When the Spam Hits the Blogs. The latest trick of bulk e-mail marketers is to hit the referral logs of popular weblogs, and the bloggers are hopping mad. By Michelle Delio. [Wired News]

Joy of all joys, spammers are now trying to use referral logs and automatically updated link-back listings as ways of spreading their own trash. So far, I haven't had any such problems on any of my blog sites (but then again, I don't have that much of a readership yet), and I very much hope that I won't.  Unfortuantely, aside from not using the referral log or auto link-backs, I'm not sure what can be done.

It bothers me, though, that spammers can piggyback on the sites and materials we've created in order to try and reach an audience.  It reminds me, in some ways, of the "Surf +" an "smart links" concepts, where browsers or browser add-ins could create additional links on any page being viewed that would link to other sites, generally commercial sites that had bought the right to be linked to a certain word.  In that case, the Surf +/smartlinks proprietors were "piggybacking" on an individual's website, using it for adverstising, yet providing no compensation to the person who had designed and/or maintains the site. I wouldn't be very happy if someone came around and painted a billboard sign on my house - especially if they thought they didn't need to pay for it - and I feel no different about my website.

Whether it's filling a referral log/auto link-back with commercial links or adding links to words that have been sold to the highest bidder, the marketer and the advertisor are profiting off of my (or any other webmaster's) own work.  We either need to be provided compensation for the traffic they receive as a result of our work (and have the option to opt-out entirely if we don't WANT our websites used for commercial purposes) or they need to find new tactics.

In Trail of Red Flags, an Ex-Friend's Warning to the Authorities Stands Out. A former friend of John Allen Muhammad said on Sunday that she drove him to a backyard gunsmith last fall to have a semiautomatic rifle made shorter and silent. By Charlie Leduffand Dean E. Murphy. [New York Times: National]

Between all of the missed clues before 9/11 and the missed clues we're learning about now regarding the sniper, I'm beginning to think that maybe the TIPS program that John Ashcroft wants so badly isn't such a threat after all. 

According to the New York Times, there are now at least three separate occasions on which the federal authorities were warned about John Allen Muhammad and concerns that he may be planning something dangerous.  As one FBI spokesperson commented, they do get a lot of tips all the time.  When you get three tips, however, on the same person, it might it not be prudent to check them out?

Two of the calls were made post-9/11, one from the operator of a homeless shelter who was concerned that Muhammad might have ties to a terrorist group, and one from a former friend who provided details to the FBI about modifications he wanted made to a gun.  Also during this time, which was roughly December of last year,  Muhammad was involved in a domestic disturbance at the homeless shelter involving Malvo and Malvo's mother.  Malvo and his mother were turned over to the INS, and a hearing was set up for Malvo that was scheduled to take place in November of this year.

Sadly, it seems that too often after a major crime, it turns out that law enforcement had been warned - generally more than once or even twice - that the eventual perpetrator is someone who should be looked at as a possible source of concern.  Given how often it seems that a truly dangerous person slips through the cracks, and given that the reason usually given is that they receive so many tips, I have to wonder if the problem is that they're too incompetent to tell the difference between the ones they should be worrying about and the ones they apparently are worrying about - or maybe if they actually are preventing a lot more crimes than we know about by following up on the tips that they do.

The bad thing is, I'm not sure which of those possiblities is more frightening