Some time ago, I discovered an odd type of comment spam, which I termed "Nice Blog" spam.Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
This spam, from what I can tell, has been published by the millions, in various blog comments.
It's likely that this particular spam is being published as a very imaginative form of email address mining. The phrasing started out almost identical to the above example - but recently became rather imaginatively worded.
All that the spammer has to do is publish a "nice blog" spam comment, against a typical Blogger blog post, and select the option to "Send me replies".
Any comments published later against that post, and including the commenters actual email address, would be delivered directly to the spammers inbox. Knowing the email address - and the blog URL (how many comments do not include a link to a blog?) - the hacker would go straight to work.
Later, we would see forum reports.I can't control my blog, any more - and somebody has filled it with spam!
This was a direct result of the former blog owner, having left a comment on somebody else's blog.
By eliminating our email addresses from our comments, Google is helping to protect our accounts and blogs, while letting us continue to comment on each others blogs - and to discourage one type of unnecessary spam from our blogs.
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We see the pain, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, of blog owners who do not understand the need for keeping the name of their Blogger account a secret.I forgot the email address that I was using. Why can't Blogger just tell me the address??
and some askHow did this unknown person "xxxxx xxxxx" get control of my blog?
Years ago, the local police would have to convince home ownersPlease, stop leaving a spare key under a rock, near the door!
Both many blog owners (today) - like some home owners (years ago) - had the same basic problem - naivete.
Like the home owners of years ago, who kept a spare key under a rock near the front door, for emergencies, blog owners will use tricks to remember their password.
Don't - please don't - use a guessable password!
One favourite technique, for remembering the password, is so obvious.
Pick a password based upon something that you can remember.
For a blog owner who is married, the answer is obvious.
What is my spouse's name?
and there's your password. If you forget that, you have worse problems, that cannot be addressed here.
If the name of one's spouse was a secret, using the name would not be a problem. But knowing that many blogs either contain the name (and picture, maybe) of the whole family - or lead to a Profile page or website (FaceBook, Instagram, Twitter, ...) with similarly useful information - how secret is the password going to be?
Hackers love blogs with guessable passwords.
Knowing both the Blogger account name (email address) that owns any blog of interest, and the URL of the blog, any hacker has a simple enough task.
- Scrape blog content, into a text analyzer.
- Extract a few hundred details (spouse's name, and others) from the blog content, as analysed.
- Run the known details through a password generation program.
- Now, the hacker has a database, containing "10,000 good possible passwords", specifically relevant to this blog.
- Go to "www.blogger.com", plug in the account name, and try out the 10,000 passwords, one by one.
- That's a simple brute force password attack.
- Sit back, and watch any botnet, controlled by the hacker, go to work.
- Given enough time, the hacker very likely gets access to the Blogger account, and to the blogs owned by the account.
Steps 1 - 8, for any experienced hacker, will be summed into one step.Plug in the URL of the blog.
Everything needed is just more coding - and a nice robust botnet or two.
The hacker, of course, will be targeting thousands of different blogs, simultaneously. So what if he (she) fails to find what details she (he) needs, to steal your blog? He'll (she'll) gladly settle for another - while the botnet works on yours.
Besides using a "strong" password (which carries it's own risks such as forgetting the password - and now we're here, again), the best way to prevent a brute force attack is by preventing step 5.
Keep the account name / email address a secret.
Additionally, if you have a blog and a business - or otherwise exchange email with strangers, separate your Blogger / Google account and your email account. Use two separate email addresses, for Blogger and email.
Learn to appreciate efforts made, by Google, keeping your account and blogs safe.
If you need to recover access to your Blogger account, don't expect to use the Blogger "Forgot?" wizard, plug in your blog URL, and get a reply
Email was sent to your address xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz
And, if you post in the forum.
Please email me advice, to "xxxxxxx@yyyyy.zzz"!
expect to get a stern warning
Please, do not post Blogger account names, or email addresses, in the forum.
People objecting to the recent Blogger policy of masking email addresses, in Blogger commenting and similar services, as "no-reply @ blogger . com", may also need to consider this very real issue. Possibly, even use Google+, instead of Blogger commenting, for networking with ones peers.
Google tries to identify brute force attacks, and takes action when possible.
And, if your Blogger / GMail / Google account is disabled - and you get a mysterious notice about
Suspicious / Unusual activity on your account
this could well be the other side of a brute force attack against your account, intercepted by Google.
Don't be offended by the various precautions.
If you find the precautions and problems to be unacceptable, consider using Google 2-step verification, to protect your account against brute force hacking.
This is not fiction here - it's all very real.
None of this is fiction or paranoia - it's based on some very real, recent events, and even involves a recent National Scandal - and leads to some very real conundrums.
Similarly, we have a very distasteful answer, to a seemingly worthy need. And another apparently "ceremonial" but necessary answer, to somebody in need of understanding and support, that can't be provided.
You have to make the effort, to maintain and protect your blog.
You will get no sympathy, when you complain how unsupportive Blogger is.
You have to make some effort - and remember some basic information - if you are going to maintain a Blogger blog. And, encourage your friends to keep their accounts and blogs safe.
In terms of Blogger problems, which occur seemingly randomly and have no obvious user solution, I can't think of too many that bring more dread into peoples hearts than
403 Forbidden
That message is actually where I started this blog - many, many years ago. It's come up, in discussion, several times.
The message "403 Forbidden" is literally a response by a computer somewhere, saying that you are not permitted to access this computer. For Blogger / Google customers, it generally has a slightly different origin.
The "403 Forbidden" message, for Blogger blog owners, is frequently the result of a networking technique, used by Google and owners of other large networks, for blocking suspicious network traffic.
"403 Forbidden" refers to suspicious network traffic, maybe from a bot cluster.
It generally means that some group of computers, in your ISPs address space, are controlled by somebody besides their legal owners - and are generating excessive network traffic which the Google networks are detecting as suspicious. The "suspicious activity" may involve brute force password guessing, or botnet driven new blog setup activity, or maybe excessive relaying of referer spam.
Some other Blogger account owner(s), somewhere else in the world, may be seeing a "Disabled account" notice, referring to "suspicious activity on your account", or maybe odd links to pornographic websites, from the Stats logs.
Google initially blocks the general address space, to examine the problem.
In order to continue service to the world in general, Google will block the problem computers, from access to their networks. If the Internet address used by your computer is similar to the addresses used by the problem computers, Google will block your computer, along with the other computers (your neighbours computers).
You may have to wait this problem out, as Google researches it.
If this happens to you, there's probably nothing that you can do but wait this out. One or more things will happen, eventually.
- Other Google users will report the symptom - or validate their identity - and Google will research the problem.
- Google will research the problem, reduce the range of addresses blocked, and remove the block on your specific address space.
- The computers involved will go offline, or otherwise cease their attacks, and Google will remove the network block.
If you know how to, and if your Internet service allows you to do this, you may be able to change your Internet address. This solution won't be universally effective, though.
- Your Internet service ("Fixed IP") may not allow this.
- You may not know how to do this.
- Your Internet service may detect this change, by you, as suspicious activity.
- Your new address may also be blocked by Google, because of activity by another set of problem computers.
- Your new address may be blocked by another Internet service, and you'll have to start over with them.
So right now, I'll not go into the details of changing your address - though you may try doing this, if you wish. It's your computer, after all.
