Hacking hits home

[yankeedoodle]

Living in a rural part of the US, and having only basic interaction with the techno/commercial world, suddenly, hacking is hitting home.

In one day, two events occurred: 
- Opera, believing that it might have been hacked, cancelled its "sync" password, and required a new one
- In the mail came a letter from the health insurance company, saying that they believed that the company that produces the little plastic card - with name, address, and ID number on it - had been hacked, and advising steps to take, if you were concerned

And, of course, for the last week or two, there is the constant denial of service for RT.

Of course, we might expect the news from the outside world (RT) to be hacked, but, what the fuck is going on if hackers are attacking "sync" passwords and plastic card producers? 

It seems that there is a huge army of assholes out there hacking hacking HACKING. 

Will world war III be a cyber war, and is it beginning?

[yankeedoodle]

Oops...almost forget.  Several weeks ago, got an e-mail from an e-mail correspondent, saying that he had gotten an e-mail with Yankee Doodle's name on it, with the recommendation to see an "attachment," which he did, and, when he opened it up, there was something very disturbing that he said he could not even "copy and paste" so that he could show what it was.

On the e-mail was a name and an e-mail address.  Looked up name and e-mail address, and it belonged to a real person, in Florida, who is a broker for the sale of small businesses, and, so, called down there and heard:  "Ahhh....I've been HACKED.  Ahh....sorry about that.   I'm going to have to see what happened."

How, and why, did the hacker get into Yankee Doodle's e-mail, and get an e-mail address to which to send this mysterious e-mail, that linked to a completely unknown third party in Florida?  WTF is going on?

[rmstock]

If there is to be a World War III it will be a cyberwar.
Do not let the intermittent ramblings from cyberspace
creep in between your ears.
Keep good lock and key of all aspects of your
daily life, most especially those who in recent
time have become digital versions. So pay
attention to passwords and firewalls if you really
need these.

[rmstock]

Here's a tip for people who regularly (daily) use email
accounts like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, Live etc. Switch off
and eliminate that simmering Web-browser and go forward
to programs like Mozilla Thunderbird and set up your
Gmail, Hotmail, Live, Ziggo, Outlook etc. account for use
with  SSL IMAP access.

http://pop2imap.com/yahoo_thunderbird.php

http://pop2imap.com/thunderbird-gmail.php

http://pop2imap.com/aol_thunderbird.php

http://pop2imap.com/how.php