I can now identify with Governor Sarah Palin uhand her husband and family. Remember when a Tennessee student hacked her Yahoo account? Governor Palin was right to speak of that act as not only “a violation of her privacy” but a breach in security for her family and others.
My Google email account was hacked yesterday. I trust that this notice of explanation will reach the many who received a bizarre notice, apparently, from me at 0721 EST yesterday morning. The email announced that I had something important to show you in a Google document. The imposter then asked you use to your email to gain entrance to this Google document (which, by the way, didn’t exist). His full intentions are not known but it is a classic case of “phishing” for email identities.
I have now secured the previously compromised Google account, traced the IP to a hospital server in Boston (the culprit could have been in a parking lot of this particular hospital, “stealing” their wi fi signal to perpetrate his deed and further masking his identity), and have taken all recommended steps to re establish control over the account. This security repair steps took almost a day, but we are out of locked down mode now. I am sorry to bother those of you who got the suspicious note from me (with atrocious grammar and tasteless form, I might add). Thankfully, there was no harm done—that I know of—other than a few attempts to try and guess at my credit card number unsuccessfully. Thankfully, American Express was on the job.
Such personal as well as corporate and governmental vandalism is rampant. The FBI and Scotland Yard and other such national law enforcement agencies are finding it nearly impossible to keep up with the mountain lists of cyber fraud cases. It is a good reminder for those of us in public service, who have had threats before, because of our positions, to guard our private lives as best we can. It is for this reason that unless the correspondence is contained and going to friends and supporters that our publicists says “Dr. Milton resides with his wife and son in the Charlotte area.” We have grown children. And I certainly am not ashamed of my beloved bride’s name or my boy’s name or the identities of our adult children. Yet I have learned, first hand, there are nefarious forces at work in our culture who would do more than hack my email to stop the message of the Gospel. In short, I have been threatened on several occasions (usually after preaching the truth of God on sanctity of marriage or sanctity of life) because of my public positions. So I, and all of us, these days, must be careful before others in this high security risk arena called cyber media and “social” media. It can be a very wicked society. We recall our Lord’s warning:
“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (English Standard Version ©2001).
I could never imagine composing such a letter as the notorious email in question. If I did request something from you, it would have been anticipated by you from an earlier correspondence with me.
Well, the authorities located the young UT student who hacked Governor Sarah Palin’s email account. The foolish young man was sentenced to a year in prison and will have a felony conviction haunting his CV for the rest of his days, all for the “fun” of “opening” another person’s mail. So, if the Boston Google Gawker is reading, turn yourself in or if not—don’t do this to anyone else.
Now if you are reading, stop here: I forgive you. I cannot do otherwise.
Oh, and by the way—and I could not be more serious—whatever you are really searching for, beneath that hack job, I will just give you the user and password sequence that was given to me:
There is a God.
You are a sinner and can not earn God’s forgiveness. You can never do enough good to erase the problem of evil that is in your heart.
God will punish sin. There is a Heaven and there is a Hell.
That means you and I and all of us have a problem.
God answered the problem by sending His own Son to live the life we couldn’t live,
and take the punishment for our sins against His law.
In short,
The user name is: I am a sinner.
The Password: Jesus saves sinners.
If you are reading this, I want you to know that we have more in common than my Google information. You see, though I have never hacked a Google account, I, too, am a sinner who has needed that password to unlock a true security.
“Type that in” through prayer—talking directly to the God who made you through earnest repentance and faith in Jesus Christ as the living Lord and resurrected Savior; and you will come to know the secrets of the universe in one phrase: the grace of God. He will grant you full access to abundant life today and eternal life with God to come.
By the way, just in case you don’t get this, for the security of my contacts I have changed my password and implemented stricter entrance requirements with Google. Sadly, there are many others looking for security. Happily, I am more than ready to share the only password to true life that any of us ever need.