Ok- seems like it was a plugin called Comment Quicktags + that was causing the problem, and not the ads. Not sure why that would all of a sudden have started setting off the malware, as I have not updated the plugin in ages, but it is now disabled. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Go about your business. Also, new Taibbi post about Goldman. Of course, everything he says is technically true, but collectively nonsense.
Snark Based Reality
Jon,
The eval() statement in the quicktags js file opens a hidden iframe and loads another page. This is not legitimate quicktags code. You need to figure out where that change came from. Did it come from where you downloaded it or did someone modify it post-install?
Just an FYI.
SGEW
That was kind of exciting, but it just reminded me of how much I miss the old site WordPressError.
John Cole
@Snark Based Reality: No clue- I just deleted it all.
Aaron
I really enjoyed (in an angry sort of way) Taibbi’s new post. Wouldn’t it be great if business networks or news agencies or any number of “professional” journalists were half as good at investigating this stuff as Matt?
The next time someone laments the sorry state of newspapers, I might link them to Taibbi’s blog and ask who else is doing work like that . . .
Crashman06
Looks long and extremely disheartening. I’m considering saving it for lunch, but if I read it then, it may kill my appetite.
Tim F.
Better warm up the really old how-to-hyperlink posts.
Dennis-SGMM
@SGEW:
Commenting was not for sissies back in the day.
Warren Terra
How quickly they forget. The site was, of course, named “WordPress > Error”
BombIranForChrist
I want to tell Taibbi the same thing I tell Michael Moore. You don’t have to exxagerate or bend the truth to get people angry. The truth will get them angry enough.
Goldman Sachs was part of a world that created the bubble and a part of the world that will profit handsomely as our economy recovers … and hey … I bet they are assholes too … but it’s intellectually dishonest to say they caused the bubbles.
Still, sigh, I will keep reading him, because I am still pretty outraged, and a sober analysis on Scribd just doesn’t do it for me yet.
Now where’s my #@*()# pitchfork ..
Bertie Wooster
Taibbi rocks. I’m proud to have stumbled onto him back in his NYPress days (and I’m one of the few who laughed at his “Funny Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope” column.
He wins extra points in my house for (i) being Irish-Filipino, like my wife, and (ii) for his numerous brutal takedowns of Thomas “Porn-Star Mustache” Friedman.
Goldman may have finally met its match.
fluckebucket
Taibbi is a national treasure.
PeakVT
The original version of the quicktags script appears to be here. It doesn’t include the big eval function.
Punchy
“Normal”? That word…..I dont think it means what you think it means. At least not on this blog.
Jean
Yea! I’m not getting malware warnings anymore. They were seriously ruining my reading here at lunch. Now that I’m back, I see you’ve all been working on the problem for awhile. Thanks.
Morbo
At what point do you make a “technically true but collectively nonsense” tag? Maybe if McArdle responds?
The Moar You Know
@Snark Based Reality:
@John Cole:
It’s too bad you deleted it, although that was probably the best move to fix the problem ASAP. It would have been nice to see a “file modified” date on that at least.
SBR’s question is pretty pertinent to figuring out whether you got “hacked” or whether someone gave you some exploited code from the beginning.
Nice to have this site back to as “normal” as it can be.
MikeJ
@Snark Based Reality: What moronic obfuscation code they use too! After the decode you can de-obfuscate it by eye. You would think if they made any effort at it at all they could have done better than that.
Happily, the target web site is down, so even if your computer tried to load the file from it, it wouldn’t have been able to.
John PM
I was actually refreshing the page when I got a Blue Screen Error that shut down Windows and restarted my computer. Everything looks OK now. Thanks for the excitement.
gex
@BombIranForChrist: Their lobbying for specific legislation and regulatory changes helped make the bubble. They don’t just take advantage of bubbles. They made sure that they could happen in the first place. They were one of the 5 institutions that asked for, and received an exemption in the capital to debt regulations allowing them to go to 1:30.
Face
I am always simply amazed at the sheer number of coding and/or computer dorks that swarm this place like white on rice. Cole has a coding problem, and suddenly half of Microsoft’s tech team is buzzing in with comments. Too funny.
MikeJ
Should check and see if you’ve got any ftp logs laying around with accesses that weren’t from you. There’s a largish file full of ftp credentials floating around, being used for web site hacks to install malware. Oh yeah, change your ftp login too.
JenJen
I’ve read many of the critiques of Taibbi’s writing re: Goldman and AIG (and you know I have a really silly bias here), but still reach the conclusion that he’s done some crucial reporting on the most under-reported piece of the financial meltdown, and his work holds up. I also appreciate that his pieces are reaching the Rolling Stone demographic.
