Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Furqan Ashraf
Investigate a Suspicious Domain: Historical DNS and WHOIS
A domain can look harmless today while its history tells a different story. A website might have changed hosting providers several times. Its nameservers might have moved to a new DNS provider. Its registration details might have changed, or its DNS records might show connections to infrastructure that deserves further investigation. These changes do not automatically mean a domain is malicious.
How to Detect AI Bots Without Blocking Googlebot
Your website is receiving automated requests. Some are from search engines trying to index your pages. Others come from AI crawlers, monitoring tools, scrapers, or malicious scripts. The challenge isn't identifying every automated request. It's knowing which bots should be allowed and which ones deserve closer inspection. Block everything that looks automated, and you risk blocking Googlebot or AI search crawlers.
I Used a Honeypot Instead of a CAPTCHA on Our Quote Form
At work, I'm rebuilding a website for an organization that serves medical laboratories. The most important page on the new site is a form where a lab picks the services it needs and asks for a quote. Every public form attracts spam bots. The usual fix is a CAPTCHA, and I didn't want one. Why not a CAPTCHA A CAPTCHA makes every real visitor prove they are human so you can stop a few bots. Image puzzles are hard for people using screen readers and annoying for everyone else.
How to Build a Fraud Detection API Check Using WHOIS Domain Data
TL;DR A fake business signup often hides behind a company website that looks fine but was registered days or weeks ago WHOIS data exposes four checkable patterns: registration age, bulk registration bursts, reused registrant emails, and shared nameservers None of these signals should block a signup on its own. Combine them into a score and use the score to decide between allow, review, or block Privacy-protected WHOIS records and old-but-compromised domains are real blind spots.
What Is an API Key? Everything You Need to Know Before Using an API
If you’ve ever tried to use an API and got stuck at the part where it asks for an API key, you’re not alone. Most beginners hit this wall: “I understand what an API does, but what is this key thing, and why do I need it?” Let’s clear that up without jargon, without buzzwords, and without pretending this is more complicated than it actually is. An API (Application Programming Interface) is simply a way for one program to talk to another.
APIs Power Almost Everything You Build. Here’s Why That Matters
If you’ve built any modern application recently, you’ve already relied on APIs—probably without even thinking about it. Sending an email? Checking a user’s location? Fetching weather data, DNS records, screenshots, or currency rates? All of that happens through APIs. APIs quietly do the heavy lifting behind the scenes. They connect services, move data, and let developers build complex systems without reinventing the wheel.
Managing survival
UNDER pressure from various quarters, the lockdown has all but ended. As we prepare for the days to come, governments have a massive task ahead of them: planning for impending crises in the provision of food and other basic sustenance amidst an uncertain economic and public health environment. In any case, citywide lockdowns are hard to enforce. People, especially in economies like ours, are forced to come out for survival, while others still gather for leisure.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Furqan
Contact Furqan, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack