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An unusual problem!

Discussion in 'Blogging' started by justaskinguk, Aug 5, 2015.

  1. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #21
    Okay...... I am SERIOUSLY freaked out now!

    It was a lovely morning here yesterday and as my husband (who I have not told about any of this, as he would get very anxious!) was out playing golf, I decided to walk down into town and go to the library and create a new email account, Google ID and blog from there, as suggested on this forum. As you will probably have guessed from my opening sentence, the US/Chrome/Macintosh visitor once again found the new blog immediately.

    I am totally thrown by this. I was really feeling really optimistic that my problems had to be in some way connected with my IP number and that starting a new blog etc from the library would work. I am SO upset that it has not done so!

    On the bus on the way home, my head was spinning trying to work out how he could be doing this......

    The only common links I can think of between all the new blogs I have opened are: -

    A)I used mail.com addresses to open all the new blogs. The fake names and dates of births I used to open the email accounts were all different though. (For my two original Google IDs and blogs, I used Yahoo accounts). I cannot see how he could monitor all new mail.com accounts though.

    B)The library I went to is in the town in which I live. I was quite surprised when I saw that the library still uses computers which are running Windows XP, just like me. While in the library, I visited one of my blogs, just out of curiosity to see how my visit would appear on Statcounter. I looked at the Statcounter log afterwards and it shows a screen resolution of 1024x768 - again just like my computer! I do not see how that fact would help this stalker person find me though.

    C)At some point during the process of setting up a Google ID/blog, Google ask you to give your mobile number so that they can send an authentication code. Obviously, I only have one phone so for all these new blogs I used the same number. My phone is an Android. Could there be a possible link there? I would think that even if he had somehow got to know my mobile number, this would not enable him to find these new blogs created with the fake names.

    So...... none of my thoughts really got me anywhere. I still think this seems to be a problem with Google only though. Right now, I feel very much like giving up and just deleting my blogs and everything else connected with Google..... I really do!

    I just cannot understand who this person could be, or why anybody would want to do this to me. I am just an ordinary, pretty boring, old lady! None of it makes the tiniest bit of sense to me!

    I am having a truly terrible year all round. Something really horrible and traumatic happened to my daughter at the end of January (right in the middle of all this stuff!). I keep telling myself that things just have to get better soon............
     
    justaskinguk, Aug 18, 2015 IP
  2. Benjaminss

    Benjaminss Peon

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    #22
    Thanks I will try that! Cheers for the help!
     
    Benjaminss, Aug 19, 2015 IP
  3. ChazB

    ChazB Member

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    #23
    Sorry to hear you are having such a rotten time JustAskingUK. I'm going to forward this thread onto our techie chaps and see if they can shed any light on it for you.
     
    ChazB, Aug 19, 2015 IP
  4. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #24
    Thank you.
    I am really appreciative of the fact that the people here have not just dismissed my story and have been sympathetic. Elsewhere, I have just been treated as a silly old lady who is worrying about nothing!

    Even if nobody can help me solve this problem, just having a little bit of moral support in the background helps a lot.
     
    justaskinguk, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  5. ChazB

    ChazB Member

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    #25
    No problem, glad we can help, even if it is for moral support. We had a look through yesterday and to be honest, we're as flummoxed as you. The only thing we could think of at the moment is that someone may have figured out a way to track the mobile number that you used for confirmation. Maybe try using a different one, along with a different email and computer, and see if that helps?

    Sorry we couldn't be of more help to you.
     
    ChazB, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  6. Benjaminss

    Benjaminss Peon

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    #26
     
    Benjaminss, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  7. Benjaminss

    Benjaminss Peon

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    #27
    I'm sorry too!!!! I also commented above on the wrong thread. My apologies.
     
    Benjaminss, Aug 20, 2015 IP
  8. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #28
    Just to update you...... I have still not really made any real progress. I have just been concentrating on asking as many people as possible for help....... but nobody seems to have any ideas!

    I guess what I am going to have to do is buy a second (innexpensive) mobile to test out if this problem is connected to my phone. Although if I found out my present mobile is being tracked in some way, am not sure what I could do about it.......

    What I don't get is - if they are tracking my mobile number, why is it only my Blogger blogs that they seem to be interested in? It doesn't make sense to me! This problem is driving me crazy! :-(

    I will keep you updated if there are any new developments.
     
    justaskinguk, Sep 28, 2015 IP
  9. devinthayer

    devinthayer Active Member

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    #29
    Sounds like someone in your town has hacked all the XP computers, your mobile phone is hacked, you have been hypnotized, this anonymous person is a combination of people and bots using the same anonymizer IP address (like a server on the Tor network), or this is very sophisticated statcounter spam / mal-bots with occasional variations to simulate real visitors. I'm going to go with the latter. Try blocking the IP address.

    http://forum.statcounter.com/vb/showthread.php?t=40776

    I get Google Analytics referral spam all the time. Although the data looks real, it's actually quite deviously fake. That's how I know technology exists out there to simulate real user activity. I've also bought traffic from Fiverr - same deal - all automated traffic made to look like real people.

