[Blindtlk] did anybody happen to see any messages sent on my Behalf?

[Humberto Avila]

Hello everybody:

 

My sincere apologies for cross posting this message to all lists I'm
subscribed to, and also if I am off topic. 

I wanted to write in regards to a recent activity I have seen on listserves,
where apparently a member of the list sends an email message with no subject
and a strange link in the body of the message. Unless that member really
intended to send the message, someone hacking e-mail accounts probably
causes this and it is spreading spam. Did anyone happen to see any message
that looks strange or with no subject, under my name or email address?

 

I am not someone who is just wanting to scream out and share widely my
findings just because I find this kind of stuff on any list, nor am I the
moderator what so ever. However, the reason I am asking this question is
because, this evening, I happen to look at my account activity under my
gMail account and something noticed my attention. 

As I was looking at the last activity, a saw a table with 3 columns and
about 12 or so rows. The table summarizes the type of activity, whether it
is use of browser, mail client, or some other, then a row with the location
and IP address, and the date and time accessed. Usually, this lists my
preferred methods of accessing gmail, which is through outlook and firefox,
and then the IP address of my computer which was pretty much the same. Under
the location row, the page displays the info in the form, for example,
"united States (WA) (66.189.2.)", meaning that is coming from Washington
State in the USA, and is my computer's IP address. However, in one of the
rows, the information displayed was something like "United States (CA)
(66.200.)". It appears that somebody from California had access to my
account and this is not my IP address.

 

Back on topic for these lists, blind people are getting more and more access
to technology and information as well as the sighted population in this
world. We use e-mail every day to communicate as well as social media.
Therefore, fellow blind computer users, I would like to give you a piece of
recommendation to you out of courtesy. If you notice something spreading
like this across your contacts (this includes e-mail addresses of lists you
put out as contacts in your webmail address book), like this "no
subject-and-link" thing, please check your webmail site for your last
account activity, or whatever is called on your specific webmail provider or
email provider. To you gMail users, look for the text, "last account
activity" on any page and there should be any link there to take you to the
activity using whatever page view you prefer using, either Basic html or
Standard. To all others, look for a similar text under your webmail pages
and see if you notice any unusual activity like this. 

 

This may be that some clever spammer is breaking into your account and knows
how to get your password. If so, please change your password so this does
not happen. 

 

I am only sending this out for your information and to make sure there is no
further identity theft if this is to continue in more depth. We should
protect our accounts, not just our e-mail accounts, so that these things do
not occur in the future. If you see any suspicious activities, please take
action.

 

Again, thank you for reading this and I am sorry if this goes too off-topic.
If you want to reply about this matter, please do so off-list.

 

Sincerely,

Humberto