WXforum.net
Web Weather => Weather Web Resources => Topic started by: mackbig on June 13, 2018, 08:59:21 PM
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Hi Everyone.
Long time no chat.
This was received via my contact-us link on my web page. email partially redacted in case its legit.
Andrew
*********************
To: Webmaster
From:
Sarah Boyd
sarah**@******gclear.com
Message:
Just wanted to send you some positive feedback on your weather page:
http://www.mackweather.com/wxlinks.php
My daughter, Annie, is working on a weather/natural disaster report
for her end of the year project in her science class. (Can you believe
it's JUNE already??)
She had some worksheets she brought home that were all about emergency
preparedness and what to do in severe weather, so I was helping her do
some research. Annie found these guides:
A Guide to Weather Vanes
www.alansfactoryoutlet.com/a-guide-to-weather-vanes
(it was surprisingly hard to find information on weather vanes and
other old-timey weather forecasting!)
Storm and Emergency Guide for Kids
https://beprepared.com/storm-and-emergency-guide-for-kids
Could you include a link to them on your page?
I'd love to show Annie she's helping others stay safe out there!
Appreciate and recognition go so far in children...and as the Scouts
say: 'You can never be too prepared!'
If you add them, let me know; I'd love for Annie to be able to show
her teacher, too! Maybe she'll get some extra credit! She could use it
with the last report card coming out in less than two weeks LOL!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Sarah Boyd
sarah**@******gclear.com
Sent from (ip address): 173.230.134.59 (li174-59.members.linode.com)
Coming from (referer): http://www.mackweather.com/wxcontact.php
Using (user agent): Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:57.0)
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
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Hi Andrew, and welcome back.
Re that request, I have had several very similar requests over the years and had been adding the suggested links and recognition
http://www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca/wxlinks.php (http://www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca/wxlinks.php)
Whenever I have been able to trace the email address they seem to be legitimate schools or institutions. I see no issue or concern with them.
Regards,
Paul
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Hey Paul
I was just in your hood last weekend. My son had a baseball tournament in North London.
Andrew
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I'd ignore it. I don't see how this could do anything for a student. If it were an assignment, the STUDENT should be doing it, not the parent. There should also be a link to the school itself and a way to contact the administration to verify the assignment.
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I got a similar request today. The links looked innocuous so I added them:
I just wanted to say that, while looking for guides on weather, I found your web page: https://m82a1.us/wxlinks.php
As an ESL tutor, it's been very helpful! With the end of the school year quickly approaching (less than 2 weeks, woo!) the kids are finishing up a fun project for their Earth Science class - they're working on a natural disaster/severe weather report.
I've been helping them do some research, and the group found a couple of good guides I thought I would pass along as a thank you:
Storm and Emergency Guide for Kids
https://beprepared.com/storm-and-emergency-guide-for-kids/
Tornado Safety Guide
www.homeadvisor.com/r/disasters-tornado-safety-tips-and-procedures/
If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could include a link to them on your page for me?
I know you're probably very busy, but I'd like to show the group they're helping to educate others out there. I think they'd get a kick out of it!
If there's anything I've learned from working with kids, it's that appreciation and recognition go a long way! I meet with them later this afternoon :)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Mrs. Sarah Fox
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OK, now I'm convinced it's Spam.
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We get the same requests, but do not add them to our site. Nothing against the sender, but if their site is ever compromised and serving malware, etc... we don't take the risk.
*********************
To: Webmaster
From:
s***d
s***.com
Message:
Just wanted to send you some positive feedback on your weather page:
http://www.planoweather.com/wxlinks.php
My daughter, Annie, is working on a weather/natural disaster report
for her end of the year project in her science class. (Can you believe
it's JUNE already??)
She had some worksheets she brought home that were all about emergency
preparedness and what to do in severe weather, so I was helping her do
some research. Annie found these guides:
A Guide to Weather Vanes
www.***.com/a-guide-to-weather-vanes
(it was surprisingly hard to find information on weather vanes and
other old-timey weather forecasting!)
