This is a quick one this morning, partly due to frustration and partly to that Zuckerberg guy. Well, mostly the Z-man. I was working on some great stuff to share with you. Well, maybe not great, per se, but information and context about Tulsa, the ten engagements- not the ones with rings- the two big armies fought just down at the end of the country lane, the exploitation of Irish immigrants, identity politics in our world today, and why I did not like the old Commies any more than I like the new ones. Or that Nigerian Prince who keeps writing me.
But that kind sums it up, or at least it did until about 0330 EST this charming Piedmont morning. Or better said, I have no idea why an Internet Protocol (IP) address in Texas decided to log into my Facebook account and then lock me out in those small hours. I wasn’t voting on anything by mail at the time, so there was no reason for it.
I heard (among other crazy things on the web) that there was a major breach in some other system a few days ago, one so vast it betrayed millions of usernames and passwords. I couldn’t figure out who had been affected, hoped it wasn’t me, but I have a better idea this morning.
For the moment, if “I” send you a perfectly legitimate-appearing request for emergency cash to extricate myself from a terrible situation, I appreciate it but the request wasn’t from me. It was like the one I got from Pam, wife of one of my great Navy bosses last week. She asked to be my “friend,” which is to say she already was but wanted to be a “Facebook Friend,” which demonstrably isn’t the same thing. That went around the rosebush a couple times until I found an external means of communicating with her and told her I was deleting her friend request, though of course she was still my actual friend, though no emergency cash would be forthcoming.
I had been a fairly active proponent of the social medium early on, when it was still sort of novel as an application, but now the “novel” part has more in common with the “novel coronavirus” with which we have had such fun the last year.
So, if you get a request to be my “friend,” and it starts out with something harmless like “Dear Friend, How are you doing today?” it isn’t from the “me” it claims to be. So just delete it, if you wish, or respond and invite some Texas fraud into your life with the same delight he/she (pronouns are hard with hackers) has with mine.
If I really need just ‘a few thousand dollars’ to extricate myself from an unlikely situation, I will be standing out by the mailbox on the county road for as long as it takes to collect enough to purchase a folding chair and sit down.
Otherwise, things are great in the Piedmont, and the only problems this morning are purely digital. And not just the digital stuff it is so hard to keep track of. We are leaving the property and getting pedicures, including all the digits still attached to our feet. That includes the whole Socotra Editorial Team. Except for the departments devoted to Legal, HR and Compliance. They have decided that the extra unemployment they have been receiving as “unemployed” Socotra sub-contractors is a better deal and they can stay right where they are.
If I see any of them waiting out by the mailbox, rest assured I will keep them informed of our progress.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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