WordPress is a powerful blogging platform used by about 75 million people around the world. At least half of those host their own sites rather than use the free WordPress.com platform. That’s because you can install various plugins and themes that the free option doesn’t allow.
Of course, freedom is always quickly followed by the scammers, spammers, and general scumbags, and a recent scare reveals that some smaller sites – probably run by people who don’t update very often – are being targeted.
As you are aware, I don’t allow comments on this site. Any form of live comments system (and that includes most forums) just attracts arseholes who think they can get away with saying things to others that they would get a punch in the mouth for if they tried it face to face. But probably the most common use of any system is to post URLs linking to (often illegal) pornographic material or, increasingly, terrorism-related sites. I don’t want any of that, so I’ve disabled commenting completely.
Unfortunately, though, this is still not enough. Those scumbags I mentioned are like dog-shit – once you get some on you, you can’t easily get it off again.
I installed some new security software recently and made an odd discovery. Although my site is secure, one infected link was discovered. It seems that an article I wrote about an examiners strike contained a link to the PCS Union website, and this was possibly infected with malware (well, the destination was, according to Google). It’s gone, now.
I’m not quite sure what to make of that. My anti-union stance is well known, as is my derision of any strike by PCS staff – intended, as these are, to cause the maximum amount of inconvenience and suffering to as many innocent people as possible. But the link was definitely clean when I first posted it.
Very interesting, to say the least.