Storm and Emergency Guide for Kids
https://***.com/storm-and-emergency-guide-for-kids
Could you include a link to them on your page?
I'd love to show Annie she's helping others stay safe out there!
Appreciate and recognition go so far in children...and as the Scouts
say: 'You can never be too prepared!'
If you add them, let me know; I'd love for Annie to be able to show
her teacher, too! Maybe she'll get some extra credit! She could use it
with the last report card coming out in less than two weeks LOL!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
S***d
s***.com
Akismet Spam Check: probably spam
Sent from (ip address): 173.230.134.59 (li174-59.members.linode.com)
Location: Atlanta, GA
Date/Time: June 12, 2018, 9:14 am CDT
Coming from (referer): http://www.planoweather.com/wxcontact.php
Using (user agent): Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:57.0)
Gecko/20100101 Firefox/57.0
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I had a typo in my original reply and now corrected
Whenever I have been able to trace the email address they seem to be legitimate schools or institutions. I see no issue or concern with them.
Paul
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I am a teacher and never get those requests.
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One should ignore that type of stuff, simply does not read right, there is more to this supposedly innocent request than first meets the eye.
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I have received very similar emails as well and they all read similar. My opinion is that this is either a marketing ploy to get links to sites or something more sinister. I have chosen to ignore them and move on.
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Are the kids still in school in Ontario? It seems that the school year (at least here) is pretty much over.
That might raise some questions.... :-k
Greg H.
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Too many similarities, and too many dashes in the URLs and it seems the requestors' name is always Sarah. The lack of the link to the page from the home page of the site is also odd. If Alan is really into weather vanes you'd think he would link to it from his own primary landing page.
Andrew
ps: Greg, our kids are in school till end of June, and return after Labor day. The poster if from Georgia, not sure when their school typically ends.
another one below....
*************
Sarah
sar************guide.org
Message:
Hi, I'm Sarah from PreparednessGuide.org. Thanks so much for
dedicating a section of your site to preparedness resources. It’s so
important to arm people with information that will potentially save
lives.
We are doing a series and spreading awareness about hurricane
preparedness around National Hurricane Preparedness Week. Given your
work, I know you’ll agree it’s even more important given the
devastation we saw last year.
In putting together our series, I found some additional resources I
thought you also benefit from here:
http://www.mackweather.com/wxlinks.php .
Thanks again for your efforts in this life saving work.
How to Drive Safely Before, During and After a Hurricane Disaster
https://www.thezebra.com/insurance-news/5685/hurricane-hacks-natural-disaster/
Hurricane Checklist for Business
http://hurricanesafety.org/prepare/prepare-your-business/
Hurricane Preparedness Tips for Parents
https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/us-programs/disaster-relief-in-america/hurricane-tips
Hurricane Safety for Construction Sites
https://www.bigrentz.com/how-to-guides/disaster-safety-construction-sites
Preparing for Disasters
https://www.yourstoragefinder.com/organize-and-prepare-for-disasters
Emergency Preparedness for Seniors
http://www.redcross.org/prepare/location/home-family/seniors
Disaster First Aid and Health Safety
https://www.cprcertified.com/blog/first-aid-and-health-safety-for-disasters
Hurricane Recovery: Getting the Most from Your Homeowners Insurance
https://www.justgreatlawyers.com/disaster-recovery-getting-most-from-homeowners-insurance
Best,
Sarah Brian
Sent from (ip address): 173.239.232.140
(ip-140-232-239-173.texas.us.northamericancoax.com)
Coming from (referer): http://www.mackweather.com/wxcontact.php
Using (user agent): Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)
AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/66.0.3359.139
Safari/537.36
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I got the exact same request on Monday or Tuesday. I get them every once in a while. They get trashed.
Just checked my trash, close to the same email address for good old Sarah but the domain was hostingclear.com
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Went back and checked and it often times is Sarah, I have also gotten ones indicating that a daughter needs a first aid badge in Brownies and that this link for Tornado or Earthquake or Hurricane or "Zombie Apocalypse" or whatever disaster that could befall us preparedness info that would go toward the badge the girl or boy scout would get. I really do feel that these are our equivalent of some Prince who is in trouble emails and if we help we could get very rich....
