Notes on an unidentified flying hack

 

Two weekends past an alleged search engine boasting of advanced security and atypical access ambushed me while posting. Flashing an authoritative sign that engulfed this screen, it demanded I accept further intrusions of data collection or suffer a vague consequence - you may experience difficulty with the functions of this web site.

Naturally, I refused. 

  Not because I was dropped on my head as a child, or for lingering criminal tendencies. I've resisted most behavioral modification online. I assumed that's what it involved. A tactic also known as (AKA) Public Relations.

It was Google himself what done it. That's what I heard ... It looked exactly like some ransom malware. With only a tiny little url with google etched in tiny little letters to back up its instruction; "Accept". To put it another way; "Consent". "Submit" is for registered customers with a 1: 100,000 chance to win a special prize. 

 

Emboldened by curiosity, another click opened a button marked "learn more".. A short explanation within announced its intent to place tracking cookies, evidently to further define details of my uploading habits - the data of my sources and their origin; shared articles and links, and for images, pdf's, and the like. Apparently, my 2000 or so saved Blogger photos were also sanctioned. Correction: they're Google Photos now.

So I was to assume the role of confidential informant. A snitch. A canary. Agent provocateur and a spy. all I needed was a security clearance, mileage reimbursement, one to one match on a 401k, with a really good dental plan and I could ride that gravy train for all it was worth. With a publisher's advance to write my memoirs, all that was left was a voice scrambler and pixelated screen shot and I was set for life. And entertainment expenses. Two, no three weeks paid sick leave.

Tempting ...

 

And, this pop up, quite subtly, threatened violence.

Oddly, my browser didn't recognize the source, either. It even advised I block it, nobly offering a button to push - that said "Block" on it. I did. Nothing happened. Except my browser had stopped working, turned  tail and rolled up in a ball.

 

My browser is not Chrome. You probably knew that by now?

The pop up had buttons, too. "Accept" or "Deny". I chose the blue pill - or was that red? Nothing changed. The intruding pop up again. I could write, but no uploads.
 

So I tried a quick cut and paste job. It posted! 

 

"Eureka", I said. 

 

"All prior posts are belong to us",  it might be Google replied. Yes. 880 posts had vanished. 

 

"Fuck!" I said. and wrote a nasty headline and let it stand for all to see.

 

Like a pilloried man detained in the town square. To make an example, mind you.

Which brought many a curious reader to gawk at the funny man moaning and thrashing about, heaven knows what for, but without any a speck of content to read. 

 

Some things never change.

A few still come for the exquisite selection of links ...do you need a brown paper bag?

 
I viewed it as if it were a Communist plot. No, I am not a Republican. Not a Democrat. Yes, I was born in the Cold War. No, young people couldn't possibly comprehend my snappy patter - even if they wanted to.
 

Nor am I a Uni-Party man. Which would have saved the trouble of mentioning the other two louts. There still remained a hint of the Collective about it though.

Which pointed a finger back at Google Accounts 

(actually, that's not entirely true - The prior paragraph is a dramatic embellishment - except, maybe, for the Collective ).

If you don't know Google Accounts, I'll tell you what it is.

It hijacks every aspect of your online life, even extending its reach from the ether to pull and twist at your waking hours  Akin to opium addiction, it promises endless hours spent in a slightly uneasy daze dithering and dreaming through an unnatural, floating world punctuated by a million clicks. They're your clicks, running up the tally of your precious life's hours wasted as you while them away, indoctrinated to  every  tawdry value from yet another self important, woke company as you're drawn into the abyss of total disdain for cognizance and conversation.  Your consent is its final condition, blithely attended by little emoticons and gifs dancing before your bloodshot eyes like minor demons in a Hieronymus Bosch painting. 

 

That's right. It opens a portal that leads straight to the depths of  Hell.

There it is, lingering near the preview pane - it's making a dog's breakfast of the HTML!  

Had you going there for a moment, didn't I?
But it is in the room with us - right now. 

 

Like Nosferatu, it's an unstoppable menace sucking your life story straight from the vein of your deleted history with the extreme prejudice only an unfeeling algorithm of shoddy code and patchwork JavaScript - plus the coder's unconscious biases - could  ever conceive. 

 

You might argue, "I have nothing to hide". 

Nor does a man on his way to the gallows ...

