Feeling seriously hacked off with social-media
Gerard Smith was unfortunate to have had his social media accounts hacked recently. It resulted in some interesting posts and a lot of hassle as he recalls in his WordSmith column...
It was 6.40 in the morning as I shuffled half asleep towards the kettle. Switching it on, I threw a heaped teaspoon of coffee into my mug, then reached for my phone on the table. Amongst the notifications were several from WhatsApp asking me to input codes to Facebook and TikTok to verify my accounts. Sleepily, I did as requested, before immediately becoming wide awake to declare myself an, “IDIOT!”
The ‘hackers’ or ‘hacker’ had me. They hooked, lined, and sunk my Facebook account after years of (relatively), pleasant posting and engagement. My Facebook account is linked to more of my social-media and email accounts, and as the day progressed they were also intercepted by the digital-intruder(s). Later in the day I was made aware of offensive comments being posted to friends which appeared to be coming from me – this is when I became seriously hacked-off! My online identity had been stolen, malicious actor(s) were impersonating me and trying to deceive friends.
I madly scrambled, searching for: passwords, old email addresses and phone numbers in order to retrieve my account, or at least disable it. But when I continued to be hit by digital-walls, I confess, I had a mini-melt-down!
As I write, I’ve still not retrieved my accounts, and I’m not sure I will. Social-media is all about the bots; and it’s frustrating when you can’t speak to a human to simply say, “The email address I started my account with years ago no longer exists!” The computer stringently says, “No.”
When Facebook first became a thing, most of my friends and work colleagues railed against it, while I became an early adopter. Before the scrolling days I was strolling towards an internet café to spend fifty pence for an hour on a public computer in order to check my new-fangled social network. Before my hour was up , I left the café and headed home. Around 20 minutes later my trusty Nokia trilled, I answered to a fellow early-Facebook-adoptee, “Why are you posting all that stupid stuff? It’s not like you!” Realising I hadn’t logged out from the café computer, I sprinted back to find a fella sitting at my former terminal entertaining himself by making up all kinds of bawdiness on my behalf. I tapped him on the shoulder, “Excuse me, that’s my Facebook you’re messing with!” He laughed, “Mate, you ave to log-out before you jog-on,” he said, in his south London patois.
He directed the cursor to the corner of the screen and logged me out, his fun over and my Facebook returned. He was less a hacker, more a jester; and we actually bonded over our discussions as to where this new network was heading – given where we are now with social-media, that guy was strikingly prophetic in his futurist thinking.
My account was intercepted a second time when I acquired my first laptop. I was at a meeting in a swanky hotel when I left the laptop unsupervised for a short time.
That evening, on the bus for home, a concerned work colleague called to inform me pictures of men’s private-parts were being posted on my account. Once home I was able to immediately change my password and have my account returned to family-friendly content once more.
The following morning, worried my boss may have been privy to the X-rated penile invasion posted publicly in my name, I rushed to the office. I met a male colleague who reassured me, “Jo and me were the only ones who saw them.” He looked at me wryly and said, “To be honest Gerard, I thought it was you, showing off!” In many ways, they were the social-media good-old-days.
This latest steal is my third-rodeo, and it’s not looking like third-time-lucky. Ironically, the two factor authentication system (2FA) which social-media companies introduced to greater protect our digital-security, often hampers the recovery of historical accounts when hacked.
I suppose this column is a cautionary tale: check all your login info and make sure it’s up to date.
We are currently living in a complex world with increasing conflict; and seeing it from this perspective, the loss of my social-media accounts means little. So, dear readers, I shall put this column behind me and focus on a feel-good story for next week – ONWARDS.
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