Your Blogger Account: Anonymity Vs Security

One of the most frustrating problems with Blogger accounts involves the conflicting goals of anonymity and security.

1. We are allowed to publish a Blogger blog in complete anonymity. Blogger acknowledges and supports that need.
2. Anonymity comes at a price. Should you succeed in intentionally becoming completely anonymous, then forget the account name or password, there will be no way for Blogger to help you to recover access to your Blogger account.

Every week, we get reports from people who can't access their blogs because they changed their email address without proper planning, or they don't know which account owns a given blog. And some time ago, we dealt with a small flood of reports from people whose Blogger accounts - and blogs - had been stolen, using some devious hacking techniques.

Blogger and Google have added additional options for account authentication.

Considering the need to prevent account and blog hijacking, yet allow people to be able to recover account access after changing email address, this is a righteous advance. The options may not please people who value anonymity, though.

Blogger / Google has added an additional account verification option, Two Step Verification.

2-Step Verification improves your chance of successful account recovery.

Two-Step Verification will improve the chance of your being able to recover account access, if you forget the account name or password.

For those unable or unwilling to accept 2-Step Verification, and where tracking cookies are not regarded as a devious plot, Blogger uses demographic authentication. First seen by people who travel being asked to prove identity, demographic authentication appears to be used when you need to recover account access, or when you login from a different computer.

2-Step Verification may not be acknowledged by everybody as a major advance.

For people who have had their Blogger account hacked and blogs stolen, or people who fear this fate, demographic authentication may be seen as a positive direction for Blogger / Google to take, For people who fear "big brother" and the never escapable cameras and total lack of privacy, an authentication process which tracks each of us, as we login, may be seen as privacy violation.

We will be recognised, demographically, by computer, by geographic location, and by Internet connection. This may substitute for, or enhance, 2-Step Verification.

Two Step Verification - which uses your cell phone or home phone as a verification token - will not work, for everybody.

• It requires advance action. By the time you realise that you have forgotten the account name / password, and you cannot use the backup email address to reset the password, it's too late to register your cell or home phone.
• If you value anonymity, you may not want your activity tracked.
• If you value anonymity, you may not want Google to have your cell or home phone number, stored in their databases.

For people who understand the risk of having ones Blogger account hacked - or who want to provide an additional option for account recovery when necessary, however, this is a solid option.

Account Recovery, Authentication, Contact, Privacy, And URL Availability Are All Related

Every day, we get various impassioned pleas from blog owners (active, former, and would be), in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, requesting assistance.

How do I get access to my blog, that I published 10 years ago?

and

How do I keep my blog from being visible in Google?

and

How do I contact the owner of a blog that was published 10 years ago (and never updated)?

All of these are valid concerns - and answering one question sometimes involves referring to various other concerns.

Blogger Support, some time ago, confirmed our right to privacy, as blog owners.

Our policies aren't pro-stalker, they are pro-respecting the privacy of user information. We simply can not release information without due process.

Effective use of the Internet requires some amount of ownership privacy.
The concept of Internet privacy in general, and blog owner privacy specifically, has legendarily been part of some major world political events. If we as blog owners are going to retain our rights to privacy as blog owners, we have to be aware of the limitations, and the results.

Not all blog owners are aware of the complex natures of Blogger authentication. We have two long used authentication options - account name / password (primary), and backup email access (secondary).

Some blog owners refuse to remember their account name and password, routinely.
Some owners routinely ignore the primary option, and use the secondary, regularly. When their email address changes because they change employer, graduate from college, or change ISP, we see the plaintive cry from former owners

I need Blogger to send the recovery email to my new address!

or

I can't use my previous email account!

To prevent the latter issue, Blogger / Google recently introduced a tertiary authentication option - SMS / Voice Recovery. This allows us to use a text message (SMS transmitted), or a voice message ("home" phone transmitted), to the "cell phone" or "home phone" of our choice. This approach, not universally popular, causes another privacy concern.

• It requires advance action. People currently unable to use the primary or secondary authentication options are not going to find a solution here.
• It requires the blog owner to register a "cell phone" or "home phone" number. People with privacy concerns don't appreciate this.

  I'm not giving Google my phone number!

  as if Google intends to add us to another phone spam database.

There is no Blogger required minimum publishing level.
Another privacy issue involves people who think that blog ownership involves some minimal publishing activity, and who require use of the Blog URL to match their blog subject and title.

I need contact to the owner of blog xxxxxxx!

Here, the would be blog owner ignores the owner's right to privacy, in requiring contact information.

Some people request that Blogger monitor posting level, and contact inactive blog owners.

Can Blogger just email owners of blogs with no posts for a year, and ask them to confirm their intention to continue? Those who don't respond can have their blogs taken away, so somebody else can make better use of the URL.

These would be owners seem to think that all Blogger accounts are based on active and valid email addresses, and that all URLs should be universally monitored.

Blogger can't satisfy everybody - you may have to pick an available URL!
The bottom line here is that there are several limitations, that we may have to learn to live with.

• Blogger won't disclose blog owner details, gratuitously.
• You, and you alone, are responsible for maintaining control of your blogs.
• If a given URL is not available, find one that is available now, and start your blog, today.

Compromise, and move forward. Remember, blog content is the value, in your Internet presence. Don't require that Blogger compromise security, to give you improper access to your blog.