Won't Get Fooled Again

There’s a couple of online things that never fail to creep me out, leaving me with an oily case of the Slimy Oogies.

First up – finding out that my email’s been hacked or spoofed.

What is email spoofing?

Spoofing is when a spammer sends out emails using your email address in the From: field. The idea is to make it seem like the message is from you – in order to trick people into opening it.

These emails do not originate from AOL (or Yahoo or whoever you use) and do not have any contact with the AOL Mail system – their addresses are just edited to make them appear that way.

The message actually originates from the spammer's email account and is sent from the spammer's email server. (source)

The folks at InfoWorld have a very helpful column up:
11 sure signs you've been hacked Redirected Net searches, unexpected installs, rogue mouse pointers: Here's what to do when you've been 0wned

Def worth a read, bookmark and save.

Second up – getting friend requests and messages on Facebook from folks you thought you were already connected to. I got a request from an acquaintance and thought "What? We got disconnected? Huh." so I accepted his request. The fake version of my friend then started PMing me. I quickly realized that it wasn't Ken at all.

Very oogie!

Yes, I totes should have checked my friend list before accepting not-Ken’s request BUT, to be all fair and shit to me, I hadn’t seen posts from him in awhile and thought, huh, maybe he accidentally clicked on deleting me. I just now went into my list to see if that’s even possible – to accidentally unfriend. No, not rilly. The option’s at the bottom of a pull down list. Oh.

Apparently, imposter accounts are a thing. I didn’t know this. After reading a comment or two on real-Ken’s page, along the lines of

I was amazed at how many folks accepted without even thinking!

I felt all doofus-y. Now I know about this and I won’t get fooled again.

Also, just in case, I've changed my password to one of those super-duper strong ones. It's 8.39 characters long and includes a transcendental number, an odd amount of of uppercase letters (the more it resembles a ransom note the better), a logogram, two ASLwrite digits and a handful of sparkly fairy dust – all written in iambic pentameter. I think I'm safe and all set now. Maybe.
Won't Get Fooled Again – The Who