An unusual problem!

I am a Blogger with a pretty unusual problem and I wonder if there is anybody here who might possibly be able to help me? I have sought help elsewhere, but nobody has really taken the problem seriously. It is however a problem which is really beginning to freak me out!

I am a female from the U.K. who is in my 60s and I have been the owner of a blog on Google's Blogger since about 2006. It is a pretty boring blog, but it is one I have always wanted to keep anonymous because I want to talk about problems relating to my daughter who suffers from depression. I also have another blog under my main Google I.D., but this blog has been unused for a while.

Since about last October, I have had a visitor on my blog who seems to want to intimidate me. At first, he managed somehow (possibly through getting hold of a cached version of my blog pages) to make it appear in Statcounter as if he was editing the blog (whilst using various proxies) and I thought at first that he had hacked into the blog. At the end of January, he stopped doing that and his visits no longer appeared in Statcounter. However, it soon became apparent to me from the Blogger stats that he was looking at every post, most times as soon as I publish them. He does not seem to be away from his computer very much, either on weekdays or weekend. As there was not a lot I could do about his visits, I learned to live with them - and even tried to see the funny side of the situation! (This is definitely a human and not a robot by the way, as his behaviour does occasionally vary a bit).

A few weeks ago, I went into the disused blog on my main Google I.D. with the intention of deleting it and found that this devoted stalker fan of mine had found his way there too. I could not think how on earth he had done this!

Since then, I have been on a mission to try to open a blog which this person cannot find. I tried getting another new Google I.D. using a new email address, but he found the new blog immediately, even though I was extremely careful that nothing at all could connect the new blog to the old one. I decided that he must have set up some kind of alert to be notified of anything I do connected with Google. In sheer desperation, I created another new blog using yet another new email address, only this time I used a fake name and date of birth. I was dumbfounded though, as within about a minute of the blog being created - and before I had written any posts - my stalker friend turned up again in the Blogger stats (where he is shown as being from the U.S. and using Chrome on a Macintosh computer)!

I am completely flummoxed and cannot for the life of me think how this person could be doing this. I am getting more and more freaked out by all of this!

Perhaps I should mention that there are indications that this problem only relates to Blogger and Google. I could probably create a Wordpress blog without him being able to find it. However, there is a big part of me that does not want to give up and is determined not to let this person win! I also need some answers for my own peace of mind, especially as I have no idea who on earth could be doing this to me! I am a pretty boring old lady with a pretty boring blog, so cannot fathom why anybody would want to follow me this way. It is extremely creepy!

I should also tell you that I have checked my computer for any spyware or rootkits and have found nothing. I am also completely satisfied (just in case you wonder) that my daughter has nothing to do with this! I live with both my husband and daughter - but neither of them has enough technical knowledge to do some of the stuff this stalker person has done!

Can anybody here offer me any clues at all about how this person might possibly be finding me everywhere I go in Blogland?

 

Question - these new blogs you've created, are they COMPLETELY autonomous? Ie, no links to any existing accounts, like a Google Analytics account (existing one), or similar? Because if there is, it's quite simple to find other accounts / sites connected to the same GA ID. That is one potential way he might have found you. There are pleny of other, more nefarious ways he could have gotten the same info, but somehow linking recognizable content between the blogs would be the simplest way.
Another question: is this person in any way somewhere near you? Having checked the computer for spyware and similar stuff doesn't mean he can't have access to the router, for instance.
Third question: have you tried registering and setting up a blog from another computer somewhere? Like the local library? Create an email that cannot, in any way link back to you, make sure you don't link it to any excisting accounts you have on Google, or Facebook, or anything like that, and set up a new blog using that ID. If he can still find you, something else is definitely going on.

 

Thank you for your reply. Apologies for delay in responding: I thought nobody had answered!

I added nothing to the blog: no GA, no Statcounter, no anything! It does say that it is visible to search engines; he found the blog before I could change that. But surely he couldn't find me via a search engine, if I am using a false name?