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I replied to 'Sarah's' email yesterday and told her the links were in place. I never heard anything back so now the links are gone.
It occurred to me that while the links display the articles that were mentioned, the content could be substituted for malware in the future.
Too many 'Sarah's' to be legitimate.
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I too have had at least one of these and pretty much word for word and im in the UK, suffice to say, i ignored it/them!!
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I got this also and added the links , I even included Annie's name.
I think I have been duped and will remove the links when I get home.
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I got a similar request today. The links looked innocuous so I added them:
I just wanted to say that, while looking for guides on weather, I found your web page: https://m82a1.us/wxlinks.php
As an ESL tutor, it's been very helpful! With the end of the school year quickly approaching (less than 2 weeks, woo!) the kids are finishing up a fun project for their Earth Science class - they're working on a natural disaster/severe weather report.
I've been helping them do some research, and the group found a couple of good guides I thought I would pass along as a thank you:
Storm and Emergency Guide for Kids
https://beprepared.com/storm-and-emergency-guide-for-kids/
Tornado Safety Guide
www.homeadvisor.com/r/disasters-tornado-safety-tips-and-procedures/
If it's not too much trouble, do you think you could include a link to them on your page for me?
I know you're probably very busy, but I'd like to show the group they're helping to educate others out there. I think they'd get a kick out of it!
If there's anything I've learned from working with kids, it's that appreciation and recognition go a long way! I meet with them later this afternoon :)
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Mrs. Sarah Fox
Mine was signed Sarah Boyd!!!!!
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This is an example of low end, unsophisticated, Search Engine Optimization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization). Posting the links on a high volume forum such as this one has done them a big favor :lol:
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I've been getting request to add links from fake school kids, and fake teachers requesting tornado, emergency preparedness request, etc. for about 3 years now.
I looked at the links and determined some links included advertisement for Jim Bakker doomsday food supply business.
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Doomsday food, mmmm wounder what the ‘use by’ date is :neutral:
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I'm not sure if I have received any of these. If I did, I ignored them. I would treat them like I treat kids' fund raisers (Girl Scout cookies, etc.) If someone brings a sales sheet to work for their offspring, I politely decline, and say I'll be happy to buy from the kid if they come and ask me in person.
OTOH, a few weeks ago, I received a polite email from a couple of middle school kids in another state who said they were writing a research paper on rainbows. I googled the school, and their names and it seemed legit, so I answered the questions I could, suggested they do some real research on another, and threw in an odd fact that few people ever really think about (You never see a rainbow from the side or at an angle. It's always head on at 90 degrees.)
They sent me a nice thank-you back.
A week or two later, I realized I coulda talked about moonbows, too, but it was too late.
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Out of kindness I had added about 13 of these over the years as these seemed to be legitimate at the time - checking email and and school names. I also did receive an acknowledgement/thank you from a few. I then mostly never check the links until this thread. Found some links that were no longer active or redirected so removed those. Those that still had links to the original, I've left these.
Enjoy,
Paul
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Just received another request to add a link on my site, this time from: http://wxyzwebcams.com/, going to ignore now due to my recent experience me thinks.
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This has all the hall marks of a scam, there is no way this is legitimate. The hook may not immediately appear, it could be months or even years, but rest assured you have been compromised.
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This looks to me like an effort to get backlinks for search engine optimization. The more links to an web page from related sites looks good in the eyes of Google and they will rank the page higher.
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I've received 2 of these emails over the years. Luckily I keep all of my weather related emails. First one was nearly 2 years ago now. But I've removed those links from my pages. Just can't trust it...
BTW, I had to recently change my email address used on my site. I started getting 20+ rejected emails a day. A lot of them were in Chinese, or it looks like Chinese to me. Looks like someone was trying to send emails out as me. Luckily I'm just using a forwarding account on GoDaddy. So I made a new account forwarding to my same address and updated my site. I'm sure they'll scrape it of my site eventually again.
