The Senate has passed on Monday the Senate Bill 2790 or the Cyber-crime prevention Act of 2012 penalizing the cybersex, child pornography on the web, spamming and other crimes on the web.

Those people engage in cybersex will be imprisoned for 6 to 12 years or a fine of P200,000 to P1 million. These people have wilful engagement, maintenance, control or operation, directly or indirectly, of any lascivious exhibition or sexual organs or sexual activities, with the aid of a computer system.

Penalties for the Child Pornography are the same penalties under the Child Pornography Act of 2009.

Spamming is punishable with imprisonment of 1 month to 6 months or a fine of P50,000 to P250,000.  Spamming is defined by the Senate Bill 2796 as the transmission of commercial electronic communication with the use of a computer system which seek to advertise, sell, or offer for sale products.

Other cybercrimes covered by the bill are:

1. Accessing a computer system illegaly
2. Intercepting a computer system
3. Deleting and altering Computer Data, including the act that resulted to computer-related forgery and to computer-related fraud.
4. Cyber-Squatting
5. Using or making available devices, software, passwords, and other means of committing cybercrimes

Aside from these, the proposed measure penalizes libel committed on the Internet.

For several times, Google Adsense team helped me earn more from the Adsense ads displayed on my blog by giving me advices. During the times when I only used 2 Adsense unit, they told me to add 1 more unit because according to them, I can use up to 3 Adsense units in a page. In an another message, they told me to place the Adsense unit on the hot spot of a page like, above the fold, because those spots are tested as easily be noticed by the visitors.

I followed what they advised me which I am also happy because my Adsense income has increased.

More Ads Above the Fold be Penalized

But with the release of the new update of Google on its search engine algo, my implementation of Google Adsense will just lead my blog to the decrease of its income than getting more from Google Adsense because what will you earn from the ads if no one will visit your blog because it is already penalized by Google on its search engine?

Google called its new update, the Page Layout Algorithm.

Google is now looking at the layout of the page of every site, and it calculates the amount of content that a visitor will see once he landed on that page.

Of course, Google Team who are responsible on its search engine admitted that ads above the fold perform well. They said, “we understand that placing ads above-the-fold is quite common for many websites; these ads often perform well and help publishers monetize online content.” However, they are also considering the feeling of the visitors from the search engine who visited a page with lots of ads above the fold. Thus Google said, “rather than scrolling down the page past a slew of ads, users want to see content right away.” That’s the reason why they implemented this new Page Layout Algorithm.

You can check your site or every page of your site by the browser size tool of Google and learn how many percent of the above-the-fold spot have been situated by the ads. If you think that almost all the space is eaten by just the ads, then I think you need to change the ad placement to avoid the search engine penalty.

Now, what about if you changed immediately the layout of your site? Will you still be affected by it? Google answers:

If you decide to update your page layout, the page layout algorithm will automatically reflect the changes as we re-crawl and process enough pages from your site to assess the changes. How long that takes will depend on several factors, including the number of pages on your site and how efficiently Googlebot can crawl the content. On a typical website, it can take several weeks for Googlebot to crawl and process enough pages to reflect layout changes on the site.

Checking My Own Site

So, now I will check all my sites and change the layout immediately to avoid another problem that this update might bring to me. I suffered a lot from its Panda update and I don’t want to suffer again from this new update.

Source: Google Official Blog.

MegaUpload.com, one of the popular file sharing website has been shut down, Thursday (January 19, 2012) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation or FBI and its founder and several others were charged with piracy case.

The 7 individual connected with MegaUpload are charged with criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Four (4) of them are already arrested in Auckland, New Zealand, Thursday, including its founder a resident of Hong Kong and New Zealand, Kim Schmitz, aka Kim Dotcom. And the domain names, 18 domain names, associated with MegaUpload are seized pursuant to an order issued by a U.S. District Court.

Kim Dotcom, the owner of MegaUpload

The other 6 people indicted are:

1. Finn Batato, 38, a citizen and resident of Germany, chief marketing officer.
2. Julius Bencko, 35, a citizen and resident of Slovakia, graphic designer.
3. Sven Echternach, 39, a citizen and resident of Germany, head of business development.
4. Mathias Ortmann, 40, a citizen of Germany and resident of both Germany and Hong Kong, chief technical officer co-founder and director.
5. Andrus Nomm, 32, a citizen of Estonia and resident of both Turkey and Estonia, software programmer.
6. Bram van der Kolk, aka Bramos, 29, a Dutch citizen and resident of both the Netherlands and New Zealand, programmer.

