Thursday 2 February 2012

Spam attack














I'm very sorry to anyone who got a spam/virus email from 'me' today (that's about 900 of you). I just signed into my Gmail and witnessed chaos. It was also telling me this blog was deleted for a while, which felt like losing a child (I imagine). Obviously you should delete the email immediately and not click any links that it might contain. It's not some amusing joke I'm doing. I feel violated.

There are many reasons it might have happened, and although it doesn't look like I've got any viruses in my email account or on my computer I do spend most of my time on unsecured Wi-Fi networks. I've at least now worked out how to delete all my non-contact contacts from Gmail, so when it inevitably happens again, you can rest assured only the people I care about will be at risk. I've also made a second email account that I might switch to in case this one is truly screwed, since it's probably not wise to use a single email address for everything ever. Some elementary 1990s internet security tips for you there - you're welcome.


This has made me pretty unhappy, both in that I've accidentally got back in touch with some people I was hoping would forget about me (who are helpfully contacting me every couple of hours to tell me my email account might have been infected with a virus - cheers, the 280 'Delivery to the following recipient failed' messages in my inbox were my first clue), and because I've now basically published my internet browsing history over the last five years. Not that you should actually open the email and risk getting a virus, you clown.

Yes, I've sometimes used dating sites (how else would I meet girls in these foreign countries? By talking to people?), had a brief, unsuccessful period of being rejected for English teaching jobs in Japan, and have memberships to several white supremacy forums. That last one isn't true. What other intimate personal details do you want to know?

This is the sort of thing I normally laugh at when it happens to other people, but there's really nothing funny about it. Okay, maybe it is a bit funny.



South Korea has the best food in the world, so the huge popularity of Spam is a mystery.
How did the phrase 'Spam Classic' make it past advertising standards?