Better safe than sorry

Apparently a lot of popular LJs are getting hacked. Someone takes control of a moderator's account and pretends the journal is closing, making a post indicating that, and links out to other sites with Cyrillic encoding that have keylogger viruses embedded in them.

Whether this has any particular connection to random Cyrillic users (apparently they're bots, which LJ knows about and refuses to do anything about) friending you, I don't know, but I don't friend them back, and I don't recommend you do, either. Why give someone you don't know access they don't deserve? (Hell, why assign a bot a pronoun IT doesn't deserve?)

For more details, check out this post by acari here, along with this post by upstart_crow. I especially recommend downloading one of the Backup options offered in acari's post, because if this happens to you or your journal, it'll be a while before you can get access back, and most likely your LJ entries will be gone.

I use xJournal for regular blogging on Mac OS X, but it doesn't back up as many things as some of the other options do. The Python script is easy to use if you've got an Admin account; I just ran it from Terminal and it's chugging away. LJBook looks cool, but I imagine large journals would be the size of encyclopedias and, should you choose to print them, would cost a pretty penny. Heck, they'd probably be very hefty in MB or GB, too.

I'd also recommend copying your Tag Cloud and Memories List down, so if you DO end up needing to rebuild, at least it'll be easier than trying to remember from nothing.

Other people have already been hacked and lost close to everything, and these bots/hackers/whoever seem to be targeting large and/or popular communities. Know that in ANY of the communities I own or maintain, or any of my journals (all 3 of them), I would NEVER EVER EVER delete my entries or leave LJ without a very lengthy explanation post-- a public one. If it had to include links, it would be links to a site on my OWN domain, not a Cyrillic one.

And seriously? Don't let yourself become vulnerable to these kind of things in the first place. Make sure your anti-virus is up-to-date and running and that you have spyware/malware protection. Verify that both programs (because most "suites" of anti-virus and anti-spyware are too bloated and don't catch everything anyway; better to just get a basic "anti-virus" and a basic "anti-spyware") are legit-- not some random thing on your screen that popped up saying "YOU MAY HAVE SPYWARE11!!eleventy!!"

It was Justin Kredible!

I'm so glad I went to the "Justin Kredible" magic and dinner show tonight at the University Student Union! First off, it introduced me to this song, which I think kicks butt. I've only heard about Lady Gaga in passing, but this song is pretty catchy! Listening to the lyrics, maybe it wouldn't be appropriate for a Society meeting, but it is fun to listen to.... Music is very inspirational, you know? I have whole soundtracks for some of my fics (including fics that haven't even been written)!

Anyway, the magic show itself was really fun. We had a pre-show magician from school, whose name I think was Peter M. I feel bad that I can't remember his name exactly, but it wasn't printed on the flyers at all! Still, he was pretty awesome in his own right, and I got to thinking if he's a student at CSUN, maybe he'd want to perform at the NSLS Induction this summer? Is that strange, wanting a magician at an honor society induction?

As for the man himself, Justin Kredible, on his poster, I thought he looked like Shia La Bouf. But then there was this other poster that didn't look like Shia, but also didn't look like the guy who actually came on stage. Actually, the guy who came onstage looked uncannily like fountain_the's twin brother, Ryan! Right down to the voice. Okay, so he looked like he had a lot more spiky hair, but still...!

The tricks weren't corny at all, and both guys (Peter M? and Justin) were comical without being too raunchy or stupid. Justin especially made good use of audience involvement, and the tricks ranged from everything to handkerchief and card tricks to disappearing rings and money. He even set his wallet on fire and had a paintball shot into his mouth!

Plus, the catering (courtesy of Sharkey's Mexican) was delicious-- quite possibly the best chicken I've had in ages. Unfortunately my eyes were bigger than my stomach, so I only finished two taquitos and a bit of vegetables and chicken before calling it quits. I hardly ate any of my salad, but I did manage to down two Sunkists (I think my muse is in the mood for TAFF).

All in all, today kicked butt, and I take this as a good sign for a great weekend and semester to come. I got a lot done today-- I reserved the room for most of the Saturday NSLS meetings, found out why the Meeting Services online reservation tool wasn't working for me, communicated with Caryn of the National office and several members from the chapter, got a new Speaker Series DVD, and wrote out more of my plan for Orientation. Time is just flying!

I like being motivated and happy like this-- I feel like I can do anything, even if the things I'm accomplishing so far are just smaller steps of a much bigger whole. I wish I could keep this kind of mood and motivation up all the time. Life doesn't always work that way, but I'm going to hang onto it for as long as I can! So I'm just gonna dance... whoo!

 Just Dance by Lady GaGa & Colby O'Donis from The Fame (Rating: 0)