Well, well, well…after a couple of weeks I finally got a response from the WordPress people on my question of why the blog community’s web server is being flagged as ”malicious” by my web browsers secure DNS feature. Someone who entitled herself as a “Happiness Engineer” provided me with the following clue:
“We personally do not experience any problem accessing wordpress.com using other browsers.”
Imagine contacting the police to report some criminal activity you’ve observed through your window at home and the officers only reply is: “Go look out another window.” Ms. Gabriel at WordPress.com did certainly not manage to make me any happier.
But I thought I should follow her advice.
So, I logged on with Firefox Aurora, (with the TOR proxy enabled).
After a few seconds the message you see here on the right side appeared.
In other words: WordPress.com pretends to give you a secure https connection to their servers, but in reality it is not.
So, let’s have a look at some details:
Please, have a closer look at the screenshot of the security warning in the previous post.
(Why I Have Stopped Blogging at WordPress.com).
If you click the picture, you will be redirected to this URL:
https://wordpress.com/#!/fresh/
Or:
https://wordpress.com/#1/fresh/
Or perhaps:
http://wordpress.com/#%21/fresh/
See anything suspicious?
Now, try to right-click on the same picture and select these options:
In Internet Explorer:”copy shortcut”.
And you might get this:
http://botd2.wordpress.com/botd.gif?blog=12309390&post=0&lang=en&date=1316770624&ip=80.202.234.182
The actual link for the picture is supposed to be:
https://twistedeconotwist.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/wp-screenshot.png?w=500&h=284
You can also try to use Firefox, right-click on “Copy Link Location”.
You may get something like this:
http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go&key=cdee124b11d6baacda6c3
e29b12e23dc&loc=http%3A%2F%2Ftwistedeconotwist.wordpress.com%2F&v=1&
libid=1317305383283&out=http%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.com%2F%23%2521%2Ffres
h%2F&ref=http%3A%2F%2Ftwistedeconotwist.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F09%2F
23%2Fwhy-i-have-stopped-blogging-at-wordpress-
com%2Fwpscreenshot%2F&title=EconoTwist’s%20%7C%20A%20Twisted%20Mind%
2C%20A%20Sharp%20Pen%2C%20A%20Helluva%20Story&txt=&jsonp=vglnk_jsonp
_13173055739756
PLEASE NOTE!
Before you try to click on any of the above links, I strongly recommend you read the rest of this post.
Today's Greeting from WordPress.com: Don't worry - browse happy!
Because I did another experiment – I traced the route my date use from my computers to the WordPress.com servers.
Here’s the long and winding road:
(First attempt)
Hopp IP Adresse Vertsnavn Responstid
==== ========== ========= ==========
1 Ikke svar fra verten
2 Ikke svar fra verten
3 Ikke svar fra verten
4 Ikke svar fra verten
5 Ikke svar fra verten
6 Ikke svar fra verten
7 213.155.131.88 kbn-bb2-link.telia.net 39 ms
8 80.91.249.29 nyk-bb2-link.telia.net 124 ms
9 213.155.131.243 chi-bb1-link.telia.net 138 ms
10 213.248.81.142 internap-ic-140145-chi-bb1.c.telia.net 139 ms
11 64.94.32.10 border5.po1-bbnet1.chg.pnap.net 148 ms
12 74.217.8.10 layeredtech-6.border5.chg.pnap.net 291 ms
13 74.200.241.190 139 ms
14 74.200.247.188 wordpress.com 149 ms
Tracking Completed
(Second attempt)
Hopp IP Adresse Vertsnavn Responstid
==== ========== ========= ==========
1 10.0.0.1 speedtouch.lan 55 ms
2 80.202.229.1 1.80-202-229.nextgentel.com 15 ms
3 217.13.0.37 217-13-0-37.dd.nextgentel.com 22 ms
4 84.48.3.25 25.84-48-3.nextgentel.com 23 ms
5 84.48.3.129 129.84-48-3.nextgentel.com 24 ms
6 213.248.104.117 22 ms
7 213.155.131.88 kbn-bb2-link.telia.net 34 ms
8 80.91.249.29 nyk-bb2-link.telia.net 129 ms
9 213.155.131.243 chi-bb1-link.telia.net 138 ms
10 213.248.81.142 internap-ic-140145-chi-bb1.c.telia.net 138 ms
11 64.94.32.10 border5.po1-bbnet1.chg.pnap.net 149 ms
12 74.217.8.10 layeredtech-6.border5.chg.pnap.net 140 ms
13 74.200.241.190 139 ms
14 74.200.247.188 wordpress.com 146 ms
Tracing Completed
Some of you may have stumbled over information like this.