About $50 million in assets were also seized, as well as a number of servers and 18 domain names linked to Megaupload. The police said they seized 6 million New Zealand dollars ($4.8 million) in luxury vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé and a pink 1959 Cadillac. They also seized art and electronic equipment and froze 11 million dollars in cash in various accounts.

Dotcom (37), the founder of MegaUpload is the 7^th person being indicted, who allegedly owns  68 percent of Megaupload.com, Megaclick.com, and Megapix.com, and 100 percent of the registered companies behind Megavideo.com, Megaporn.com and Megapay.com.

According to the government statement, MegaUpload allows the copyright infringement of movies often before their theatrical release, music, television programs, electronic books, and business and entertainment software on a massive scale and causes the loss of at least $500 million from the copyright holder while alleges that MegaUpload earns $175 million in 5 years from ads and subscription.

On Thursday night, I learned from a news that a low pressure area has been upgraded to tropical storm and our province, Southern Leyte,   is one of the provinces where storm signal number 1 was raised.

Just this morning, my wife called me up telling me that the classes were suspended by the Dep-Ed’s Division of Southern Leyte. According to the news report, storm signal number 2 was raised early today in various provinces including our province. However, teachers in my wife’s school were advised by their head to stay at the school.

So, it’s signal number 2. But it seems that there is no typhoon here. ( Thanks God! ) Of course, there’s rain but it’s not that heavy and the wind is not that strong. The only sign of a typhoon that one could notice immediately here in my location is the high waves.

As of this morning, PAGASA raised storm signals to the following:

Signal number 2 in:

1. Southern Leyte
2. Bohol
3. Southern Cebu
4. Southern Negros
5. Siquijor Island
6. Surigao del Norte including Siargao Island
7. Surigao Del Sur
8. Dinagat Province
9. Agusan Provinces
10. Davao del Norte
11. Davao Oriental
12. Samal Island
13. Lanao Provinces
14. Misamis Provinces
15. Zamboanga Provinces
16. North Cotabato
17. Compostela Valley
18. Bukidnon
19. Camiguin
20. Maguindanao

Signal number 1 in:

1. Palawan including Cuyo Island
2. Eastern Samar
3. Western Samar
4. Northern Leyte
5. Northern Cebu
6. Northern Negros
7. Iloilo
8. Capiz
9. Antique
10. Aklan
11. Guimaras Province
12. Davao Del Sur
13. Sultan Kudarat
14. South Cotabato
15. Sarangani Province
16. Basilan Province

Sunday Sendong Update

there are at least 500 people confirmed dead caused by the typhoon and hundreds more are missing. Most of the victims are swept out by the water while they are sleeping. The most affected area by Typhoon Sendong or Washi are the city of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro City.

Tuesday Sendong Update

Late Monday, according to the national disaster council’s (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council) data, the death toll caused by the typhoon Sendong (Washi) rose to more than 900, and there are 1500 injured and less than 100 still missing.

The cities of Iligan and Cagayan De Oro, the hardly hit areas of the typhoon Sendong are now considering of having mass graves for the unclaimed dead bodies and those in the state of advance decomposition. However, there are some who opposed to mass graves because for them it is an unChristian. It was noted however that funeral parlors in the cities (a dozen and few in Iligan and less than a dozen in Cagayan de Oro) are rejecting newly brought bodies for they could no longer accommodate them.

In Cagayan De Oro, most of the confirmed dead are children and women who lived in the river bank.

This typhoon is considered the deadliest compared to the typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng. The previous killer typhoons killed more or less a thousand people in combined.

Cagayan De Oro’s major water facility was damaged and the city lost 80 percent of the potable water needed while bottled water in stores are running out.

The President and the Typhoon Sendong

While Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro City and the rest of the affected areas of the typhoon suffered from great loss brought by the typhoon, the President and his Security personnel were partying in Malacanang. An act that most of the Filipinos hated so much.

Instead of issuing an apology, the Aquino sisters defended what their brother did and said that life must go on for their brother even during that tragedy. They forgot that when their parents died, every Filipino tried to stop their daily activities just to pay respect to Ninoy and even to Cory.

Dealing with Comment Spam

While Tropical Storm Sendong or Washi is here, I am also busy deleting all the spam comments that this blog has received. Their comment is not that bad but the message is just the same. It seems that one message was spun for thousands times and sent to different  blogposts.

