A very disturbing thing just happened. I was checking my email before writing this as I usually do just in case someone finished a book review or posted an interview to their blog and was informing me. To my surprise there was an email sent to me and some of my contacts from my alter ego. It did not give the email of the sender, just my name. Then below it asked, “How are you” There was no question mark or period or anything. It was simply written as you see. Afterward it had a link to follow. And then underneath had my name written again. It was addressed to me at several different servers as well as my contacts. I didn’t open the link. There are not many things I am sure of in this life but one of them is that I didn’t send myself an email under my other name and to multiple addresses. I looked at it for a long while and began to get a horrible feeling. I think I was hacked. The first thing I did was forward a copy of the email to everyone on the receiving list and tell them not to open the email. I don’t know what will happen but I can’t believe it’s going to rain Skittles. Then I changed the password on my email account. Now I’m paranoid. Should I change my other email account? Nothing was accessed from there. Still, someone found my other name and used it to possibly try to hurt people with whom I associate. Fortunately, none of them have ever heard of my alter ego. Is there someone I should tell about this? I reported it as phishing to Microsoft under one of their headers. Let us assume for a moment that the person sending the fake email had a malicious intent. I don’t think that’s much of a stretch. They must have gone through a lot to get hold of my other name and then use it to entice my contacts to click their likely dubious link. Why would they do that? Why not send it as Rival? That is clearly the name I use with these people. Maybe they thought using the other name would give more credibility? If that were the case then why would they send it to me? The only reason I can think of is that the person doesn’t know that is the name of my alter ego. It would be like sending Bruce Wayne a letter from Batman. So where did this person get my other name? The more I spin this around in my mind, the more it frustrates me. Why would someone do this in the first place? Do they want to implant a virus? Perhaps it would be a Trojan horse to get into the person’s computer. Who knows what they could do from there. I feel violated and angry. There is that part of me that says I am blowing this all out of proportion and it is really nothing but right now that voice is being drowned out by the one saying I was just hacked.
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