Macquarie University & petty corruption

Iskandar Baharuddin · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 12

"David M. Williams" wrote in message$Wa.23554@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> "Iskandar Baharuddin" wrote:
>
> > This intrigued me, so I went to the first URL above. Could not
find
> > the link, so I opened the source and searched for "study
> > international". Not there.
>
> It's there ...
>
>
> > src="images/schools.gif" alt="Study International" border="0">
>
>
> Obviously, Izzy, you can't search properly. Just like you don't
seem capable
> of adding a 5 line reply to a 50 line post without repeating all
the
> original 50 lines ! Sheesh! Try snipping, next time.
>
You may not have noticed my earlier post. I found it on the home
page, but not on three of the subsidiary pages cited.

I do snip when it gets beyond five or six screens. I refrain from
snipping earlier to avoid being abused for overzealousness.

Izzy

Archived from group: aus>education

Bill · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 1

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:22:24 +0000 (UTC),
wrote:

>In aus.education Arthur James wrote:
>> If you go to the Macquarie University International Page at:
>
>> http://www.international.mq.edu.au/
>
>> everything looks quite innocent.
>
>> But hidden on that page is a link to a private company. Yes, someone
>> has placed a hidden link on the Macquarie University International
>> page to a private company that has a relationship with the university.
>
>If you use the "lynx" browser or anything text based then the
>"Study International" link stands out very clearly.
>
>Looking at the "wayback machine" on archive.org it seems to have been
>added somewhere round April 2003.
>
>Judging from the source code of the page, most of the source is
>indented to follow the nesting of the HTML tags but that line sits
>on a funny indent, as if it had been pasted in by a third party,
>not the original author of the page.
>
>I suspect that the MU administration probably don't know about it
>and wouldn't understand what it meant anyhow. Someone has slipped
>this in. I wonder how long before this technique starts to show up
>all over the place?
>
> - Tel

An attack will be defended ...

Not Contested - text has tab spacing not consistant with the rest of
the source.

Disputed - you say it is a sign of being added with intention to ad,
they say it is a sign that it was added by mistake.

Phil Allison · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

"Rod Speed" de...
>
> "Arthur James" .
>
> > On the other hand, if the company with the link
> > pays an individual at the university to place a link
> > on the Macquarie website, or an individual places
> > the link there because he/she will personally
> > benefit from that link, then that is called corruption.
>
> Wrong again.

** When a poster is 100% correct the mindless Rodbot merely contradicts.

He never has a valid reason.

But facts do get awkwardly in the way of his bullshit and he has to
nullify them somehow.

Like a tank dealing with student protesters in Tien An Min square.

.......... Phil

Allan Ross · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

Is there some background to this? You have implied possible
civil/criminal consequences of certain activity, pointed to some names of
those who might be involved and circulated this.in public. If it's as you
suggest, have the authorities had first go at dealing with it, without those
involved being forewarned?

Allan

Phil Allison · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

"Allan Ross" wrote in message$7L1.22475@nnrp1.ozemail.com.au...
>
> Is there some background to this? You have implied possible
> civil/criminal consequences of certain activity, pointed to some names of
> those who might be involved and circulated this.in public.

** That is what a public forum is for.

> If it's as you suggest, have the authorities had first go at dealing with
it, without those
> involved being forewarned?

** The public needs to be forewarned first.

The "authorities" will either do nothing or carry out a cover up if the
issue is not made public in a big way.

Usenet is not a mass media - it has virtually no effect.

........... Phil

Allan Ross · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

Thank you, Phil, for your response. Your views may be entirely correct.
Is there, however, a response from Arthur James?

Phil Allison · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

"Allan Ross"

> Thank you, Phil, for your response. Your views may be entirely correct.

** Gawd - a polite person on Usenet.

> Is there, however, a response from Arthur James?

** He has made his points and does not need to answer any taunts.

Organisations ONLY ever act to cover up internal corruption.

The police are just not interested until the organisation calls on them.

Organisations will only call the police after the ugly facts hit the front
pages.

............ Phil

Allan Ross · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

Thank you, Arthur. You have answered my questions.

Allan

Stephen X. Carter · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 25

On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 08:07:37 +0800, "Iskandar Baharuddin"
wrote:

>This is indeed pretty sneaky business.
>
>Does anyone of consequence at Macquarie know about it? I doubt that
>the Vice-Chancellor turns up here very often.

Fortunately this brings us back to the point of the thread -
it's about an assertion of dubious practice, and not about
the finesse of html coding. Smile

The answer, quite genuinely, is to email the VC and ask
him/her. That's what the original poster should do. But be
totally polite. Smile

)

--
steve@stephencarterNOSPAM.net
Nothing is Beatle Proof!!

