Hacked

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Computer Rage

I was hacked on Thursday.

 I’ve been hacked before but this was different.

I was lured by the hacker. He was a member of a Facebook writers’ group and posted a need for a beta reader.

I’ve been hiding under a rock, bah humbug over social media, and busy working on a novel, which I finished. The next step is to have Morningside Drive read by people who don’t know me for objective opinions. This is called beta reading.

That’s how I came across Adr lan. I offered to beta read his short story and he sent me the document in FB messenger.

But something was wrong from the start.

It was a legitimate story with markups from other critiques. However, FB messenger had a warning, if you respond Adr Ian would be able to phone you.

I didn’t want to talk with him. Instead, I commented on the writers’ group page saying I would return the critique document only in an email.

I never heard back.

Then, a friend phoned. “Did you send me a friends request and a poorly written covid message?”

“It’s not me!” I said, and spent the next three hours remedying the problem.

I pulled my hair out watching a Facebook video on how to report the incident. Nothing was easy.

The next day I visited the hacker’s page and found numerous requests for beta readers on a variety of different stories. It felt like aliens were reading my mind. The reality is hackers can’t read our minds but they must have access to computer searches.

What do you think?

Although I had been lured, I had a sense of complicity. Like I’d left the front door open and invited them to searched my underwear draw. Nothing was taken, just disrupted and I spent hours righting their wrong.

Now I’m experiencing what my friend Pat called . . . Computer rage.

 

. . . just saying

 

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11 thoughts on “Hacked”

  2. I just did a FB search and there are a ton of Adr Ian accounts! I believe anyone who you connect with on Messenger can also phone you through messenger. I might be wrong. And you don’t need to accept them as friends on facebook if you just message back and forth with them. So, I’m not sure if your friends receiving a fake friend request from you is related. I don’t comment on any post that’s ‘public’, because when I do, it’s inevitable that I’ll get a friend request from someone I don’t know. Is there a writer’s group in your area that you could get beta readers? I’m so wary of social medea.

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  4. Grrrrr! I spent months making up new passwords every time I’d get hacked (which became more and more frequent…). And deleting dozens of “friend requests” from strangers that I guess came out of that. I finally figured out how to do two -step authentication, and so far, it’s been quiet. I know that’s different from your circumstance, but just commiserating with your dark experience of the WWW. The gremlins are everywhere, apparently!

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  5. And still, their might be an original Adr Ian, who was hacked. It all is so complicated. I am so sorry it happened. You would think by now these things wouldn’t happen.

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  7. Yep. I got another friend request too, but I have been hacked before too, so I was wary enough not to click on it. Sorry it happened to you too. Heads up, shoulders back, bruised, but wiser and carry on. It’s all behind you now. Sarah

    Sent from Mail for Windows

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