Saturday, July 21, 2012

Evil people doing evil things-- like stealing my blog

The horrific event in Aurora Colorado is a very painful reminder that there is so much evil in this world.  Now, my own birthday will be linked to our first landing on the Moon (July 20, 1969) and the massacre at a premiere showing of "Batman, the Dark Knight Rises". Who knows why a 24 year old boy/man snapped?  Why people had to die so tragically-- so young.  A community is shaken to it's core, and parents, siblings and friends are left to grieve the loss of their loved ones.

While the news is filled with the horror of this tragic day, it is my birthday.  I wake up feeling grateful to find birthday cards from my husband, my son, and my Facebook is filled with dozens of birthday wishes. I take a drive, on a beautiful sunny morning, to meet friends for brunch.  I spend the rest of the day buying a few things for me-- things that I find "pretty".  I can pay for them.

Later, that afternoon, my husband comes home from work and greets with me warm hugs and kisses-- tells me how lucky he is that I was born, so that I would come into his life. I tell him the same.  He takes me to dinner for a prime rib dinner.  He looks at me so lovingly, and I know that I am blessed.

Before we leave for dinner, my son comes out of his room, handsome and dressed in his freshly pressed white shirt, tie and black slacks. He's carefully polished his work shoes.  He says "love you, mom" and grabs his car keys. He's headed to his job, that he really likes.

Life, in my corner of the world, goes on as normal. I forget about the tragedy in Aurora, because my own little world is filled with much happiness.  I say a quiet prayer to God, thanking Him for all my blessings.

This morning, I receive an email from Ron, telling me that my blog was hijacked. What?  Sure enough, my blog was redirected to some evil people. I won't even share their link, but it's a drug rehab site.  Ah, but they don't know that I have a very smart husband.  He's in the computer security field.  I'm flapping around, with the veins in my neck bulging-- feeling completely violated.

We google and find out that other people are experiencing this. It's a "widget" that was installed long ago.  But evil hackers know how to get into the widgets that are stored somewhere on a computer cloud. Behind the scenes, they sneakily add a redirect code-- and just like that, your blog is gone.

One by one, we look at the HTML code to each of my widgets. There it is.  The evil culprit's code, that steals my blog address as soon as anyone lands on it.  We delete the entire widget.

Well, I'm back.  I received a few private emails telling me that they still read my blog, and I have helped to encourage them.

Thank you.  Thank you for allowing me to bless your lives.  I'm back. I'm not going anywhere.

Life throws us hurdles, and I am thankful to have the love of Jesus to help me dust myself off and go on.  I pray for the people of Aurora, Colorado.  I pray for the young man who did this evil stuff.  I pray for the man's own parents, who must be devastated to know that their son turned people's lives apart with his unspeakable act.

This was not God's plan.  There is so much evil in this world.  People forget that this is where the Dark One dwells. His plan is to devour and destroy people.  This is where those who are true believers in Christ knows, that there is a better place for us.  I will get there when I leave this life.  Until then, I'm a prayer warrior.

May God bring healing to those who need it most. Today. Now.
 

5 comments:

Lisa Smith said...

I am so glad you got everything worked out. My eldest son is now living with us. He has been clean for the two months he has been here. I do know he still smokes pot but just knowing where he is every night and that he is safe makes me happy. He is also attending church with us. Baby steps..and God's love. Have a blessed day!

Anonymous said...

Could you please let me know which widget your husband found? How he found that this happened? I have a blog of my son's journals before he died of heroin in 2101, age 25. Well, all the sudden a drug treatment center had my private twitter account linked to theirs; I was following them! They had my real name! I was horrified. How did they get it?

Anonymous said...

We share the same birthday! So happy belated birthday to you! Glad you are back. I am so thankful your son is doing well. I am also a mother of an addict. He is facing prison time soon, but Jesus is REAL. He has been keeping me and all of us..sane:)

Debby of Oxycontin and Opiate Addiction: A Mother's Story said...

I'm not a computer expert. We looked to see what the URL address code, that was redirecting my blog. Then, we went into the HTML code of our blog, and searched for the redirect code. Sure enough, it was a widget that I had added a long time ago...a widget that would list my most recent comments. See, the problem with using third party widgets (other than from Blogger) is that a hacker can go behind the scenes of that widget, and add a redirect code. POOF, it's gone! I hope that you can get your blog back. Hope this helps.

Treatment for Sex Addiction NYC said...

Can I just say what a relief to find someone who actually knows what theyre talking about on the internet. You definitely know how to bring an issue to light and make it important. More people need to read this and understand this side of the story. I cant believe youre not more popular because you definitely have the gift.