you believe you and John are so bullet-proof to the long term legal process? Or do you have tickets out of the country sitting on your nightstand awaiting that fateful day in the near future when a warrant will be issued for your arrest?
I ask out of simple human fascination.
And of course, I state here, for the record, that my views are purely my personal opinion.
that's my "not a lawyer" understanding as well. Curious to see if he can get around that minor stumbling block. And can't wait for this to reach Carreon levels. It's on that trajectory!
Your honor, my client informs me they cannot, unfortunately produce such records. Apparently all records were turned over to Salt Marsh. [communicated as the smell of burning paper wafts across the offices of Steele, Hansmeier and Duffy...]
On the post: Traffic Cam Company 'Bagman' Pleads Guilty To Bribing Chicago Transportation Official
Unfettered capitalism. Greed, control, arrogance. This is why some laws are just necessary in a society, even if we want more freedom than we get most of the time.
On the post: Chrome Security Team Considers Marking All HTTP Pages As 'Non-Secure'
Re: Re:
The vast majority of sites are owned and maintained by small business owners who don't know what they're doing, and barely can afford to implement fundamental necessities, yet they do so nonetheless, and that allows them to participate in the digital community.
As much as I personally would prefer that every site be set up, maintained and upgraded by qualified professionals, it's not realistic in the current environment.
Worse still, I've seen more than several developers screw up some of what I consider the most fundamental technical changes necessary for a site to function.
On the post: Chrome Security Team Considers Marking All HTTP Pages As 'Non-Secure'
Re: Re:
Then, in the long term, the vendor might decide to represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Bad origins.
Most consumers could well make assumptions (correctly or incorrectly) from how its presented. "WARNING - THIS SITE IS UNSECURE" implies danger.
It wouldn't be unrealistic to assume that many consumers interpret that to be "so dangerous that I should avoid it, without thinking through what this really means in this situation".
As a User Experience professional, I have seen all too often that a majority of end users have a very difficult time applying critical thought to their online decision making process.
So the question here then - does the good outweigh the bad? I say too many site owners who are incapable of adapting will suffer.
On the post: Chrome Security Team Considers Marking All HTTP Pages As 'Non-Secure'
There are so many perfectly legitimate, valid, helpful and worthy sites that won't go to HTTPS for a plethora of reasons this effort will only hurt more than it helps.
On the post: NY Times Urges News Sites To Embrace HTTPS/SSL... In An Article That Can't Be Read Via HTTPS
Re: Re: Implementation fails
This ensures that anyone getting to the page will actually get a page.
On the post: NY Times Urges News Sites To Embrace HTTPS/SSL... In An Article That Can't Be Read Via HTTPS
Implementation fails
I've seen it do so much harm it's pathetic. And the bigger the site, the more likely there's a lack of proper QA testing overall long before a site tries to go "all" HTTPS.
So this is a perfect example of that.
On the post: Supreme Court Says Law Enforcement Can't Search Mobile Phones Without A Warrant
Re: Simple, pop them in a Faraday cage
Or of course other situations will be done in the name of national security or some bullshit.
On the post: Supreme Court Says Law Enforcement Can't Search Mobile Phones Without A Warrant
DOJ Horrific Response
There you go. Yeah, fine. I read that as meaning "We're going to find ways to help law enforcement get around this"
So as far as I'm concerned, the DOJ still does what it wants and conspires with others to ignore the constitution.
On the post: Tesla Seems To Recognize That Its Own Patents Are Holding Back Innovation
Rumor is true - new announcement from Tesla
On the post: Thai Coup Leaders Block Facebook, Claim They Didn't, As Gov't Official Admits They Did
How permanent is permanent
So exactly how permanent is such a position in a country like this? I mean is it "permanent as long as this coup lasts" permanent? Or is it "permanent even if some other group stages a coup later" permanent?
I think before they shut down all social media entirely (because you know - fomenting unrest during such an important period of unrest is wrong), they should be more clear in the titles they issue to people...
On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Heh
On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them
Re: "We Want To Break Their Spirits"
On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them
"We Want To Break Their Spirits"
Matt Cutts, head of Googles Search Spam unit stated on the record over on TWIT.TV their intent with the way they are going after spammers:
"If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is sort of break their spirits. There are lots of Google algorithms specifically designed to frustrate spammers. Some of the things we do is give people a hint their site will drop and then a week or two later, their site actually does drop. So they get a little bit more frustrated. So hopefully, and we’ve seen this happen, people step away from the dark side and say, you know what, that was so much pain and anguish and frustration, let’s just stay on the high road from now on."
So my position that it IS punishment, in my opinion based on this statement,is correct. Punishment is designed to break people of a bad habit.
Here's the link to the full audio
On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them
Re: Re: SEO, Spam and Googles Logic
On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them
SEO, Spam and Googles Logic
1. It IS punishment. Spam has gotten so far out of hand over the years that previous efforts to discourage and otherwise eliminate otherwise undeserving results from the organic listings were not getting the message across. Spam just became a massive business.
So to really send the message across, Google is now much more SEVERELY penalizing sites that use spam tactics, one of which is crappy link techniques. The notion here being that when a site gets a manual penalty for crap links, it becomes a very daunting task to clean up now.
Couple that with most of those sites then needing to re-earn (or in actually earn for the first time in legitimate ways) rankings, and more sites are doing all they can to become good netizens.
2. Leaving spam comments up just to spite foolish site owners is NOT helpful to TechDirt. And it doesn't contribute to punishing those site owners because they'll just disavow the links if you leave them up.
In fact, where it CAN be a problem for TechDirt is if Google's system detects too many spam comments, this site WILL be penalized.
I doubt there are that many on TD, so it's highly unlikely that this scenario would happen (as compared to sites like Mashable or others that have free-for-all comment spam where those are more likely to see some sort of hit).
3. Charging site owners to remove their links is a possible revenue stream, however the overwhelming majority of site owners or link-clean-up providers who encounter a fee situation ignore it and just disavow those links.
And for those site owners who come to me for an audit after they've been penalized, that's exactly what I recommend to them. Along with noting in their tracking of their clean-up those sites that attempted to charge for the service. Because that's potentially subject to being viewed as an extortion scheme under some circumstances (not a TD scenario though either).
On the post: Another Big Loss For Team Prenda, As Their Bills Keep Adding Up
Sent Email to Paul
On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers
Re: HAWKS WIN
hahahahaha :-) What's REALLY going to bake your noodle though? Would they have even made it to the finals if there had been a FULL season?
On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers
Re: Re: Umm...
On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers
Re: Umm...
On the post: Another Judge Figures Out What Prenda Is Up To, Reopens Closed Case, Demands Information On Settlements
the smell of burning paper
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