VoIP Blogger Steals TMC Articles
Normally, I wouldn't spend my time complaining about someone plagiarizing my blog or any of TMC's other blogs. I've written about sploggers in the past, that take word-for-word the exact copy of your blog posts. But, I figured if I just ignore them, they'll go away or be a nuisance at worst. Wishful thinking, I know - but what can you do? But this is something different...
Today, I learned about a particular splogger (solokay @ Solomon's VoIP World) that didn't copy one of TMC's blog articles word-for-word. He instead took the entire article, reworded the article slightly - sometimes using synonyms and then posted the article as his own. In this particular case, he stole Rich Tehrani's post about SprintSecure. This isn't your every-day splogger or even legitimate online news aggregator. Sometime sploggers will at least give credit to the original source and include a link to the original site. This guy is CLAIMING the work to be his own and obviously with no link to the source (Rich).
The really funny part is how his post follows the EXACT same order as the original. So you can compare paragraph 1 against paragraph 1 and see that they follow the exact same thought process with nearly identical word choices. Here, let me show you. I'll even color code the parts that are identical or nearly identical. (I won't do them all since you'll go blind with all the colored text)
Also, apparently they both had meetings with Alcatel-Lucent. Wow, what a coincidence. I can certainly see TMC's bloggers and journalists meeting with Alcatel-Lucent - they've been to our offices and we've been to theirs. Solomon VoIP World an online VoIP blogger? Not so much...
Rich: (article link - blog.tmcnet.com/blog/rich-tehrani/security/sprintsecure-laptop-guardian.html)
In a recent meeting with executives from Alcatel-Lucent and Sprint, I was shown a technology developed by the former and sold by the latter which makes laptops more secure in a number of ways. Scammer: (article link - http://solokay.blogspot.com/2007/11/sprintsecure-laptop-security.html)
Not too long ago, I had a meeting with some executives from Alcatel-Lucent and Sprint. During the course of the meeting, they showed me a technology that makes laptops more secure in so many ways. Rich:
In brief, the companies have developed a broadband wireless data card named the SprintSecure Laptop Guardian which contains a battery, computer, GPS transceiver, VPN, firewall, and more. This card connects with a management console which is housed in the enterprise. I love how he replaced "In brief" with "To cut the whole story short, what am trying to say", when Rich's original short 2 words would have sufficed!
Scammer:
To cut the whole story short, what am trying to say is that the two companies have developed a broadband wireless data card. It is called the SprintSecure Laptop Guardian. It contains a battery, computer, GPS transceiver, VPN, firewall and even much more. The card is connected to a management console housed in the enterprise.
ok, enough color coding.. See the similarities for yourself... Rich:
Once the card and accompanying software are installed on the laptop, all IP traffic is hijacked and all traffic is subsequently routed to the enterprise VPN. This by the way means all IP traffic whether it is wireless LAN or Ethernet traffic. As you might have guessed, remove the card and the laptop fails to function. Scammer:
The moment the card and its software are installed on the laptop, all IP traffic i.e. wireless LAN or Ethernet traffic is hijacked. It is later routed to the enterprise VPN. Once you put away the card, the laptop will stop functioning. Rich:
So now let’s say the laptop is stolen or lost. All you do is call your network admin and tell them. At this point the admin goes to the console and puts in the password and selects the laptop in question. The location of the laptop is then shown on a map using GPS or AFLT (Advanced Forward Link Trilateration which is triangulation based on cell phone towers). Scammer:
This means that if your laptop is ever lost or stolen, you can call your network admin and tell them about it. All the network admin needs to do is to go to the console, which is housed in the enterprise and then type in the password to choose the required laptop. A map will now show you the location of the laptop with the help of GPS or AFLT (Advanced Forward Link Trilateration i.e. triangulation based on cell phone towers). You don't need to worry about security because the admin console is logged to reduce unauthorised use. Rich:
Your next question is whether the card works when it is not in the laptop. The answer is absolutely. The battery in the card is about the same size as what you might find in smart phone and subsequently powers the card for about 100 hours. Scammer:
Does the card work when it is not in the laptop? Off course, it does. The card also has a battery which is almost the same size as the one you might see in a smart phone. It can actually power the card for roughly 100 hours. Rich:
Patch management. If your company took weeks or months to roll out patches to your employees, imagine you can now have the patches download overnight and be installed when the laptop turns on. How you may ask? Well simple – the card has a great deal of memory on it and is expandable meaning it helps make the job up upgrading laptops much easier. Scammer:
Another solution with this technology is in Patch management. If initially it took a company weeks or even months to roll out patches to its employees, downloading it now can be done immediately and even installed once the laptop is powered on. It works this way, since the card has a lot of memory on it and is expandable; it makes the job of upgrading laptops much easier. Rich:
The card can even do backups through a relationship with EMC. As you might imagine if the card can backup it can also restore making it that much more useful. This also means the card can facilitate a backup just before it wipes the data clean so nothing is lost. Scammer:
You can even use the card to do backups through a relationship with EMC. With this feature i.e. as a backup, it means it can also be used for restoration, which makes it much more useful. With the backup feature, the card can facilitate a backup just before it wipes the data clean so that nothing will be lost. Rich: This is the funniest part - even Rich's glowing remarks summarizing his opinion was copied...
My feeling on the solution? It is fantastic. It is a tremendous differentiator for Sprint and Alcatel-Lucent has done a marvelous job of making a wireless solution that is much more useful than the competition. One day soon other service providers will have this sort of capability as well but until then you will need to purchase Sprint’s wireless data service to get access to what I consider to be perhaps the world’s best integrated wireless/security solution for laptops. Scammer:
You want to know what I think about this new discovery, it is wonderful. It is indeed a tremendous differentiator for Sprint. Alcatel-Lucent has also done a wonderful job of making a wireless solution which is more useful than the competition. I know that a time is coming when other service providers will be able to do the same thing too. But before this happens you have to get Sprint's wireless data service. This is so you can use what I believe is almost the world's best integrated wireless or security solution for laptops. [end comparison] Ok, so maybe solokay got a little carried away copying TMC's article -- even if it was a half-assed attempt at hiding the fact he was stealing the content. Surely, we can forgive him right? After all, it wasn't my hard work - it was my boss's. Oh wait, upon further review the SOB also stole some of my articles! Check out this comparison - nearly identical titles to start with:
My article: uPhoneBlog enables Email to Blog Posts
Scammer: Email to Blog Posts enabled, thanks to uPhoneBlog
(link is here: http://solokay.blogspot.com/2007/10/email-to-blog-posts-enabled-thanks-t...) Me:
uPhoneBlog (www.uphoneblog.com) is a free project that allow users send photos and videos from their mobile phones to any blog or website in real time. It works with all cell phones and providers simply by using MMS (multimedia message service) to email a uPhoneBlog email account. Apparently you can even submit stories to Digg using email. Works on many websites and blogs including MySpace, Blogger, Xanga, Twitter, Piczo, DiggDel.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Y!MyWeb, Simpy, Google. Scammer:
At last, a free project that will enable people send photos and videos from their cell phones to any blog or website in real time has been launched. The name of this project is uPhoneBlog. You can easily check it under the website www.uphoneblog.com
Service Providers and cell phones can easily use this service. All that is required is just to use MMS that is, multimedia message service, to email an uPhoneBlog email account. From all indications, one can also submit stories to Digg through email. It is applicable to many websites and blogs such as, MySpace, Blogger, Xanga, Twitter, Piczo, DiggDel.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Y!MyWeb, Simpy and Google. Me:
It appears this service hosts the multimedia content themselves and then provides an easy method of authenticating onto your own blog to create a new post containing the HTML code to point to this newly uploaded content. They appear to be using the Gigya widgets for performing this authentication task. Scammer:
From what I can see, it looks like uPhoneBlog hosts the multimedia content themselves and then provides an easy method one can use to authenticate into one's blog so as to create a new post that contains the HTML code. This code can now point to the newly uploaded content. It also looks like they use Gigya widgets for carrying out the authentication task. Now it gets hilarious. I almost fell off my chair when I read this part of his post. Apparently both the scammer and I had a Vulcan mind-meld and developed the identical Perl script for posting blogs via email. Gee, that's funny, I didn't think his hoster (blogspot.com) lets you run Perl scripts.
Not to mention BlogSpot isn't a MovableType blogging platform! Bastard even made my same YouTube analogy. 
Me:
I still like my Perl script that I developed that allows me to have email-to-blog functionality on my Movable Type blog. It leverages XMLRPC to post the article content and the script can even upload email attachments (videos, pictures, etc.) directly to my own web server so I host all of my own content. uPhoneBlog seems like a YouTube clone but with some easy email-to-blog posting capabilities. I don't see why YouTube couldn't easily add this functionality themselves, which would make uPhoneBlog redundant. But if you can't wait, uPhoneBlog offers you that functionality today. Scammer:
With all the features in uPhoneBlog, I still prefer the Perl script, I developed. This one allows me to have email-to-blog functionality on my Movable Type blog. It can influence XMLRPC to post the article content. With it, the script can also email attachments like videos, pictures and so on, straight to my web server so I can host all of my own personal content.