 

Right! Our eyes are on you, Sunny Jim, you know what will happen if you don't. Now, put your x down and sign up for Google Meet! Here then! Why isn't Discovery turned on? And never look me in the eye. Eyes down on your phone! 30 pop ups! They'll be more until morale improves ....

 

At least with a bot you can strike up a conversation.

I ran to Blogger assistance for help. FAQs had no mention of von Helsing. No surprise that - they offer little else, either. Still, I made a checklist.

No issue with the The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
That rule was created to restrain Google's reach. What happened after that I don't know. The same provision does not apply here.

We receive, for example, an executive order, then spend months, even years, disproving what was already known to be over reach. Then a regulatory agency with no legislative powers takes a turn. And so forth. In sequence, conditioning obedience.
 

 For the privilege, you'd think that would be funny. Threatened with arrest not so long ago, I found it ... ironic.

No lingering authorization notices from the, eh hem, European Economic Authority. They must dally with advertisers. A number of rules to observe there. Don't comply, and fair warning is given. If you snooze, once you're cited, best wake up and take notice; you'll lose by default with no timely reply.

I opened the link to check for duplicate errors in emails; any that held passwords lost or forgotten. Those associated to the blog were properly vetted. Two that weren't listed, and have never been opened, were assigned by two ISPs, Comcast and Xfinity. 

 

Which, btw, are both just one and the same company. 

 

What's the difference between a Monopoly and a Cabal? One is a Capitalist bastard and the other a World Economic Forum. There have been rumors of a merger.
 

No doubt I logged in with my Google Account. I couldn't avoid it if I tried ... remember this soothing dialog?

 

Google run Blogger town ... say it ... *say* Google run Blogger town!

 

Tina Turner had a role in that. Did you hear? She passed away. I saw her on the Academy Awards. A performance so compelling it made me tear up and cry. 

 

Check your phone for "private dancer"... no, no, there, no, not "tiny dancer", no, that's not it ... let me see ... yes ... c'mon ...

 

I've had mixed content on here for years - it means new https to old http posts are not copacetic. I clean it out like weeds in the garden when I come across it. 

I know now what to call it besides what the f**k.

I have no tolerance for, and deserve the right to deny inclusion of, any damn spam regardless of origin, creed, country, corporation or limited liability company, and I'm not afraid to say it ...

I leave them up just to mock them. It's a control issue. I know.

 

Not nearly amusing as Facebook's Community Standards. 

They don't have any - they make them up as they go along.

I'll never moderate the comments section here.

If you want to light it up, have a go.

If you feel you've been ghosted pretend you've been texting.

I ran a malware checker (not the one from Ukraine I mentioned in a previous post entitled
More Lockdown or just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me) and it came up clean. ... did you just hear something? I thought I heard ... you hear it, too?

I have noticed the edit buttons by each post have disappeared. It requires one return to the dashboard every time. It would be swell adding a sub-header titled what else is forbidden?
 

Imagine that in syndication, the target audience, a class room.

 
So where do I stand now?

 
It claimed authenticity, yet had the characteristics of malware;  how does it differ?
What I don't understand is, you can delete tracking, various personal kinds, i.e., in the privacy and data section of your account.
Leads one to believe this one's bogus somehow ... and able to disrupt communications.
Then why the sudden interest in source material?

We'll look into it.
 

I had no idea of Europe's extended reach in what I post. For now, limited to international platforms adhering to protocols applied to their content. Quite unlike our individual states and communities which still, despite federal influence, are by statute and amendment to determine their own standards. That window of opportunity, inexorably, is closing, coinciding with the money spigot of Federal funding as a wedge to compel compliance with policy.

Am I to be subject to draconian penalty for some cultural gaffe' or making an enemy? What if I make an unconscious mistake? What entity is it keeping a score? Will it relent, or will there be more? Would this post's content even pass muster? 

 

... with a stanza that rhymes? That's asking quite a lot isn't it? I hope you haven't taken a bloody gloss over the whole bloody piece, I've been at this for hours ,,,

 

Honestly, I have absolutely ... there isn't ... I have nothing ... to hide?

Hey, Google! You Can Kiss My ASS!

dwee do dee doo doo dwee do dee doo doo hahahahahahaaaaaaa ....

NSA.Prism/search/ keywords/in-order-of-appearance/:

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