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openAwakening in conjunction with the University of East London is organizing a three-part event series on ‘The Tahrir Square Meme’ to be held at UEL's Dockland Campus.
Our first event is Rap and the Arab Spring.
The Long and the Quick of revolution Anthony Barnett
We live in revolutionary times... but what does this mean? Anthony Barnett
The precariat: why it needs deliberative democracy Guy Standing
The Long Revolution Raymond Williams
Jim Gabour Sunday Comics
James Warner Standing Perpendicular, as books do
Markha Valenta Inter Alia: religion, politics, culture
Paul Rogers on Global security
Li Datong on China from the inside
Mary Kaldor on Human security
Daniele Archibugi on Cosmopolitan democracy
I am getting another sort of popup continually (only when I am on oD). A warning that my computer is trying to download. Author is MS (says the warning), site sounds fishy.
That's very strange - can you send me a screenshot? My address is thomas dot ash @ od
Also, if anyone has a similar problem can they let me know, with as many details as possible. Thanks.
I already posted about this in your other thread about the new forum. Details over there.
Tom,
Unable to send a link to the report. Microsoft is reporting the following alert.
Thanks Mike, let us know if you have any better luck.
We have now done a thorough check and found that the only problem was one that we resolved yesterday - now we just have to wait for Google to clear us (it'll take its own sweet time I'm afraid - a reader suggested to me that the whole thing was just a marketing exercise for Chrome).
We now have a full report on the problem we had, along with advice to readers at http://www.opendemocracy.net/info/information-about-security-warnings-on-opendemocracys-site-17-december-2009 . But do provide any more comments or reports in this thread...
My website is " First Fleet On. Williams/Nash Pioneers Australia."Several days ago I was shocked to find the red warning that my website was not safe.
The reasons given was that it contains malware coming from opendemocracy.net. I went to opendemocracy.net and found (I think for the first time) a very informative website with the contents of which i am in complete general agreement. I was not aware there was any link to my blog either way.
I put on spybot and it came back clean. I changed Internet Explorer, putting on I.E.8 and in doing so it checked for malware....and it came up clean. I use mostly chrome and sometimes firefox. Firefox does not seem to give the warning but Chrome does.
I am very perturbed about the warning. Already my readership has plummeted to a trickling few. Is there anything you can do to alleviate the situation or give some advice? Your website still has the warning as has mine up to several minutes ago.
My belief is the warnings are from manipulated malware which is done to curb free speech as I have been particularly concerned about American politics and foreign wars.
Several weeks ago i became aware that there were some two or three websites with names almost the same as my site but with the additional "39" added in one case and another with my website name plus "america." These are porn sites and though I did not open them completely, they seemed to be kiddie porn.
I advised Google abuse and I have not yet checked today if those offending sites are still there.
Also some sites that mention my site incidentally giving a link, cause the information to arise that there is no such site as my site.
What can be done. I think there are a lot more sites prying into sensitive areas of government and "dirty tricks" that might be affected also. Thank you, Ric Williams.
I see that you have a marker on my comment not verified. Please go ahead and verify it then. Ric Williams.
Ryan, can you send a screenshot of the warning you get mentioning us to thomas dot ash @ [oD's domain]? Thanks; I've removed 'not verified' from non-registered users now that we are de-emphasising registration.
Tom,
Are you sure you want to remove "not verified" from non-registered users? Does that mean any Anonymous poster can post so without a Captcha? I hope not.
People should be encouraged to register their accounts. The "carrot" for registration should be not having to deal with Captcha. We've seen in the past that unfettered Anonymous posting is a magnet to SPAM bots. Do you want Open Democracy or Open Anarchy? :-)
I'm a little worried about that too Thomas. Especially as we no longer seem to be using the approval queue. I'm finding it quite tedious going through all posts to look for spam. It'll be even harder if it's less easy to spot the spamsters by their monikas.
I am pleased to report that the red warning popup has been removed from my site. I would welcome any opendemocracy.net readers to examine my site and give me some advice. I am doing everything on my own, and being 77 years old, I am getting pretty tired. Cedric Williams
First Fleet On. Williams/Nash Pioneers Australia.
There's a few controversial opinions which I wouldn't agree with (Have a look at our Americanization thread under Forums) there Ric but it's very nicely done. My only advice would be to keep it up.
There's no need to worry - non-registered users have no new permissions, and will still be subject to a CAPTCHA if it looks like there's a possibility their comments might be spam (there should never have been a CAPTCHA if this was clearly not the case, though I don't know how well the system has been working?). They just no longer have 'not verified' after their names, which some get confused/concerned by.
How do you think removing CAPTCHAs for all comments by registered users (even those which look to the system like they could be span) has been working?
It shouldn't be a problem Thomas, provided we have a manual mechanism for catching the stuff that the filter misses. That was the beauty of the approval queue. Non verifieds and recently registereds had their stuff checked and then published. The technology can do that for the bulk of the spam but it takes a human brain to recognise some of the cleverer stuff which often looks like genuine contribution until properly scrutinised.
Let me know if you find it too much and want to go back to captchas for contributions from registered users which the system thinks might be spam - or is this spam coming from non-registered users anyway? (You can tell these contributions from the 'not verified' still visible at /admin/content/comment - the closest thing there is for the old approval queue for non-registered users)
Thanks Thomas. I'll keep a note of which type they are.
Thomas, have you got my e-mail with the screenshot now? I sent it a 2nd time, and I have no idea what happened to the 1st e-mail, which you didn’t get.
Yes Momo, thanks - I got it the second time. That's the first such case we've seen, so it was clearly a good idea to be cautious... I do hope no one chose to download the trojan.
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