You Probably Haven’t Been Hacked

So – a friend sent you a message that says, “You’ve been hacked!” because they received a friend request from you.

You probably haven’t been hacked.

Here’s what’s probably happening….

A bad actor sets up a Facebook account in your name and steals your profile picture.

Then he looks at your existing friends and makes friend requests of them.

You haven’t been hacked. You are simply being impersonated.

Your friends have hundreds (maybe thousands) of Facebook friends so unless you’re close, they don’t remember whether they are Facebook friends with you or not, so they accept the request.

Then your impersonator sends them a message: “Hey – I am stranded in Bombay with no money. Can you wire me some?!”

So you probably don’t need to change your password.

You (and your Facebook friends) need to report the fake account to Facebook.

Is it luck, or something else?

I feel like Glen Zorger this afternoon.

2014-08-08 14.49.48I bought a new laptop recently. It’s great. But today, I looked across the table from where I was working and saw a screw — a very small screw. It looked just like the ones in the bottom of my brand new laptop. Sure enough, the screw fit in the bottom. How lucky could I get? That screw could have fallen out anywhere: At Spanky’s this morning. At McDonald’s last night while I was at my Men’s Group. At the Chandler Group on Wednesday. On the porch. On the patio. In the car. On the road. In the grass. But it fell out right there. On the table where I work. Luck!

But the screw was a TORX T05. That means REALLY SMALL. Who has one of those in their desk? I do. I had one because my friend, Tom Milford, had to buy one one time and the thing was so cheap that he bought two and gave me one. I hadn’t seen it for years, but when cleaning out my desk just yesterday, I saw it. I thought, “I should toss this. When will I ever need it?” Well, you know the answer. It was today. Luck!

So I put the screw in and tighten it up and then noticed the other ten screws. Should I check them? Would Lenovo ship a laptop with all the case screws loose?

2014-08-08 15.08.33

Yeah — I better check them. Every one of them was loose. Some, ready to fall out, in spite of the fact that they had thread lock on them. So I tightened each one with my TORX T05 before they all had a chance to work loose and fall out. Luck!

Then I thought of Glen Zorger. He once remarked to me, “I don’t know why I worry about things. God takes care of me in every way.”

He does. Maybe it’s not luck. Maybe it’s providence. Maybe it’s divine oversight. Maybe it’s God paying attention to the most clueless of his sheep. Maybe it’s grace.

Glen went to be with the Lord last month. And it’s nice to be reminded that it’s not luck — it’s Jesus.

Free Referral to Copy Cloud Service…

NOTE — On September 9, 2014, Copy failed to give me referral credit, saying that I had reached my referral limit. That’s kind of crazy because there was no limit on the referrals when I signed up. 

At this time ShieldsGroup cannot recommend copy.com because of this change in their referral rewards system.