So last night I'm writing an email to a chum of mine who is FAR TOO PATIENT WITH ME, in that I don't write her ever. I am the worst at keeping in touch, even while I still post to the blog (not a lot, of course -- you've already noticed that I'm sure) and she READS the blog, so to her it looks like I'm too busy to write an email to her yet I have the time to get busted by hot cops, get all flustered around strange grocery store dudes and send adoring emails to random email customer service guys. (man, I now see how much I suck -- why does she continue to be my friend?) ANYWAY...
I'm writing this long-overdue email and I'm already in my online email (we'll call them SUPEREASYTOHACK-DOTCOM!!!) but I try to log into my email on another browser to see other emails she's sent me and gee, apparently ONCE AGAIN my perfectly correct email password is no longer perfectly correct. F*********CK!!!!!
I check my info in the browser where I'm already logged in, and SURE ENOUGH, the secret question has changed, as has the alternate email address. And here's the really sucky, frustrating, KILL SOMEONE BY WEDGING FIRECRACKERS INTO THEIR CREVICES part: even though I can see that these have been changed, I can't go in and change them back to anything accurate BECAUSE the password has also been changed, and even though I'm in there, right then, seeing the badness I have to have the correct password to make anything better.
SOOOOOO FRUSTRATING!! It felt like I woke up to the sound of someone wandering around my house (someone whom I knew was unarmed and also timid and only weighed about 63 lbs, so I knew that they could not HURT me, but still) and they're looking at my stuff and taking things, and can't make them get out because they've found my keys and in this Bizarro world whomever is holding the keys is in charge of the house. And if I actually had been in my house with some interloper holding my keys I would have just have beaten them repeatedly with an iron skillet or 12-pack of Pepsi or my television set. (REPEATEDLY. UNTIL THEIR BRAINS WERE A SMOOTH PASTE.)
AND of course by the time I'm hip to all that's happening its past bedtime, but I know that once I go to bed I'll eventually lose access to my email because at some point the email-thing decides that you're not there anymore and you have to sign in again to get access, which I'd love to do IF ONLY SOME STUPID WANKER WASN'T HOLDING MY EMAIL KEEEEEEEYS!!!! So I'm dashing around logging in to other important online accounts, making sure that I've changed all my passwords and looking for any signs of tampering and feeling just totally at risk. There should be some kind of 911 for hacking!
I’ll tell you who has a system – Ebay! Sure, they’re probably where the initial hacking started, for which I would like to Fedex them a box of flaming donkey poop, but when I said “Help Me, help me, help MEEEEEEEE!” they were all over it. I said “danger, Will Ebayson!” and they said “hey, we’re going to call you and make sure that you are you. Get ready – here it comes.” And then the phone rang, which was much spookier than I’d expected. And I answered it, and it was Ebay (who is apparently a bright young lady, possibly from the Midwest somewhere) and she told me that if I was EXPECTING this call I should press 1, and when I did some new guy (I’m thinking this was Ebay’s disgruntled younger brother who is feeling kind of lost, can’t figure out what he wants to do with his life, especially difficult with his living in the shadow of his extremely successful, even famous bigger sister Ebay) who just kept yelling “Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER! Your PIN is NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER, NUMBER!” over and over in this aggressive, surly voice. But I put that PIN into the window on Ebay and voila – instant fish! I’m in!
So in short: online email company probably bad, online auction company vulnerable but tricky, hackers SUCK. I think I’ll go back to writing letters.
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