It's only Tuesday and I'm already done with this week

[cornerofmadness]

Even new development in Minneapolis makes me numb and sad and angry. This on top of that twat in NYC trying to get cops to hurt another African-American man.

Even before that the day had begun to derail. I got to the school, got to talking with one prof who is always there (and he's a good friend but he is SUCH a pessimist that he makes me look like Pollyanna) got the students contacted, planned to go to Jackson for a few things.

Got outside, the heat sickened me, literally, I came home and did nothing all day, barely ate, wrote nothing, cleaned nothing, spiraled down into depression nicely though.

And then I learned this Huge LiveJournal hack where they were storing passwords as plain text. I'm not techie but that sounds dumb. And of course because so many of us crosspost, dreamwidth was then hacked, so thanks for nothing. ETA just found a Dreamwidth update on this and yes there probably is a LJ breach and they aren't being helpful


The only good news is I found a story from a few years back that might be good for that Podcast 'magazine' that will be opening up for open calls in a few days. It's in the sweet spot for their word count. I don't know if it's any good but it's worth a try, right?

Comments

[havocthecat]

I don't think Dreamwidth as a whole was hacked or they'd have told us (in the security update, for example), but as a result of the LJ hack, individual Dreamwidth accounts were then hacked. For sure, and I know this because I was one of the lucky winners of a Russian hacker taking over my journal. Thank God for Denise, she caught it and helped me get my journal back.

[cornerofmadness]

Yes DW going down hard last night seems to be independent of the hack. DW seems to be taking it seriously. LJ unsurprisingly isn't. Sorry you got hacked and where able to save it at least

[havocthecat]

Yes, the hack to LJ was years ago. Individual DW accounts are getting hacked, for sure! Dreamwidth as a whole is not.

[cornerofmadness]

Someone in Viet Nam (in theory) has been trying to hack my email (not associated with this) about once a week. It's very tiring

[jenett]

The Dreamwidth risk is if your LJ account was among those in the data breech (which basically means 'did you have an account then') and also used the password on Dreamwidth or anywhere else.

(There's also a theoretical risk of people being able to connect accounts you had on LJ, even if the only connecting info was the email address or password - aka non-public info.)

I'm a little baffle by the unhashed password DB - when I was on the LJ Terms of Service team, back in 2003/04 they were hashed.

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks. Yeah the accounts are connected in my case, in a case of most of my friends where because there are still fandom things that haven't been mirrored here for some reason.

I'm baffled why anyone would have unhashed passwords. But this explains why a week or so ago LJ was claiming it was the third time they told me to change my password (I'm like no, it's the first time). I changed them then but since this is already a few years old...

[spikedluv]

I'm sorry the heat made you sick. I overheat so easily, so I feel your pain. I hope you're feeling better.

I clicked the link in the e-mail and there are two breached sites, probably DW and AO3. I'm going to change all three passwords today.

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks, woke up sweating so not best pleased at that. Sigh. I feel okay but I haven't been outside yet.


Yes, I changed LJ. Now to change DW and AO3 too SIgh

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Good luck with the podcast magazine thingie submission! :)

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks so much. I need to edit through that tonight. I haven't looked it over in a year.