Techcrunch reader Michael Jensen previously demonstrated a simple browser trick to spam MyBlogLog widgets by auto-refreshing the browser every minute or so.
Now LoveDeep Wadhwa found another hack that makes to possible to trick innocent members of MyBlogLog into joining your communities on MyBlogLog in one click.
Here's a quick illustration of this new form of MyBlogLog spam using the DI community webpage as an example.
Open your MyBlogLog Community page and right click on the thumbnail image of your website.
Choose "Save Picture As" and a windows will appear asking you where to save the image on your hard drive.
We won't save the image but copy the file name that appears in the Save As dialog (the filename is something like 2005051600562336_sh.png)
Take just the numeric part of the filename (or the first 12 characters) and put them in the the following URL (replace FILE_NAME with the value above):
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/join_conf.php?ref_id=FILE_NAMENow your spam URL is ready. Just add in your email signatures, Orkut scraps or leave it on the MyBlogLog member pages, the moment they click the above URL, they'll become a part of your community without confirmation.
&ref_method=s&ref_er=www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/FILE_NAME/
The user clicking the URL must be logged into MyBlogLog. Here's a real example to test the above hack. [caution: it will add you to the DI community]
LoveDeep says that there must be a confirmation option after clicking the "Join This Community: button or it should be session based. Agree, a confirmation is must else the not-so-tech-savvy users may accidentally become part of MyBlogLog communities that they are not even aware of.
Reader Comments
Amit,
Does MBL pass any search engine juice? Will it benefit a blogger in Google by having 1,000's of contacts in his profile??
Jeff
Written on 26/1/07 3:03 AM
Yes, it will. There are three places where MBL will pass some google juice:
1. When you leave a public message with your blog URL on some page.
2. The URL your enter on your Profile page will be indexed provided your profile is public
3. You create a community for your blog, then the URL will be in the community description and will be read by SEs.
However, I don't think the number of MBL Contact would benifit you in away (from the perspective of SE)
Written on 26/1/07 3:16 AM
I wouldn't think popularity in numbers would mean anything in terms of rank on the SE's. If this was the case...there should be a couple Myspace accounts listed at the top of every Google search...especially those with the high number of friends. You get the idea...:P
Written on 26/1/07 9:49 AM
actually there's a more easy way to obtain the link,
what you have to do is, open your community page (without logging in) and then just copy the link of the "Join Community" on the upper right ;)
this trick was available at the first ;) i once used it too :P
and Eric is tryin to fixed this too i guess :)
Written on 26/1/07 10:40 AM
Please try it now. I think we've plugged that hole.
Written on 26/1/07 1:22 PM
Eric - Thanks for the update. That was quick.
Written on 27/1/07 9:40 PM