BootsnAll Travel Network



hacked… asian style

my shutterfly photo account was hacked somewhere in asia, probably hanoi or possibly phnom penh. last time i put photos up in an internet cafe was in cambodia, so it was sometime between siem reap and my last internet destination, hanoi. i suspect hanoi because you just can’t trust those f**kers with anything. i do take the regular precautions, clearing the histories and cookies and such, after i use these public computers, but occasionally – as i have just learned – those little dillholes get in anyway and wreak havoc on your humble narrator.

upon first learning of my lost photos i was visibly upset, as you would imagine. i fired off a help request to the folks at shutterfly who, up to now, have been very good and assured me their site was secure. i have not heard back from them to find out if they have any sort of retrieval policy in situations like this, although i highly doubt they’d keep my silly old photos anywhere on their servers and so don’t hold out much hope that they could help me.
i then recalled that i kept most of the messages shared with my friends and family in my sent messages box and so merely opened them up, opened up a new account at shutterfly and saved them there. then i transferred the rest of the albums from my old account into the new one.
so far so good, but i am still curious to know if those little bastards who hacked my old account and shamelessly, perversely deleted my photo albums also deleted ones that i don’t even remember what was in them!
the funniest, well not funny but most ironic i suppose, thing is that i bought a CD of linux (secure open source browser software) before i left SF and have it with me, but have noticed that many of these internet cafes will not allow these CDs to run on their machines! administrative error: action not allowed messages come up. with those, i have tended to merely use for my pictures and email, no financial transactions whatsoever. still, one would think that using keypad code saving software installed on public computers in order to hoodwink innocent travelers would only work on folks with zero to very little computer security knowledge. my fear is that it works for these sh*theels more often than not and, fortunately, i am indeed savvy to this common practice and was just momentarily sh&t-outta luck with my photos. thanks be to buddha (or god, on this most auspicious of Easter Sundays, if you want to go that route) that i have not lost any cash or credit from any of my accounts by the pirates who prey upon rubes like me (so they think i am, at any rate).
i will continue to beat them at their own game and gain GREAT satisfaction from it.
from now on (i know, i know…as all my technerd bestest of friends – you know who you are – always ALWAYS back everything up and often) i will be putting my photos onto a CD before uploading and sharing them, then deleting them from the camera. lesson learned.

tomorrow evening i catch a train then ferry to ko tao for some undersea adventures. look out, little fishies, i’m a-comin!! will update the bangkok and vietnam sections soon (sapa, in particular, and my village tribe experiences are going to be long entries). fingers crossed i don’t get the hatchet job that poor swedish dame got the other day in Phuket.



Tags: , ,

3 responses to “hacked… asian style”

  1. Mollie says:

    BASTARDOS!!!! That’s all I have to say! But thank goodness you were able to retrieve them. But sounds like all in all you are having a great time. Loves from SF!

  2. Julie Green says:

    Well done Me Lady of the Digital Age! If you can lay yer hands on a removable HD you could store your whole trip on it… Waiting with baited breath for your tribal entree!
    xoxoxoxo Julie Greenjeans locked in LA

  3. Gina says:

    hey Karen!

    love your blog. thanks for the comments on mine, i was very glad to hear from you. shelbi and i just moved in our new apt. remember you are always more than welcome to stay with us in alexandria, we’ve got an extra, surprisingly comfortable bed. it was great to meet you in dahab, i hope the rest of your trip went well. soo come visit if you’d like and keep in touch!

    gina

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *