Abuse of XML checker

[Richard Tobin]

This is somewhat off-topic, but I know some other people on this list
have similar services that may be being abused.

I noticed in the logs for my XML checker numerous, regular, entries
like this:

tide74.microsoft.com - - [24/Aug/1999:10:17:46 +0100] "GET /%7Erichard/xml-
check.cgi?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.clicktrade.com%2Ftracker%2Ftracker.dll%3F
to%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.callback4u.com%2F%27%26ad%3D73100.0%26lp%3D221944
HTTP/1.0" 200 417

What seems to be happening is that someone is using the checker to
fetch advertising pages which they presumably get paid for accesses to.

I've mailed abuse at microsoft.com and abuse at clicktrade.com, but have had
only pro forma replies from Microsoft and nothing from Clicktrade.

I'll be adding some filtering to my cgi script; other people with
web pages that fetch arbitrary URLs may want to do the same.

-- Richard

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