Hey Cab, How is Manchester treating you?
Posted by Paul Strefling
Ah, what a drag, I was feeling so social 
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Face book is where my daughter picked up that stupid bug a week or so ago
Social networks aren't places I need to visit...why would anyone be interested in what I just ate, what I just crapped out or what I just put on??? Too many people don't have lives
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Well Peter, My long lost son (his mom took him away at four years old) got to me via facebook, at 40 years old and both my girls and I stay in touch also through it. I like seeing what those guys are up to and I have friends I haven't seen since the 60s and 70s show up and get in touch. I really enjoy the facebook thing, even if it does have risks.. It makes things possible and I like that. Respectfully, Rick |
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Yes, it is good for that but the large majority of what's on the social networks is mindless drivel
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So. Manchester was brutal. What a trip! I had a great time right up until I was robbed at gunpoint. But after a quick detour through Nigeria, I'm now home safely again.
Thanks everyone who got in touch with me. All is fine, no damage done, just annoyances. Ernest even told me that he found "me" online on Microsoft's IM client and chatted with "me." "I" was in bad shape, had no money and needed help in the UK. I hope "I" am alright. I think it's awesome and hilarious that Ernest chatted him up and strung him along. 
It was my Hotmail account that got hacked, as those of you who received the email noticed. I saw it myself as I had my work email in my contact list. I thought it was odd that I sent myself an email asking for money. I don't know if I left traces behind somewhere or if it was just a random hit when they got into my account. I don't use that email very much anymore for anything except getting stuff sent that I don't really want to have to see all that often, like confirmations of credit card payments, etc. I call it my "spam" account, because it's the account I use when signing up for something I don't want to get into my "real" email. Bad strategy in retrospect, I suppose, but it's been working for me for many years. Anyway, I've had this account since something like 1998 or 1999, and I'm not sure I ever changed the password. That's definitely not a good idea. So when I received the email, I immediately contacted Microsoft because obviously I was now locked out of my Hotmail account and the security questions had been changed, so I could not reset my password that way. They have a, oh, let's call it "assistance" service for things like this. They asked me a bunch of questions that I couldn't answer correctly, mostly because it's not my primary email account and I opened it so long ago that I couldn't remember various details. They sent me a link to a secure forum where I could deal directly with the privacy/security team in order to validate my identity so they could reset the password for me. Well, my answers didn't satisfy them and so in this forum I typed out the situation: I've had the account many years, don't remember all the details of when I opened it, I lived somewhere else at the time, have moved, yada yada. I gave them bits of information that I could recall about names of folders I have set up, possible titles of emails they'd find in the inbox, etc. They still say I have failed to satisfy their security investigation. I copied/pasted the "mugged in UK" email, said that this had been received by everyone on my contact list, and it sure seemed like a textbook case of hacking/phishing. But still I am not satisfying their crack team of experts as to my identity. Oh, and at this point they won't even respond to my posts in this "secure assistance" forum. I obviously have since changed all passwords, removed the Hotmail account from everything it was connected to, and called my bank to let them know what has happened. I used this account as my log-in to Facebook, and yesterday morning I got a text message that my FB password had been changed. This happened because they must have attempted to sign into FB using my hotmail addy, and since they controlled the email inbox, just clicked on "forgot my password" and a new one was sent to them, locking me out in the process. I immediately went to log in, and of course I couldn't, so I clicked "forgot my password," and had them text me a new one instead of sending it via email. When I logged in, it said that suspicious activity had been detected, and they showed me a map of Africa with a pin on Nigeria, saying my account had recently been accessed from there. Of course I said that wasn't me, changed the password, and removed Hotmail from my FB account. I am optimistic that I have plugged this particular little leak with no major damage done, just a major annoyance for the last few days. Peter, I don't think this was because I use FB, although I really don't know. This particular scam is pretty common, I've seen it in several places, and from people's emails who do not use FB. I think it's much more likely because I literally went over a decade without changing the password to that particular account, and over the years I have used that email at any number of online vendors, memberships, etc (and of course all the zillions of pr0n sites). I recognize that FB and other similar sites have risks, but IMO the benefits of easy and relatively constant (to the extent I want it) contact with friends and family outweigh the risks. YMMV, of course. Interesting (to me) observations: - Microsoft does not really seem to care that I was hacked or acknowledge at the very least that this email account should be suspended, even if they're not ready to hand it back over to me, despite my being a "customer" of theirs for as long as I've had that account and that I can provide them with some amount of verification, just not enough to satisfy their requirements. This "secure forum" that I was given where I was supposed to be able to interact with their security agents is BS. Shocked and amazed at MS's indifference, I am not. - FB, on the other hand, immediately detected suspicious activity and alerted me to the initial password change and let me quickly and easily regain control of that account. I thought it was interesting (and I mentioned it to MS in the secure forum) that FB detected this and MS did not. It was clear that the scammer was not masking his IP address and FB was able to locate its origin. It should be an easy matter to see that in the decade plus of history on the email address, it was never accessed from outside the USA, and that recently the password was changed, security information was changed, a blast email sent out, and all of this from an IP in Nigeria. Seems blatantly obvious that this isn't normal for this email account. - These Nigerians, despite all the conditions they face in their home country, seem to have plenty of time to spend working on email scams. Maybe that's their national industry. Cab 
1990 325i(s) 2004 325XiT |
It was facebook that helped Tunisia to get video out to people when all news people where not allowed to be there. I think the possibilities are there for social networks to be major players for good, and of course, some crap too! |
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