    You're in luck. It's a single IP address or even zone of IP addresses. This is a lot easier to manage.
     
    devinthayer, Oct 1, 2015 IP
  10. Blogzandstuff

    Blogzandstuff Greenhorn

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    #30
    it could be a bot, bots can be coded to behave like humans and interact with sites and use proxies for any country you like. Traffic sellers use bots that have human behaviour so newbies think they are getting human visits when all they are getting are useless bot traffic. There are bots that can click on only certain ads for example.
     
    Blogzandstuff, Oct 1, 2015 IP
  11. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #31
    Thanks to both recent contributors for responding to my post.

    Devinthayer, I like your hypnotism theory best! :)

    I cannot block this person's visits though (not even under hypnosis!) as they do not appear in my Statcounter logs. They are obviously using some kind of browser privacy extension which stops them appearing in Statcounter. They appear only in the Blogger stats with the details: U.S./Chrome/Macintosh.

    ***********

    Blogzandstuff, you have hit on the million dollar question here: is this visitor a bot or not?

    I know very little about bots, certainly not enough to answer this question. It does however seem to be that bots are a bit like UFOs: if you see something unexplained in the skies, just blame it on a UFO (or bot)!

    I will however attempt to explain the reasons why I think this is unlikely to be a bot....

    1)This U.S./Chrome/Mac visitor looks at all posts at once (most of the time). He has immediately discovered new blogs (in my name and fake names) including one created while using a public computer. If it is a bot doing all this, then it would be doing the same to other Blogger blogs. Nobody has come forward to say that this is happening, in spite of me mentioning this issue many times online.

    2)I have taunted this person by making just a tiny adjustment to the blog, for example by just adding a full stop to the title. When I first did this, he came running along straight away every time. Now though, whenever he discovers that I have done this, he will not visit again for a day or so.

    3)(Sorry.... a bit of a long one, this!)

    For very many months, I have also been visited by a strange Google proxy. The proxy shows the visitor as using different versions of Windows and different browsers. The screen resolution is usually 1024x768. The host name always begins with 'google-proxy'.

    Back on the 28th May, I published a post in which I mentioned the Google proxy, in order to see if anybody else knew anything about it. The post was published at 18.02 U.K. time and along came the U.S./Chrome/Mac guy immediately. At 18.03 along came the Google proxy visitor (on this occasion he was shown as using Windows 7 together with IE 11.0 and the usual 1024x768 screen res) , apparently responding to my post. From the Blogger stats, it appeared that these visitors were one and the same person. Does that sound like a bot?

    A similar thing happened on the 26th June when I published another post about the Google proxy. In it, I was asking whether this proxy might have a connection to the proxy now used by Gmail when images are sent by email. I also mentioned that I had seen the Google proxy mentioned in connection with possible DoS attacks.

    Again after this post, my intriguing visitor was shown as arriving immediately, along with the Google proxy visitor just as before. When I reported this in my blog, the Google person was back again (in this case, almost 7 hours later). What was different about the Google proxy visit on this one occasion though is that it actually showed the browser as Chrome, the OS as a Macintosh and - this time - the screen resolution was 1680x1050

    I saw these two Google proxy incidents as evidence that my visitor was letting me know that the Google proxy visitor is one and the same as the U.S./Chrome/Mac one. To me, it would indicate too that he is a real person and not a bot. Am I wrong, or does anybody here agree with me?

    ***********

    It seems that there are two distinct possibilities here. Maybe - in spite of what I have written above - this is caused by a bot. I would love to believe that, if only somebody could prove it to me.

    The other possibility is that somebody - for some unknown reason - is targeting me in a very personal way...... and that really scares me! :(

    A far better option would be if I really had been hypnotized..... and woke up to discover it had all just been a dream!
     
    justaskinguk, Oct 2, 2015 IP
  12. devinthayer

    devinthayer Active Member

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    #32
    I'm still betting on a bot. The behavior is too consistent to be human.
     
    devinthayer, Oct 2, 2015 IP
  13. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #33
    Okay.

    I think that if I do get hold of another phone to create another new I.D. and this visitor still turns up, then I will think that it is probably a bot.

    If however they don't, then I will still be worried that my phone is somehow involved!
     
    justaskinguk, Oct 2, 2015 IP
  14. justaskinguk

    justaskinguk Peon

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    #34
    Actually, there is yet another possibility, aside from Devinthayer's list!

    Supposing the problem originated from within the Google organisation somehow ? It may not be likely, but stranger things have happened.........

    I decided anyway today to gradually move my blogs away from Google and Blogger. I will not give up trying to seek out answers though!
     
    justaskinguk, Oct 3, 2015 IP