It all starts at 10.40 on a Thursday morning. I get an email that says more less like this: from this moment your Instagram profile is associated with the email [email protected]. I understand immediately that I have been hacked.
I try to enter my profile but there is no way: the password is wrong, the recovery mobile number does not allow me to log in. Instagram doesn’t recognize me anymore. My profile is still there, as always, as if nothing had happened, but it is no longer mine. I can’t edit it, I can’t close it, I can’t reply to messages.
There is my face, there are photos of my children, those of my travels, the description of who I am and what I do, but I’m no longer there. All this information is no longer in my hand. I don’t immediately understand the gravity of the thing.
I use the profile mostly for personal posts and I think if I can’t do it for a few days, it doesn’t matter. I try to open a case on Instagram to regain access, I make a minivideo for facial recognition, and I wait.
The storm breaks out a few hours later. Someone, presumably the hacker starts posting posts and stories on my profile. Talk about profitable bitcoin investments that would have enriched me. It even shows a credit of 13 thousand euros that I would have received. I start receiving dozens of messages on whatsapp, even from people I haven’t heard for years (the only reason why I should thank the hacker here), everyone asks me if it’s really me posting these things, some want details and explain to me that they have started a real conversation with the hacker.
Yes because thehacker replies, says he is me, reassures us about the goodness of the information he is sharing and about their origin. To those who ask him if it’s all true, he replies: “Yes, I certainly wouldn’t joke about something like that.” In short, he interacts almost like a real person, trying to show that beyond the screen there is still me. “It is impossible to know whether the person who gets hold of the profiles and interacts is a person or a computer “, they will explain to me from Ig.
What is certain is that whoever took mine looks like a smart guy. One of the things that will amaze me will be how many people will trade the hacker, the computer or whoever it is, for me. I will only find out at the end because while all of this is happening I am completely stranger to my profile and chats and I have no idea what is happening inside Instagram.
It is in that moment that I feel all the drama of the thing. There are about a thousand people, not many but not very few, who are receiving messages from an alleged me over which I have absolutely no control.. And I begin to think that beyond the nonsense about investments, the person who has taken over my digital identity could do anything: write personal messages, insults, express opinions that cannot be shared, comment on other people’s posts.
I feel a deep sense of expropriation and violation and I feel, perhaps for the first time, all the power and risk of social media. I had never thought about it in these terms, it may seem absurd because I have been doing this job for years and with everything that is digital I should have a certain familiarity, but it is only in this precise moment that I realize how much it is. vulnerable that me social, made of photos, stories, small phrases, hearts and comments. And I get angry at how careless I have been in protecting my digital identity which is a piece of the real one.
Source: Vanity Fair
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