Early morning blogging

One of the advantages of reading other blogs and writing and posting my blog very early in the morning as I do is that because most people are asleep the internet is very fast and the house is very quiet. Very early on Friday morning when I went to the QCOnline QC Bloggers page I discovered that the top (most recent) blog entry listed was for the QCMedia blog which had apparently just been hacked and redirected to a very nasty porn site. Wanting to warn people whose computers and sensibilities might not be protected against the nasty things at that site I posted a blog entry warning about the situation that I knew would appear directly above the QCMedia blog link on the QCOnline QC Blogger page. The Inside Dope had already noticed and posted about the situation but because he had then posted on other subjects his warning no longer appeared on the QCOnline QC Bloggers page.

A few hous later, presumably after the Dispatch staff arrived for work at 8:00 A.M., the links to the QCMedia blog were removed. I don’t know if my warning decreased or increased the number of people clicking that link but at least those who clicked it knew what to expect.

Later Friday morning, QCMediaghost, the anonymous owner of the QCMedia blog, sent an email message to QCOnline, me and the Inside Dope, asking us to temporarily remove links to his blog, vowing to restore his blog and to track down and prosecute those responsible for hacking it. Two days later I notice that the hacked entry at the QCMedia blog has not yet been removed. (If you turn off JavaScript in your browser you can go to the QCMedia blog without being redirected to the porn site.) Apparently QCMediaghost is having trouble reclaiming his blog account from the hackers.

The week previous to being hacked the QCMedia blog had attacked the Inside Dope blog in a very crude, rude and unfair manner. (No links -- the blog is gone.) When I and others posted comments opposing the attacks QCMediaghost attacked us in similar fashion. I have no way of knowing whether the hackers attacked the QCMedia blog because they opposed what was currently being posted or for reasons independent of the blog’s contents. Perhaps QCMediaghost made a mistake which allowed the hackers to find out the password to his blogger account. Or possibly the blog was corrupted because of a bug in the blogger software totally unrelated to the blog’s contents and without QCMediaghost making any mistakes which revealed his password.
It would be nice if only blogs which were unethical and unfair were corrupted or hacked. It would be nice to think if we do not attack people the way QCMediaghost did our blogs will never be hacked as his was. But that does not seem to be the way the world works. Even if you are a good and decent person any thing you have can be taken from you. Your blog, or anything else you have, can be gone in an instant.