Welcome to My World

There’s only a couple of these, so far, but if I’ve missed something you’re curious about, send me an e-mail and ask away! If I’m able, and it’s something everyone might be interested in, I’ll post the answer here in addition to replying by e-mail.

Hey! I’m Getting Spam From Your Domain!

No, you’re really not. Some random arsehole has just decided to send out spam with some random string of characters followed by “@willfe.com” in the From: header of the mails he’s sending. It’s worth configuring your mail system to do a “reverse IP lookup” on the sending host — if some random machine connects to your mail server and claims it’s “willfe.com” sending you mail, your host should know to check in DNS for the IP address of willfe.com’s mail exchanger (MX) record. If those numbers don’t match, you’ve got a faker. If you’re getting that kind of spam with my domain in the sender field, you’re undoubtedly getting lots more spam from other jerks pulling the same stunt.

Feel free to forward crap like that to me, though, at abuse@willfe.com, if it’s becoming excessive. I’ve already reported one bunghole for doing this (I just got over 700 bounces back in the past 24 hours from one such “run” that claims my domain as the sender, so I can only imagine how many mails actually landed in someone’s mailbox … sigh), and I’m eager to nail more. I appreciate any and all help I get from readers and fellow netizens in stopping the spam scourge.

What Happened to Your Article About…?

I haven’t migrated any of the content from the older, MediaWiki-driven site to this Drupal installation, mostly because the MediaWiki is still alive and well on its new URL here at Willfe.com. If specific content has gone missing from the old site, it’s likely a URL rewriting goof I need to know about — mail me the details (include the link you’re following and what content you’re expecting that isn’t present anymore). I’ll get it fixed ASAP.

No, Really, What About That One Article?

Freedom of speech ain’t what it used to be, my friends. A word of advice to anyone writing a critical article about a company, product, service, or person: leave names and identifying specifics out of it, and be just “general” enough to avoid a claim that you’re attacking an individual company or person. Unless you’re Penn & Teller and you’ve got good lawyers. That or make sure you’ve got deep enough pockets to afford a lawyer. I couldn’t at the time, so sadly, the article is offline from this site for good.

If you’re really looking for “that one article,” you’re likely to find it amid the caches and archives made available in several places. I suspect I’d get myself in trouble if I actually made an attempt to locate and link to them. Officially, I have no knowledge of the whereabouts of any such archived copy. Unofficially, I laugh every single day at the idiots who thought what they did would actually make the article go away. Remember, the internet routes around damage, and it definitely considers “censorship” to be damage.

Why Do I Have to Have an Account to Post a Comment?

Because this isn’t Slashdot, and anonymous posts tend to be spam bots, trolls, morons, idiots, or all of the above. It’s trivially easy to remain anonymous and still participate here — snag an anonymizing remailer account somewhere, use a throwaway Google Mail or Yahoo! Mail account, and register with that. Your e-mail address is only stored internally (never shown to other users) and your username can be wholly unrelated to your real-life name or even usernames/e-mail addresses used elsewhere online. Use Tor to snag an anonymous IP address too, so I can’t even “track” you that way.

You don’t. I’ve turned anonymous comments back on. Before you spammers rejoice, though, note that all comments are moderated (require approval for posting). Don’t worry; as long as it’s not spam, I’ll approve the comment, even if you’re trolling/flaming/arguing with me.

What Else is Planned for New Site Content?

Besides the usual blog entries, I’m working on big sections of content (a new Frugal Living section, for instance). There’s good stuff coming … stay tuned for more.

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