Telegraph hacked and spammed to hell and back
UPDATE:
“It is with the greatest regret and sadness that I have been asked to announce the termination, with effect from midnight (BST) Sunday, 23rd May, 2010, of the My Telegraph blogsite.”
It’s a real shame that they couldn’t get on top of the spam issue – community is central to the future of the web and My Telegraph was a bold (if ultimately futile) bid to let newspaper readers engage with other on topics of the day in an unmediated space.
UPDATE: Whoops! That last update was a spoof story on a fake ID (which kind of proved the point when you think about it) 
Big kudos to whoever pulled that off so quickly and amusingly.
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Another day, another major media property allows its website to drift into the hands of autospammers. Anthony Shapley first alerted the Telegraph to this problem some weeks ago and chased it up, but evidently to no avail. Here’s what Google shows today.
Of course, that’s not the route many people will take to see what’s on the site – but the view is no better when you actually go to the homepage, which is pretty much overrun with this shit.
It’s hard to conceive that in 2010 a big important news outlet could let itself be highjacked in this way. Everyone else in the industry has managed to figure out nofollows, moderation, ajax fuelled comment systems and the rest but I guess not at the Telegraph.
LordManley 1099 days ago
http://twitter.com/?status=@lordmanleyMy.Telegraph is a personal blog site, much like blogger.com. This hardly qualifies as a ‘hack’.
Carl 1099 days ago
http://www.carlhendy.comNice result for them too:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=my.telegraph.co.uk
Dave Beaumont 1099 days ago
http://www.djb31st.co.ukHard to believe that
A. Nobody from the Telegraph has noticed this yet (at least you can only assume as if it had been noticed they’d have took the site down?)
B. No spam filters or captchas (i assume) where put in place
C. They would be so stupid to allow follow links from a news website
Will watch this blog and see if you get a reply from them..
Becky 1099 days ago
http://www.beckynaylor.co.ukCan’t believe The Telegraph didn’t sort it out after we informed them a couple of weeks ago.
paul carpenter 1099 days ago
http://www.itsafamilything.co.uk@LordManley – Someone’s autogenerating accounts and autospamming the site and pretty much taking control of all the content as a result. Might not be according-to-Hoyle ‘hacking’, but it’s near enough to make a more interesting blog post title.
Anthony 1099 days ago
http://www.anthonyshapley.co.ukI disagree, its over-run with spam – which is clearly automated. Its displaying content for pills, outside of the content area therefore beyond how it was intended – it certainly is a “hack”.
Nathan 1099 days ago
@LordManley – The way the spammers hide the normal Telegraph layout might be considered as a hack.
Lord Manley 1099 days ago
http://twitter.com?status=@LordManleyOkay, I’ll buy that.
Splogs are unpleasant, but hacking is a term which is overused in the media and this is, at worst, contrary to terms and conditions.
James 1099 days ago
I think the abuse of the (presumably restricted?) formatting they are using pushes it slightly further towards the ‘hack’ definition.
<div style=”z-index: 399934242; position: absolute; margin: 0pt; min-height: 6500px; width: 100%; background: #ffffff; top: 0px; left: 0px;”>
Classy.
Frank 1099 days ago
http://www.frankoli.de/blog/Clearly looks like the site’s been cracked.
But how would nofollows have prevented anything of that?
Frank
paul carpenter 1099 days ago
http://www.itsafamilything.co.ukHi Frank – possibly not. But if the links had been nofollowed (or Ajaxed or whatever) then it would take away some of the motivation to actually mount a concerted spam/hack on the site in this way.
I think nofollows and ajax’d comment systems kind of run counter to the spirit of the web, but every attack like this makes another site draw up its shutters – and you can see why.
Seth Rietdijk 1099 days ago
http://websitejudge.com/home@LordManley … It is very hard to believe that a website like Telegraph is not moderating blogs… I guess they do moderate. In such a case it absolutely must be a hack.
The author is right: It’s hard to conceive that in 2010 a big important news outlet could let itself be highjacked in this way.
David Dede 1099 days ago
http://sucuri.netThey are not alone.. lean.mit.edu got a very similar too:
http://blog.sucuri.net/2010/05/leanmitedu-hacked-and-serving-spam.html
Frank 1099 days ago
http://www.frankoli.de/blog/@Paul: I experienced the same amount of comment spam on my blog regardless if the links ar followed or not. The spammers just try to spread their “message” as far as they can.