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Got for the first time such kind of email
My site is located in Belgium, seems a little bit too far from the US.
Happy Friday!
I just wanted to shoot you an email to say thanks for putting together your weather page: https://www.matar.be/weather/wxlinks.php
As the program director of a summer camp, I've been working on our outdoor recreation guides. We love getting the kids outside and active when the weather is nice -- we only have a few short months to do that in Wisconsin so we take FULL advantage of it haha!
Since we're on the lake, we always do a severe weather safety course to prevent any mishaps.
One of the summer volunteers found these emergency preparedness/weather safety guides:
A Nurse's Guide to Disaster Preparedness https://online.maryville.edu/online-bachelors-degrees/rn-to-bsn/nurses-guide-to-disaster-preparedness
Home Preparation Tips for Weather Emergencies www.angieslist.com/articles/home-preparation-tips-weather-emergencies.htm
I added them to our camp's resources...could you do me a favor and include them on your page too?
I'd love to show my volunteer she's helping others outside of the camp! Plus, as the scout's say: "You can never be too prepared!"
Let me know if you get a chance to update - I meet with her later this evening!
Have a great start to your summer!!
Sarah Trent
http://campprice.com/
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Another Sarah,
Its a global conspiracy....
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As they say if it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck then ...... it's a duck.
This has all the hallmarks of some sort of con!
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Hi Andrew, and welcome back.
Re that request, I have had several very similar requests over the years and had been adding the suggested links and recognition
http://www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca/wxlinks.php (http://www.komokaweather.com/komokaweather-ca/wxlinks.php)
Whenever I have been able to trace the email address they seem to be legitimate schools or institutions. I see no issue or concern with them.
Regards,
Paul
Paul, I just checked some of your links and several are to insurance sites (with weather-related info). The "USA Today - Weather Basics" simply carries you to the front page for USA Today. Just saying... :-|
I've gotten several of these through the years. They start out by being complimentary about your website, then slip in the "link request". I think there "may" be some legitimate people out there asking for links to be posted but I think most are after "clicks" or trying to improve their web reputation and Google ranking by increasing the number linked sites to theirs.
I ignore the requests.
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Paul, I see you had already gone through your links to your comfort level...I should've read through the thread to the end. #-o
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Sarah Fox is still at it. ESL Tutor now. Similar to one posted earlier.
Received: from eslhome.org ([104.236.68.151])
by bizsmtp with ESMTP
id dyaaf133y1AEVdyaafN47D; Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:58:29 -0700
From: "Sarah Fox" <sarah@eslhome.org>
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Sarah Fox is still at it. ESL Tutor now. Similar to one posted earlier.
Received: from eslhome.org ([104.236.68.151])
by bizsmtp with ESMTP
id dyaaf133y1AEVdyaafN47D; Fri, 13 Jul 2018 06:58:29 -0700
From: "Sarah Fox" <sarah@eslhome.org>
Well Sarah must be doing the rounds got one today as well, same alias and same address. I guess there is a link between teaching English and emergency preparedness.
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Well, I got one of these too. This one is from "Schuyler Rose":
To: Webmaster
From:
Schuyler Rose
schuyler@writingview.com
Message:
Hi,
I just wanted to send you a big 'Thank You' for your helpful web page
http://www.rogerscityweather.com/wxlinks.php I've been volunteering at
a summer program and one of the girls in my group, Jenna, found your
website while doing extra research about weather and storms for a
project. I just wanted to let you know that your information has been
a big help not only to her, but to our entire group! Thanks so much
During her research, she came across an article that was very helpful
to her:
I am not going to include this site in this posting, since it could be a malware injection scheme. It is very suspicious.
DodgySite.com link here...
and she was wondering if you would mind adding it to your page when
you have the time. She really wanted to pass along her research to
other people on the Internet and she would be so happy to hear if you
found her research helpful.
Let me know what you think and if you have any other resources for us
to check out!
Have a great day,
Schuyler