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Do You Know How To Block Elliot Back?

Posted in March 23rd, 2007

Or more specifically, his plugin. I’m sure Elliot’s a nice guy, but his autoblog plugin is a blog scrapers no.1 tool allowing them to steal every post you write. The only good thing about it, is that it links back to the source of the post, but I’d still like to stop it.

There’s a tool running a blog called copyright answers or something similar, stealing my posts at the moment which is quite ironic really, and I’m also being scraped on my other blog.

Anyone know how to block this plugin from stealing content? As it uses RSS probably not, but any hints on making it less useable for the thieves would be much appreciated.

14 users commented in " Do You Know How To Block Elliot Back? "

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Maki @ Dosh Dosh said,

in March 23rd, 2007 at 3:40 am

I think the Anti Leech plugin works.

You can grab their IP from the trackback and feed it to Anti Leech. It’ll help to block the feed from being stolen by the specific IP, me thinks.

RT Cunningham said,

in March 23rd, 2007 at 3:14 pm

Are you talking about the one that signs the post, “By Whoever and Software by Elliot Back”?

Good luck.

Crack said,

in March 23rd, 2007 at 6:57 pm

I think the anti leech will only work if you aren’t using FeedBurner. If you’re using FeedBurner, everyone can grab it. Your best bet is to find the culprit and report the theft to his/her host. For U.S. based hosts, they may shut down the page.

Chris Lodge said,

in March 24th, 2007 at 9:55 am

Thanks Maki, I’ll have a look.

That’s the one RT….

Cheers Anita, it’ll be a shame if it doesn’t work I have reported one to his Italian hosts, not heard anything back, but I’ve also reported him to Adsense so hopefully that account will get blocked

Rich Shea said,

in March 24th, 2007 at 11:00 am

I never realized that loss of control with FeedBurner until Crack mentioned it. Hopefully they are aware of it and are working on integrating some form of IP blocking.

Chris Lodge said,

in March 24th, 2007 at 11:05 am

Me either Rich, I think I’ll mail Feedburner and ask them if they can implement some form of IP blocking-it would put a stop to a lot of this.

Maki @ Dosh Dosh said,

in March 25th, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Hmm.. I’ve just got someone stealing my content yet again today: A great chance to test if Anti Leech works. Will update

The Curmudgeon said,

in March 25th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

Just left you a post on Thermal about how Elliot Back got one of those posts…

Chris Lodge said,

in March 26th, 2007 at 8:39 am

Cheers Maki, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Getting to be rather annoying isn’t it? I just hope Google’s duplicate filter is accurate when it comes to judging who’s copying who….

Thanks Curmudgeon, I shall have a read.

Sizlopedia » How To Track And Recover Copied Blog Content? said,

in March 27th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

[...] days ago I was reading this post from Blog-Op about a WordPress Auto BlogPlugin that steals your blog source I think I have been a victim of this plugin once too here on [...]

LcF said,

in April 18th, 2007 at 7:29 am

I want to block “Elliott Back” as well.

Elliott Back said,

in May 22nd, 2007 at 8:11 pm

When I realized that this being used extensively for scraping, I deco’d it. You can’t it anymore, and no should be using it anymore. If you want, you can block the magpie rss “MagpieRSS/0.72 (+http://magpierss.sf.net)” user agent string, but most people probably aren’t using this plugin anymore.

The best way to stop this kind of spam is to look for some phrases or titles you’ve written, and send out DMCA notices when you find them.

Chris Lodge said,

in May 22nd, 2007 at 11:32 pm

Thanks for visiting Elliott.

I know you didn’t write the plugin for this reason, it’s always a shame when scumbags take something and spoil it.

How To Track And Recover Copied Blog Content? | webzaurus said,

in October 8th, 2008 at 4:47 am

[...] days ago I was reading this post from Blog-Op about a WordPress Auto BlogPlugin that steals your blog source I think I have been a victim of this plugin once too here on [...]