uPhoneBlog looks almost like a YouTube clone but with a little easy email-to-blog posting capabilities. Why YouTube doesn't want to add the functions in their own service is what I don't understand. Adding it will actually make uPhoneBlog unnecessary. Anyway, you don't have to wait for them anymore because uPhoneBlog now gives you all that you need. [end comparison] I also had a scoop about AOL Call Out before its official launch, and yep, you guess it, that was copied too - only slightly reworded. I have a few other examples of him copying TMC blog posts, but I think I made my point. Solomon's VoIP World certainly seem to make itself out to be a legitimate VoIP blogger. He's even included in an email discussions between heavy-weight VoIP bloggers that include myself, Om Malik, Andy Abramson, Skype Journal, Mark Evan, Jon Arnold, and more. Looking at his site now there is content there that is mostly regurgitated press releases along with Adsense ads, Chitika ads, and buttload of other ads. I don't visit the site, so perhaps he does post an occasional good, insightful article. But you lose all credibility with me once you start trying to cheat other bloggers. Oh, I just remembered that solokay (real name Solomon Ige) emailed me last year and asked me for a link. Dear Tom,
I am a regular reader of your blog, other blogs in the TMC network and i am subscriber to Internet telephony maganize. I must say that you guys are doing a great job.Your blog is one of the best blogs on voip technology. I am a voip blogger myself and your blog was really an inspiration to me at the begining. Thanks for the great blog and keep up the good work. My name is solomon ige, i am presently studying towards my PhD in electrical engineering at university of siegen, germany. Somewhere along the line i fell in love with voip technology and i started to improve my knowlegde about this amazing technology. By june last year i started my blog solomon's voip world at www.solokay.blogspot.com . Despite the fact that my phd studies is really taking much of my time i still manage to find the time to blog about voip because of my interest in it. The blog has grown considerably now with links from jajah, skype blog, voip watch etc. I have a link to your blog on my blog (Left sidebar und blogroll and i would be grateful and honoured if you can reciprocate by linking to me too so that our readers can be exposed to more quality content. If you agree to link to me, you can use the details below: Ancor text: VoIP World
URL: http://www.solokay.blogspot.com He asked for a link and I was kind enough to give him one on my blogroll, which as you may notice has a Google Pagerank of 7. In fact, it's still there listed as "VoIP World". Way to stab your blogroll friends in the back! I will be removing the link soon! I really don't enjoy calling someone out. I honestly take no pleasure in it. But I have no patience for thieves or backstabbers. I'm not sure which is worse - your traditional splogger/scammer that steals your work verbatim or a blogger that tries to be 'credible' by slightly rewording existing content. What do you think?
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How bout a Feature-Rich Telephone System? TrackBack (0) | Comments (16) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: VoIP Blogger Steals TMC Articles Tags: blog, blogger, blogs, Solomon's VoIP World, splogs, voip
Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog Comments on this Entry: (cory on Nov 2, 2007 4:52 PM) That's too funny...we had a company overseas copy one of our sites in it's entirity, then just change the logo and the contact info.They even copied the executive bios, word for word, and just changed the headshots. I was actually quite tickled by it. (Rick on Nov 2, 2007 6:28 PM) Thanks, now I know where I can get the Reader's Digest version!:)) (solomon on Nov 2, 2007 9:27 PM) I got lots of e-mails and c phone calls from friends and blog readers after they read this article. First i must agreed that Tom Keating is really right to have reacted this way and i am deeply sorry for this mishap. I cant express in words how deeply sorry i am for this to have happen.Solomon's voip world is a legitimate voip blog that i started more than 2 years ago and it has some really good content personally writen by me but towards the end of last year i became really busy and have little time to devote to the blog so i decided to get helping hand, i employed a part-time writer with background in telecoms and good voip knowlegde to assist in writting of articles and moderating the blog and he did a very good job in keeping the blog going. Based on this experience i decide to get two more people to work with him on part-time basis to write articles for the blog. I thought this arrangement was working fine until now. I still write occasionally for my blog but i have not been reading much of other blogs like i used to do so i did not know what was going on. my staff has been reaping off articles from TMC and rewrite them for my blog, thereby discrediting all the hard work i have done in the past. Readers of my blog will attest to the fact that they have been getting good quality content from my blog since inception and never have i had this kind of aligation leveled against me in the past. In fact their are lots of blog out there that have copied and are still copying my works word for word or with little modification and i just ignore them.I have started making the neccessary changes to correct the situation and it will never happen again. solomon's voip world has been and will continue to be a good source of voip information.Once again i sincerely and personally apologise for this shameful behaivor of my staff writers and i will do all within my powers to restore the integrity of blog that i build with deligence and hardwork over the years.Sincerely Solomon Ige (shari on Nov 2, 2007 11:05 PM) The way that I came across your blog is I had been on Vonage web-site checking everything out.As the saying goes if it looks to good to be true it usually is. Thank you for saving me from what sounds like a total mess.I knew something had to be wrong all of those features for 24.99.If you know of a very reasonably priced home phone service i would appreicate the info. Now what this guy is doing isn't any of that against the law? I think it's sad when you have to make it off of someone else's