alanbleiweiss 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Supreme Court Says Law Enforcement Can't Search Mobile Phones Without A Warrant

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2014 @ 03:33pm

    Re: Simple, pop them in a Faraday cage

    I'm cyincal. I take it to mean "We'll just plug a USB device in and scrape the entire contents of the phone before we get a warrant"...

    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

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 25 Jun, 2014 @ 02:25pm

    DOJ Horrific Response

    Quoted from a CNN article on the ruling:

    "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.

  • On the post: Tesla Seems To Recognize That Its Own Patents Are Holding Back Innovation

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 12 Jun, 2014 @ 10:42am

    Rumor is true - new announcement from Tesla

    http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/all-our-patent-are-belong-you

  • On the post: Thai Coup Leaders Block Facebook, Claim They Didn't, As Gov't Official Admits They Did

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 28 May, 2014 @ 04:39pm

    How permanent is permanent

    "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...

  • On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2013 @ 10:55am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Heh

    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.

  • On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 09:40pm

    Re: "We Want To Break Their Spirits"

    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

  • On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 04:22pm

    Re: Re: SEO, Spam and Googles Logic

    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. :-)

  • On the post: The Joy Of Watching Comment Spammers Scramble To Try To Delete Links After Google Demoted Them

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 09:37pm

    "We Want To Break Their Spirits"

    Just saw this:

    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

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 02:37pm

    SEO, Spam and Googles Logic

    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).

  • On the post: Another Big Loss For Team Prenda, As Their Bills Keep Adding Up

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 06 Nov, 2013 @ 01:46am

    Sent Email to Paul

    Okay I couldn't resist. Just sent an email to Paul at his mail@classicjustice.org address.


    Dear Mr. Hansmeier,

    I am writing to ask a simple question.

    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.

  • On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2013 @ 09:30pm

    Re: HAWKS WIN

    Hockey trolls. Go figure.

    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

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2013 @ 09:29pm

    Re: Re: Umm...

    If that's the case, we can expect his former attorney to be on record as "instructed to file with prejudice..."

  • On the post: Suburban Express Wants Round 3: Re-Files Against Customers

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 Jun, 2013 @ 08:44pm

    Re: Umm...

    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!

  • On the post: Another Judge Figures Out What Prenda Is Up To, Reopens Closed Case, Demands Information On Settlements

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 22 Jun, 2013 @ 12:12am

    the smell of burning paper

    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: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 May, 2013 @ 04:32pm

    it's called innovation

    Just because something did not have an original intent to be used in a certain way does not mean it should not be used in a new way if that way is innovative and provides value to the world.

    Anything other than that understanding is called myopic thinking.

  • On the post: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 May, 2013 @ 04:12pm

    crticial thinking

    it sure as hell can be both. While robots.txt is not by original nature related to search engines, a means of security, Google has the power and resources to respect it for the sake of security. If you don't grasp that, not my problem.

  • On the post: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 May, 2013 @ 01:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    Because its an opportunity for Google to help improve the securing of private information on the web. Since they already take proactive steps in other areas to improve security online, why not here?

    For example - they proactively block sites their system detects that have malware or viruses. They don't have to. Its the responsibility of site owners to ensure their sites don't have malware or viruses baked in. Yet Google has chosen to help.

    This is no different.

  • On the post: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 24 May, 2013 @ 10:13am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    No, Google is NOT saying that. Yet their system is more than capable of keeping URLs out of the system that are listed in the robots file so there's no excuse why they, as a supposed security advocate, shouldn't honor robots.txt instructions. "Disallow" is pretty clear in its definition.

  • On the post: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 23 May, 2013 @ 11:57am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    I'm not relying on it. I'm a forensic SEO consultant with a fair amount of digital security experience. What I'm saying is sites need to get their security methods right. At the same time, Google claims to be a security backstop, yet they allow those URLs into their system.

  • On the post: Reporters Find Exposed Personal Data Via Google, Threatened With CFAA Charges

    alanbleiweiss ( profile ), 22 May, 2013 @ 02:52pm

    Re: Re: Re: Re:

    A citation for it? yeah half the search marketing industry. As an SEO audit professional I routinely encounter it. They list URLs, but beneath them, where a description of the file would go is a statement

    A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt ? learn more.


    They do not show all URLs that are blocked in the robots file, however if their (extremely flawed) system sees enough "other indicators" to countermand the robots instruction, they ignore that instruction.

    "Other indicators" is most often "a link to that file somewhere on the site itself or pointing to the URL from another site.

    The "learn more" link points to this Google answer page where it states:

    While Google won't crawl or index the content of pages blocked by robots.txt, we may still index the URLs if we find them on other pages on the web. As a result, the URL of the page and, potentially, other publicly available information such as anchor text in links to the site, or the title from the Open Directory Project (www.dmoz.org), can appear in Google search results.


    Which is complete bullshit. because while they're not actually indexing the CONTENT of the page, they're indexing the URL.

    So in the case of a URL that includes variable parameters labeled with "order" or "customerID" or some-such, that opens up the can of WTF for anyone savvy enough to go snooping.

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