Back in 2010, I posted some thoughts on emerging technical problems, mostly dealing with “funny” mail from friends with Yahoo e-mail accounts (see “An Emerging Technical Problem”). I have never found out what exactly was going on with these accounts (nor with mail from friends with Hotmail and/or Gmail accounts either) but it still happens.
From where I sit, it would appear that someone has gained access to the e-mail accounts at the server level and then sent the messages out to e-mail addresses stored on line. Now, one can do one of two things about this.
One is to do nothing and let the problem go away. That may be a reasonable plan. The other is to modify your e-mail address and let all your friends know what has happened and what you have done. The nice thing about free e-mail accounts is that they are free and you can probably create as many as you want. I would strongly encourage you, though, to put your e-mail service on your own computer (using Eudora, Outlook, or Thunderbird) so that your files are behind your firewall.
You do have a firewall in place, don’t you?
Technology can be both a blessing and a curse; it allows us to do things that we could not have done several years ago but it requires that we keep a handle on where we are. It requires things like having an adequate security system on our computers; making sure that our wireless networks are secure and that we don’t put our own personal information in places where others may find it.
I bring this up because of a piece that Randy Willis posted on his own blog – “Site Hacked for the Third Time”. Note that he uses WordPress.org while my blog is on WordPress.com; it is a subtle difference but an important one.
I am not saying that you should avoid technology but know that you can’t do it half-heartedly. If you do, you may find yourself with more problems that you anticipate.
[...] I guess those who have the 2.5 million dollars in a bank still want to give away the money but they realize that most people would rather work for the funds than simply take them. It is an interesting evolution of the Nigerian bank fund scam; I even got an e-mail from someone saying that they were an FBI agent and they needed my help tracking down one of the Nigerians behind the scam. I might have bought the idea except that it wasn’t an official government e-mail and the e-mail addresses used weren’t official government e-mail addresses. So “they” are trying something new. I have put notes about similar problems in “An Emerging Technical Problem”and “Continuing Thoughts on Emerging Technical Problems”. [...]
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