Being Hacked and Other IT Challenges | by Linda Brendle

I’m having a real “IT” week, and it’s only Wednesday. It began on Monday morning with a text from my son Christian. If you’re new to my world, you may not know that he’s a writer, a prolific writer, and the Internet is his life. He has published several books and is a frequent contributor to a number of e-publications – and he BLOGS. He gets more views in a couple of weeks than I’ve gotten in the 19 months since I published my first post. So here’s the text he sent me:

Headed to Mexico and I realized I left my backpack with my computer in the car. Is there a chance I could have my guest bloggers send their pieces to you and have you post them on my blog this week?

He went on to say that it was a “subconscious slip.” I think maybe Amy was distracting him on purpose, hoping not to have to compete with a computer for his attention. It’s not as if he’s totally isolated. He has his phone and Amy’s tablet, but as we all know, those devices are more suited to fun and games than work.

Of course, I said I’d be glad to help. That’s a mother’s job after all. And so it began. Christian gave me the user ID and password for his blog, and I got e-mails from people I don’t know with guest posts attached. But like the late night TV commercials, there was more. Could I pick out a few appropriate Google images to go along with the posts? Of course. Oh, and by the way, could I share the published post with a variety of media sites? More user IDs and passwords followed.

So far, so good. Monday and Tuesday’s posts went out without any problems. Today’s post was in limbo for a while. The writer embedded his own images in his document, and I had trouble getting them transferred. But he sent the images in a separate file, and I got the post published with no further problems.

One of the perks I get for this gig, in addition to “mom points,” is that I’m the guest blogger for Friday. Writing for a much bigger audience will be interesting. It’s also kind of fun to noodle around in Christian’s business. It gives me confidence that I really do know a little bit about what I’m doing, and all those passwords give me a certain amount of power. Of course, he’ll probably change them all as soon as he gets home!

Christian isn’t the only one who has enlisted my help this week. One of my friends has tried three times to subscribe to my blog without success. She e-mailed me yesterday and asked if I could subscribe for her. (By the way, if you haven’t already subscribed, please do. I promise not to sell your information to any questionable websites.) After we accomplished her subscription, she asked if I could help her set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Again, I said I’d be glad to help. And then the day went a little haywire.

While I was fixing dinner, I got a message from my sister-in-law about an e-mail I had supposedly sent her. It said “Awesome!” in the subject line, and inside was a link to Yuba City Tires. I’d been hacked. I responded that it wasn’t from me, and after dinner, I sat down at my keyboard. I logged into my e-mail account and went to “Contacts,” intending to send a blanket notification about the counterfeit message. What was that I said earlier about knowing a little about what I was doing? When I clicked on “All Contacts,” I got a message that said, “You have no contacts.” Somehow, instead of e-mailing all contacts, I had deleted them. I had that feeling in my chest that I get when I’m going into one of my occasional atrial fibrillation episodes. Once I got my breathing and my heart rate under control, I told David what had happened.

“Are they in your trash can?”

“No.”

“Hold on a minute.”

I held on.

“OK, go to Google and type in “How to restore lost contacts in Yahoo.”

“Got it.”

“Click on the first link and scroll down to the ‘Restore contacts form’ and fill it out.”

I followed his instructions, submitted the form and got back an automated response saying they would

My Hero!!

get back with me ASAP. I can’t say I was totally relieved, but at least the edge was off the panic. If the restore option didn’t work, I still had my contacts on my phone, even though they are all mixed up with Facebook contacts. I posted about my carelessness on both Facebook and Twitter and turned off the electronics in favor of an old-fashioned book.

After a surprisingly restful night’s sleep, I booted up my computer this morning and found an e-mail from Yahoo informing me that my contacts were restored. After verifying this claim, I had a mini-celebration and then thanked David profusely for his wisdom. He accepted my praise humbly and only scolded a little bit when he told me to export my contacts to a document in my computer, “just in case.”

I haven’t heard from my friend yet about getting together and working on Facebook and Twitter. Now that she is subscribed to my blog, she’ll probably read this and change her mind. After all, she is a Bible scholar, and it says in both Matthew 15:14 and Luke 6:39 that if the blind lead the blind they will both end up in the ditch.

Blessings,

Linda

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