work. I say to you keep up the good work you 're helping people in ways you can't imagine. Thank you again.Even if this isn't posted I sure appreiate your help. (Vinay on Nov 3, 2007 11:49 AM) Tom,I am facing similar issues. This is just one example. If you want i can send a bunch of sites which are copying articles from your, mine (VOIP Guide) and Gigaom.Currently we 3 are really have the most feedburner readers + most of the traffic so its obvious that people want to copy us. What i find the most ridiculous is people copy and pretend that they wrote the whole article themselves. This is pure BS and can't be called as anything other than "Plagiarism". I have in past got rid of such MFA (Made for Adsense)/ Automated RSS sites which steal our articles by sending them across to google and google adsense. If you see someone stealng your stuff, I strongly advice you to send email with proof to Adsense and ask them to ban his account. When there is money, there won't be any plagiarism. Its like "If the buyin stopsm killing too" :-) (Michael Davis on Nov 3, 2007 12:44 PM) There are legal options but not sure if you really want to go for it.I had similar situation with my open source code 3 years ago, I spent several weeks to wrote and test the code, and mr. thief did the copy-paste and put his name on top.At first I was shocked, but then I decided to talk to the guy. Well, it turns to be a reasonable person. Maybe just a good luck. (Ravenii on Nov 3, 2007 3:46 PM) Hello Tom,Hope he learns and mend his ways (Stephanie on Nov 3, 2007 10:23 PM) This is familiar. I wrote an article on VoiP for Ezine articles - http://ezinearticles.com/?The-VoIP-Revolution-and-How-to-Get-it-For-Free... and soon found a blogger took it and replaced certain words - but it's obviously my article. Frustrating but nothing I can do. Here it is.http://aaumkatie.blogspot.com/2007/09/voip-revolution-and-how-to-get-it-for.htmlWish we had some recourse. (harry on Nov 4, 2007 9:11 AM) if solomon is so sorry, why is the article still there? (Joseph on Nov 4, 2007 8:44 PM) Not to bust the bubble here, but Rich Tehrani (the President of TMC and one of the bloggers who is supposedly being plagiarized) RECOMMENDED Solomon's VoIP Blog and indicated he added him to his blogroll and RSS reader.See:Solomon's VoIP World (luca on Nov 5, 2007 4:21 AM) Tom, I pointed out something similar about a blogger stealing the content of VoIP Lowdown a few months ago. I hate this kind of behavior and I would ban whatever website that is stealing content, sending an email to Adsense and Feeburner as well. Feedburner usually deletes accounts of bloggers who steal content from other blogs. (Tom Keating on Nov 5, 2007 9:30 AM) >>Not to bust the bubble here, but Rich Tehrani (the President of TMC and one of the bloggers who is supposedly being plagiarized) RECOMMENDED Solomon's VoIP Blog and indicated he added him to his blogroll and RSS reader.I'm not sure I see your point. How could Rich know Solomon would copy his posts and TMC's other blogs in the future?Vonay: "If you want i can send a bunch of sites which are copying articles from your, mine (VOIP Guide) and Gigaom."Yeah sure, email them to me or use my Contact form above. I know of a couple but maybe you've seen a few others.Google and the other search engines are usually pretty good at detecting duplicate content and letting the page with the higher PR appear in the search results - and often applying a penalty to the duped content. That's why I don't get upset any more when sploggers copy my content.However, when a seemingly legitimate site copies my content I get a little peeved. Now I will say that often times the blogosphere is an echo chamber, we often get the same news releases, and often write similar stories. But the examples I listed were exclusive articles or very unique in their nature. Someone could have went to Solomon's blog first, then read my article and thought I copied him. Same with Rich. That could have affected someone's impression of TMC's credibility.I commend Solomon for explaining himself. He may have indeed hired a writer that did the plagiarism. I also see he removed at least the two articles I mentioned. I'll check later to see if some other similar articles are still there.I planned on removing Solomon from my blogroll this weekend, but I was too busy. But now my compassionate side is saying to give him a 2nd chance. I think 'calling him out' was enough punishment. Or am I just being too nice? What do you all think? (Hermann on Nov 5, 2007 9:49 AM) You are being so nice. Remove his blog from your blogroll. (solomon on Nov 5, 2007 10:00 AM) I have learnt my lessons now and i took full responsibility for the entire mess because its my blog and the articles appear on my name, which was actually a big mistake. The writer that did this has been fired and i am still doing some house cleaning too. From now on the names of all contributors to my blog will appear on the blog and all articles written by them will appear on their names and not mine, so in this way i and the whole world will know who does what. I want to thank Tom for given me a second chance and i assure him that i will not disadpoint him.Once again i sincerely apologise for this and i will be more careful next time. Lot of other bloggers that knows me know that i ran a legitimate blog and not spam. I earn money from adsense an other ads to keep the blog going and its never the sole purpose of the blog. But as the blog grows so does the work and if that is not your full time job, then you need to get help and things can get messy if you are not checking them out regularly and it sure did in my case.Solomon (Owen Linderholm on Nov 5, 2007 2:18 PM) Tom - I truly sympathize - we had a similar event with a scammer about a year ago - it was a site actually billing itself as a news site and then taking our stories, changing about 3% of them and running them under someone else's byline. If you haven't already email the blogspot people with a complaint under DMCA and they will close him down - doesn't stop him springing up again under a new name but.... (Astawerks on Nov 8, 2007 9:00 AM) I currently have someone on my blog's doing this to be right now. But it is different. This guy is leaving comments in my post and those comments point to his blog address. I visited the blog and saw my post on his blog!. But it points back to my blog. Its strange!
