Tiny Purple Fishes ...¹

Odysseus and Polyphemus
Arnold Böcklin (PD)

Ah yes, the morning ritual ...

Wait, what? What about the Revolution?

Gimme a minute, okay? I have another tale to tell, we'll get back to the Revolution soon.

Now where was I?

Yes, the morning ritual. As a retiree I pretty much stay up as late as I want and get up as late as I want. No longer does my day begin with the alarm going off and me groaning about "Fudge," or something close to that. Nope, now I get up when I stop sleeping and no longer feel the need for more.

So on St. Patrick's Day I awakened at my usual time (actual time is classified but it's later than 0600) and after performing the standard OGR² I go to the smart phone. Why? Well, to check the blog, make sure the daily post actually posted, and then post a link to the post to Facebook, in two places. One on my home page, one at the page of Neptunus Lex. It's what I do.

Anyhoo, I check the blog, latest post is live, I grab its link and head to Facebook ...

You need to log in again ... (or words to that effect)

Now I'm having a kind of "open the pod bay doors HAL" moment ...

For the page I get when I log in looks like mine, but it ain't mine. Profile picture is me (an older profile pic mind you) and apparently my cousin had fallen on hard times and I was selling his stuff to raise money. Or something, it's kind of a classic scam.

I shake my head, I get dressed, I figured that this was something I could deal with AFTER I had my coffee. As I head downstairs, The Missus Herself asks, "What happened to your cousin?" (The Missus Herself and I are, duh, friends on Facebook.) Now I'm having another moment, a Talking Heads moment ...

And you may tell yourself 

"This is not my beautiful house!"

And you may tell yourself

"This is not my beautiful wife!" 

Coffee in hand, I return to the Facebook question. Sometimes my phone will do weird shit, like log me out of things, I figure maybe it's that, so I head for the desktop.

Same thing. So I contact the Facebook folks³, first person has me try a couple of things (you know the standard, "did you try turning it off, then turning it back on again?"), none of which works. So I get handed off to an actual tech person who works for Meta.

That person, after some digging, determines that sometime in the wee hours, between midnight and oh-dark-thirty, someone had indeed managed to hijack my Facebook page. Not clone, not create a similar page, but actually take over my page. The Meta person gave me a "standby while I fix this" and after a moment or three, came back with "try it now."

I did, and my account was back. I was me again. I changed my password as recommended (and no Matt, it wasn't "navy") and said thank you very much. I logged off of Facebook and decided to return in an hour or so to see if it still worked ...

Nope. The scammer was back. I say scammer because the individual claimed to be selling his cousin's stuff because of some sob story. Sure, if that was real, you'd have your own Facebook page. Asshole. (This BTW, is a rather classic scam. You offer shit for sale, people send you money, you take the money and run. No, the people who sent money get squat. There was never a cousin, there was never stuff for sale.)

Now I figured I'd have to go through all the pain of chat with Meta again, and I did, for a while, until I noticed an email from the first Meta person who had helped me ...

So is the problem resolved? Can you log in? Are you you?

And the answers there were: No, no, and (Facebook-wise) no.

The person actually cared and asked me to give them some time to resolve the issue. After the two of us had gone through a number of things, it seems the hacker was very clever and had done some things he shouldn't have been able to (hopefully Meta fixes that hole) and I was kinda screwed, sort of.

The Meta person said she'd be in touch (by the screen name I assumed the tech was a lady) and please be patient.

Oh, did I mention one of the troubleshooting things I did was accessing Facebook using my cellphone? I didn't? Well, that was another part of the adventure. (Kinda like running into Polyphemus⁴ on that island ...).

My phone had decided at some point while trying to recover my account that the Facebook app on said phone needed updating. Sigh, I consented.

Google Play said, "Yo dude, you're unsecured, you need to have a PIN or a fingerprint." So I said, "Sure, whatever, I'll do the fingerprint thing." And I did.

The Facebook App was happy and we continued down the troubleshooting path. Then, while waiting for the tech to send another message, I was using an app on my phone which decided to freeze up, become unresponsive, you know, the software shit the bed ...

What to do, what to do? First step, get more coffee and wait.

After fifteen minutes, the app is still frozen. So next step, one I've used many times, is to restart my phone. (On most software-driven systems if you restart the system it clears out whatever made the software hang and you can continue. Until the next time.)

Phone restarts and it says ...

Because you restarted, you need to enter your PIN.

Say what? What PIN? I've never had a PIN on this phone, what the hell?

Phone is now locked, I mean locked-locked. I try my standard PINs (yes, I have standard PINs, and no Matt, one of them is not "6289" which is "navy" from a phone's key pad) to no avail, phone stays locked and the intervals between "try again" keep getting longer.

So I head off to the cell phone store for my service. Nope, they can't reset it or unlock it or do anything other than sell me a new phone. Dude suggests the Geek Squad at Best Buy.

Sigh, back in the car, drive up to Massachusetts (closest reliable Best Buy, there's a story I might tell someday ...) and arrive at Best Buy.

"Hi Sir, can I help you?" sayeth the greeter at the door

"Why yes, yes you may, I'm here to see the Geek Squad."

 

"Do you have an appointment?"

