{"id":1303,"date":"2008-08-09T13:48:53","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T12:48:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/"},"modified":"2008-08-09T13:48:53","modified_gmt":"2008-08-09T12:48:53","slug":"a-webmastery-interlude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/","title":{"rendered":"A webmastery interlude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.)<\/p>\n<p>I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but I had to take an hour or so off from that&nbsp;after having a quick look at the &ldquo;Out of Ambit&rdquo; log files on arising, and noticing that someone had been trying repeatedly to access pages on my site that didn&rsquo;t exist. The URLs they were trying to reach had all the telltale signs of attempted SQL injection attacks, which I hate as they mess up my tidy logs. So I spent a relatively pleasurable short time watching&nbsp;the Doctor Who episode &ldquo;The Girl in the Fireplace&rdquo; on UK Gold while getting things fixed. (There was a certain enjoyable&nbsp;resonance to watching the Doctor blowing up robots while I dealt with other people&rsquo;s bots to their detriment.)<\/p>\n<p>I am not going to reproduce the actual string in question, but info about it and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dshield.org\/diary.html?storyid=4844\">a detailed analysis of the string and the attack are here.<\/a> If you&rsquo;re a webmastery-type person, or you run a blog or website and are technically capable of dealing&nbsp;with problems of this kind, you should have a look at your logs and see if you&rsquo;ve been having this sort of attack.&nbsp;Then decide how you want to deal with it &mdash; redirects, blocking via your .htaccess file, whatever.&nbsp; (IP blocking is of no use because the attacks are coming from all over the place.)<\/p>\n<p>Since I didn&rsquo;t feel like spending all day futzing around with writing redirects,&nbsp;I downloaded a copy of the <a href=\"http:\/\/urbangiraffe.com\/plugins\/redirection\/\">Redirection plugin <\/a>for WordPress, activated it, and created a custom redirect to deal with this problem. Works fine. The naughty people (or the poor bot-infested machines that have been dragooned into this) who come to OOA and attempt to inject this string are now being sent to a place of appropriate punishment. <\/p>\n<p>That&rsquo;s all the techie bit for today. <\/p>\n<p>The only other thing of interest that&rsquo;s happened is that (after finding myself thinking how long I&rsquo;ve liked the Doctor, and liked him <em>a whole lot<\/em>) I got vaguely curious about the whereabouts of an article I wrote for a Balticon program book many years ago: a discussion of the uses of imagination (among other things). It was called &ldquo;Meetings on the Stair&rdquo;. I dug it out, updated and cleaned it up a little, and posted it so I can find it later if I want it for something: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/?q=Meetings-on-the-Stair-by-Diane-Duane\">it&rsquo;s here,<\/a> if anybody&rsquo;s interested. I suppose I&rsquo;ll also stick it up as a pre-dated blog posting, so it won&rsquo;t screw up the present blog entry&nbsp;sequence.<\/p>\n<p>Now then&hellip; back to that script. <\/p>\n<div class=\"bjtags\">Tags:  <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Balticon\">Balticon<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/injection\">injection<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Doctor+Who\">Doctor+Who<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Girl+in+the+Fireplace\">Girl+in+the+Fireplace<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/webmaster\">webmaster<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/redirection\">redirection<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/plugin\">plugin<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/WordPress\">WordPress<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/UK+Gold\">UK+Gold<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/bots\">bots<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/robots\">robots<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/program+book\">program+book<\/a>, <a rel=\"tag\" href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/tag\/Meetings+on+the+Stair\">Meetings+on+the+Stair<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.) I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,72,43,55,66,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conventions","category-film-and-tv","category-media","category-psychology-psychiatry","category-toys","category-writing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.) I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Out of Ambit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/OOA-2024-Default-Featured-Image-Take-1-1024x576.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"576\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Diane Duane\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dduane\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Diane Duane\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ff54e1fb35d68dee5a5bf83f6070e2d1\"},\"headline\":\"A webmastery interlude\",\"datePublished\":\"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":513,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Conventions\",\"Film and TV\",\"Media\",\"Psychology \\\/ psychiatry\",\"Toys\",\"Writing\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/\",\"name\":\"A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/2008\\\/08\\\/09\\\/a-webmastery-interlude\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/\",\"name\":\"Out of Ambit\",\"description\":\"Diane Duane's weblog\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8\",\"name\":\"Diane Duane\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg\",\"width\":400,\"height\":400,\"caption\":\"Diane Duane\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/04\\\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/dduane\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ff54e1fb35d68dee5a5bf83f6070e2d1\",\"name\":\"Diane Duane\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Diane Duane\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dianeduane.com\\\/outofambit\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit","og_description":"(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.) I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/","og_site_name":"Out of Ambit","article_published_time":"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":576,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/OOA-2024-Default-Featured-Image-Take-1-1024x576.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Diane Duane","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@dduane","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/"},"author":{"name":"Diane Duane","@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/ff54e1fb35d68dee5a5bf83f6070e2d1"},"headline":"A webmastery interlude","datePublished":"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/"},"wordCount":513,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8"},"articleSection":["Conventions","Film and TV","Media","Psychology \/ psychiatry","Toys","Writing"],"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/","url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/","name":"A webmastery interlude - Out of Ambit","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-08-09T12:48:53+00:00","inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/2008\/08\/09\/a-webmastery-interlude\/"]}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/","name":"Out of Ambit","description":"Diane Duane's weblog","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/c95a368813271f614d9104b74dfd83d8","name":"Diane Duane","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg","width":400,"height":400,"caption":"Diane Duane"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/DD_avatar_2016_bg.jpg"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/dduane"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/#\/schema\/person\/ff54e1fb35d68dee5a5bf83f6070e2d1","name":"Diane Duane","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d306027f6d44c1213f53b6912f027d6bde1b1c5c73748571ab976afc999e917e?s=96&d=mm&r=pg","caption":"Diane Duane"},"url":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianeduane.com\/outofambit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}