The Editor in Chief of News Growl, Patricia McConnell, was working on a story on a naughty Alaska House of Representatives member earlier this week when she made a very surprising discovery. The Alaska Legislature website had been hacked by Black Hat SEOs, populating the site with over a thousand redirect links to porn, gambling, and illegal diet websites.
No one will find the links by accident. No real people I mean. The links are just there for the benefit of search engines. The Alaska Legislature website, akleg.gov, would provide any SEO practitioner with a highly valuable link because of the .gov suffix. When a website has a link from a .gov website Google and Bing will often think it is a real authority on something. After all, a government body is citing it or directing traffic towards it. The fact that this had happened at all is a scandal. The fact that it likely happened months or even years ago is a bigger scandal. But the really huge scandal is I can't get any media to pay any attention to this. Other than News Growl, it has been covered by no one. And we've issued press releases, tweeted to journalists, and even emailed several Alaskan newspapers of record. No one cares. Here's the thing: the Alaska Legislature is helping these sites appear on Google more often than they should. And it does matter, not just because porn and gambling sites are not, well, you know, the best thing on the internet. It is the diet sites that bug me. At least one of them is promoting HGC diet injections, which are downright dangerous. Don't believe me? Read this, and then think if the Alaska Legislature and the Alaska media should be more concerned about what their negligence is helping to spread on the internet. "HCG is used mainly to treat fertility issues. HCG is not approved for over-the-counter use, nor has it been proved to work for weight loss. Some over-the-counter HCG weight-loss products are labeled "homeopathic" — but the FDA says they're still not safe. Companies that sell over-the-counter HCG weight-loss products are breaking the law...Side effects have also been reported with the HCG diet and include fatigue, irritability, restlessness, depression, fluid buildup (edema), and swelling of the breasts in boys and men (gynecomastia). Another serious concern is the risk of blood clots forming and blocking blood vessels (thromboembolism)."(From the Mayo Clinic website)
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AuthorSteve has many disparate and unconnected interests. This, he thinks, entitles him to claim the label "Renaissance Man." Archives
March 2019
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