I was hacked

An axe murderer, you must be thinking. I wish it were. Then I would be peacefully, blissfully dead by now. No, I was still asleep when the first text arrived on Saturday morning. The phone’s text alert woke me up. Ah, I thought, they liked my column. Then it rang again and again until it finally made me get out of bed. Someone had hacked my gmail address, the text message warned, or are you really in Africa?

No, no, I am well and warm in Makati, I protested. What would I be doing in Africa? In Nigeria? Wait let me check. I opened my e-mail, could not get through to secondwind.barbara@gmail.com. But could get through to the other one and picked up the letter, which a well-meaning person whose name was in the stolen directory of that address forwarded to me.

The letter claimed I was in Africa for a program called “Empowering Youth to Fight Racism, HIV/AIDS, Poverty and Lack of Education.” Now, what in heavens name would I be doing in Africa attending a program like that? I am retired, no longer doing non-profit work but to most people the conference fell by the wayside. The important thing was that I was asking them to send me US$1,100 within one hour and a half. So that led quite a few of my friends to the point of near hysteria.

All day Saturday, I was sending out text to advise them that it was a hoax, thank you. All day Sunday, as well. On Monday, in the middle of a writing class, my cousin who lives in Spain calls and asks what I am going to do about it. “I will write about it on Saturday,” I said, “but right now I have to go. I am in the middle of a class.”

So here, finally, is my explanation. My gmail address got hacked. The hackers sent that letter to everyone in my gmail address book. I cannot access either the address or the address book anymore. So how do I give notice to everyone in the address book if I can’t access it? Some friends who are highly computer literate think I need to do this, to try and retrieve the address book, etc. but I don’t know how. At any rate, I could not even try to do that immediately because Saturday is my busiest day of the week. I have to visit my mother. You think I will allow a hoax on the computer to get in the way of that?

Why should I worry about people receiving it? You think they would worry enough about me to dig in their pockets and send dollars so quickly? It’s Saturday. The banks are closed. Who has US$1,000 just lying around to send to the first pathetic email?

On Monday, I receive the Google security site. I can’t make it respond to my requests. Back to my original question: What should I do?

In public, I apologize to everyone who received that dumb letter. Please know that I would never write a letter like that. It is totally out of character for me to appeal to friends to save me. I would sooner call my family. The last place in the world I would go to is Africa, not because I never want to go there but because I never want to travel again. I will stay ensconced in the Philippines where I intend to live and die. Please accept my apologies. And next time, please know that if such a letter comes from me, it is clearly a hoax.

Calm down. Take deep breaths. It was a hoax and it’s all over. What did I lose? My Second Wind address and its address book. I can live without both. I don’t believe anyone sent me money. So no one lost anything. It was more harrowing for me to respond to all the flutter and frayed nerves of the people that called and texted and wanted to know what I would do and had a difficult time responding to my question: What should I do?

Let me tell you what worries me more. Last Sunday night, there was a minor earthquake. I live on the ninth floor and I felt it a little after seven at night. Then about an hour later, I felt an aftershock. This morning, I felt a slight tremor again. I am wondering if these little quakes will lead to a big one. I have a suspicion it might be precisely little signs of imbalance that will lead to a big destructive quake. I hope I am wrong.

Let me sign off on that terrifying note. I hope there are no more hoaxes or hacks to wake me up early this morning. After all, Saturday is the busiest day of my week.