Last year, when links such as “suck video” and “gay on gay brother porn” started to appear on Combat! blog without directing users to my Hire Me page, I suspected we had been hacked. I was right. After fixing the problem, GoDaddy convinced me to sign up for their partner service SiteLock, to prevent malicious injections into my homespace and whatnot. This afternoon, I learned my level of SiteLock protection provides the service of informing me when my site has been infected by malware, but the service of removing that malware or even preventing further attacks costs $129 a month.
Combat! blog has been hacked, again. Although the SiteLock lady was very nice, her offer sounded bogus to me, and I opted to address the problem myself. There are a half dozen WordPress plugins that implement basic firewall protection, and I installed one of them. I deleted all the user accounts but this one, logged off all terminals but mine, and changed my password to the name of some cosmic horror yet undiscovered. I set up lockouts to resist brute force attacks. I enumerated all these measures in a post, which is probably an infosec no-no, but you know the Russian dude who hacked Combat! blog to add links for children’s melatonin isn’t reading this. I hope he is. Children’s melatonin isn’t a thing, you bearfucking gas magnate. But I digress.
My point is that the Russians will do anything to divide us. First they hacked the Democratic National Committee, and now this. There is no post today, really, because I fixed Combat! blog instead of writing it. O cruel irony! Must you always be Russian? While I change my ftp password, how about you check out this fun Times visualization of the fact that only about 9% of Americans voted for Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. We’re all going to vote on what to have for dinner as a family. But first, your mother and I have narrowed the field to brussels sprouts or tofu rat feces.
If only we could get more behind-the scenes-about the writing and editing of Combat!blog. Do you have an idea log you draw from? Do you skim twitter looking for something to react to? How long does it take? When do you write it?
Oh thank you! Now we have a beautiful epithet for Russian hackers.