Compromised

Technology... is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ~C.P. Snow

I don't have any trouble admitting that I'm not very technically savvy. I love my toys but there are a whole lot of things I know I don't use as fully as I could. When I was having trouble with my Blackberry, the technician at Rogers suggested that I back up my emails, contact list and BBM and that I delete all the programs and then reload my backup. That was fine but it wasn't necessary to back up and reload my BBM. There was nothing in it. I still haven't figured out how to use it or why I would.

There are some things about self-employment that I find hard. By far, the hardest thing for me is managing the technology I need to run my business. I've gone on at length in previous rants about my challenges with my Blackberry. But at least I could always manage my home office based email accounts - until last week. Last week I noticed a dearth of new emails on my Blackberry. I tried to log in to my email server on my laptop only to be advised that I no longer had an email account as Rogers had canceled all five accounts in our household at my apparent instruction. I called Rogers and begged to differ with them. After being assured it was just a glitch in the system, all the accounts were reinstated. End of problem. Until yesterday afternoon. My personal account was working but my business account was not. Then Merv advised he couldn't get into his personal account either. I called Rogers again to be advised that all the accounts other than my core account had been canceled at my instruction. Once again the accounts were reinstated. I asked the Rogers rep to try and figure out how this had happened again. He advised I must have a virus on my computer.

So last night my friend Maurice spent three hours ensuring that all three computers in our house are virus free. Intensive scans showed the presence of one virus on Merv's computer and one on each of my laptops. Everything was quarantined and cleaned. Great. End of problem.

I spent a couple of hours this morning in a smelly passport office near the Scarborough Town Centre waiting to hand over my application and $89 for my passport renewal. How strange I thought that I hadn't received an email all morning. I was waiting for something important from a new client in Ottawa. When I finally left the passport office, I called Nan and asked her to send me an email. She did but it bounced back to her. I came home to find I no longer had access to any of my email accounts because once again, Rogers canceled them at my apparent instruction. I called Rogers and was fortunate enough to get a technician who took the time to find out what was going on. She advised that our accounts had been compromised. New email addresses had been added under my name and the others deleted. An additional non-Rogers email address had been added as the address correspondence was to be forwarded to. So every time a change was made to the account, the advice was sent to that email, including a confirmation of the new passwords. Scary.

Now, of course, my Blackberry doesn't work but Maurice is on the way to rescue me from this new technology crisis. God help me if I need to call Rogers again.