I noticed yesterday afternoon that Blogger Dashboard had a huge sudden spike in page views. The counter was showing the number of views to be 100's of times more than my normal count. I knew exactly what had happened, I just wondered what country it was from. With the 'new' blog being about a month old it has been indexed enough by the Google spiders so the spam/hack hits are expected. In a 24 hour period visitors from Russia outnumbered my blog visitors from the USA.
For those readers that don't have a blog, this is common activity whether you have a blog on Google's Blogger like this one is or on Wordpress like my older one was. Each platform gives the blog owner a 'dashboard' where they can work on their site behind the scenes. Not only does that include the ability to change designs, change fonts/colors, add sidebars, edit the photo library .... we get blog traffic reports.
Years ago when I was in the online selling business from home, full-time, one of my traffic stats programs was showing me someone spending almost all night on my website for only 3 straight days. That visitor never came back to the blog after that final day.
I could see what pages he was looking at and thought based on his time, it was very suspicious. Luckily that "exit link" gave me my answer. I clicked that exit link under his visit and that led me to his website on Esty. He was copying and pasting all of my content on his new sales site. The dead give away was when he copied my page explaining the process of authenticated sports memorabilia and quoted "a mom and pop shop" ... not many online will use the exact words like that.
I contacted Esty and furnished proof this guy in Ft Wayne Indiana had stolen my website information. Obvious he had also been approved to use the same suppliers I had (normal in drop shipping). To cut into my market share he was offering the same autographed sports memorabilia 33% cheaper than I was offering it. He made up that difference profit by have very high shipping costs paid by each of his customers.
He also had an eBay store selling the same products just like I was at those discounted prices. After contacting Esty and eBay, they both shut down his site an hour after I emailed them. I checked a month later on eBay and he was no longer a registered seller. His Esty website was gone.
That story saved my business in a way and after that I was sold on those traffic reports that were furnished for free. Blogger's dashboard also showed me the two trouble makers I had last summer with my old 6 year old blog that I closed in September. They were downloading photos of Heidi. My photos are for any reader to use as they wish but I could see they were downloading only photos of her terrible skin conditions over the years. Combine that with their email threats of reporting me for animal abuse, I thought I might have a problem.
Again, I was happy to have those traffic reports available.
I am not sure how they do it, no matter what country they come from. I am pretty literate about computers but not the hacking aspect of it. As they did Sunday night through the early morning hours of Monday, it is usually an older blog that is used in some way to attack the blog. The blog that is uses normally has not had a post published for years. In this case it was a blog that had last posted in 2011. That year 2011 also showed up in my Top 10 posts viewed during that 24 hour period, taking the bottom 5 spots with one hit each ... all posts that I had written here in 2011.
It will be interesting to see how long it will take before I start getting spam email on the email account I use on my blog 'Contact' page. This same type of attack was common on my 6 year old blog and eventually that email was being spammed between 100-200 emails per day ... luckily sent to my junk folder automatically. I deleted that email account in September when I deleted the blog.
I assume that all business that require an email for one reason or another, will sell that email address because it is another form of income to them ... even when they say they do not sell emails addresses. So I have one email address I use for all types of subscriptions or purchases online. After deleting that older 'houndsnrvs' account, that I was also using for a spam collector ... I decided to use another email account I had but rarely used ... it took only a week before I started getting spam emails in my junk folder sent to that email account.
So with this blog being only a month old, approximately, those pesky Ruskies have paid the hounds a visit just to let us know they tried, may try again and who knows what they grabbed while they were here.
The weather here changed a little this morning just like the iPhone weather showed. Cold and rainy with a NE wind for once is never a good combination. I started sneezing ... which for some wild/weird reason makes Stella whine when she hears it. She will even wake up from a deep sleep if she hears me sneezing ... and start to whine until I stop.
I am hoping to see the UPS or FedEx truck back up my driveway with new OEM BMW parts for my repair, some time this week. ECS Tuning had free shipping. I've used them a little in the past for a Mini Cooper and liked everything about them, from pricing, customer service and shipping.
I mentioned yesterday that I had noticed what I was thought was less data usage with slower data internet speeds. This morning I found out that was not true. Today I had something running/updating in the background that was clicking off megabytes like dripping water. I couldn't find the culprit. My computer never started acting strange and Bitdefender scans gave my hard drive a clean bill of health after the Russian visitors.
Stella decided to end her morning walk with a path she had not tried before. She felt it was her job not to walk into the yard with Sadie but to head through the field past my property pole and our entry point from the 'alternate' path. The section of field that goes toward the highway is a pretty good hill that was not baled last June. Yet the dead hay/weeds is not much taller than the weeds/hay they cut last June. Still she felt it was her job to check out that area.
The further she went the louder I yelled her name. She finally stopped, stared at the highway and then turned around to head back to me. This is one reason I cannot and will not let her roam the field on her own like I do sometimes with Sadie. It would take only one scent or something curious, for Stella to head to the highway not knowing just how fast those cars and trucks are traveling.
The hounds have adapted to the time change. They are no longer surrounding me at the computer wanting to be fed lunch. The normal routine was easy with it not raining today. They never stay outside long once we are in cooler temps. Heidi takes the exact same path to the front yard.
Stella is ready for her afternoon nap.
Sadie shows no desire to go on a walk. That's good because I always like to wait a while after I feed the bloodhounds before they do any kind of activity. That reduces the chance of bloating.
With all the recent rain it looks like I will have to mow the yard one more time for the last time in 2017. In the meantime Heidi was looking for the perfect spot that all dogs hunt for.
Then it's the slow trek to the driveway and never the shortest distance to get inside.
Once she finally arrives at the driveway she gets her daily hill climbing in for exercise. I don' see her out in the field walking with use until next spring. She has already written the year off for any kind of exuberant efforts.
As we do with every ice cream container, cottage cheese container or peanut butter jar ... Stella gets first try to clean out some of what's left. Without letting Stella take all that is left I will toss the container or hold it for Sadie to grab with her mouth. She will then letdown, hold the container or jar with per paws and lick it completely clean. I toss them into the recycling bin after that.
Her treat today was Ben&Jerry's ice cream.
I bought Heidi a couple of fleece blankets last night at Walmart. They went straight in the wash machine for cleaning before she used them. She was more than happy to dive into those warm blankets from the dryer, scratching them with her paw to get them just in the right position. Luckily neither bloodhound is into blankets so they didn't try to take ownership.
Nothing exciting happened during the walk this afternoon so I'll let the photos tell the story.
Up on the left side of the blog I have added a link to my Flickr photos. I have over 25,000 on that site as an online backup. The link shows the 975 that I have shared with the public. Most of them are the same photos I have posted here, a few aren't. One thing you will notice is the quality of the photos on Flickr are much better and the original settings from the camera. They do not compress the photos after I upload them. You can check them out here if you want.
The replacement parts for my Z4 have been shipped. I am pretty sure I can tear everything apart and install the new parts in one day. I want to get back on the road with that car.
Things were pretty quiet today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.
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