Spring cleaning - also security related!

Recent events, most notably the Heartbleed encryption disaster, prompted me to use this "spring cleaning" for having a closer look at the services I use regularly and deciding whether or not to keep using them. Let's just say the results are sobering. I contrast the responsiveness and security consciousness of the services against the reactions and reaction speeds of my private email account and, yes, Dreamwidth, both of which closed the gap fast, informed me, including information when to change my password after the new certificate was installed. If only all my services were immune or as responsive as those two! Sadly, they aren't.

By today I decided to close / let go of the following

1. my business email account will be defunct the moment my payment to its replacement has been processed. It will be a pain in the ass to notify and change all those contacts, but... RC4 handshake? on a vulnerable SSL version? With a 2 year old cert? And they have the chuzpe to declare themselves "safe"!???!! Good riddance!


2. my old fun mail account linking most of my blogs & social stuff. Similar reasons.


3. Livejournal. Their site is flagged vulnerable. Their cert is old (as in ancient), and the customer and tech information journals haven't been updated in ages! There is no word about Heartbleed from them, at least not in a language I can read. LiveJournal is an OpenID-anchor. The account there can be used to log into other services, keeping it around with a known security flaw is asking for trouble.
   Nevertheless, I feel nostalgic about Livejournal. I had a great time with the TBX and other fan communities there, and my journal collected over 1000 comments (imported to DW), but that's been gone for years, and it won't come back. There's virtually no one left I regularly read or contact exclusively through the service, so it's time to pull the plug. Although, I'm sad to do so. Ditto Insane.


4. fotocommunity.de - The service is fine, but I just don't have the time to play with it, and photos were a temporary fad of mine. So bye. Thanks for the play.


5. Photobucket. I'm sick of its antics thanks to the URL of my account containing an "ad string" that regularly get my pictures blocked.


6. wordpress.com - I used to run a blog collecting my original work-related G+ posts, most of the time I forget to mirror, and I won't pay to get rid of the annoying ads. So to be deleted for good. Sadly wordpress.com allows only to expurge blog content and URL, not user account. Will have to look into how to freeze it. At least, they -finally- updated their cert (took them long enough)!

Services for which it was a close shave but which will stay for the time being because at least they aren't a liability:

• Pinterest. It works. It's nice. I just don't get to use it most of the time.


• Wattpad. I like it. I like the idea. Somehow I always end up reading elsewhere. But that may yet change...


• Twitter. I was active for a while, and then it died down again, because my attention drifted from the fandom that anchored me there. I'll see if it wakes up again.

On top of it, quite a few of my other services will be assigned to other email addresses. So it's going to be a busy Easter week - aside from my utmost dedication to FINALLY GET THE ELIZA FOX SCENE DONE!!!