Tuesday Tip: Clearing Contacts

I don’t really understand “the internets” all that well. But occasionally, I’m forced to figure out some internet-related glitch. So what I usually do is a. turn off my computer or b. scream at “the internets.”

Neither of these approaches worked very well when the Beneficent Mr. Hall had his Facebook account hacked into. Suddenly, very interesting, not to mention titillating messages were sent to his flock of friends. Which numbers about 10. Seriously.

Still. It was unnerving. Especially in light of the fact that the Beneficent Mr. Hall’s email account had been hacked-twice. Unfortunately, there were quite a few more contacts in that account, including business contacts. Um, oopsies!

So, what to do? For the Facebook account, he went all Terminator on it (I mean, who can blame him? The internet demons seem to have targeted him). He tried to terminate his email account, too, but couldn’t figure out how. So he cleared out all the contacts.

Which brings us to our Tuesday Tip. You never know when the internet demons might attack. You can have all kinds of internet protection in place, but you could still get hit. So, you might want to be careful about holding on to tons of contacts.

I go through my contacts and get rid of dated ones, but recently, I had a TON of editor/submission contacts hanging about in my email. Imagine if the editor at a Christian anthology received a very interesting, not to mention titillating message from yours truly.

She’d probably go all Terminator on me. So clean out those business contacts, just to be on the safe side. Oh, and change up your passwords once in awhile, to keep the demons on their toes.

And go ahead and scream at the computer. That always makes me feel better.

(P.S. If one of you, my personal and very bestest friend contacts, should get a very interesting, not to mention titillating message from me, please know that’s it’s not from me. Probably.)

9 thoughts on “Tuesday Tip: Clearing Contacts”

Good advice here, Cathy. Thanks!Boy, this kind of stuff is going around lately. I had virus issues with my computer this past weekend and a friend of mine received a scam email supposedly sent from someone she knew.Sheesh.

Double sheesh-I know.I thought at first that his FB and email had the same passwords, but no. But I also thought it was funny that some hacker would go to all that trouble for a FB account with 10 friends. 🙂

Hi Cathy,Good advice. I deleted one of my e-mail addresses because of all the Viagra and Cialis ads I kept receiving, not to mention the e-mails telling me about $16 million dollars I interited from someone in the Ivory Coast. All they wanted was my bank account number.Sheesh is right!Donna V.http://donnasbookpub.blogspot.com

I received a request from a "writer friend" for money to get a plane ticket home. Yeah, uh-huh, didn't fall for it. That's good advice Cathy. Thanks. Talk about computers, I am ready to karate chop mine. The library has it all books and kooks!

Donna, do you think anyone ever opens those emails and says, "FINALLY! Now I can get Cialis!"And Linda, please don't karate chop your computer. You'll just have to make something up when you go to the emergency room. (Although, you could probably sell that story-)

Got an email today from a good friend's address-who I saw this past weekend- stating she was in the UK, mugged, had no money, embassy wouldn't help and was freaking out.I copied the email and sent it to what I thought was her REAL email address, only to find the same fraud emailing back saying it was really her and she needed $1750 to get out of UK. So I called my friend to tell her. She then spend 3 hrs talking with people in India or Pakistan about her "highjacked address." Now she has to change her email address. I pray it doesn't happen to me; it will be another round of buying business cards and notifying people!

Gail-that's awful! I've never heard of any email-hacker going that far!You know, even if one were to set up a separate account for business only, that email could still be hacked. I wonder how those l-o-o-o-ng newsletter email lists are kept safe?I'm looking into that!