In a recent meeting with executives from Alcatel-Lucent and Sprint, I was shown a technology developed by the former and sold by the latter which makes laptops more secure in a number of ways. Scammer: (article link - http://solokay.blogspot.com/2007/11/sprintsecure-laptop-security.html)
Not too long ago, I had a meeting with some executives from Alcatel-Lucent and Sprint. During the course of the meeting, they showed me a technology that makes laptops more secure in so many ways. Rich:
In brief, the companies have developed a broadband wireless data card named the SprintSecure Laptop Guardian which contains a battery, computer, GPS transceiver, VPN, firewall, and more. This card connects with a management console which is housed in the enterprise. I love how he replaced "In brief" with "To cut the whole story short, what am trying to say", when Rich's original short 2 words would have sufficed!
Scammer:
To cut the whole story short, what am trying to say is that the two companies have developed a broadband wireless data card. It is called the SprintSecure Laptop Guardian. It contains a battery, computer, GPS transceiver, VPN, firewall and even much more. The card is connected to a management console housed in the enterprise.
ok, enough color coding.. See the similarities for yourself... Rich:
Once the card and accompanying software are installed on the laptop, all IP traffic is hijacked and all traffic is subsequently routed to the enterprise VPN. This by the way means all IP traffic whether it is wireless LAN or Ethernet traffic. As you might have guessed, remove the card and the laptop fails to function. Scammer:
The moment the card and its software are installed on the laptop, all IP traffic i.e. wireless LAN or Ethernet traffic is hijacked. It is later routed to the enterprise VPN. Once you put away the card, the laptop will stop functioning. Rich:
So now let’s say the laptop is stolen or lost. All you do is call your network admin and tell them. At this point the admin goes to the console and puts in the password and selects the laptop in question. The location of the laptop is then shown on a map using GPS or AFLT (Advanced Forward Link Trilateration which is triangulation based on cell phone towers). Scammer:
This means that if your laptop is ever lost or stolen, you can call your network admin and tell them about it. All the network admin needs to do is to go to the console, which is housed in the enterprise and then type in the password to choose the required laptop. A map will now show you the location of the laptop with the help of GPS or AFLT (Advanced Forward Link Trilateration i.e. triangulation based on cell phone towers). You don't need to worry about security because the admin console is logged to reduce unauthorised use. Rich:
Your next question is whether the card works when it is not in the laptop. The answer is absolutely. The battery in the card is about the same size as what you might find in smart phone and subsequently powers the card for about 100 hours. Scammer:
Does the card work when it is not in the laptop? Off course, it does. The card also has a battery which is almost the same size as the one you might see in a smart phone. It can actually power the card for roughly 100 hours. Rich:
Patch management. If your company took weeks or months to roll out patches to your employees, imagine you can now have the patches download overnight and be installed when the laptop turns on. How you may ask? Well simple – the card has a great deal of memory on it and is expandable meaning it helps make the job up upgrading laptops much easier. Scammer:
Another solution with this technology is in Patch management. If initially it took a company weeks or even months to roll out patches to its employees, downloading it now can be done immediately and even installed once the laptop is powered on. It works this way, since the card has a lot of memory on it and is expandable; it makes the job of upgrading laptops much easier. Rich:
The card can even do backups through a relationship with EMC. As you might imagine if the card can backup it can also restore making it that much more useful. This also means the card can facilitate a backup just before it wipes the data clean so nothing is lost. Scammer:
You can even use the card to do backups through a relationship with EMC. With this feature i.e. as a backup, it means it can also be used for restoration, which makes it much more useful. With the backup feature, the card can facilitate a backup just before it wipes the data clean so that nothing will be lost. Rich: This is the funniest part - even Rich's glowing remarks summarizing his opinion was copied...
