Diary of a Hack: Days Thirteen & Fourteen

This mélée has created all sorts of unanticipated consequences. The most surprising has been what I call the Typhoid Mary Syndrome.

You remember the story of Mary Mallon, the Irish cook who--unbeknownst to her or anyone else--was a carrier of Typhoid Fever. Before the New York authorities figured out what was going on, tracked her down and quarantined her, she infected thousands of people, hundreds of whom died.

Mary herself was released from quarantine after promising never to work as a cook again. But for whatever reason, she broke her promise, got herself hired into a series of New Jersey households and left a trail of bodies in her wake. Her second quarantine lasted for 23 years, until her death--from pneumonia--in 1938.

Well now I know--a little anyway--how Mary must have felt. Soon after alerting clients and colleagues about the hack, the worried comments began trickling in.

Were my e-mail files safe to open? For that matter, was it safe to be in e-mail contact with me at all? Had my computer system had been infected? And what had I done to leave myself open to a hack of this proportion?

I suppose I should have my beautiful almost-new Mac put through its paces, just to be sure all is right.

And sure, some of the fears are justified. Even so, I'm feeling like a leper colony of one. 

My response? Since I never clicked through to any of the hacker's URLs (the ones embedded in the e-mails that were forwarded to me from the media buyers), and since system performance hasn't been compromised, and since none of my software programs are glitching, and since Macs are famously well protected from viruses, or so they say, I'm assuming the best.

But if you decide to phone rather than e-mail, I'll understand.

For more information about Mantra for Murder
Phone: 734/761-8440 • Email: lindafitz@mantraformurder.com