That’s right: Most online communication to and from the USA is now monitored or filtered by the authorities.
Here’s some more from Wikipedia:
“With the advent of programs such as the Total Information Awareness program and ADVISE, technologies such as high speed surveillance computers and biometrics software, and laws such as the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, governments now possess an unprecedented ability to monitor the activities of their subjects.”
Since IP addresses can be falsified, altered or changed, I do not spend much time trying to trace them.
I just state that whatever you post on your WordPress blog is being re-routed through some filters at “God-knows-where” by “God-knows-who,” before it reaches the “secure” servers of WordPress.com.
This also seems to be related to a story about a serious security breach at WordPress.com/org, hitting the news earlier this year, described as a “root infection.”
By following some of the leads mentioned above, I also found some interesting information in a forum at www.virginmedia.com – one of UK’s largest internet service providers:
F001623175: Routing issues to certain websites
[ Edited ] on 03-06-2011 21:02 – last edited on 04-06-2011 23:53
Hi all,
“Edit 1: This issue should now been resolved for the majority of customers. Please can you retest and let us know if you are still experiencing issues.”
“Edit 2: If you are still experiencing issues with your service, please can you perform a trace route to bbc.co.uk. If you see “wake-” on any of hops on the trace route, we are aware of issues with traffic running via this UBR. This is raised under ticket reference number F001626122. Our engineers are working on the issue and the estimated fix date is currently 09/06/11. We are not expecting any further updates on this issue until Monday 06/06/11. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
“We are aware that some of our customers are experiencing issues accessing certain websites including but not limited to HSBC and BBC News. This has been raised to our network team under reference number F001623175. Our engineers are looking into the issue and hope to resolve the issue as soon as possible. As part of our investigation, our network team may require further information to identify the root cause of the problem.”
And this post also reveals that the problem of unauthorized access to servers is not limited to WordPress – not by a long shot…
“Some websites we know may be affected (please note we are not responsible for the content of these external sites):”
hsbc.co.uk
wordpress.com
wordpress.org
posterous.com
linkedin.com
bbc.co.uk
goldcar.es/en
natwest.com
barclays.co.uk
nationwide.co.uk
img.thesun.co.uk
Tubemogul
Santander
nvidia.co.uk
guardian.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
dailymail.co.uk
scienceblogs.com
virginmedia.com
names.co.uk
jjbsports.com
transfer.lotro.com
forums.lotro.com
deviantart.com/
photobucket.com
mountune.co.uk
forums.m3cutters.co.uk
www.ebuyer.com
drunkengoldfish.com
digitalspy.co.uk
eukhost.com
techdirt.com
hexus.net
forums.nvidia.com
speedtest.bbmax.co.uk
speedtest.net
addons.mozilla.org
That’s quite a prominent list….
Oh, and by the way – this is what happened when I first tried to upload this post:
Related by the EconoTwist’s:
- All Facebook Users Are Now Potential Terrorists
- Media Freedom Threatened In Most European Countries
- European criminals and politicians taking “libel tourism” trips to UK
- Estonia Put Pressure On Journalists
- E.U. Hunts For Journalist’s Sources
- Le Monde File Lawsuit Against President Sarkozy For Spying
- US Governor, Canadian Official, Sarah Palin; Call For Assassination Of Julian Assange
- Julian Assange’s Letter of Defence
- Anonymous Amateurs & Script Kiddies
- WikiLeaks: The Diversion of A Decade?
- WikiLeaks: The EU Files
- Norwegian MP Nominate Wikileaks for Nobel Peace Prize
- Blogger Censored By Google?
Other Related articles:
- US Fed Plans To Identify “Key Bloggers” And Monitor Billions Of Conversations – http://t.co/Hm5aPybl
- WordPress Essentials: Interacting With The WordPress Database – Smashing WordPress (seome.me)
- Can’t do everything at WordPress.com (xpjimt.wordpress.com)
Don’t be afraid to speak out! I think it’s important to get the word out in any way you can. Good work.
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“Slow and steady wins the race.” by Robert Lloyd.