SOMETIMES I worry about the security of my cyber identity. I mean, so much of the detail that establishes that I am me is out there yet I have no control over it. I don't even know where it is, and I have no hope at all of retrieving any of it.
Our vulnerability was brought home forcefully to me yesterday in an email begging for money. The email from a fellow who presented himself as a friend told a sorry tale of being in London at a conference to fight racism, losing his wallet and being in urgent need of 800 English pounds, and it was signed Allen Wilson and gave a Singleton address. I replied, as a bit of fun, in the exaggerated language of scammers, saying I had tears welling like boils in my eyes that such misfortune should strike anyone fighting racism, and before I sent the 800 English pounds would Mr Wilson send a photo so I could make sure he was a white man.
The scammer's email mentioned Schapelle Corby, and I was beginning to recall that I had been contacted by an Allen Wilson with the distinctive email address when I'd written about Schapelle Corby's plight. Then I received an email from the NSW Minister for Fair Trading, Virginia Judge, warning of a scam in which emails purportedly from friends appealed for money to get them out of trouble overseas. Ms Judge herself had received such an email and some of her friend's friends had sent money. "Scammers target and gain control of email and social networking accounts and once they have control of a person's account they change the password and pose as that person," Ms Judge wrote.
I phoned Allen Wilson at Singleton - yes, he and I had exchanged emails some time ago - and he was unaware that his email account had been hijacked, although within an hour of my call he'd been phoned by half a dozen friends who'd received the scammer's email. The greater problem, it seemed to me, is that friends emailing Mr Wilson will in fact be emailing the scammer, whose reply begging for money would be more credible.
After a few more exchanges with the scammer, he asked me to send the money to an address in London, which I see is the Langham Hotel, and he sent the requested photos to establish that he is a white man. The photos, three of them, are of the real Allen Wilson!
Mr Wilson and his wife are trying to regain control of his email account, but how you go about that would be beyond most people. I've suggested, too, that they go to the police, but somehow international cyber crime seems to be beyond the scope of police.
Have you had an experience like this? Do you feel as vulnerable to cyber crime as I do? And can you tell us how to regain control of an email account?
Email a friend