My feeling on the solution? It is fantastic. It is a tremendous differentiator for Sprint and Alcatel-Lucent has done a marvelous job of making a wireless solution that is much more useful than the competition. One day soon other service providers will have this sort of capability as well but until then you will need to purchase Sprint’s wireless data service to get access to what I consider to be perhaps the world’s best integrated wireless/security solution for laptops. Scammer:
You want to know what I think about this new discovery, it is wonderful. It is indeed a tremendous differentiator for Sprint. Alcatel-Lucent has also done a wonderful job of making a wireless solution which is more useful than the competition. I know that a time is coming when other service providers will be able to do the same thing too. But before this happens you have to get Sprint's wireless data service. This is so you can use what I believe is almost the world's best integrated wireless or security solution for laptops. [end comparison] Ok, so maybe solokay got a little carried away copying TMC's article -- even if it was a half-assed attempt at hiding the fact he was stealing the content. Surely, we can forgive him right? After all, it wasn't my hard work - it was my boss's. Oh wait, upon further review the SOB also stole some of my articles! Check out this comparison - nearly identical titles to start with:
My article: uPhoneBlog enables Email to Blog Posts
Scammer: Email to Blog Posts enabled, thanks to uPhoneBlog
(link is here: http://solokay.blogspot.com/2007/10/email-to-blog-posts-enabled-thanks-t...) Me:
uPhoneBlog (www.uphoneblog.com) is a free project that allow users send photos and videos from their mobile phones to any blog or website in real time. It works with all cell phones and providers simply by using MMS (multimedia message service) to email a uPhoneBlog email account. Apparently you can even submit stories to Digg using email. Works on many websites and blogs including MySpace, Blogger, Xanga, Twitter, Piczo, DiggDel.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Y!MyWeb, Simpy, Google. Scammer:
At last, a free project that will enable people send photos and videos from their cell phones to any blog or website in real time has been launched. The name of this project is uPhoneBlog. You can easily check it under the website www.uphoneblog.com
Service Providers and cell phones can easily use this service. All that is required is just to use MMS that is, multimedia message service, to email an uPhoneBlog email account. From all indications, one can also submit stories to Digg through email. It is applicable to many websites and blogs such as, MySpace, Blogger, Xanga, Twitter, Piczo, DiggDel.icio.us, Blinklist, Furl, Y!MyWeb, Simpy and Google. Me:
It appears this service hosts the multimedia content themselves and then provides an easy method of authenticating onto your own blog to create a new post containing the HTML code to point to this newly uploaded content. They appear to be using the Gigya widgets for performing this authentication task. Scammer:
From what I can see, it looks like uPhoneBlog hosts the multimedia content themselves and then provides an easy method one can use to authenticate into one's blog so as to create a new post that contains the HTML code. This code can now point to the newly uploaded content. It also looks like they use Gigya widgets for carrying out the authentication task. Now it gets hilarious. I almost fell off my chair when I read this part of his post. Apparently both the scammer and I had a Vulcan mind-meld and developed the identical Perl script for posting blogs via email. Gee, that's funny, I didn't think his hoster (blogspot.com) lets you run Perl scripts.
Not to mention BlogSpot isn't a MovableType blogging platform! Bastard even made my same YouTube analogy.
Me: I still like my Perl script that I developed that allows me to have email-to-blog functionality on my Movable Type blog. It leverages XMLRPC to post the article content and the script can even upload email attachments (videos, pictures, etc.) directly to my own web server so I host all of my own content. uPhoneBlog seems like a YouTube clone but with some easy email-to-blog posting capabilities. I don't see why YouTube couldn't easily add this functionality themselves, which would make uPhoneBlog redundant. But if you can't wait, uPhoneBlog offers you that functionality today. Scammer:
With all the features in uPhoneBlog, I still prefer the Perl script, I developed. This one allows me to have email-to-blog functionality on my Movable Type blog. It can influence XMLRPC to post the article content. With it, the script can also email attachments like videos, pictures and so on, straight to my web server so I can host all of my own personal content.
