Sunday, October 23, 2011

HACKED! AN IMPORTANT WARNING TO EVERY COMPUTER USER IN THE TAMPA BAY AREA!

All of us are at risk when using computers, cell phones, and email accounts with companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Apple. All of these companies are storing more and more of our personal information 'in the cloud,' placing each of us and those in our 'contact lists' at risk of fraud.

With the complex nature of these charges, many police officers in the Tampa Bay Area, including Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Pinellas County, Florida neither have the training nor the computer literacy to fully comprehend complex computer networks accusing and arresting those who had nothing to do with the unlawful acts, an important consideration if you've been falsely accused of a White Collar Crime.

Companies across America will spend in excess of $130 Billion because of data breaches, how much will it cost you? CNNMoney

James Fallows' recent article in The Atlantic, HACKED!, describing his wife's ordeal when her Google account is taken over by a Nigerian thief - Fallows attempts to regain control of the account and the lost information - even as the Nigerian contacts everyone on her contact list for money to be wired immediately because of her mugging in Madrid:

Hacked!

As email, documents, and almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives moves onto the “cloud”—remote servers we rely on to store, guard, and make available all of our data whenever and from wherever we want them, all the time and into eternity—a brush with disaster reminds the author and his wife just how vulnerable those data can be. A trip to the inner fortress of Gmail, where Google developers recovered six years’ worth of hacked and deleted e‑mail, provides specific advice on protecting and backing up data now—and gives a picture both consoling and unsettling of the vulnerabilities we can all expect to face in the future.
A stream of concerned responses from friends and acquaintances, all about the fact that she had been “mugged in Madrid.” The account had seemed sluggish earlier that morning because my wife had tried to use it at just the moment a hacker was taking it over and changing its settings—including the password, so that she couldn’t log in again. The bogus message that had just gone out to me and everyone else in her Gmail contact list was this:
From: Deb Fallows <debfallows@gmail.com>

Date: Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:45 AM

Subject: Problem

To:

now this might come as a suprise to you,but I made a quick trip to Madrid in Spain and was mugged.My bag,valuables,credit cards and passport all gone.The embassy has cooperated by issuing a temporary passport.I need funds to settle outstanding hotel bills,ticket and other expenses.

To be honest,i don’t have money with me at the moment. I’ve made contact with my bank but the best they could do was to send me a new card in the mail which will take 2-4 working days to arrive here from DC. I need you to lend me some Money to sort my self out of this predicament, i will pay back once i get this over with because i need to make a last minute flight.

Western Union or MoneyGram is the fastest option to wire funds to me. Let me know if you need my details(Full names/location) to effect a transfer. You can reach me via hotel’s desk phone and the number is, +34 981 600916867.
Hacked! - Magazine - The Atlantic
Here is a recent portrait of Deb Fallows as her GMail Account is being HACKED by Nigerian Thieves. Scholars believe the white flowers floating in the air and water represent the lost emails. Somehow out of great pain and loss magnificent art always emerges:
The Birth of Venus (Nascita di Venere) is by Sandro Botticelli. c.1486, many thanks to the Uffizi Museum in Florence. Perhaps the museum would be willing to fly me to Florence so that I can more accurately present these paintings to the world.
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