SORRY TO DISCOVER THAT ALL COMMENTS PUBLISHED PRIOR TO JUNE 14, 2023 HAVE DISAPPEARED! I WILL MISS ALL OF YOUR OBSERVATIONS!
I ALSO SUSPECT THAT THIS BLOG IS BEING ATTACTED BY A BOT THAT KEEPS SENDING MESSAGES TO OLD POSTS - SOMETHING THAT CAN ONLY BE NOTICED BY COMMENT MODERATION!
AS BOTH EVENTS HAVE OCCURRED TODAY (AUGUST 23, 2023), THERE IS CLEARLY A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE TWO!
TO THE PERSON BEHIND THESE MESSAGES... PLEASE STOP! I DON'T WISH TO REPORT THIS TO GOOGLE! ALL SUCH COMMENTS WILL BE DECLARED SPAM AND NOT PUBLISHED!
AGAIN... PLEASE STOP!
10 comments:
!! Yikes! I'm so sorry and hope it gets resolved!
It *appears* to be resolved, as there's been no further inundation of comments on old posts since this morning! BUT, I'm not at all sure I'll ever get those last two months of comments back!
I've sent a message to "Google Blogger Community" this afternoon, but no responses as of yet.
I'm quite broken-up about losing so much great material from you all. In the back of my mind, I've always felt that the Blog would always stand as a celebration of what we do here... but even that assumed-constant is now broken!
Sorry to hear about this issue, Joe. Glad it appears to be resolved. Too bad so many comments that folks put a lot of time and thought into are now gone. Any chance you can still recover at least some of them from the trash folder of your Gmail account?
Interestingly, I notice that Blogger is once again making me prove I'm a human by clicking on pictures. This hadn't happened to me in quite a while. Could this be related to how the bot was able to attack the blog?
On an unrelated note, my Mac just suggested I put "Ancient Brotherhood of Bruins" in the "name" field! I'd completely forgotten about the time I created that secret society!
I’m also sorry your blog has suffered this limited disaster, all the more scary because it put *all* of our years of conversation at risk in your mind. There are wonderful things that can only happen online, like this blog that connects fans on topics of common interest. And your moderation ensures that all our conversation is respectful, unlike so much online chatter. But the downside is that stuff online is never as secure as content in physical media…as you have long insisted in your championing of DVDs over streaming! I hope despite your distress over this event that you’ll continue to post here and to enjoy the resulting conversation, even knowing the risks are not completely avoidable. If only blogs had an autosave!
I'm very sorry to see the recent comments disappear, but I must admit that once I took a closer look at the situation, I felt lots of relief - initially, I believed that all comments published BEFORE 14 June 2023 have disappeared, all the way back to 2008. Lucky that it isn't the case. See? Every cloud has a silver lining :)
I hope that Google will be able to restore the missing comments as well, Joe - and it's certainly good that this malicious bot has been taken care of. May it never return to harass us again!
To Everyone:
Thank you for your comments of support! It’s the best medicine I could receive in response to the situation!
Having stepped away from it for a few days, devoting my time toward a ton of Fantagraphics writing with looming deadlines, my feelings on the matter are – as Elaine says “There are wonderful things that can only happen online” and lots of very convenient things as well… BUT there is an ever-present vulnerability lurking just around that next cyber-bend!
I /we may have lost two months of valuable comment interaction (…which, as you know, I treasure) but, in the last month, a recently widowed friend of Esther’s, who is not at all computer savvy, lost several thousand dollars to bank account hackers who changed her password and withdrew funds in dribs and drabs. And, yes, she did get an email notification of the password change (as we all would) but may not have properly recognized its importance until it was too late! ...And she did not get any of it back!
Some years back my e-mail account had been hacked, sending spam messages to those in my contact list – a change to a more complicated password remedied that. Between us, Esther and I have had three cases of credit card fraud over the last 2-3 years, thankfully resulting in no losses to us. And, on the VERY SAME DAY, cell phone provider T-Mobile debited one of my bank accounts – something I NEVER gave authorization for them to do! …I guess you could say that paranoia was running rampant ‘round here!
T-Mobile’s unauthorized debit was for only $45.00 and Esther (who handles the phone accounts for us) resolved the matter, getting the 45 bucks restored to that account, and, while the incident was completely unrelated to the Bot attack, it sure didn’t seem so at the time!
