Briefly this morning public access to the blog was interrupted. Readers may have encountered a Google account sign-in screen intercept.
Public access should now work fine.
Over Christmas, from a few days before to a few days after Dec. 25, the workstation was misbehaving while being updated. Some problems remain, but it appears system security and stability have been restored. While troubleshooting the workstation and running security scans (until reasonably confident), posting and accessing the Google account was suspended per the last post - Dec. 22.
After DNC and Podesta and Powell had their systems penetrated, precaution (a/k/a paranoia) seems/seemed appropriate.
Even for non-prime-time targets . . .
CONSIDERATIONS: Had an outsider captured ability to alter the station system; or to gain Google account access (e.g. via a keylogger during mail sign-in) the worry was/would be alteration of link addresses in posts; spoofing legitimate sites or linking through a malware site to the Google stored blog content. And/or using a possibly compromised email account to send phishing attempts.
Were that to happen to any online system or mail account (not merely Crabgrass, etc.); readers/recipients might experience penetration and compromise to their systems and online accounts.
REMEMBER: Current publicly reported belief is that DNC/Podesta penetrations were via a phishing email containing a malware link which ended up wrongly opened.
With such a worry in mind; and this morning gaining believed full secure author's access to the Google blog while believing the workstation disturbance fixed; access was curtailed. That was for interrupting blog access to do blog troubleshooting (which is a limited thing for non-programmers using online provider-supplied templates). Curtailing access earlier would have risked attempting to reset core blog function via a potentially penetrated path. Leaving the email and blog accounts alone until reasonable belief of access risks being low seemed the better procedure.
Presently, per date/time stamp of this post, all is believed to be in good order after security scans (including rescue disc usage). Only after reaching that point was the blog taken off-line until a review of author settings and such suggested it should be okay to restore public read-access to Crabgrass.
REQUEST: If any reader notices or believes to notice content causing security/privacy worry (bad links, altered links, etc.), or to believe an email has been spoofed as if from me, or that a problematic comment has been allowed; such reader is asked to take the time to submit a comment or to send an email (4crabgrass@gmail.com) describing the worry. Opinion content the reader disagrees with, and only that, is likely not malware, but notice of anything seeming to suggest a security/privacy breach is what is requested.
LAST: May all readers enjoy a good new year, with good health and prosperity into the future. (Even the 1%'ers who may land here and read. Even those taking more than a fair share from everyone else. Even the Trumps and the Clintons. Even military brass, NSA cyber intruders, legislators, lobbyists, Freedom Clubsters, idiots, union busters, and those paying the help less than fifteen bucks an hour. But then I repeat myself.)
