When I first began posting on forums, I was rather uninformed and truly believed that all those I interacted with online were there for the same reasons as me, to express their opinions, debate issues, relate with adults and learn new things from others concerning politics mostly. This progressed to participating in other forums, such as crosswords, and off-topic threads. Fun times!
I was aware of scammers and so forth, though don't think I percieved the full scope of their activities, just simply saw them as people who tried to email you to get your credit card details and so forth, (nigerian scammers etc).
So when people would chat to me online in forums and invite me to connect with them privately via IM, going so far as to email me the IM program (a file) and step me through the process as I had no idea how to even IM at this stage, I trusted them, and of course I scanned it for viruses, the file was fine. IM worked like a treat.
However, the problem lurked much deeper than this, whereby unwittingly I had began placing trust in a complete stranger I didn't even know from a bar of soap, and whilst I knew this at the time, I think deep down there was that part of me that wanted to believe that this person genuinely liked me, enjoyed what I posted, and was a good person this and didn't have an agenda. I mean, what could I have that they might possibly want afterall, I was no millionaire, didn't even own a credit card, so I just assumed like me they were a nice person who genuinely wanted to assist others because they got a kick out of doing so. Slowly but surely, I developed a bit of a dependency on them ... (tech wise) for when things would go wrong with my computer, they would tell me what to do to fix it and it usually worked.
And as my trust grew, they got gamer, whereby they began spooking me by making my CD rom drive open and close, (would IM me before it occurred) this and would make things appear across my computer randomly, followed by hahahahah via IM.
At first I thought they were just clever and funny, but still even then, I didn't think there was anything malicious going on.
It didn't occur to me at the time they were having me change my settings to allow them access to my ports to gain access , and it wasn't until I noticed some of the things others were trying to tell me about this particular person and after several months of computer troubles that I realised that there may have been some substance to what they were saying, because initially, it sounded so out there, "paranoid" I think I even accused the person who was trying to warn me that they were being paranoid and stupid. I mean, why would anyone even want to hack me, I didn't even engage in online banking. ..so figured if they did hack, then they couldn't do much harm, given I had never used online banking or even paid for anything online before. And nothings changed, I still don't do online banking or transactions because of this spook.
When this individual sensed I was becoming concerned, this and realised I had un-installed the IM program they had sent me via email, (as per another persons recommendation) they immediately asked me why I had uninstalled it.
The thing is, I had not even told them that I had taken another's advise and removed the program from my computer, yet they immediately knew that I had.
It was then I noticed their personality had altered dramatically, whereby they had began shunning me , this or nit-picking at me online.... then upon having completed a fresh re-installation of windows, (my computer crashed) they were absolutely furious, had even began attacking me via a forum they had invited me to thinking I was offline, this and were arguing with the individual who had warned me about them to begin with abusing them also.
Fortunately I woke up in time, (well, I had hoped) this and no longer IM with people I don't know personally. I don't even IM at all these days.
Why did this person do this to me?
At the time I had no idea, the only thing I could think of was they were practising on me, were script kiddies armature hackers or something practising on gullible peoples computers, perhaps searching for personal information and so forth also.
Well, it panned out to be much worse than this even, it turned out this individual had a vested interest in why they wanted to keep a close eye on me, then when I confronted them about something sinister I had read on one of the forums they had invited me to months before...( I saw them discussing paedophilia , 'boy-love' romantically, erotically...filthy stuff ) I threatened them with the police, at which point they told me to keep an eye out for (Yellow pages) .... I thought they were calling my bluff, but the large bright yellow car idled past my house (V8 I think) just as they said it would, minutes after they told me it would complete with the numberplate either JB or JG, they advised me to look for. He referred to himself as Johnny, and from what I could make out he was either a friend of the guy who had originally set up my IM , (the file) or was JG himself pretending to be a second character. This was back in 2005/2006, .... he also referred to himself as just G, MrG, JohnnyG, and numerous other similar handles.
This is probably the scariest thing I have experienced online, and is why to this day, I am not keen on IM-ing, and am reluctant to trust people I interact with online.
Yes, I still have some of his actual emails JG Estiots, containing subtle threats which I kept.
Has anyone else had either a positive or negative online experience they would like to share?
Mon 29 Mar 2010 - 9:12
