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Podjacked Wars: Episode III
John Stith
Staff Writer
2005-12-09
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A controversy is brewing on the Internet (isn't there always). This time around the notion of hijacked RSS feeds. Most recently, one Erik Marcus, owner of the Vegan.com and his podcast Erik's Diner accused Podkeyword of podjacking or hijacking the feed for his podcast.
The reason this is significant is because regardless of the problems between Marcus and George Lambert of Podkeyword, this represents a potential new crime that could have serious consequences on the Internet. Hijacking RSS feeds seems feasible enough and since many people see RSS as one of the primary ways get information in the future, this could present problems.
Now, with this particular story, a number of personalities have gotten involved including former MTV VJ and podcast powerhouse Adam Curry. Marcus has put a "Preventing and Surviving A Podjacking" essay up. Marcus claims he had to learn the hard way about a number of issues because, according to Marcus, Podkey had redirected all the feeds to it's own URLs instead of Marcus own site. According to Marcus, getting everything redirected from the feeds, particularly iTunes, cost him most of the hundreds of listeners he'd accumulated.
Podkey maintains they've done nothing wrong. Lambert has said he helped Marcus get all the traffic he was getting and complied when Marcus asked him to pull his listings. Then, when the traffic dropped and Marcus requested his slots backs, Lambert said that anything in the future would be on his own terms and there could be possible fees involved.
Lambert put up a statement on the Podkey.com site saying this:
During the past several days, there has been a significant amount of discussion on numerous weblogs, podcasts, and in the mainstream media about the so-called threat of "RSS hijacking" or "podjacking." Some people have wrongly blamed Podkeyword of surreptitiously creating false RSS feeds and then somehow attempting to hold the feeds for "ransom".
Podkeyword strongly denies that it has engaged in any illegal or unethical conduct -- it is by no means a "hijacker," nor is it an "extortionist." Quite to the contrary, Podkeyword provides a simple and helpful means by which potential listeners can locate podcasts that interest them. Although Podkeyword is deeply disappointed by the widespread allegations that it has acted in a dishonest manner, it recognizes that misunderstandings about how new technologies may be implemented can occur. Podkeyword is confident that once users fully understand how its services may be used, they will see how far removed this whole situation is from "hijacking".
With the recent controversy, Podkeyword is in the process of updating the format of its interface, making it more user-friendly and understandable. For more information and background on Podkeyword's position, please read the recent article on eWeek's website addressing the issue. You may, of course, contact Podkeyword with any particular questions you have.
Date: December 8th 2005
From: George Lambert (Creator of Podkeywords)
To: Concerned Netizens, podcasters, podcatchers
In his most recent posting though, Marcus said this:
The truth is, it is irrelevant how podkeyword.com obtained my show's referring URL. I went to their website with the understanding that it was one of a large number of sites containing directories of podcasts. If podkeyword.com boosted my traffic, fantastic. And if not, I would lose nothing. But this is the most important point:
Podkeyword did not carry a notice on their front page, nor on the page where URLs were submitted, that they intended to republish submitted RSS feeds under feeds controlled by podkeyword. Remember, an RSS feed is the front door to your show. You would think that it would be basic human decency to ask permission before creating an alternate RSS feed URL for an existing RSS feed. But not only did podkeyword.com fail to ask permission, the site went right ahead and created these alternate feeds and then didn't even bother to tell me!
At this point, it seems like there may be blame on the both the part of Marcus and Lambert; Marcus for not digging enough and Lambert for not offering up enough information. In any event, this does show that there could be problems with RSS feeds in the future. As more and more begin to show up, it stands to reason they will be taken over with denial of service attacks or something similar. Even assuming all the events in this scenario were completely innocent, the possibility exists others could do some damage as well.
About the Author:
John is a staff writer for SecurityProNews covering cyber security.
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