VarleyNews

© 2009 by John Varley; all rights reserved

HIJACKED!!!!

IT'S NOT US!!!!

We would never knowingly inflict such garbage on our readers. In our opinion, the lowest form of web life are the writers of viruses, worms, and other such abominations (I recommend the amputation of their hands upon conviction for a first offense; if they go to voice recognition software to write, then amputation of their heads … and I am completely serious), the second lowest form of life are spammers, and the third lowest are the purveyors of pop-ups advertising.

Lee and I are not sophisticated in this sort of thing, but it seems obvious that some sort of hijacking has occurred. Lee has sweated bullets over the last week, trying to work with our web host to eradicate these rodents. We thought we had it licked after reloading the entire site, but no such luck. They’re back!

We are now appealing for the help of anyone out there who may know what’s going on, and what we might do to solve the problem. It chaps my ass every time one appears, and I swear to god, if I could find out who has done this I would seek them out and break some pretty important bones. Please, can anyone help?

And now might be the time to renew the “Boulder Pledge.” It was formulated by Roger Ebert, way back in 1996, and goes as follows:

Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message.

I believe pop-ups (which probably didn’t even exist back then) qualify. I doubt any of you really need to take this pledge, but it can’t hurt to pass this message on to your friends and relatives who might be tempted by this sort of trash.

Here is an incomplete “list of shame” of the companies whose pop-ups I have identified. If any of you know anything about denial of service attacks … well, I might be interested.

Mailpepper

ShermansTravel.com

Travian.us

May these companies all go bankrupt, and their executives be tossed out naked and friendless into the winter streets.