Stephen X. Carter · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 25

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:49:53 GMT, arthurjames@hotmail.com
(Arthur James) wrote:

>This really is a very childish response. Universities are public
>entities. They are not private companies.
>
>If the university officially and publically offers hidden links for
>sale and these links are then purchased through tender or contract
>then that is business.
>
>But do you really honestly believe that Macquarie University as part
>of its official business provides one single solitary hidden link to a
>pissy little private company?
>
>On the other hand, if the company with the link pays an individual at
>the university to place a link on the Macquarie website, or an
>individual places the link there because he/she will personally
>benefit from that link, then that is called corruption. Do you
>understand that?

You make powerful points.... if you are anxious about this,
challenge the university openly and not in some obscure
corner of the internet.

If you are right, then you've nothing to lose.

If you are wrong, then you have nothing to lose.

--
steve@stephencarterNOSPAM.net
Nothing is Beatle Proof!!

Iskandar Baharuddin · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 12

"michael" wrote in message@news.iprimus.com.au...
> "Iskandar Baharuddin" says:
>
> >
> > This intrigued me, so I went to the first URL above. Could not
find
> > the link, so I opened the source and searched for "study
> > international". Not there.
> >
> > Tried the next two. Zip.
> >
> > Searched for just "study". Zip.
> >
> > I fail to see how there can be a link if it is not in the html.
> >
>
> Funny.
> I had no trouble finding it in the html.
>
> Try searching for
> href="http://www.studyinternational.com.au"
>
> michael
>
The problem was the space.

Izzy

michael · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

"Iskandar Baharuddin" says:

>
> This intrigued me, so I went to the first URL above. Could not find
> the link, so I opened the source and searched for "study
> international". Not there.
>
> Tried the next two. Zip.
>
> Searched for just "study". Zip.
>
> I fail to see how there can be a link if it is not in the html.
>

Funny.
I had no trouble finding it in the html.

Try searching for
href="http://www.studyinternational.com.au"

michael

Arthur James · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 4

On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:54:42 GMT, arthurjames@hotmail.com (Arthur
James) wrote:

>On Sun, 25 Jan 2004 03:33:44 +1000, Gregory Toomey
> wrote:
>
>>> So what's a link like this worth?
>>>
>>
>>Practically nothing. I doubt anything from a university would increase
>>rankings, as university sites are often full of student babble. I doubt
>>google would raise the ranking for any link in any australian university
>>subdomain.
>
>I think you are incorrect here. The search engines consider links from
>each individual page, not a site as a whole. In the case under
>discussion the hidden link is the ONLY external link on all the pages
>at the Macquarie International website. This would provide a
>substantial boost in search engine rankings.
>
>And to prove my point, you can do a google search for - study
>international - and find them at number 2 (when I searched anyway)
>
>http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=study+international
>

Quite remarkably, the private company site seems to have been banned
from google.

I now cannot find it in google world search and google "web pages in
australia" search.

Too remarkable to be a coincidence I think. We must have some powerful
people or well connected people reading these newsgroups.

As an amusing sideline ... when I searched for 'study international'
with google "web pages from Australia", at number 12 was macquarie
university international itself because of the hidden text for the
link.

You can see the result here with the hidden text 'study international'
appearing as the last text before the copyright text:

********************************************************************************************
Study abroad at Macquarie University Sydney Australia
.... Enquire Online. Study International. Copyright 1998-2003 Macquarie
University
| Privacy Policy | Disclaimer CRICOS provider no. 00002J.
www.international.mq.edu.au/ - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

Study abroad at Macquarie University Sydney Australia
.... Online, Offshore and Distance Study Information. Study
International. Copyright 1998-2003
Macquarie University | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer CRICOS provider no.
....
www.international.mq.edu.au/study/ - 36k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from www.international.mq.edu.au ]
************************************************************************************

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=study+international&hl=en&lr=&cr=countryAU&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N

(this might change if the search results fluctuate)

Also, although it is fairly obvious that the private company 'study
international' would have been at least a co-conspirator in the
placement of the hidden link at macquarie, banning a site because
someone else links to it is a dangerous thing to do. Google does not
like hidden links but it would not be very good practice to ban the
site being linked to because ultimately they may not have any control
over who links to them and so could quite possibly be entirely
blameless.

telford · Joined: 05 Aug 2007 Posts: 3

In aus.education Bill wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2004 22:22:24 +0000 (UTC),
> wrote:
>>
>>Judging from the source code of the page, most of the source is
>>indented to follow the nesting of the HTML tags but that line sits
>>on a funny indent, as if it had been pasted in by a third party,
>>not the original author of the page.

> Not Contested - text has tab spacing not consistant with the rest of
> the source.

> Disputed - you say it is a sign of being added with intention to ad,
> they say it is a sign that it was added by mistake.

Funny sort of mistake: accidentally editing a file and pasting a line
into it that just happens to link to a private company with some
financial incentive and just happens to be an almost invisible 1x1
square and surprisingly somehow ends up one that particular file
that gets copied to every page in that sub-domain.

I guess that whoever did it also accidentally forgot all about what
they had done, never told anyone who might have been able to fix it
and then fell flat on his/her nose tripping over the large brown
paper bag which mysteriously appeared out of thin air.

- Tel