Web Cash

While browsing through Technorati, I just stumbled on a post about a shell script attack. It seems the poor chap got a shell script uploaded to his server, and the attacker used it to create a bunch of bogus files full of hyperlinks.

The original post has some header information about this particular hack (a modified c100 shell), as well as a link to some search results about the file. I looked through the source code for the shell script and tested it out on my local server – getting some link-filled files is the least that this script could do.
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The main two sites that I write at (besides my own) are Helium and Associated Content. Lately I’ve been looking around for other similar sites, so that I could test them out and review them.

The other day I came across something truly disturbing in the way of online writing. I stumbled on the website Senserely.

It was kind of like a train wreck – it was horrifying, but I had to keep looking around just to see if it could get any worse.
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Don’t know what a trackback is? Check out this set of articles for a bit more information.

Assuming you do know what a trackback is, how do you send one – technically speaking? And how can we write a php script to send one?

A trackback is a simple ping – an HTTP Request. It is specially formatted with a limited amount of information. The receiving server is set up to handle that information and use it to create the comment based on your trackback ping.
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I signed up at Associated Content quite some time ago – last December. I was lured in by the prospect of earning up to $20 per article that I wrote – the advertised top upfront payment.

I didn’t actually write an article until September of this year. For some reason, I never got around to it. I was quite pleased when they offered me an upfront payment of $10 for my first article.

Since then, I’ve written another 30 articles and published them at Associated Content. I’ve gotten a better idea of what to expect, payment wise. The initial $10 seems to be a high payment to entice you to write more… and it definitely worked.

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