This adventure started Thursday.
In looking for a page to send a link to someone, instead of going into the back office of my website, I went into the browser looking for the page using the main keyword.
Although I thrive on rejection, an occasional ego boost is appreciated. Was my keyword for my, “This I Believe: The Spirit of Man” submission to NPR still on top? Maybe page two or three.
It was page three, only not for me. Even speed reading and looking for the website, it reached off the monitor and slapped me up side the head. It was not my site but some hack who stole everything except the name. He even stole my colors. The nerve of some people.
It is one thing to plagiarize the dribble of some obscure nurse scientist / public speaker / artist and now websitter ( I do not consider myself a webmaster or even a web novice for that matter).
First I posted to the SBI forums. This is the forums for the host of the site that this site was stolen from. Much to my surprise and to reaffirm my belief that there are wonderful people in the world, the owner of SBI, Ken Evoy posted himself. Think about this. Here is a guy who is responsible for probably close to 40,000 sites, and by one study, more top 1% and top 3% web sites than any other web host and he is contacting me.
Oh, it gets better. He didn’t just offer condolences. He gave me some specific directions to pursue, providing a copy of the letter I needed to send out.
Personally, that made my day. To have the man actually respond to my posting.
Moving on…
I started the process of learning every thing I could about this. I have put up a page on Copyright Infringement and what all you can do. It will happen to you some day too.
Then I started to post and blog to learn what ever I could.
The e-mails came from far and wide. I learned that what he did was called scraping.
The only benefit to him is the link to his site…Takes You to This Page.
He even left my name and my links up. Remember, he is on the third page for one of my authored works.
It is now Tuesday evening, the 17th. I have a bunch of other letters to send off. Any comments would be welcome. Any thoughts appreciated. Any visitors sent my way to get in on the discussion would be loved.
If you choose not to get involved, I understand. Together we could make it uncomfortable for such crooks. Imagine having no more Nigerian email scams in your mail box. We could possibly stop it. It would have to start somewhere.
Martin Niemoller 2.0 (2009 Version)
When they started hacking the computer geeks,
I did nothing and remained silent;
I was not a computer geek.
When they hacked into websites,
I did nothing and remained silent;
I was not a website owner.
When they began plagiarizing blogs,
I did not blog out either sympathy or concern;
I was not a blogger.
When they started emailing malware,
I bought protection and continued silent;
It was not affecting me in any way I could see.
When they finally hacked me,
there was no one left to help because I had
not become part of a community.
For all everyone knew, I could be another hacker.