I read an article titled Political campaigns prep for battle with hackers written by Daniel Strauss and Scott Bland and it was right on the money about campaigns and cyber-security. Back in 2012, I volunteered for Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, and Pat McCroy knowing very little about politics because I committed my time to watching HGTV and raising a very dynamic child. My son and I had worked hard all his life to make him a positive contributor in society, and I realized it could not just be him who wanted to do good. There had to be many others who cared to do the same. As we see our kids getting older, we have to think about what type of world we want them to live in. We have to ask ourselves the question, “What world do I want to grow old in?”
Right about now, you are likely wondering where I am going with this. Just keep on reading, and you will see.
After our political volunteering both my son and I were on a TV show and they defamed us. I say us because any injustice you do to the primary caregiver of the child you do unto the child. Shortly after the election I got a Google message saying I had a hacker out in Hollywood California. This hacker got into everything. In fact, I went through several phones. They blocked me from getting calls about jobs, caused all kinds of misunderstandings and when I spoke to a friend he was adamant he didn’t get a single message that I sent him. However, I think the absolute worse things the hackers did was disrupt my calls to lawyers, upload a picture of a gun into my polyvore application when I was just searching for shirts and wiped out a lot of my email history. I had sent messages out asking for help and the messages had went through (I think) only to be wiped out months later when I persisted in staying sane.
Is hacking a problem in our country? You bet ya! Click here to see or just look at your local newspaper.
My nature does not allow me to panic. Everything that happens with me turns into some great science experiment or puzzle to be solved. Clearly, I was being terrorized but what was even more important was seeing how the locals would respond to what is happening to me and my son.
So I took to the streets with my plate of high tech issues and started to tell people. Please keep in mind this spans over years. Utilizing my personal power was a step in the right direction or so I thought. Reporting this kind of matter proved to be a challenge because you need a phone to report a phone issue and I borrowed my sons phone but his was having problems also. We would take screen shots as proof and also pictures of separate things that we were dealing with (I’ll talk about that later) but his phone would jam up, shut down or when he tried to send an email from it, it simply would not go through.
As I told local friends I had met in town, several churches, employees in the area and even the police no one took it seriously, how disconcerting. People would say maybe it’s a glitch, maybe you should change your password or maybe it’s just bad reception. When I got this response I started to reflect on how the special needs population or aging population would react in this moment of need when they were asking for help and everyone around them was in denial about where technology is. I also reflected on the fact that our local police departments are completely ill-equipped to handle tech issues. At least they were not equipped to handle my issue. Eventually my phone was stolen. I’ve been through several phones. No one considered the other things in life that I had going on or needed to get done and there is a lot going on. No one even blinked to consider how this would affect my finances or my ability to get my business off the ground so I could get myself and my son an education. Mind you, I am a previous very successful business owner who not only owned her business (my taxes are online), I made a full-time salary working part-time and my child is an honor student.
Lets think about a few things.
What if a bank account was attached to the phone or even worse a home security system.
Can hacking happen to you or your family?
Do you think it would be more likely to happen to people connected to celebrity life?
Do you think it would be more likely to happen to people in politics?
Do you think systematically we are doing everything we can to fix this problem?
Do you think a hacker getting in your cell phone can drain your bank account?
Do you think they can unlock your house?
Do you think they can interrupt your job search?
Do you think our hacking issues are getting worse?
For older people, special needs people or sick people how do you think this would be problematic? Think of at least 5 ways this could be problematic.
Since it is a proven fact that people in politics or people with promise have been targeted by hackers why do we constantly chalk these things up to a glitch? This has been happening for years. It’s time to start thinking critically.
How many times would your phone have to disconnect during important calls for you to realize that you have a hacker?
How many times would it have to shut down or lock up when you are away from home and trying to get a lyft driver before you become concerned?
These questions are meant to help us all reflect and think. It’s hard to consider the bad parts about technology because there are so many great and wonderful things that it does but let’s not adopt a self-imposed Ostrich Syndrome approach. Hackers often want to create chaos, a backdoor into people’s lives and they sample a small group often before trying something on a large-scale. If this can be done to a select few, it could be done to many.
Please consider some of the things I’ve brought to light. Lets make every effort to protect each other, our children, our families and even strangers.
Coming soon Part 2: There is way more to this real life story
Contact me at:
Dana Guidera LLC
PO Box 582
Glassboro, NJ 08028