 

After telling the guy no, I'm thinking "What are they, like doctors now?" The guy says, oh, they're available go right on in."

I explain the situation, am told all about factory reset, lose all your data, blah, blah, blah, I tell them "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"

After I explain myself, them not getting the Naval reference, I say ...

Well, on behalf of my phone I said that.

Fiddle, fiddle, some explanation, then "Hhmm, I can't do a factory reset on the phone, keeps asking for the PIN. Do you know your PIN?"

This time I'm the one with the blank stare, "Uh, that's why I'm here, I don't have a pin."

So it's back home, where I explain to the Meta tech that as my phone has decided not to cooperate, we'll have to wait for the morrow, when I can go forth and buy a new phone.

She said that that was cool, to email her when when I was ready.

So the day comes, a Wednesday and I head off to purchase said phone. I explain the situation to the guy, who much like me calls a spade a spade, says, "Yeah, you're f**ked, I doubt even the factory could actually reset this guy. You've locked out the universe this time."

Grimacing I chose a new phone (a very nice one for which the list price was north of $600) and prepared myself to mortgage my home ...

"That comes to $141." (and change)

 

"Huh, seems low."

The guy assures me that that indeed is the price, as it is well less than expected, I thank him and walk out of the store. As we get in the car I look to The Missus Herself and say, "Why so cheap?"

"Maybe they're having a special. Who cares? You have your phone, let's go eat."

So we did.

Thursday morning I get up and check my email. The tech lady is back and asks if I was able to log in to Facebook yet. I said no, and she made some suggestions which resulted in "no joy," She says, "give me a minute or two, I want to try something."

Well, she got back to me in minutes and after some arcane maneuvering on the web and some creation of stuff that was new, she did her magic and said, "Try it now."

I did and lo and behold I had my Facebook account back. I changed the password, again (and no Matt, it still wasn't "navy") then proceeded to dispatch damage control parties to clean up the mess the hacker had left.

Six new "friends" who were quickly unfriended, restoring profile pictures and the like, and "Whoa! What the hell?"

I had missing friends, cherished friends one of whom was my daughter LUSH, another was my bestest buddy Liz, and the aforementioned Matt. Damn, oh damn. Then I remembered, LUSH had accosted the scammer "You ain't my Dad, yer a right bastard you are." So he unfriended and blocked her.

Same for Liz, same for Matt.

Searching for this and that I eventually unblocked and re-friended the aforementioned folks and now, as of this date, things are back to normal.

Other than having to update all of my contacts on my phone and the loss of over 600 photos from said phone because you-know-who⁵ said "I don't trust this cloud shit" at some point five years or so ago. And yes, the photos from over five years (or so) ago all showed up on the new phone once I got it all configured. (This time I'm going to trust the Cloud, offsite storage is something I always practiced professionally, gonna do it personally now.)

So yes boys and girls, it's been one hell of a week. My own little odyssey, of sorts. And yes, Ulysses and Odysseus were one and the same. (It's that whole who told the story thing, Roman or Greek. I think the Greeks did everything first, then the Romans copied them. Or something.)

Anyhoo, I'm back baby!

Tales of Brave Ulysses

Words: Martin Sharp. Music: Eric Clapton Performed by: Cream

You thought the leaden winter

Would bring you down forever

But you rode upon a steamer

To the violence of the sun

And the colours of the sea

Blind your eyes with trembling mermaids

And you touch the distant beaches

With tales of brave Ulysses

How his naked ears were tortured

By the sirens sweetly singing

For the sparkling waves are calling you

To kiss their white laced lips

And you see a girl's brown body

Dancing through the turquoise

And her footprints make you follow

Where the sky loves the sea

And when your fingers find her

She drowns you in her body

Carving deep blue ripples

In the tissues of your mind

Tiny purple fishes

Run laughing through your fingers

And you want to take her with you

To the hard land of the winter

Her name is Aphrodite

And she rides a crimson shell

And you know you cannot leave her

For you touched the distant sands

With tales of brave Ulysses

How his naked ears were tortured

By the sirens sweetly singing

Tiny purple fishes

Run laughing through your fingers

And you want to take her with you

To the hard land of the winter

Source

Okay, the song is only tangentially relevant to the post, but hey, I love that song. Besides which, it gives me a change to use "Tiny Purple Fishes" as a post title.

Yeah, like I needed an excuse ...

Sarge Note: I wanted to relate my experience with the whole hijacked Facebook account thing and I felt some lighter fare was needed after Tuna's rather grim and heavy post yesterday. Before jumping back into my murder-death-kill tale of the American Revolution. And I am effing exhausted after the week's "festivities." I lost a lot of sleep due to my "righteous" anger of someone coopting my Facebook account. It's where I keep up with my far flung legion of friends and family. Since retiring it's become my community of folks. Scoff if you will, but damn it, losing that hurt far more than I thought possible. Anyhoo, for now, all is well, at least in my little corner of the universe.

¹ From Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream. Video and lyrics above.

² Old Guy Rituals. If you know, you know. (IYKYK for the kids in the audience.)

³ Via a chat button I'd never noticed before!

⁴ Another reference to the Odyssey the whole recovering the Facebook account was an odyssey of sorts, just didn't take as long.

⁵ Yeah, that would be me, Your Humble Scribe.