security PSA
If, like me, you thought keeping a full backup of your LJ and comments meant you were safe in the event of a hacker or catastrophic system failure . . . well, not really. If entries on your LJ are deleted, you can't automatically recover them: you have to re-post entries by hand [*] from your own backups (you can't get the entries off LJ's servers); and comments are an altogether more complicated question. (You could paste them into the body of a post if you have them backed up with a separate program, like LJArchive. Or if you've imported all your journal into a Dreamwidth account, you could crosspost each existing DW entry to LJ with an auto-generated pointer to the DW entry and its imported comments, which would still suck but would be at least semi-automated; so I recommend importing your LJ into DW as a backup. (You can private-lock all the entries in one fell swoop if you have a paid account.))
[*] Edit: I think if you use LJ-SEC for your backups, you can then bulk repost the entries, but you still won't get comments.
I therefore suggest taking five minutes to:
- Check out what e-mail accounts are associated with your LJ and remove any you no longer have control over;
- Set a secret question for LJ-I suggest making up your own;
- Check the strength of your existing password, and change it if necessary (tips and strength checker);
- Back up your LJ (and any communities you maintain); and
- Do the same for your e-mail account(s).
Nothing can make you 100% safe, but might as well do what you can.