Hack This

As I said in my last post: I love the internet. I hate the internet.

I love the internet because it's allowed me to reconnect with people fom school I probably would have never talked to again. I love it because it's given me a creative writing outlet that I've actually stuck with, and highly enjoy. I love the internet because I've met awesome people all over the world. And I can order a book while sitting in my underwear at 2am if I want to!

As you can probably guess from the title of my post, I'm not so in love with the internet this week. You could say the internet is in the doghouse. I'm withholding intimacy and making it sleep on the couch.

I'm well-educated. Polite. Classy if I want to be.

However, I will not be eloquent when it comes to hackers.

Hackers can go fuck themselves sideways.

I do consider myself lucky. My bank account wasn't touched (not yet anyway). I don't believe the hacker used me to spread viruses.

But what a PAIN IN THE ASS.

My husband and I have sort of a ritual in the mornings. The alarm goes off at 5. I sort of lightly doze for another 45 minutes while Chuck watches the news in bed. Then he gets on the computer while I drink my coffee and shake off the rest of the sleep. Then I get on the computer before I rush out the door for work at 6:30.

The hacking occurred a few mornings ago.

'Hey Kyna...you didn't send me an email, did you?' Chuck asked.

'Nope, it's probably a virus or something, I wouldn't open that if I were you,' I said sleepily.

Chuck knows that I never ever use my email. I will use it on occasion, but I always let the recipient know that I'm sending them something.

I didn't think anything of it, this has happened before. When it was my turn to get on the computer, I found that I couldn't get into my email. My password wouldn't work.

I went through the proper channels and finally got into it. All of my contacts had been deleted. I changed the password, and was kind of pissed off. But I had to get to work, and didn't have any time to check anything else.

I had just rolled into Jacksonville when my cell rang. I was concerned, because only Chuck would phone at that time in the morning. And not unless it was for a good reason.

'Hello?' said I.

'Hey Kyna. Um....Meta (a family friend) just phoned,' Chuck said with a brusque tone.

Holy shit, did somebody die? That's the first thing I thought of.

'Yeah, why?'

'Um, she said Jacob (her son) just thought he was chatting to you on Facebook. And he said you said you were in England and needed money because you got mugged.'




And so the whole day went.

I tried to get Chuck to suspend my account whilst I was driving the rest of the way to the store. But it didn't work...they hacked my email a second time, and got into my Facebook again and were hitting everyone up for money all day long.

Every single person who came in to get their paycheck at work on Friday morning stopped by the registers and said, 'Guess what?'

'Yes...I already know...'

My sister-in-law called Chuck at work. My brother Kevin called me that evening. Everyone asking was I really in England??? Was I really crying and penniless???

After I got to work and changed most of my financial-related passwords (didn't really want to get on social networking sites from there, so I let the hackers wreak havoc on FB while I was working all day), I thought....if this wasn't so annoying it would be kind of funny.

Like, who would believe that I was suddenly in England, got mugged and was asking my friends (some of them people on Facebook that I haven't seen in 20 years) for money?

Well, apparently, people were still worried. I'm just glad that none of them sent money to these people. A couple of messages that I received scared me a little, because they sounded as if they believed that it was me that sent the message.

Took me the whole evening after work to get everything straight. Hopefully I made all my new passwords hard enough that it will be tougher to break in. I'm still getting messages from people telling me how weird it was.

It's called a 419 Scam, where the hackers send all your friends messages that you're stranded in a foreign country and need a large amount of money. They ask you to wire it to a Western Union account in said country.

So just a heads up. Make your password something really long and hard. Lots of numbers and different letter sizes. Change it often.

And a warning: I would never ask anyone less connected to me than my siblings for money. And even then, I'd probably rather starve to death in the middle of Picadilly Circus than ask anyone for money. I never use my email, so if you get one from me, it's not me unless I warn you in advance.

And if I had a trip planned to England?

EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WOULD GET AN UPDATE EVERY 5 MINUTES.

Example: "I'm going to England! I'm going to England! Na-na-na-na-naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Ppbthhttttttttttttttttt!"




Hackers. Suck. Balls.