November 05, 2010

Digital ID and The Kind Hacker



I believe in the digital world

I believe that a part of us is living in this world .. in homes made of binary codes and scripts ... walking in complicated networked streets ... feed on the endless data flows of the internet

I believe that each one of us has a Digital ID... including our mails.. social networks accounts.. blogs.. subscriptions.. ect

how does it feel to loose all of that in ONLY two days ??!!

I lived a nightmare ... starting from Monday Nov. 1st

my mails started to fall ... one after the other... my facebook accounts... and finally the most disasterous of all ... my google account ... containing my blogs ... my gmail ...and my docs

I lost all of that ... I lost digital me ... my digital home ... my digital family ... my digital friends ... my digital memories ... my words ... my feelings

I felt lost .. empty .. strange

as if I am swiming in a vast ocean of zeros and ones without a shore
as if I am walking in a big city of data and information .. homeless
as if I am alienated .. banished .. exiled .. nameless

i had a trauma for the days after .. was afraid of touching a computer

Praying for a savior .. a super hero .. a man who fears no system or DB .. a man who can conquer the wild hidden lands of the digital world

sitting in my bed ... eyes sealed to the ceiling ..

UNTIL

it was blinded with the shining armor of the hero .. the knight .. the savior .. my Husband

in despite of the fact that he is a doctor .. but he has been into computers and networks since its dark ages

he drew his laptop .. gathered all his digital forces .. jumped in the dark alleys of the internet .. to get me back my digital identity .. to wash away the tears of his princess ... and draw a smile over her face again

two days of continuous work .. and progress was 60% ... gaining authority again over my google account, a facebook account, and an e-mail

UNTIL

Thursday night ..

routinely cheeking my gmail .. a message in the form of a comment ...

from THE HACKER

apologizing .. giving a key word to gain back the remaining of the mails and facebooks ... claimig it was a mistake .. promising it was not misused

it cant be by mistake or coincidence that all my blogs .. facebooks .. e-mails has been hacked

ME ... SPECIFICALLY

I have no clue about this persons purposes .. drivers .. reasons
all what i know is that i lived a bad week .. with minimum hope to gain my digital self back

AND HOW DO I FEEL NOW

a strange mix between anger and happiness

after all: with 0% loss ... am 100% lucky winner

but i believe in signs .. no coincidence .. no luck in here .. there are lessons to be learned .. and messages between the lines:

- to better use my digital existence ...
- to take care of digital security matters
- to write again
- never use personal accounts but through my own secured computer

For 10 Years of my digital life... i have never gone through such a situation ... here i am ...learned the hard way

Be Grateful ... Never take anything lightly ... for granted

even if it was a Digital Identity


My Strange Idea for Today
I am ... 01101110 01100001 01101110

2 comments:

طارق هلال said...

I found once that google asks me to answer the security questions, this reminded me of the hacking attacks google faced before in china, so I changed my password and hardened it.
------

security is not about expecting the worest senarios before it happens,

you can use internet from your mobile 3G not wifi unless encrypted connection ofcourse.
or from your PC but never save your password to the applications.

And always pay attention to the address bar, as hackers may fake a link to deceive you to login and have your passwords.

never got lazy protecting your digital IDs

-----------

I am using weak password for my facebook account, I wasn't taking it seriously when I created it.

I am going to change my facebook password as it is the weakest password I ever used in my life.

thanks for reminding me.

طارق هلال said...

sorry I meant, security is about expecting the worest senarios before it happens,