Google has offered several theories as to what happened, but no solution toward restoring all that lost content. For reasons too complicated (…and, frankly, uninteresting) to go into, my Google account’s backup – and my Gmail – had become too full to properly utilize. A problem on my eventual “to-do” list that wasn’t “to-done” quickly enough.
Sergio notes that he had to “prove [he’s] a human” to leave his comment, and I’ll assume the same applies to all of you. That was a necessary step I had to take (…not offered by Google, I might add) to shut out the Bot, which was inundating me with spam comments on older posts faster than I could delete them. Comment Moderation did not allow them to reach the Blog itself, but who knows what might have happened had it continued to proliferate unchecked! I have just turned that feature off, because I know how annoying it can be, so let me know if that is still he case or not.
To the best of my ability, I cannot find a clear way to restore the lost comments. If any of you have the time and ability to locate them in your “Sent” boxes, and are inclined to re-send them, I’d be happy to re-post them with as best a recreation of my responses as I can muster. This would apply to any post after “Shut-Up, Shaggy!”
Though severely disheartened for a time, my positive energies – combined with yours – shall make this humble Blog… rise like a Tucson… or was it a Phoenix… or a Scottsdale… or, for Gladstone readers, Prescott… or someplace in Arizona!
Undeterred, I shall continue to “connect fans on topics of common interest, moderate respectful conversation, champion DVDs over streaming,” [Thanks, Elaine!] …and all of the other fun stuff that happens here!
LET’S GO DO IT!
You definitely mean rising like Phoenix. All of those other locations don’t have a fiery mythical bird as a namesake. Nothing ever rises like a Scottsdale, Prescott or Chandler. The only thing these Arizona locales have in common with the Phoenix is that they’re really very hot (but so far, haven’t burst into flames to be reborn from the ashes).
Thanks for the clarification, Deb!
Having never been to Arizona, I get those places confused… But I’m not completely certain we can say “Nothing ever rises like a Scottsdale, Prescott or Chandler”, unless we exclude rising temperatures.
Around here, nothing ever rises except crime and taxes! Yet, I still love it!
Here’s hoping YOU continue to shine bright… without bursting into flames! …Sounds painful!
Oh, dear! It seems I'm late to the crisis. I too experienced a moment of even greater dread at the thought of all *pre*-June-2023 comments being lost to time, but even that smaller amount is quite a sad thing. I suspect most people now have a “hacking story” in their close family somewhere. My father was once taken in by a hacker pretending to be one of his old friends, asking for an urgent cash transfer to Greece (where the real guy had recently been on holiday, so it didn't seem *that* outlandish…), and was within moments of doing it when my mother calmed him down. That being said, with the realities of the modern Internet, I suspect such an arbitrary attack as what the blog befell might have been one of the scores of bots that are just released en masse onto big Internet platforms, moreso than any kind of targeted attack. But who knows…
(Incidentally, I'm keenly aware of the irony that I'm sending this message while logged out of my usual account! But, you know. Not an evil robot, I promise. And I *won't* be asking any of you wonderful people to send any wire transfers to Greece *or* France.)
Achille:
WHEW! Regarding “The Case of the Garrulous Greek”! Where would we men be without women to curb our enthusiasm (…with apologies to Larry David)! …Seriously, GREAT SAVE, Mama Talon!
I completely agree on the incident not being any sort of targeted attack on me… just one of those things. Perhaps my Blog was just in the wrong place at the wrong time… That’s what I get for letting it vacation in Greece during one of my (all together now) horrifically busy periods!
“And I *won't* be asking any of you wonderful people to send any wire transfers to Greece *or* France.)”
Aw, c’mon, Achille… What are friends for? I’ll transfer to you all the WIRE you want! It’s cheap! …Just don’t ask me for money!
TOMORROW, WE BEGIN ANEW (…like someplace in Arizona) WITH A SOMEWHAT INCONSEQUENTIAL (…but still good) POST TO MARK THIS HUMBLE BLOG’S SLOW BUT STEADY RETURN TO NORMALCY!
SEND LOTS OF COMMENTS AND LET’S SHOW THAT BOT WHO’S BOSS! BOO-YAH!
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