The description of “spearphishing” points to something that happened to me, and continues to happen occasionally. Three years ago this next Christmas, I lost a friend from childhood who was closer to me than my brothers. He had left for life in Australia at 22, but we continued to stay in contact off and on. He visited us every year in the summer. He died of his second bout of cancer on Christmas Day back home in Oz and I miss him to this day, as does SWMBO, who gave him the fitting description as “The most perfect gentleman (she) ever met”*.
I had been warning him about lax security on his laptop and phone for a while, but not until after his death did this affect me. It was my contact with the Australian newspaper that brought it about: I began to receive emails with his name on them. You can imagine how angry I am about this, how frustrated that I can do nothing to the scumbags who do this. I discovered, via my mate’s family, that there had been a security breach at the paper and they had also been receiving similar emails. The effect of this upon a loving family was heartbreaking to read.
I block these messages of course and so does his family, but I often wonder if the originators could read about the effects of their evil work. Do they have families? Do they give a s***? Probably not. Every time his family or I see another such message, we are affected by the same misery we felt when he died so painfully.
Unintended (?) consequences.
*SWMBO is correct, I don’t have an issue with that. He was much more of a gentleman, all his life, than I ever was.
When the Thought Police arrive at your door, think -
I'm out.
.
