Joe Hewitt may harm your computer

http://www.google.com/search?q=joe+hewitt&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a

by danw • 18 years ago

13 15 18 years ago

google.com

jdueck2• 18 years ago

What is this?

SwellJoe2• 18 years ago

It's Google's malware warning system gone astray.

Joe Hewitt is the creator of Firebug and a Y Combinator company founder and all around good guy.

jdueck2• 18 years ago

Oh, I get it now! :-)

nextmoveone• 18 years ago

Joe Hewitt is a YC founder? For what company? Are you Joe Hewitt??

msteigerwalt• 18 years ago

Makes sense. How many of the plugins sites try to install are actually useful?

I wonder if Google will whitelist the page once this comes to their attention.

Hexstream• 18 years ago

I heard Google doesn't like fixing stuff manually. They'd rather fix their algorithm instead.

But if they can't fix your problem by fixing their algorithm, you're basically fucked.

andreyf2• 18 years ago

> But if they can't fix your problem by fixing their algorithm, you're basically fucked.

I think it's reasonable to say that the algorithm isn't worth much if it has such false positives.

TheTarquin• 18 years ago

See, when I saw the Hacker News title for this, my first thought was "Good to know, I'll simply avoid installing Joe Hewitt." Now that I think about it, maybe a blanket policy of not installing people on my computer is a good one. Better just to stick to programs.

prakash• 18 years ago

SiteAdvisor used to do some really cool things before they were bought -- looks like google is trying to replicate that...http://www.siteadvisor.com

drewp2• 18 years ago

His site was indeed hacked recently, and it was harming my computer inasmuch as it was crashing firefox. I consider the google warning to be late but not incorrect.

Here's an email I sent to Joe on 2007-12-17. (It's really hard to make these kinds of messages not look like spam!)

----- Hey, I was checking out iui tonight, and your site seems broken.

The front page has JS that does something involving "fredkidns.com" and it repeatedly causes my firefox to fill memory. Kazehakase is able to show the broken page, though.

I think the blog top page is also hacked; other internal pages seem to be ok.

drewp2• 18 years ago

I apologize for the slang use of the word 'hacked' up there.

I meant 'vandalized, probably by means that required deep knowledge of a system to initially develop, although the vandal was unlikely the same person as the hacker who came up with the exploit'.

Joe Hewitt may harm your computer

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