uPhoneBlog looks almost like a YouTube clone but with a little easy email-to-blog posting capabilities. Why YouTube doesn't want to add the functions in their own service is what I don't understand. Adding it will actually make uPhoneBlog unnecessary. Anyway, you don't have to wait for them anymore because uPhoneBlog now gives you all that you need. [end comparison] I also had a scoop about AOL Call Out before its official launch, and yep, you guess it, that was copied too - only slightly reworded. I have a few other examples of him copying TMC blog posts, but I think I made my point. Solomon's VoIP World certainly seem to make itself out to be a legitimate VoIP blogger. He's even included in an email discussions between heavy-weight VoIP bloggers that include myself, Om Malik, Andy Abramson, Skype Journal, Mark Evan, Jon Arnold, and more. Looking at his site now there is content there that is mostly regurgitated press releases along with Adsense ads, Chitika ads, and buttload of other ads. I don't visit the site, so perhaps he does post an occasional good, insightful article. But you lose all credibility with me once you start trying to cheat other bloggers. Oh, I just remembered that solokay (real name Solomon Ige) emailed me last year and asked me for a link. Dear Tom,
I am a regular reader of your blog, other blogs in the TMC network and i am subscriber to Internet telephony maganize. I must say that you guys are doing a great job.Your blog is one of the best blogs on voip technology. I am a voip blogger myself and your blog was really an inspiration to me at the begining. Thanks for the great blog and keep up the good work. My name is solomon ige, i am presently studying towards my PhD in electrical engineering at university of siegen, germany. Somewhere along the line i fell in love with voip technology and i started to improve my knowlegde about this amazing technology. By june last year i started my blog solomon's voip world at www.solokay.blogspot.com . Despite the fact that my phd studies is really taking much of my time i still manage to find the time to blog about voip because of my interest in it. The blog has grown considerably now with links from jajah, skype blog, voip watch etc. I have a link to your blog on my blog (Left sidebar und blogroll and i would be grateful and honoured if you can reciprocate by linking to me too so that our readers can be exposed to more quality content. If you agree to link to me, you can use the details below: Ancor text: VoIP World
URL: http://www.solokay.blogspot.com He asked for a link and I was kind enough to give him one on my blogroll, which as you may notice has a Google Pagerank of 7. In fact, it's still there listed as "VoIP World". Way to stab your blogroll friends in the back! I will be removing the link soon! I really don't enjoy calling someone out. I honestly take no pleasure in it. But I have no patience for thieves or backstabbers. I'm not sure which is worse - your traditional splogger/scammer that steals your work verbatim or a blogger that tries to be 'credible' by slightly rewording existing content. What do you think?
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How bout a Feature-Rich Telephone System? TrackBack (0) | Comments (16) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: VoIP Blogger Steals TMC Articles Tags: blog, blogger, blogs, Solomon's VoIP World, splogs, voip
Copyright VoIP & Gadgets Blog Comments on this Entry: (cory on Nov 2, 2007 4:52 PM) That's too funny...we had a company overseas copy one of our sites in it's entirity, then just change the logo and the contact info.They even copied the executive bios, word for word, and just changed the headshots. I was actually quite tickled by it. (Rick on Nov 2, 2007 6:28 PM) Thanks, now I know where I can get the Reader's Digest version!:)) (solomon on Nov 2, 2007 9:27 PM) I got lots of e-mails and c phone calls from friends and blog readers after they read this article. First i must agreed that Tom Keating is really right to have reacted this way and i am deeply sorry for this mishap. I cant express in words how deeply sorry i am for this to have happen.Solomon's voip world is a legitimate voip blog that i started more than 2 years ago and it has some really good content personally writen by me but towards the end of last year i became really busy and have little time to devote to the blog so i decided to get helping hand, i employed a part-time writer with background in telecoms and good voip knowlegde to assist in writting of articles and moderating the blog and he did a very good job in keeping the blog going. Based on this experience i decide to get two more people to work with him on part-time basis to write articles for the blog. I thought this arrangement was working fine until now. I still write occasionally for my blog but i have not been reading much of other blogs like i used to do so i did not know what was going on. my staff has been reaping off articles from TMC and rewrite them for my blog, thereby discrediting all the hard work i have done in the past. Readers of my blog will attest to the fact that they have been getting good quality content from my blog since inception and never have i had this kind of aligation leveled against me in the past. In fact their are lots of blog out there that have copied and are still copying my works word for word or with little modification and i just ignore them.I have started making the neccessary changes to correct the situation and it will never happen again. solomon's voip world has been and will continue to be a good source of voip information.Once again i sincerely and personally apologise for this shameful behaivor of my staff writers and i will do all within my powers to restore the integrity of blog that i build with deligence and hardwork over the years.Sincerely Solomon Ige (shari on Nov 2, 2007 11:05 PM) The way that I came across your blog is I had been on Vonage web-site checking everything out.As the saying goes if it looks to good to be true it usually is. Thank you for saving me from what sounds like a total mess.I knew something had to be wrong all of those features for 24.99.If you know of a very reasonably priced home phone service i would appreicate the info. Now what this guy is doing isn't any of that against the law? I think it's sad when you have to make it off of someone else's work. I say