Hey, Hey! It’s Sunday!
Well it’s that time. Yep time for some weekly updates and this past week doesn’t look good. I have been on the rollercoaster ride of my life with ups and downs all week. Wait…There were ups? You know the story about Midas and how everything he touched turned to gold? Well mine is the opposite. More like Medusa, except everything I touch turns to stone. Don’t worry there are no snakes on my head and if you look at me you won’t turn to stone, just stay away from my grasp. 🙂 I am that little snowball that you start to roll down the hill that keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and BIGGER! Yikes!
Okay, I’ll tell you about me week and maybe you can learn from my mistakes. Here goes…
Last Monday, I get an email notification from Yahoo, telling me that someone from Serbia had accessed my email. Oh Great! A couple of months ago someone accessed my basket business email account and sent spam to everyone in my email list. How do I know? Because my gift basket business is tied into my personal account also and my friends started sending me emails, “Gee, Thanks for the special offer for Viagra, but I’m doing okay. lol” Well at least my friends have a sense of humor. Anyway I couldn’t change my password, I tried, but yahoo just wouldn’t let me. So what did I do? I deleted all of the people in my address book. Permanently! And created a new email with another site and haven’t had any problems until now.
Here’s my Dilemma;
When I first got internet, I had dial up and my phone company was PacificBell, which was bought out by SBC Global and since they offered DSL I got rid of the “eekk,eerrrr,grrrr” dial up. Now I already had my yahoo email account when I went to DSL. The reason for me going to DSL was because I was just starting up my online gift basket business and needed the faster internet. I went with Yahoo to host my website. This was 2005 and in 2006 I switched to cable and got rid of DSL. Well AT&T bought out SBC Global and eventually took over Yahoo website accounts. Now I can access both my email accounts, but I have to go through AT&T to change my Yahoo email password. So I call AT&T and he wants my 6 digit code from my bill, but I’m no longer with you I don’t have a 6 digit code. “Well without that code I can’t help you.” So I contact Yahoo and they send me back to AT&T. Okay so I go online and try everything I can think of. I put in my old SBC username, great that works, then I put in my zip code and it tells me , “That zip code is not associated with this account” Wait! I’ve lived in that zip code area all my life! What do you mean, “It’s not associated with my account?” Okay back to step one answer your security questions, “First car I owned, Okay that’s easy,”Eep, wrong answer.” “What?” second question, First concert you attended, “No problem.” Eep, wrong answer. “What?” OH I give up! So it was back to the phone. Yahoo sent me to AT&T again and AT&T told me I have to go to a local AT&T store and show two government issued ID’s to prove who I am. Tomorrow. In the meantime, I have emptied out all the emails and folders from both email accounts and will be closing my accounts after I can prove who I am.
My advice to you is, If you have emails that you place in email folders, save them to your computer and delete the emails. Keep your email accounts empty and don’t store email contacts, I know that’s hard, but…
And on a lighter note, Don’t ever change companies for your internet. Take a vow, “Till death do us part” Write down all your passwords and answers and then shred them so no one else can change your passwords either 🙂
I was talking to another writer on twitter yesterday and he couldn’t log into his blog for some reason and I told him a little about my dilemma, (You can only say so much in a 140 character post) And he said, ” It’s times like these that make me question whether technology is worth it… then I think of my toilet and I’m thankful. :)”
But it’s not just us here on our computers, yes there is technology involved even if we don’t use the computer.
Case in point; I wrote a check, a paper check, at Walmart for a purchase and received a paper letter in the mail a month later saying I was one of the lucky 25,000 who’s information was stolen and sold to advertising agencies, by a former employee of the check and credit card processing service that Walmart uses, in fact many companies use that same company, even my grocery store. No they don’t believe my info was stolen so they could access my checking account but please keep an eye on your account just in case. Gee thanks.
And I feel like the lady on the Peggy commercials 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENb8p4VYANg
Wait a minute! I hardly ever get any paper mail any more, do you think someone changed my mailing address when I wasn’t looking?
The hard part is, I have to go to all the accounts I have connected to over the past, I don’t know, 10 years maybe, and change my notification email. I’m talking blogs and companies that send me emails for new products, or…And since I’m closing both business and personal accounts, there’s my bank, my gas company, my electric company, and the list goes on and on.
Well that was my week. I really haven’t had time to do much else, so there’s not much news on the writing front, let’s hope this new week will be better. Have a great Sunday everyone and make sure to stop by tomorrow for a guest post by John Cox/Paul Dorset. His post is titled “Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll” Sounds interesting. Wonder how that topic has to do with being a writer? Stop by and find out tomorrow!
karensdifferentcorners 
Ain’t it grand?
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Yep! Something no one should have to experience, but I’ll get through it. Be okay if all these companies would quit merging and buying each other out! Hi T.W How is your day going so far?
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Wow! I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through all of that. I steer clear of Yahoo like the plague. I have had several friends’ Yahoo accounts hacked in a very similar way you have mentioned. Also, don’t use the same email address for social media, blogs, etc. as you use for your personal and business use. (i.e. banking, bills, etc.). It’s always a good idea to maybe have a separate email account utilized ONLY for recovering passwords (preferably one provided by your ISP). Also, utilize two-step authentication where available. It’s kind of a pain, but makes it a lot more difficult for someone to hack into your account. Gmail and Facebook use two-step authentication, for example. Basically, with Gmail you enter your password (make sure this one is strong) and then you set up a phone number where the system will send you a text or voice message with a code to enter. The code expires within 30 seconds or so (maybe a minute or two), so you have to put it in as soon as you receive it. You can do this every time you log in or set it up to ask every 30 days to verify your identity. Again, this number can be any number (your cell phone, LAN line, a friends phone number or family member; whatever. It’s just a number used for the verification).
I HIGHLY recommend you read this article by Mat Honan. He’s a technology journalist that had a similar (if not scarier experience). http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/
I agree with you. I love the convenience of technology, but it has opened us up to so many problems.
One last thing. Make sure when you register your domain name (or renew) to utilize the privacy option. Otherwise, your basic information is out there for the public to see. READ THE ARTICLE.
I’ve also since become a fan of TWiT.TV which has a lot of great technology programming, including security.
I wish you the best in getting everything cleaned up.
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Hi Rob guess WP didn’t like your comment. First it was sent to the spam folder and then when I said it wasn’t spam, I had to approve it. I got up this morning and checked my yahoo emails and someone had already read the four new ones that were there. No I plan on taking all my business elsewhere, my emails, my website, and even considering my cell phone, because I’m with AT&T. but can’t even close my accounts until I take in those 2 ID’s And as for my website, I already have the privacy policy private. But our information is all over the internet, no matter what we do. Check out whitepages.com. I’m not listed in any phone books, I’ve always had an unlisted phone number.
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Wow Karen. Days like this make me really want to go off grid for the rest of my life. I love technology, but it really can get out of hand sometimes and you are at the mercy of people who say they know more then you, but really they don’t. But, what can you do.
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Hi Sydney
It’s irritating and scary. I just got on here a few minutes ago and someone has already logged into my account and read my emails. I’m hoping that I can get this figured out today and yes, I makes me want to just walk away from the internet!
I hope you are having a great day so far!
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Hang the hackers! Publicly. Well, maybe just slap them around a bit.
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Hang them works for me Haha! If they are so intelligent why don’t they use their skills for a well paying job and do some good for a change. I just don’t get what some hackers get out of hacking! Did you read the post about the guy whose Apple accounts got hacked into and deleted, just so the hacker could use his twitter account to send out spam? Rob posted the link with his comment.
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