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 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. The willfe.com domain does include SPF records; configure your mail server to verify these to eliminate forgeries.

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 is a pain in the ass to migrate from and I’m too lazy to actually do it. 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 such request has come in for the two years I’ve been running on Drupal, so I don’t expect any ever will. Write the old site and its content off. ‘tis gone, and lost to the ages.

No, Really, What About That 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 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 — it is trivially easy to find in any of the search engines. Remember, the internet routes around damage, and it definitely considers “censorship” to be damage.

I will say this, though: do consider using the Creative Commons license like I did (and still do) when publishing your writing. It preserves your own copyright protections just like any other license would, but it guarantees others are free to mirror and/or redistribute your work should you ever find yourself oppressed or silenced, and there’s nothing your oppressor can do to stop them. Amusingly, the only two entities in the world who are barred from publishing that article are myself and the company that wanted it offline (since they are a for-profit organization, I retain the authority (even with the unpleasantness) to deny them the right to republish my material).