Earlier this week, I received a bunch of dire emails from Yahoo! threatening to delete my blog. Why? Well, according to them, my site contained “malicious code.” Yikes!
The email suggested that I change my Yahoo! password, which struck me as potentially “phishy.” What if this was bait to lure me to a fake login page and snatch my password with keystroke logging malware? It happens!
I Googled several phrases from the email, and found that there is, in fact, a scam along these lines which used the exact same wording as the email Yahoo! sent me. However, in my case, it turns out that the emails from Yahoo! were legitimate, and that a plug-in for this blog had, indeed, been hacked.
Here’s what I did, in case it ever happens to you:
- Backed up my blog
- Did a full scan of my computer with my antivirus and then also with Ad Aware.
- After clearing my machine of the Trojan that was discovered by Ad Aware, I reset my passwords. (You don’t want to reset your passwords if you have any malware still around.)
So that is where my allotted blogging time has gone this week. What a brain drain. I feel like the people in today’s photo: There I was, strolling along when a shark leapt from the bushes and swallowed me whole!
I am not paranoid by nature, but I must confess that this incident makes me feel like I am living out the world’s most mundane thriller:
In a world where people tweet about what they had for lunch, one freelance writer struggles to defend her hacked blog from malicious code…
Actually, this incident compelled me to add “The Net” to my Netflix queue. Not because it’s a good film – it’s not. I want to see “The Net” because of the way in which it is bad. I want to see it again because of what it says about our cultural paranoia, and how unabashedly the storyline plays on people’s ignorance and fear of technology. As I recall, the main character’s life gets ‘hacked’ by a CD-ROM (and not in a nice Lifehacker way, either.)
I saw “The Net” when it first came out in 1995, so the details are fuzzy now. I saw it with with some fellow early-adopters of the Internet, and the preposterous plot had us all squirming in our seats and laughing our heads off.
There is a scene in “The Net” in which Sandra Bullock uses her laptop at the beach which really makes me roll my eyes. (Aha – here’s a link to a photo of her character using a laptop at the beach on a site called, appropriately enough, Cinema de Merde.)
Not only is the “laptop at the beach” scenario an enduring cliche in movies and ads, but it’s also one of my biggest pet peaves. Here’s why:
- If you are going to spend time at the beach, enjoy the beach for crying out loud, instead of burying your head in a spreadsheet!
- Unless you are at the beach at night or during a total eclipse, you are not going to see a thing. Laptops are really hard to use in bright sun.
- Back then, especially, there was very little battery life for laptops so you might be able to pretend to work while lounging on your chaise in the sand for, oh, an hour at the most.
- Sand in your keyboard? C’mon!
I just dug around and discovered that, according to Perez Hilton, there may be a sequel to “The Net” in the works, except it will be a TV show. Just what the world needs, right? I’m sure they will do much more fact-checking this time around. ;p
How about you? Are there any books, movies, or TV shows that are fascinating to you precisely because of how dated they are, and what they reveal about the prevailing ideas of their time?
Tui Snider is an author, speaker, and photographer who specializes in North Texas travel, cemetery symbols, and haunted lore. As she puts it, “I used to write fiction – but then, I moved to Texas!”
Snider’s best-selling books include Paranormal Texas , Understanding Cemetery Symbols, and 100 Things to Do in Dallas - Fort Worth Before You Die.
Snider has several more books in progress, and enjoys connecting with writers and readers all over the globe through social media, her newsletter and her website: TuiSnider.com.
I hate spam and viruses and all that crap, too. Looks like you got things straightened out on your blog. I really like the new look you have here. :)
Silly when she had her laptop at the beach, but she looked very nice in her bikini, right? lol
Hey Tui:
Just stopping by to see how you are. Hope everything is well!
Hi Paula! Thanks for dropping by. Yes, things are going well. Wish I had a pause button so I could catch up on everything. Speaking of, I need to swing by your blog and see what’s going on in your neck of the woods! ~Tui
So I guess you don’t want to know that I took my laptop camping. And that my battery life is three hours. And that on my netbook the battery life is seven hours. And that I would take it camping in a heartbeat! LOL.
Did I hear you groan and say, “WHY?”
Because I love to upload my photos daily to my computer! And I’m also just a tiny bit addicted to the computer life.
Hi Sheila,
Actually, you did not hear me groan. I guess I didn’t explain myself well enough in my post. Hmmm… How can I explain?
Like you, I take my little netbook everywhere, and it has quite a long battery life. (Back in 1995, when “The Net” was released, laptops most certainly did not have enough battery life to work a full day unplugged.)
I take my netbook with me on vacations. Like you, I enjoy seeing photos I’ve taken right away. I also like to keep a travel journal. At home, when the weather permits, I set my office up in the backyard so I can work outside (in the shade, of course, or I’d never see the screen.) I love working outside, watching the birds, and smelling the fresh air!
My gripe with the “laptop at the beach” cliche is that it implies that you can fully enjoy a beach vacation while doing clerical work, when the only way to fully enjoy being at the beach is to actually *be* at the beach: to swim, build sand castles, sip foo-foo cocktails, etc.
The “laptop at the beach” cliche bugs me because the only way to enjoy being somewhere is to actually *be* there, y’know? It’s like the difference between being with your kids by playing with them and listening to them, and being with your kids while sitting in the same room, but reading a book or talking on the phone to someone else the whole time. Technically, you are spending time with your kids in both scenarios, but only in the first one are you truly engaging with them in a meaningful way.
I hope this makes more sense than my post did… I’m still trying to work it all out in my mind, actually, and may blog about it again. Thanks for your comments! :) ~Tui
Sorry you had to deal with that ‘net ickiness! I had a hacked email a couple weeks ago and links were sent to everyone in my address book, which is everyone I’ve ever emailed, including professional contacts, people I’ve applied for jobs with, guys I used to date… ugh! I know the frustration!
I love Desperately Seeking Susan – totally cheesy, but such a great “slice of life” of the early 80s. I always think about this scene where a Manhattan cab driver is rambling about how ridiculous sushi is when I see whole families eating sushi at the mall.
Hi C in Oz,
I will add “Desperately Seeking Susan” to Netflix, too. I’m in the mood for dated stuff right now, and a big slice of the 80’s sounds fun. I don’t remember the sushi bit. You’ve made me curious!
I know the virus you are talking about. Such an invasion! And the time spent figuring out how to get rid of the critter feels like such a waste. Glad you got rid of it.
The good part of the hacked blog, I suppose, is that it made me realize that I need to do a quick daily back-up of that day’s work, a short, simple routine like flossing one’s teeth, y’know, rather than waiting to back-up everything until it’s a huge mess of data all over the place. Thanks for commenting! :) ~Tui