Deleting Your Livejournal: You Don't Have To Set Yourself On Fire On Your Way Out Of The Building

[morgandawn]

I've seen people reblogging a post that  (1) LJ servers are now being housed in Russia and (2) "the Russian government now has access to private information on private citizens across the country, their interests, their views, their families" and (3) and recommending that fans delete their LJ blogs and communities. If you do reblog/post please let people know they don't have to delete wholesale - they can import their blogs and communities to Dreamwidth. I've seen too many people anguishing over the loss of their creations, the comments and feedback, and their fandom history etc because they do not know they have choices. So if you're going to pass along a message of "FIRE!!!" , please point them towards the exits safely.

Dreamwidth FAQ:
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=127 (importing personal blogs)
https://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=230 (importing communities)

edited: As of 12/27/2016 only the Cyrillic/Russian accounts seem to have been relocated to Russian. No ETA on when/if the rest of the world will be moved, but you may still want to backup your personal blog or community nonetheless.
http://siderea.livejournal.com/1330106.html
http://siderea.livejournal.com/1330197.html

Here are Russian language posts about the Russian journals that have been blocked  and speculation about what is happening (use Google Translate):
http://dolboeb.livejournal.com/3079690.html
http://dolboeb.livejournal.com/3081385.html

edited: I ran my LJ through http://ping.eu/traceroute/ and it seems to point to Russia. I don't  know enough about how the Internets work to validate. BOTTOM LINE: BACKUP YOUR LJS

edited 12/302016: LJ pages are no longer secure (payment pages are still secure).

Also, if you do backup to Dreamwidth, please consider buying a paid account.

Comments

[wendelah1]

This is a good point to make. I will remind people about their options.

Doesn't it seem strange that SUP would put their business in harm's way by moving the servers to Russia? Do you think this was done voluntarily or were they coerced?

Also, if the Russian government could hack the DNC, etc, successfully, to say nothing of the US State Department, why would people assume their DW accounts are safe from hackers? There is a Russian hacker on LJ who has been targeting X-Files related content on and off for years. If we get enough Russian bloggers moving to DW, surely the hackers are not far behind.

[morgandawn]

My guess is that SUP was forced to move to Russia - either out of costs reasons or political.

Our personal info has been stolen by hackers multiple times. And by "our" I mean most anyone who has ever shopped at the many places that have been hacked or went to the many hospitals that have been hacked.

I tell people to check here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/

and to use different passwords for every account. I left one account (my Netflix) under an old password that had been reused and it was hijacked by someone in Brazil. If they had left the language in English I would have never known and they could have kept streaming for free forever.

[wendelah1]

Yeah.

I do have a different password for everything now. I can't remember which business hack forced the issue. Luckily, I have a good memory, otherwise it would be a real pain in the ass, let me tell you.

[morgandawn]

I can recommend last pass password manager. They generate secure passwords and you need to only remember one master password

[dewline]

My theory: politically motivated coercion. Not that it matters to us at this point.

[ride_4ever]

TYK for posting this. I was feeling overwhelmed about saving things to DW before they disappear from LJ and this is a huge help.

[klia]

Have you imported any LJ entries and comments? I can't tell if importing entries/comments that were crossposts will overwrite the original DW posts.

[morgandawn]

I imported my LJ early on and then started cross-posting from DW to LJ. Have not imported any communities lately (but should look into backing up the vidding community on DW).

[rahirah]

I import entries and comments from LJ fairly regularly. The system keeps track of what's crossposted and what's not. New comments to LJ crossposts will be imported and attached to the original DW post. I'm not sure what would happen if you edited the crossposted entry on LJ and then imported it back to DW; I suspect it would overwrite the original DW entry, but I'm not positive.

You definitely will not end up with a bunch of duplicate entries.

[valoise]

Thanks for putting this info together. Transferring my LJ as we speak.

[astudyinpanda]

Thank you for posting this. I've finally decided to import to Dreamwidth. Seems like a nice place!

[labelleizzy]

thanks so much for this resource! you made it easy to accomplish the transfer, even with just the one hand I have available RN.

& I did buy a paid account. Good idea, & fair cop.