Well, I guess the Universe noticed my hubris in my last blog entry this morning and decided to take me down a notch... Right after I posted, someone hacked into my gmail, yahoo and facebook accounts. Someone claiming to me and claiming to be stuck in London needing money just spammed my entire address book and changed all my passwords for me (wasn't that nice?). They also not only put in a fake backup e-mail that looks like mine (at OperaMail.com), but they changed my security settings to alert a Nigerian cell phone whenever I tried to reset my password, so they could beat me to the punch.
The first time I thought I had gotten in and fixed the problem I was able to e-mail some of my contacts to let them know about the problem, but then the hackers reset my password again, kicking me out and taking over my e-mail. The only way to fix it (I think) was to use google's account recovery form and a secondary e-mail address, then IMMEDIATELY get into the account, delete the phony e-mail address & cell phone and change my password to something much more difficult to hack.
[I was relieved and annoyed to find that I'm not the only person this has happened to; you can read here how this happened to a business, as well. ]
I'm still sorting through the wreckage these unholy bastards have created in my techno-life. I can't get into my facebook account, for example. In the meantime, if you follow this blog or we've corresponded by e-mail, please go and update your e-mail security settings immediately. If your e-mail password is outdated or easy to figure out, change it. If you get an e-mail saying that a new address has been added to your account, change your password immediately and delete any e-mail address you don't recognize; you should also check your address & phone number to make sure they have been fiddled with.
And, if it's not obvious, please don't send money to me in London. I'm not there, I haven't been mugged, and if you really want to give me money, please come do it in person so I can thank you properly. ;)
When the hackers had control of my IM, my friend Rob also had a brilliant way of figuring out something was up - he just typed, "How is _____?" with a made-up name of someone we don't know, and the hackers of course responded that _______ was fine -- demonstrating that they weren't me! I thought it was pretty clever for a Monday morning and I'm glad he (and others) know me well enough to sense when I'm not myself.
I'm writing all this so that everyone else can be on guard for these horrible, pathetic excuses for human beings and their miscreant behavior. If only we could harness the intelligence and cunning of these jerks (not the word I want to use, but you get the idea) for something productive and useful in the world. Sigh.
On the flip side, I can't say how touched I am that some people actually were willing to help me when they thought I had an emergency in the U.K. I also got lots of phone calls and e-mails from people who figured out something was wrong and wanted to make sure I had a heads up. It is really nice to know that we're all looking out for each other.
So, that's my silver lining. And if you'll excuse me, I need to go make sure I've closed all the loopholes and then let off some steam. URRRGH!
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