I don’t think it’s nonsense, I think it’s just a part of a big picture that it will take awhile yet to reveal. And who wouldn’t expect forceful pushback on a guy who flatly claims “Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression”? If anything, I’ve been surprised that Taibbi seems to be… surprised.
Dork
I resemble this remark.
ellaesther
Must I read the Taibibi article in order to determine if it is technically true but collectively nonsense? He is so tiresome in his love of self and disdain for others that I often just can’t be bothered. Even when he writes well (which he often does) and even when he makes entirely reasonable and/or important points (which he often does) his inability to reign in his (apparent, I of course don’t know the man) narcissism or engage with those with whom he disagrees with even a modicum of human respect just makes it too painful. He makes me want to defend Tom Friedman — and I’m a Mideast geek!
Sigh. Ok. Due diligence and your whatnot.
Aaron
@gex:
Yeah Gex, it seems the issue comes down to the idea that Goldman is just a company trying to get along (i.e. reacting to market conditions) as opposed to an initiator of regulation and a proactive actor in the financial sector.
Goldman may not be the only guilty party, but pretending they are just another bank quite misses the point (and a whole lot of evidence that they were as complicit in this financial meltdown as the Savings and Loan banks from a few decades ago.
Another good source for this information is MonkeyBusinessBlog, which I am struggling getting a link to
Jon H
@MikeJ:
And change to sftp.
Zifnab
Someone call Sarah Palin and let her know that supply-side economics TOTALLY WORKS! Hurray!
Dennis-SGMM
@Aaron:
Hmm. Not taking my tags either.
Brick Oven Bill
I believe that Rush Limbaugh may read Balloon Juice. He is spending his show making fun of Sotomayor’s command of the English language. This is the first time he has done this to my knowledge.
If he talks of path breaking opinions, we will know for sure.
Indylib
Will wonders never cease – the AMA endorses the House’s healthcare reform proposal.
via TNR h/t Steve Benen
Punchy
Americal Muslims Association, natch.
BTW — did Cole ban Thymzone? Where in hell has that cranky old man gone?
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Nonsense? ORLY? How? In my view of the world, the Jake Tappers and David Gregorys ought to be winning Pulitzers for reporting on this; instead, they spend their time gently cupping the balls of philanderers and war criminals. So: thank Jeebus for the foul-mouthed bomb thrower from Rolling Stone.
gex
@Aaron: Good point. The big 5 all behaved sociopathically.
I think the crux of Taibbi’s point is that if you look at how the other four got hit as well as how GS managed to take minimal damage coupled with the connections the government/fed types have with GS specifically, it looks at the minimum like they receive special treatment.
And to be fair, I think all 5 of them (Lehmen, Bear-Stearns, Morgan Stanly, GS, and the ever elusive last item in the list that I can never remember) deliberately try to manipulate the system in the way GS does. Given that GS has been at it forever (tracing back to the Great Depression) and looking at the decision makers who have connections there, I believe they deserve the scrutiny.
jake 4 that 1
Normal? Oh sorry, I thought this was Balloon Juice.
Aaron
@gex:
I think the 5th is Bank of America. And it is certainly hard to believe that Paulson’s relationship with GS had no impact whatsoever on the specifics of how the bailouts were handled and how GS managed to emerge from the catastrophe they helped create.
sitnam
Birther Andy McCarthy has a new important conspiracy to unfold: the complicity of FOX (and ESPN, and Major League Baseball, and the visual spectrum) in the coverup of Hussein Obama X’s terrorist baseball pitch. It’s irresponsible not to speculate.
gex
@Aaron: Actually, I remembered. It was Merrill Lynch.
BoA might have been in a bit of trouble, but then they bought Country Wide. Either that was to make them sick enough for bailout or by mistakenly thinking the housing market was about to turn the corner.
flukebucket
BTW —did Cole ban Thymzone? Where in hell has that cranky old man gone?
Sittin’ on the sofa with PPGAZ
Crashman06
BTW, regarding the Birther guy in the army we were all talking about yesterday… Weigel is reporting that the judge has thrown out the case.
Joe Lisboa
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): I’m pretty sure John’s sardonically riffing on McCardle’s substance-less “criticism” of the original GS piece.
The Moar You Know
The GOP are drowning and Rush is throwing them anvils. I guess the drugged-out fat fuck really is a Dem operative, after all.
Thanks for this great news, BOB.
Joe Lisboa
(I don’t intend to speak for JC, just my read.)
Violet
Monkey business blog: http://www.monkeybusinessblog.com/mbb_weblog/
Thought I’d test and see if posting a URL would work.
A Mom Anon
@Crashman06:
Hahahahaha. And neener,neener. Also.
