eird little thing happened recently. Years ago this site was developed under Joomla. It was fine for a while but then I added feedback, so users could converse on my wise postings. That turned out to be a terrible idea. Most people would chat on FaceBook (where I place the link to the blogs). And worse, I started getting bot postings, where I’d be flooded with 30+ postings a day. And these weren’t real posts – they were limp responses about “I love your blog” or “I’m following you now” (no mention of the subject at all, of course) as well as a link to their site (generally porn or malware or something like that).

Even though I disabled feedback, Joomla (and that application) were vulnerable. The next thing I knew, I was getting heat from GoDaddy (my host) because my site was being used to launch DOS attacks on other sites. Yes, I’d been infected with malware and was getting used by evil hackers. This forced me to switch over to WordPress and leave feedback off.

Of course, I had to tinker with it. Did a little experimentation. And opened up a window, it would seem.

All I know is that one of my story reviews I’d written somehow got hacked. Suddenly the 30+ comments were flooding in daily, but only that one posting. I marked the transgressors as spammers – didn’t help. I went through settings with a fine-tooth comb and shut down feedback (which was on for that one). That didn’t stop it either, even with it supposedly deactivated. So now what?

Finally I took the simple step – I copied the contents of the post and renamed it slightly differently in a new posting. After relinking to my book reviews, I deleted the old one.

It’s been a week now and it’s been totally quiet. And that’s good, because if one thing is shit-sure, I don’t have the skills running a commercial site to fend off a hacker group or some Soviet/Chinese cell. Out of sight and off the base, out of mind.

Fingers crossed!

>>>SHHH! BUY A BOOK. QUIETLY!<<<