Page 27 - Sojourner Newsletter-SUMMER 2021

VOL. 98 ISS. 3 27

From the Webmaster

“I’ve been hacked … don’t accept any friend requests from me.”
Well, maybe yes, but probably not. “Hacking” means someone has gained unlawful access to your comput-
er operating system, and is INSIDE your computer doing all sorts of nefarious things. This is very unlikely,
although it’s remotely possible. Chances are, you’re being “spoofed.” Spoofing means someone has managed to find
out what your email identity is (your address) and is PRETENDING to be you, LOOK like you in an email to folks who
might know you, and appearing to “hack” your email account. Basically, there are a lot of what we call “netbots” out there
that go around and scavenge email accounts – looking at emails, addressbooks that are not protected (too many people
use SIMPLE, easily cracked
passwords, which allow hack-
ers to indeed look at your ad-
dressbooks and gain access
to contact information. For
the most part, THAT’s what
they’re looking for, they’re not
out to damage your hard
drive, hold you up for ransom
(although, SOME people will
have that happen) and so on.
Anyway, this masquerade IS
pretty easy to unmask. If you
see an email that APPEARS
to be coming from someone
you know, but which has a
peculiar request or text that
just doesn’t “ring” true for you,
hover over the email address
and see where it’s really com-
ing from. Now, that’s not an
ABSOLUTE guarantee that it
will reveal the actual identity
of the sender, but it will proba-
bly work in about 85% of the
cases. The rest of the time
you might need a special tool
to actually look into the de-
tailed HEADERS of the email
trail itself. There is a portion
of the header trail that is la-
belled “X-SENDER” – which
identifies the REAL sender’s
identity, not the identity that
the email SAYS they are.
Again, this is a “technical”
trick, but a spoofer does NOT
have “control” over your com-
puter, and there’s nothing you
can do to mitigate it – chang-
ing your email address won’t
help you – because in all like-
lihood the spoofer got your
information from your brows-
ing and email HABITS – and
unless you change those,
chances are it’s only a matter
of time before you get
“spoofed” again. – Bill Hickey
National Webmaster
(wa3h@hotmail.com)