I already tried several ways in fighting against these spams:

1.) First, I set the blog in a way that any comment that contains URL will be immediately sent to the SPAM folder. But it seems that it is not really effective although I found thousands of comments that have been marked as spam but there are hundreds of them successfully escaped.

2.) So, I decided to set the blog in a way that a comment of a commenter that has no approved comment will be queued for moderation.  And then, I will just delete them or mark them as spam later. The only problem of this is that I need to waste my time checking and deleting thousands of comments.

3.) So, now I finally set this blog in a way that old blogposts will no longer accept comments. I don’t know what will be the negative effect of this to this blog.

Civil Engineer Licensure Examination Middle East Result

By the way, congratulation to the lone passer of the recent Civil Engineer Licensure Examination held by the PRC in the Middle East.

I just hate thieves. And while I hate them, I always became their victim.

Last night, my SmartBro Plug-it device was stolen by someone. I am sure of that because the said device was set permanently in my office.

The only problem is that my office is open. It has roof, table, chair and other things but it has no wall.

My wife is right when she told me that I was the one giving the thieves a chance for them to take my SmartBro Plug-it device. It was all my fault.

But, should I blame myself for doing that? It just happened that I trusted the people around me. And I never thought that one of them would betray me by stealing my valued things.

Got a SmartBro 999 Post Paid Plan Again

By the way, I just arrived from Tacloban City. I applied at the Smart Wireless Center for the permanent disconnection of my previous SmartBro Canopy 999 plan and then applied a new account for the SmartBro Plug-it 999 Plan.

The Canopy device of my previous account couldn’t be used here in my current location because Smart has no canopy connection available here. They only offer the plug-it connection.

What I really applied for was the SmartBro Plug-it Post Paid but the sales clerk that I talked at the Smart Wireless Center told me that it would be better for me to apply for the SmartBro Plug-it SIM only because the contract is good for 6 months only compared the Plug-it Post Paid plan’s contract is up to 24 months. She explained that after 6 months, I could apply for the permanent disconnection of the service without paying the pre-termination charge as stated in the contract.

In just few hours, I immediately got the SIM card. But, I still need to buy the plug-it device since mine was already stolen by someone good in our neighborhood.

Hackers stole millions of passwords from different sources and post them on a website. Among the favorite passwords used by users are “123456″ and “password”.

Actually, I am one of those uses who use these two in my Yahoo accounts. But, I don’t need to change passwords from those accounts because Yahoo has suspended all those accounts already.

Filipino Hackers Arrested

Anyway, … Talking about hackers, according to the CIDG (Philippines), authorities (CIDG and FBI) arrested four Filipino hackers in Manila who are paid by terrorists to hack phone lines, including that of the AT&T. These hackers stole money through phone and diverted the funds to the accounts of the terrorists paying them.

AT&T lost $2 million dollars caused by the hacking activities.

One of these hackers is: Paul Michael Kwan (29). The group of Muhammad Zamir which is a member of the Jemaah Islamiah and the one that financed that Mumbai bombing is said to be the one paying the group of Kwan.

Other arrested suspects are:

1. Macnell Gracilla, 31, a native of Carmen Rosales, Pangasinan and resident of Unit 5, Montiville Place, Greenville Subdivision, Sauyo, Quezon City;
2. Francisco Manalac, 25, and his live-in partner Regina Balura, 21, both of # 89 Sampaguita Extension, East Bagong Barrio, Calooocan City.

I received a call today from a representative of Smart Communication Philippines. I thought I will be asked anything about my application for a new smart bro connection here in my new location. However, this woman, after introducing herself as a representative of Smart Communication, immediately asked me when should I settle my outstanding balance on my previous Smart Bro connection.

Actually, my Smart Bro Canopy Internet connection is not yet terminated even if I am not using it anymore. I couldn’t use it here in my new location since there is no canopy internet connection here. Smart Bro‘s internet connection here is dependent on HSDPA and EDGE technology. And I am currently using the Prepaid Smart Bro Plug-it and enjoying the unlimited surfing for 50 Pesos a day.

Now, last September, I called the customer support for the Smart Bro asking them to terminate my account and I will just pay the outstanding balance through ATM machine. But I was told that terminating an account could not be done via phone communication, rather I should visit the Smart Wireless Center and file the application for account termination there.

My problem is, I am more than a hundred kilometers away from the Smart Wireless Center and I am currently don’t have the budget to be spent for the travel. So, I decided not to pay my dues until my account will be terminated by the system automatically.