I have already checked my router's web interface and all it shows is our twp phones, plus our printer

The idea of using a library or something similar is interesting. Will try it out some time.

Many thanks.

 

Would it perhaps be possible to get a link to either of the blogs (the new, anonymous one would do fine)? If you don't want to put it on the forum, maybe a PM? Would make it easier to do some research, maybe see if it would be possible to go the other way for someone who doesn't know anything about you or the previous site.

 

Justaskinguk I'm sure PoPSiCLe will help you better,mad I'm no security expert at all. But a few things, the stalker could be near you and using a VPN with a different country.

They could be using sniffers to hack your wireless network itself. Or it could be a program on the computer itself, that the anti-virus keeps missing.
I had the same thing happen to me a few years ago, and when I reformatted the old computer, then brought a new one, started a new email and all, without linking back to the old, the problem went.
Make sure you don't have a keylogger on your computer either.
Best of luck and I hope this gets fixed soon!

 

Thank you both so much for your messages.

PoPSiCLe: I will send you a message with the link to my new blog.

Invierna: I do not know ow to check for keyloggers, apart from doing scans for malware.

This computer is very old, so I keep telling myself that the problem should at least go away when we eventually have to replace it! I would really like it to go away now though!

 

I just tried creating yet another I.D. - this time using my phone only, with my wireless router turned off...... but once again, he found me instantly!

I guess that at least rules out the possibility of a keylogger on my computer!

What I don't get is where this person could be situated. I am in the U.K. and he always appears as being in the U.S. He seems to be online most of the time though, day or night and does not seem to sleep very much! I do not think it is a robot, as I have deliberately tested him by making tiny amendments to the blog, such as just adding or taking away a full stop. He seems to get annoyed then and stops visiting so much for a while (but unfortunately always comes back eventually).

Last October I thought I had had a breakthrough as, amongst a whole lot of the fake blog-editing visits, I found one which apparently related to an engineering firm in Georgia, U.S.A. It came at 8:14 a.m. U.K. time though.... which would have been 3 or 4 a.m. in Georgia! (Maybe this guy just does not sleep too well!) I actually wrote to the engineering firm eventually, but unfortunately they did not reply.

I guess the next step has to be a visit to a library some time and to try creating another I.D. and blog from there. At this rate, I will forget who I really am soon!

 

That's... creepy. I'm sorry, but I'm unable to think of anything that would make it so that it's that easy to find newly created blogs like that. Do you have a sample of the data he provides in your logs? Maybe we could gather some info from that.

 

Could be a backdoor Trojan. It has all symptoms of it, with that person having access to all your details and your machine?

 

That is a bit unlikely, given that she just stated that she made the last attempt via her phone (I'm assuming via 3g/4g), not using her router or any other machine in the house. Unless she's being surveillanced via in-house cameras and more, there's no way there's gonna be a backdoor tracking all different gadgets - unless, perhaps, they're all running Windows (but in that case I'm still thinking they should be running completely different versions of Windows, and having a trojan transform and being able to attack any incarnation... that's quite advanced stuff). Hence why I asked for any sample data from the logs - maybe there's something else going on, which might be visible in the data.

 

Ah! Thanks for clearing it up. I'm then just as perplexed as to what is going on with her. Is it possible she had her phone information to imputed into some online forum, so that any information they want to get about her is there, just with a little digging? (sorry about speaking about you in 3rd person justaskinguk...)

But you are right sample data from the logs, would be a good place to start to start finding out what is going on! Best of luck!

 

Yes, my wireless router was turned off completely when I created the last Google I.D. and blog and I accessed the Internet via 3G. My phone is an Android.

There really are no logs that I can think of to give you. The Blogger stats only show this person as being from the U.S. and using Chrome on a Macintosh computer, but they do not give any further details. He never leaves any links etc. His visits no longer appear in Statcounter (he no doubt uses one of the privacy browser add-ons)

The fake editing visits did appear in the Statcounter logs and I have kept screenshots for many of these (there were 45 in total) which took place from September 2014 to the end of January and which appeared to show that this person/persons was editing my blog. All the fake editing visits showed the following details for the strange visitor: he was using Windows XP with a screen resolution of 1024x768 (exactly the same as for my own computer). These visits ceased at the end of January, although there have been two or three more very recently.

