WTF?!

[rivka]

Someone has hacked my old blog and, apparently, taken it over.

They posted something today. It's about HIV, but it's not written by me. They have edited the page to take down some of my information - like the e-mail contact I was using - and they've added some random links to the bottom that make me wonder if they're planning to turn the blog into a link farm. They've also removed the Haloscan comments, unless those disappeared for some unrelated reason.

I don't know how to log into the blog anymore - Blogger's interface has changed enough times that I don't seem to have the capability to access the Dashboard anymore. And whoever did this probably reset the e-mail account and everything in any case. That's what I would have done.

What do I do?

Comments

[brooksmoses]

The "Contact Support" page has a "I think someone is using my account" checkbox.

Failing all reasonable approaches, a last resort is a DMCA takedown notice about all the parts of the blog that you wrote, since the person currently using that account obviously isn't you and thus doesn't have copyright to them.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Thanks, that was a helpful link. I was having a lot of trouble negotiating their support interface, which is obviously designed to prevent people from contacting them directly.

I am a little worried about this: "We'll follow up with you only if we require more details or if we have additional information to share." That seems a bit too much like, "We'll feel free to ignore your problem, and you have no recourse."

a last resort is a DMCA takedown notice about all the parts of the blog that you wrote, since the person currently using that account obviously isn't you and thus doesn't have copyright to them.

I think I'd have trouble proving my copyright, although there are bits and pieces - like the baby blogging posts with pictures of Alex - I would clearly be able to demonstrate that I owned.

[brooksmoses]

*nods* Yeah, it does sound like that.

If it fails, I'd also try the "Someone is impersonating me" checkbox (on grounds of the pictures, and also if you used your name with the blog), as it seems to have a more useful way to put in information.

A thing about the DMCA is that, if they don't go to the effort of contesting it, you don't have to prove your copyright -- you just have to assert it.