The Real Blogger Status

Someone publishing a blog, that supports a web based business, may use email to communicate with the customers - and possibly, to distribute the product. With a Blogger blog involved, use of email, to communicate with people who you don't know, creates a security risk . A blog, supporting a web based product, may look more interesting to hackers. If it's worth publishing by the owner, it's worth stealing. If the owner uses email, to communicate with customers or distribute the product, some owners may casually use their Blogger account email - and make their Blogger account vulnerable to brute force account hacking. Some owners may even include password hints, in the blog content - making the hackers job easier. At minimum, a successfully stolen blog may be worth a ransom demand, since the blog likely has commercial value. What enterprising hacker wouldn't invest a few extra dollars to buy a product, to learn an email address and possibly a Blogger account na...

Some blog owners use Mail-to-Blogger, for publishing to their blogs, without considering the issues. Some owners can't get Mail-to-Blogger to work. I get Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently: or I don't get any error - and the post never shows up in my Posts list. Other owners have no problems getting theirs to work, and later find posts that they didn't send - and don't appreciate . Where did all of the spam come from? Using Mail-to-Blogger seems simple - but maybe should not be treated so. The Mail-to-Blogger email address, at Settings - Mobile and email, is a major part of the challenge , in this case.

One of the hottest US National news stories, this month, is about Hillary Clinton and how she endangered the security of this country by using an insecure email address . One of her mistakes involved her having a friend who had her email address in his address book, when his email account was hacked. And that is how your friends email accounts can be used, to attack your email account. Even if your email account is not revealed, openly, a friend - or fellow blog owner - who reveals her / his email address, can have his / her Blogger account, blog, and email account stolen. And with the possibility that you and your friend exchange emails, there is vulnerability to your email account, your Blogger account, and your blog .

If your blog does not get a lot of comments, you may be unused to receiving multiple comments, for the same post, in one day. If you do one day get multiple comments, in the same day, for one post, you may not be prepared for the effect of Conversation email formatting, used by GMail. When an email message is received in your Inbox, on the same day as a previous email message with the same Subject line, GMail will display both email messages as one message, in a "Conversation". This gives you two or more email messages - such as comment moderation (or notification) - displayed under the same GMail index entry. When you click on the index entry, you will see both comment moderation (notification) messages displayed, one after the other, in the "message".

Some blog owners install an email based "Contact Me" form on their blogs - then worry if the contact attempts are getting to them, when sent by their readers. Occasionally, blog readers may wonder if their contact forms, which they submit, are actually being read. In both cases, besides the chance that the messages are not being read because of a full email Inbox, there is the chance that the messages just are not getting to the email Inboxes. The Blogger supplied "Contact" form uses email for contact delivery - and this is where many contact delivery problems start. Whether you are a blog owner, or reader, these are issues which involve you.

We've been discussing the problem of email filtering , and missing email, for some time. Some blog members / owners are certain that their missing email isn't caused by filters. I looked in "Bulk" / "Spam"! The email isn't there, either - it simply does not get delivered!! These people are certain that Blogger just is not sending the email. In some cases, the problem is not with "Bulk" / "Spam" filters - it is with anti-spoofing filters - and email detected as spoofed, generally, is "bounced".

One devious way of attacking people, before the Internet, was to drown them in mail, such as unwanted magazines. Long ago, people with too much available time would fill out forms in their victims name - and subscribe her / him to assorted unwanted magazines. Nowadays, one might do that with email, to people unwise enough to publicise their account name or email address . Blogger has similar options that may let us annoy people, also - possibly, inadvertently .

Long ago, when diagnosing a problem thought to involve email, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , we would ask a very simple question Is your Blogger account based on a GMail - or non GMail - email address? And we would carefully add Please, do not state your email address, here! The latter request was to prevent theft of peoples Blogger accounts .

For some time, we've known about a problem with non GMail based Blogger accounts, and comment moderation / notification email . That problem, though mildly annoying to the blog owners affected, has an easy workaround - use a GMail based email address, for comment moderation / notification. That's a quick 15 minute fix. Setup a GMail account, if necessary. Change the comment moderation / notification email addresses, for the blog(s) affected, to use the GMail email account. GMail email accounts are, after all, free. Besides the ease of putting a workaround in place, that problem is not all that severe. The problem with comment moderation / notification email, being filtered, only affects blog owners who moderate before publishing. Owners who moderate after publishing can always use the Blogger dashboard Comments wizard, at their convenience, to moderate. This week, we realised that the base problem - rejected email because of non GMail based Blogger accounts - may also a...

We've seen a few reports, recently, about stolen blogs, in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why is my blog not on my dashboard - and why is somebody else publishing, and using my name? There are so many reports from people who are not using Google "One Account" login properly , that the significance of this problem report was initially overlooked. More than a few such reports started with the blog owner email address being openly disclosed - generally on the blog, or in comments. Too many blog owners want to be contacted - and they innocently provide their email addresses as a contact point. We've known, for years, about disclosed email addresses, and brute force password guessing . That is not the only way your email address can be used, to gain access to your Blogger account, however.

We're seeing a few reports in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken about problems with email, sent by Blogger, when the destination is a non GMail email system. Some email systems verify the sending email address, against IP address. With these systems, email which originates from a Blogger account that's based on a non GMail email address, and comes from a Blogger / Google IP address, is going to present a problem, to the account owners.