I also have screenshots of the Statcounter entries for the visits from the Google-proxy. These almost always show the same screen resolution as the fake editing visits (1024x768), but with a variety of Operating Systems (XP appeared on just a couple of occasions, most notably on Christmas day last year!) On the 16th June, I published a post in which I wrote about the Google-proxy visitor and within one minute, not only did the the US/Chrome/Macintosh visitor show up in the Blogger stats, but the Google proxy visitor showed up too. A few hours later, the Google-proxy visitor returned displaying - on that one occasions only - the combination of Chrome and Macintosh, together with a (different) screen resolution of 1680x1050.

I could give you a link to the blog where I have posted a lot of details about all this, including many of the screenshots. I would be happy to do this in a private message if you wanted to see it (I would not want to post it publicly on here, in case it directs this guy to this forum). I suspect though that it would probably not tell you very much. This person is extremely careful not to give away too much information about himself!

Once again, many thanks for attempting to help; it is much appreciated.

 

Send me a PM, I'll have another look.

 

This sounds crazy, I don't know how to help but I hope you share the conclusion when you find out what's going on! Good luck, I would be freaking out right now!

 

Not sure if anyone else said this, but maybe you should reinstall Windows completely and erase everything. When you get your PC back up, make an admin account with a completely different name and password...

 

Yes indeed, Cronik. This is certainly the most weird thing that has ever happened to me in all my 60+ years! I got used to it for a while and even tried to find it funny, but now this person has found these new blogs/IDs it is beyond a joke and very creepy indeed!

I do not think that reinstalling Windows is an option for me. Firstly, I have never reinstalled Windows by myself (although I did do it a long time ago with the help of technical support) and am not sure I would be able to do it. Secondly, I have a very old computer on which I am running Windows XP and I believe that now not only have Microsoft withdrawn support for it, but that if I did reinstall it from my original CD then it would not be possible to get any of the updates that have been released since the CD was created. If I did ever want to reinstall, we have two hard drives and a year ago I put a clone of the C drive onto the second one...... but restoring to that would (I am guessing) most probably not be any help in this situation.

Also a year ago, I did look into updating to (at the time) Windows 10, but I ran something to see if I would be able to install it and it seemed as if there might be issues in a couple of areas, so I decided to wait until this computer finally gives up the ghost! Looking on the bright side though, we have had it since April 2006 and it cannot go on for ever! I do not think my husband would be happy about replacing it before something drastic happens to it though! (Maybe I should sabotage it lol).

I have taken my main blog offline for a little break. It is something I have done several times over the past few months, for short periods. It just gives me a little less to worry about, for a little while! Sometimes I think I will just give up blogging altogether and take up crochet or something more granny-like instead ..... but somehow I do seem to have a need to keep on trying to find answers to this extremely weird problem!

 

Sorry to be off the primary topic. But how are you able to post with no likes? I thought it was a requirement to have at least 3? Again sorry to take away from the post but I'm unsure as I'm new to this. Thank You.

 

Sorry, I have absolutely no idea what you mean! Do you mean I am supposed to have liked three posts? I just stumbled upon this blogging forum and posted to it. I had no problem, even if I was supposed to have one!

 

I just have no idea how to post like you have with this forum, and I was told I need at least 3 likes from active members to be able to post. Unless I just havent found where to post yet. But I have been waiting to obtain likes before posting. Can you please tell me how you posted this forum and what tabs you clicked through to do so. Thank You.

 

I just clicked 'Post new thread' at the bottom right corner of the page with all the blogging forum posts on. I then just typed in my post. I think I had to put a tick in the box to confirm 'Blogging is the BEST section for this topic' as well.

Sorry, I do not remember doing anything else. I think the other folk here would be much better qualified to answer your question really!