As of now, I have not paid the SMART for two months already. I am also receiving text message from their system that my account will be terminated if I will not pay my dues.

Anyway, my contract with the Smart Bro has expired already.

Question

Dear Sir Selaplana,

I am your avid follower. I have been doing what you had taught me through chat and through the articles you posted in your blog. Until now, I am still trying to visit your blog to find new things about the internet, blogging and SEO. But I feel sometimes disappointed because you seldom update your blog anymore.

Your way of blogging in these days has made me curious whether your blog is still on the top in Google SERP because since 2007 up to 2009, I always found your blog when I tried searching Google using the keywords like SEO, Search Engine Optimization, Make Money Online Blogging, Blogging and Pinoy Blogger. Today, I found out that your blog is nowhere anymore in the top pages of the search result.

My questions are: Is it the effect of the so called Google Sandbox? What are you doing now to help your blog off the Google Sandbox?

Please answer these questions because I know that I will learn something from your answers too.

Thank you.

JR

My Reply

I know very well that this blog is not already listed on the top of the Google SERP. It is not even listed on the first spot of the Google SERP when searching my complete name (Sustines Laplana). And it is not even found on the search result when using the blog’s title, “I Make Money Online By Blogging“, in searching Google. But at least when searching Google using the keyword “SELaplana”, you’ll find that this blog is still the authority.

Does it really mean that the blog is already placed into Google Sandbox?

Actually, I couldn’t tell whether it is the result of the so-called Google Sandbox. But I am pretty aware why this blog experienced the problems mentioned above. The number 1 reason for this is the loss of backlinks from other blogs and websites.

Last year (October 2010), I lost dozens of blogs hosted by blogspot.com which were all under my single Google account. Those blogs are considered by Google as authority in the sense that they all got the top positions on the SERP with the targeted keywords. Besides, almost all of those blogs got a PR of 5 down to 3.

Why I lost them? Well, it happened when I created two blogs which looks like spammy. They seemed spammy because all the contents I posted to them were taken from article directory. And the worst thing that I did was that I did not establish backlinks to the authors of those articles.

I don’t know if a member of the Blogger.Com team noticed those blogs. It might also be the Blogger.Com system which detected what I did. However, I was a little bit positive that the authors of those articles reported my blogs to the Blogger.Com team or system that caused the redflag.

I thought that it was just fine to have two blogs in my account that were being suspended by Google. I created again another blog. I created that particular blog not for spamming purposes but to compile articles that I really needed. However, I forgot to make the blog private. So, I think, when the original authors of those articles reported that blog to Google, Google acted by suspending not just the blog but the whole account and then deleting all the blogs created through that account.

I really felt sorry for my self. But it already happened. I lost not only the income through those blogs but also the PR juices that those blogs shared to this blog (selaplana.com).

I did not feel immediately the effect of what happened. But after two to three months, the traffic of this blog (selaplana.com) suddenly dropped.

And it doesn’t end up there. On May this year if I was not mistaken, Brother Macuha urged the participants of the Pinay Scandal SEO campaign to edit or delete their posts about the topic. And I noticed that many participants followed what Brother Macuha told them by deleting their blogposts. And the result was, I lost more PR juices from those blogposts.

So, now, I guess, Google perceived that I was doing illegal considering that I lost a lot of backlinks, and so the trust-points that should be given to this blog was reduced so that this blog will not receive any good ranking on the SERP.

Well, some SEO called this effect a penalty and others called this effect as Sandbox. But for me, it is just the effect of the loss of the PR juices that the blog received before.

So what should I do to gain back the Google trust, so that the blog will be rank well again on the SERP?

Actually, there is nothing that I need to do except updating the blog with quality and unique content, while building permanent backlinks.

I actually find these two methods hard to do especially that I am not really a talented writer. Just like what you already know, I am just a struggling writer… struggling to write articles with better grammar and better usage of words. Besides, I don’t have enough time this time especially that I am still building by my own our future home.

But wait… you might ask: Why aim for permanent backlinks?

I realized that temporary backlink is perceived by Google as paid link. And we already know that Google hate so much the paid link and consider it as not natural link. So, once Google detected that a particular site is buying backlinks from other sites or blogs, that site might be penalized by reducing the trust-points given by Google to that site. And just like what I said already, they called this as Sandbox effect.

Finale

Anyway, I am very much thankful for your email, because it reminds me that I need to work hard to gain back the success that this blog is experiencing before.