Considering the question if my.telegraph.co.uk has been cracked or just spammed: As they also created new URLs on the site, I’d say it definitely has been cracked (or hacked if you prefer)
Frank
Kate Day 1099 days ago
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Thank you for raising the spam on My Telegraph with us. We have been aware of this issue for some time and have raised it as a priority with the third party that hosts and manages My Telegraph.
Needless to say we take problems with spam very seriously and are doing every we can to sort this out.
Lord Manley 1099 days ago
http://twitter.com?status=@LordManleyWorth looking at Kate’s account too: http://my.telegraph.co.uk/kate_day/blog/2008/10/20/spam_attack
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. I understand that Rishi has a My.telegraph blog?
Andrew@BloggingGuide 1098 days ago
http://webuildyourblog.comI hope this can be resolved as soon as possible and that everything be done so that this will not happen again.
Jorgen Sundberg 1098 days ago
http://jorgensundberg.netAnother disgruntled Labour voter?
Miss Zed 1097 days ago
http://www.searchengineoptimisationworks.comthis is pretty amazing for such a well known UK paper- it seems though now something has been done – as I can’t access my.telegraph at all?
Ron Broxted 1097 days ago
Sir, it is an utter disgrace that a prestige site such as My Telegraph has been allowed to be taken down by these foreign Johnnies flogging fake Viagra and other allegedly male erection enhancing products. My Telegraph allowed me a superb platform to air my support for my far right views and my support for the BNP. I made many friends on the site who share my political beliefs about darkies and left-wing scum. As an activist for Gay Rights and the promotion of lowering the age of sexual consent for boys I have to admit that some of my fellow bloggers to an alternative stance , I for one will miss the site despite the number of times my account was closed.
Let’s hope that Kate Day can finally extract her digit and sort the site out. Meanwhile I shall continue to blog my extreme views on the Indy site.
Ron Broxted 1094 days ago
http://ron-broxted.livejournal.comThat is not the real Ron Broxted, it is D.G.Haslam of Bedford, who obviously has “issues” with many things. A failed special constable he once “blogged” as “Alamo” before being thrown off for terminal tedium.
Ron Broxted 1028 days ago
I have been banned for life from My telegraph now for try to groom children.
Ron Broxted 1028 days ago
Sorry that should have been trying to groom children and old men.
Brendano7 1028 days ago
Sorry to hear that ron, you are always welcome to leave some comments on my site. We can pretend we don’t know each other if a new person should find my site by accident, and makes a comment. How was Magaluf by the way. I don’t know how someone as fat as you can fly all that way in economy. Did you get thrown out the first class lounge again. Fnrrr Fnrrrr.
brendano7 1027 days ago
Where did my comment go? How dare you moderate me on this site. Do you want me to set fat Ron on you , he eats people like you for breakfast. even if he is a friend of Dorothy.
brendano7 1027 days ago
Sorry I thought my comment had disappeared, please accept my grovelling apology. You should try my site. “The road to fuck knows where” as Stephen Fry said of it recently and I quote. “I had trouble sleeping until I found this veritable little pearl of intellectual discourse……………………..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
brendano7 1027 days ago
I would like to put it on record that without my excellent blogs and measured comments the my telegraph site would have folded a long time ago. My contributions along with fat Ron Broxted’s have been the only balanced ones on the site, a site I hasten to add is populated with some really weird bloggers. They even have old people posting blogs and the ‘Club’, which consist of several geriatrics with Zimmer frames and extreme right -wing attitudes.
Rob Trendox 930 days ago
http://ron_broxted.livejournal.comThat was Haslam again. When Brendano’s son sadly died at a very young age Derek did a “spoof”. Kate did not seem over worried. Brecqhou delenda est.
Ron Broxted 831 days ago
I cannot let Haslem take the blame for the sick spoof that I RobTrendox aka Ron Broxted,John Kline K.G.MacEgan and many other screen names I use perpetrated
on my telegraph when Senior Brendano suffered the terrible loss of his multi talented son and Mr Bean look alike. It was me I have to get it off my chest . I hoped Haslem would get the blame but the mods picked up on the IPS address and realised it had come from me and closed my accounts down as well as the spoof one. I believe Senior Strumer knows this anyway, but it suits him to blame haslem. Anywa having got that off my chest, might I also apologize to several A.L.F activists I shopped to plod in return for favours and hard cash.
Ciaran Rehill 781 days ago
http://ron_broxted.livejournal.comIt is Haslam not Haslem. One can verify this by the fact that the above IP address is near Downham Market. I see D G Haslam was not chosen as a top blogger by The Independent as Ron was. How queer.