Martin
I think the TARP deal should have been that any company that gets TARP money gets profits taxed at 100% until the unemployment rate is lower than at the time the money is given.
Let’s give them a real motive to stimulate the economy. Hell, 6 months in the company might be best off just sending the 12 million (or whatever it is) people on unemployment in the country a minimum wage check every month. And that’d be just fine by me.
Dennis-SGMM
Let the games begin!
Countrywide, Bank of America sued by MBIA Insurance
Brendan
@gex:
Countrywide was sunk, and BoA had loaned them the most money.
They bought Countrywide to get to the front of the creditor line.
gex
@Brendan: Christ on a stick. These guys shouldn’t even be trusted to handle the change that I find on my daily dog walks, much less run big financial institutions.
Dennis-SGMM
Not to be a spoilsport but, Google Chrome just gave me a malware warning when I loaded this page.
Legalize
Not getting malware warnings on my iPhone but still getting them on my desktop. I dunno.
MikeJ
ffx just did too.
Michael
John, Firefox is telling me that this is an attack site and isn’t letting me beyond the front page.
I’m on via IE right now.
jenniebee
Ricci is testifying to the judicial committee. Not sure that he’s changing any minds about his fitness to lead by reading his statement haltingly, running his finger under every word.
MSNBC shows the full statements of the firefighters, cuts off a civil rights lawyer. The firefighters demanded sympathy but didn’t argue the law. They blame the judge for not giving them for what they thought they deserved.
Judicial Activism is in the eye of the beholder…
rafael
Google Chrome malware warning is still showing up.
Calouste
The Las Vegas Sun reports that there migth be some trouble with Ensign’s parents gift to the Hamptons.
Oops…
cbear
@Martin:
“Let’s give them a real motive to stimulate the economy.”
Sounds good. I say we employ the Mussolini Method and spruce up some of those nice lamposts there on Wall Street. That might straighten them out.
Svensker
@Michael:
Me three.
IE sucks. Also.
Punchy
Another reason why all youse need to stop bitching about IE. There might be malware all around me, but at least my browser aint gunna kill my buzz (and page access) by informing me of this.
Malware sounds like something pit bull owners would buy their dogs.
Crashman06
@Svensker: Same problem here. Did a google search and it’s reporting BJ as an attack site too. Not sure if my browser has anything to do with that though.
MikeJ
Probably takes a few hours for attack sites to bubble through google’s system. When/if they decide the site is safe, it will probably take a few hours to bubble the other way.
Calouste
Not sure this has been mentioned here before, but some kid of congrats to our host: kos has named Balloon-Juice as his favorite political blog in US News and World Report
Dennis-SGMM
Curiouser and curiouser: the Google Safe Browsing Diagnostics page says that BJ isn’t acting as an intermediary for malware and that no malware has been detected here during the past ninety days.
Dennis-SGMM
@MikeJ:
Maybe. It wasn’t showing as an attack site after John removed that quick tag code.
David Hunt
@Calouste: Yeah, of course there’s a problem. I hadn’t known about that form, but I was fairly sure that the whole deal was criminal. But the reason I decided that it was so didn’t have to do with any lack of disclosure on a Senate form. It was because the money that Ensign laundered to the Hamptons through his parents wasn’t a gift. It was a bribe. Ensign was paying the Hamptons to keep their silence about the affair. Payment for services rendered (even silence) is Income. The crime was Tax Evasion.
It doesn’t even matter whether the payment was legal. Income from criminal activity is still taxable income as far as the IRS is concerned. They even have rules about what types of expenditures in pursuit of your crime are legal deductions. The Hamptons are guilty of hiding almost $100K of income and Ensign is guilty as well because he attempted to launder the transaction. Actually, the fact that he tried to hide it by filtering it through his parents shows a consciousness of guilt.
Or you can believe that Ensign and his parents are both so generous that they gave $96K to the Hamptons because they liked them so much. But even if you believe that load of malarkey, there’s still a problem if the money ultimately came from Ensign. That being that he gave more the 12K to someone (his parents) with out filing the proper Gift Tax Form. Even if his wife was in on the scheme, and they each gave both of his parents the maximum amount, that’s still only 48K that be given to Ensign’s parents without reporting it to the IRS. A minor illegality that shouldn’t have any more than a monetary penalty.
But I don’t believe it was anywhere near that innocent. In short, Ensign is guilty of money laundering. Lucky for him, he’s got better press than Al Capone so it won’t bring him down.
Face
@Calouste: When does Cole get his own Time magazine column and a TV show where he can alternate between rants on Rove and the best way to vacuum Flowbee’d dog hair?
boggled
Just testing.
Edited to add: Never mind. Commenting allowed me to see the site correctly.