Question

I am having problem with my server. In its error_log, it says that “PHP Warning: Module ‘suhosin’ already loaded in Unknown on line 0″.

I remember you were talking about this error before on your blogpost which eventually reached my inbox. In that blogpost, you said that the problem might be in the entries of the file php.ini. So, I want to ask few questions regarding this problem as listed below:

1. Where can I find the file, PHP.INI?
2. How can I access my root and then edit the php.ini file?
3. Will you please give me few instructions because I am just a newbie in managing dedicated server?

Answer

In accessing my server’s root, I use the putty software. You can download putty here. Putty uses command line like the one used in MS DOS or any other DOS PC operating systems. The commands are even the same like

1. dir –  for display the content of the current directory
2. cd [directory] – change directory to [directory]
3. edit [file] – edit the file.

There are actually other commands native to the putty language. The commands above are the ones used by DOS operating systems which can be understood by the putty software.

PHP.ini Location

Now, regarding the location of the php.ini file, you can find it at /usr/lib directory.

Your problem is actually similar to mine as featured in my “PHP Warning: Module ‘suhosin’ already loaded in Unknown on line 0” blogpost. It is about the double entry for the extension called “SUHUSIN”.

What you need to do is to edit the file php.ini. In putty software, you can use these commands:

1. cd \usr\lib then press enter
2. edit php.ini then press enter
3. when the content of the file is already displayed on putty screen, press <ctrl> plus <v>. This command directs putty to display the next page. Do this until the entry for the SUHUSIN will be displayed. In my server’s php.ini, they entry for the SUHUSIN extension is located at the end part of the file.
4. Just delete the double entry. In deleting it, position the cursor at the first line of the double entry for the SUHUSIN extension. Then press <cntrl> plus <k>. This is the command that directs putty to delete the like where the cursor is located. Do this until all the entries for the SUHUSIN which you identified as double entry, are deleted.
5. Save the file. You can do this by exiting the putty editor. I think the command to do this is by pressing <cntrl> plus <x>. Anyway, the commands that can be used in the putty editor are displayed on the bottom of the putty screen. Then after that, you’ll be prompted if you would save the file, just press <y> for yes. You will ask again what should be the file name of the file… Well, just press enter and it will be fine.

Question

Just received an email from a visitor of this blog.

Selplana,

I noticed that you are not allowing your commentators to enter URL of their website when they comment on your blog selaplana.com. Based on the age of the domain of your blog, I realized that you are blogging for long already. So I expect that you understand that letting your commentator to enter their website’s URL encourages them to comment more in your blog. And not only your old commentators will be encouraged to comment but also those new visitors of your blog.

In other blogs, I noticed that they are using plugins that give links back to the websites of the top commentators. It is one of the ways how they inspired visitors to comment at their blogs.

So, it is like you are pushing your visitors away from your blog when you don’t allow them to have the URL of their website on your blog’s comments area.

Thank you.

Crisostomo Gonzales

My Reply

I understand very well your point. And I believe that what you’re saying is true except for the one you said: So, it is like you are pushing your visitors away from your blog when you don’t allow them to have the URL of their website on your blog’s comments area.

Giving credits to commentators by allowing them to show a link to their websites even if this link is tagged “no follow” is what I really wanted to do. However, a warning from the Google Adsense Team regarding the spam comments posted on my blogs (not just this blog), prompted me not to allow URL on the comment.

Of course, there is other ways that I can do to avoid such spam comments. But  plugins installed on this blog is not really perfect for there were times that it failed to detect spams.

I can however flagged those spam comments manually. But I don’t have enough time to do that since I am still busy building our house.

So, I have no choice but to disallow any URL on the comments.  But, I am not pushing away visitors who want to comment. After all, if they really want to share some thoughts even if I am not allowing any URL on the comment, they will still be posting comments here.

You might asked me again: What about those spam comments that do not have URL on them?

My answer is this: Yes! I noticed that there are spam comments that are not detected by the anti-spam comment plugins installed, and they are not automatically blocked by the WordPress system because they don’t have URL in them. It doesn’t matter anymore because these spam comments are quite clean from spammy terms or words. At least they are safe to read and most of these comments just say, “Hey, you have a good post, and your thought is quite intriguing!”  Sometimes, these comments have this thought: “Hi! I found your blog through Google. Interesting to read.”

I also checked those blocked comments.  Most of them have URL linking back to questionable websites.