"Do you use Amazon?" came an email from a friend. I checked the email address. It was hers. "Yes" I replied with an uncharacteristic lack of verbosity. A short while later came the scam email. I rang to tell her that her email account had been hacked. She already knew. Unfortunately on this occasion the scammer had got hold of her password and taken over control of her account. It was a Yahoo account so possibly the scammer had got hold of her password from a very old leak when Yahoo had a lot of problems with security.
The outcome is that the spammer has details of everything she has done via email and has locked her out of her email account too. As all her contacts are in it she's lost them as well.
I am often laughed at for my security measures which mean that I use a password app with a very secure password and that no two things requiring a password have the same password. I know my master passwords for my computers and the password app and that's it. I use separate email addresses for different tasks after I learned years ago that the travel industry used to sell password lists.
As I use Apple for all my computing/cellphone etc I rarely have to type in secondary passwords and unlocking my phone and computer are generally by fingerprint and/or eye or facial recognition.
Anyway none of this would have been bloggable but for the fact that I decided the the loss of the rest of the day and evening to sorting out the outfall from the incident was exceptionally irritating.
When I was scammed I immediately went to change my password on that account. Google wouldn't let me. It locked my account saying that there was suspicious activity on it. The only conclusion to which I could come was that a potential scammer had recently tried to get in using an old password from one of the old Yahoo leaks. My passwords are usually changed every couple of years (or when I decide I want to waste a day looking at a screen and getting frustrated) but whatever it was Google decided I was a potential scammer. It took me many hours and a lot of coffee to convince their algorithms otherwise.
With scammers getting more and more sophisticated it behoves every one of us to keep all our passwords separate and secure.
I never ever say 'Never'. Well (to quote from
That is how I started a post last night at about 9.15. I'd had a long fairly physical day. I decided to vacate my usual computer position in the 'kitchen' and take the laptop through to a nice comfy armchair in the living room. I then did something fairly unusual for me: at 21:09 I fell fast asleep and woke up 1 hour and 9 mins later at 22:14.
I must have had something in my mind to write otherwise I wouldn't have started in the way I did. The strange thing is that I have zero recollection of what I was going to say and, more to the point in some ways, which quotation I was going to use.
I have another fairly physical day coming up starting with an appointment for my bum jab and then I go to one of my new "jobs" helping mow the lawns at the bowling club where the two usual volunteer groundsmen are out of commission.
As I have to be in town at the medical practice in 40 minutes this is very short.
This post is boring enough so I'll enliven it with a picture of a sock. It's one of my more interesting socks in the it's not plain and it has a Christmas Robin on it. Over the washing at the weekend it disappeared. Everyone has a disappearing sock story but the effort I've put into finding this far outweighs the importance of the sock. I have looked everywhere including places where I looked simply for the curiosity.
Now I have to fly. Bye for now.
PS This was to let you all know I'm alive and well.
This is, of course, a huge topic on which every one of us who read and write blogs doubtless has an opinion. However this is a very narrow area where I see a lack of personal responsibility which has led to inconvenience for the many.
Like, JayCee, I live on an Island. Off the top of my head I can't think of any others of my readers who rely on seagoing ferries as part of daily life. We need to go to the Mainland and we are reliant of goods coming in on a daily basis for our fresh food etc. In the last year or two Covid has exacerbated the situation by depleting staff and requiring the ferry to get a new crew or to be thoroughly cleaned. The principal problem, however, is the weather.
Almost 50 years ago we had a ferry plying between Ullapool and Stornoway called MV Suilven. She was a boat originally built for use in areas with potential ice floes with which to contend. She was an incredible seaboat and all the Masters I knew sang her praises. She sailed in all weathers and, on occasion, the 3¾ hour crossing could take many more hours. She had been known to run down and hide behind the Shiants because she couldn't get into Stornoway Harbour. Everyone who sailed on her will have a tale to tell. I used to travel quite a lot and have many tales that would put you off ever coming here except in high summer.
Some years ago, I was told by a member of the ferry staff, that there had been a big outburst one day when the ferry sailed and it was very rough and people were sick and, apparently, afraid. I can understand that because I have been afraid on several occasions when the Good Ship Suilven plied the route.
However, it was always our choice as to whether, given the weather, we wanted to sail or go another day.
That choice is still available and anyone who lives on the Island knows the weather conditions and what to expect and, in any case, the ferry company used to post sea conditions at the passenger entrance.
The result of all the complaints received by frightened passengers with no sealegs was that the Masters decided that if the conditions were so adverse that complaints may be forthcoming then they wouldn't sail. It appears to have been thus ever since. So the many suffer because of the decisions of the few (to sail when they could have decided against it).
Isn't this mirrored in every area of life now? Personal responsibility has gone. The responsibility is always that of someone else - preferably of someone "in authority" and preferably someone who is employed by an organisation which can be sued for compensation.