to you keep up the good work you 're helping people in ways you can't imagine. Thank you again.Even if this isn't posted I sure appreiate your help. (Vinay on Nov 3, 2007 11:49 AM) Tom,I am facing similar issues. This is just one example. If you want i can send a bunch of sites which are copying articles from your, mine (VOIP Guide) and Gigaom.Currently we 3 are really have the most feedburner readers + most of the traffic so its obvious that people want to copy us. What i find the most ridiculous is people copy and pretend that they wrote the whole article themselves. This is pure BS and can't be called as anything other than "Plagiarism". I have in past got rid of such MFA (Made for Adsense)/ Automated RSS sites which steal our articles by sending them across to google and google adsense. If you see someone stealng your stuff, I strongly advice you to send email with proof to Adsense and ask them to ban his account. When there is money, there won't be any plagiarism. Its like "If the buyin stopsm killing too" :-) (Michael Davis on Nov 3, 2007 12:44 PM) There are legal options but not sure if you really want to go for it.I had similar situation with my open source code 3 years ago, I spent several weeks to wrote and test the code, and mr. thief did the copy-paste and put his name on top.At first I was shocked, but then I decided to talk to the guy. Well, it turns to be a reasonable person. Maybe just a good luck. (Ravenii on Nov 3, 2007 3:46 PM) Hello Tom,Hope he learns and mend his ways (Stephanie on Nov 3, 2007 10:23 PM) This is familiar. I wrote an article on VoiP for Ezine articles - http://ezinearticles.com/?The-VoIP-Revolution-and-How-to-Get-it-For-Free... and soon found a blogger took it and replaced certain words - but it's obviously my article. Frustrating but nothing I can do. Here it is.http://aaumkatie.blogspot.com/2007/09/voip-revolution-and-how-to-get-it-for.htmlWish we had some recourse. (harry on Nov 4, 2007 9:11 AM) if solomon is so sorry, why is the article still there? (Joseph on Nov 4, 2007 8:44 PM) Not to bust the bubble here, but Rich Tehrani (the President of TMC and one of the bloggers who is supposedly being plagiarized) RECOMMENDED Solomon's VoIP Blog and indicated he added him to his blogroll and RSS reader.See:Solomon's VoIP World (luca on Nov 5, 2007 4:21 AM) Tom, I pointed out something similar about a blogger stealing the content of VoIP Lowdown a few months ago. I hate this kind of behavior and I would ban whatever website that is stealing content, sending an email to Adsense and Feeburner as well. Feedburner usually deletes accounts of bloggers who steal content from other blogs. (Tom Keating on Nov 5, 2007 9:30 AM) >>Not to bust the bubble here, but Rich Tehrani (the President of TMC and one of the bloggers who is supposedly being plagiarized) RECOMMENDED Solomon's VoIP Blog and indicated he added him to his blogroll and RSS reader.I'm not sure I see your point. How could Rich know Solomon would copy his posts and TMC's other blogs in the future?Vonay: "If you want i can send a bunch of sites which are copying articles from your, mine (VOIP Guide) and Gigaom."Yeah sure, email them to me or use my Contact form above. I know of a couple but maybe you've seen a few others.Google and the other search engines are usually pretty good at detecting duplicate content and letting the page with the higher PR appear in the search results - and often applying a penalty to the duped content. That's why I don't get upset any more when sploggers copy my content.However, when a seemingly legitimate site copies my content I get a little peeved. Now I will say that often times the blogosphere is an echo chamber, we often get the same news releases, and often write similar stories. But the examples I listed were exclusive articles or very unique in their nature. Someone could have went to Solomon's blog first, then read my article and thought I copied him. Same with Rich. That could have affected someone's impression of TMC's credibility.I commend Solomon for explaining himself. He may have indeed hired a writer that did the plagiarism. I also see he removed at least the two articles I mentioned. I'll check later to see if some other similar articles are still there.I planned on removing Solomon from my blogroll this weekend, but I was too busy. But now my compassionate side is saying to give him a 2nd chance. I think 'calling him out' was enough punishment. Or am I just being too nice? What do you all think? (Hermann on Nov 5, 2007 9:49 AM) You are being so nice. Remove his blog from your blogroll. (solomon on Nov 5, 2007 10:00 AM) I have learnt my lessons now and i took full responsibility for the entire mess because its my blog and the articles appear on my name, which was actually a big mistake. The writer that did this has been fired and i am still doing some house cleaning too. From now on the names of all contributors to my blog will appear on the blog and all articles written by them will appear on their names and not mine, so in this way i and the whole world will know who does what. I want to thank Tom for given me a second chance and i assure him that i will not disadpoint him.Once again i sincerely apologise for this and i will be more careful next time. Lot of other bloggers that knows me know that i ran a legitimate blog and not spam. I earn money from adsense an other ads to keep the blog going and its never the sole purpose of the blog. But as the blog grows so does the work and if that is not your full time job, then you need to get help and things can get messy if you are not checking them out regularly and it sure did in my case.Solomon (Owen Linderholm on Nov 5, 2007 2:18 PM) Tom - I truly sympathize - we had a similar event with a scammer about a year ago - it was a site actually billing itself as a news site and then taking our stories, changing about 3% of them and running them under someone else's byline. If you haven't already email the blogspot people with a complaint under DMCA and they will close him down - doesn't stop him springing up again under a new name but.... (Astawerks on Nov 8, 2007 9:00 AM) I currently have someone on my blog's doing this to be right now. But it is different. This guy is leaving comments in my post and those comments point to his blog address. I visited the blog and saw my post on his blog!. But it points back to my blog. Its strange!
