Lee.org

I wrote this on my mom’s Facebook account today:

Hi, this is Marlene’s son, Lee Sonko, writing on Marlene’s account. Someone broke into Marlene’s account a few weeks ago. If you got a friend request from “me”, please report that account as fraudulent and unfriend them!

They were amazingly sneaky. The only notice we got that something nefarious was happening was an email that Marlene’s password had changed. I’ve seen this before and the thieves plan was to let the account sit for 30 days with the new password and then lock Marlene out of her own account. A good friend of mine got completely locked out of her account forever with this scam!

Here’s what to do to make sure this doesn’t happen to you: Set up two-factor authentication for all your important apps. Just install the Authy app on your phone and then follow these instructions https://authy.com/guides/facebook/ Now you’ll need your phone when logging in with a new device. It’s not a bother and it will save you!

Also, don’t ignore odd emails from Facebook, like if they say your password has changed.

Here’s another message I was using

This is Marlene’s son, Lee writing from her account.

Recently you got a friend request ostensibly from Marlene but it isn’t her! It is someone pretending to be her! Could you please do a few things:

First, please report and unfriend that new, Bad Marlene . Go to this page: https://www.facebook.com/marlene.sonko.9 , and in the upper right corner just below “Friends and “Messege” click the “…” and click “Find support or report”. Please report this account!

Second, please make sure that all of your accounts have 2 factor authentication using an authentication app like Authy.com or Google Authenticator to secure your account! Here’s a pretty good video showing how to do this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcKnAjTTXYg

My mom’s account got hacked even though we had just set up SMS-based 2-factor-authentication! It was a bother to set up the authentication app but it was WAY more of a bother to recover Marlene’s account from the bad people. Seriously.

Third, if you ever get an email from Facebook saying your password has changed, or you get locked out of Facebook for an unknown reason, don’t ignore the problem! You’ve got 30 days to undo problems or be locked out of your account FOREVER.

Sorry for such a long message. Best regards – Lee Sonko for my mom, Marlene.
PS Feel free to call my mom or me (I’m at xxx-xxx-xxxx) and verify all of this!

Here are some more details. I didn’t share all of this with all her friends on Facebook but it’s worth mentioning!

The thieves did a very elegant switch-a-roo! My mom only uses Facebook on her iphone. She reported that app had starting looking “weird”. We figured out that her login had been switched to a new, fake account! I didn’t have her phone in my hands but it was apparent that the thieves were able to log her in to the new, fake account that looked similar (maybe using the old login credentials, where they switched her legitimate account to using new credentials that we never had access to)

On this fake account, she could see her friends but not interact with them. Maybe what they did was something like this:

• hack her legit account
• create a fake account, Making friend requests to all of her Friends on her legit account
• change the phone number and password on her legit account to something else
• change the phone number and password on her fake account to her original credentials
• (her iphone app magically switches to using the fake account)

Blargh.

Our family went to Mi Casa Grill, a new Mexican restaurant place on the corner of San Pablo and Macdonald Ave in El Cerrito, CA.

Wow. Really good!

We sat outside where we enjoyed seeing people walk by and hear some street noise (and, you know sitting outside for COVID is a thing).

Beautiful plating, innovative use of flavors and textures. One example being: having avocados 3 ways in a taco: creamed, fresh and deep fried; you’d think it might be weird or boring but it wowed! In one bite, I felt I had been taught a beautiful lesson about the magical avocado! The Torta Cubana sandwich was absolutely sublime! They had some spendy items on the menu as well as less expensive; I now trust them enough to get a fancier item!

We will be back, with family and on adult date night!

If you get a notice from Facebook saying that your password changed, look into it! If Facebook doesn’t hear from you for a month, they’ll assume the change was legit. If it was a bad person, they’ll then have free reign to do any nefarious thing they want in your account, including spamming your friends or locking you out of your account forever!

This problem has now happened to two loved ones! Today we caught the baddies before the countdown finished.

When you’re done, enable two-factor authentication on your account (and all of your accounts!). It’s a tiny bother to set up but VERY worthwhile! Here’s how to set it up on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/help/148233965247823

We found a free car jack under our Prius today! Yay! I’m sure the catalytic converter shield we installed on the car has nothing to do with this!

They left the car 1/2 jacked up on a fine hydraulic jack. But they took the bar you use to pump it up. They must have had to leave in a hurry.

Megan had the shield installed. I think it was around $400. The insurance deductible is $500 so it almost doesn’t make sense to get one until you factor in the week of waiting for the car repair and the fact that there’s nothing stopping them from stealing it a second time!
The mechanic who installed it (Steve’s Auto in El Cerrito) said that thieves sometimes cut through the shields so if you make them, make them sturdier than you think they should be, and that’ll be about right.

I’ve been railing on the idiocy of Daylight Savings Time on this blog for literally 20 years.

Now, the dream that actually helps dreamers sleep at night might actually come true! The Sunshine Protection Act has been moving it’s way through the hallowed halls of congress and might actually (mostly) get rid of daylight savings time forever in the US! Hurray and Huzzah! The “mostly” part is that we’d permanently be one hour off of the actual solar time. That’s moderately less idiotic than switching our clocks twice a year.  I’ll take it. I’m glad to hear that politicians still find it necessary to meddle with the fabric of time itself.

Here’s a promotional poster for it: sunshine-protection-act-2019-one-pager

Write to your federal house representative in favor of the Sunshine Protection Act!

Here’s my letter to my house representative:

This may seem like a small issue but I beg of you to please say “yes” to the Sunshine Protection Act, (S623). It passed the Senate on March 15th, 2022 Get rid of Daylight Savings Time! That twice-a-year change screws me up for a week. Does it mess up your week? It messes up everyone in the country’s week! Get rid of it!

Update: read the comment below!

Voice Typing for Google Docs works so well. Why oh why isn’t there a voice typing feature for Gmail? I have seen a few

There’s a Chrome extension called Dictation for Gmail with 100,000+ users but I simply don’t trust the organization behind it enough to push this button:

I can’t find out enough information about dictation.tools and Greg Sadetsky, the developer of this “free” extension, to trust them with unlimited access to my email! I would pay money for this!

Windows Sandbox is a nice, quick virtual machine that you probably already have.

It’s great to use virtual machine software like this when you need to download and run suspicious software that might have a virus or be otherwise unsavory. Instead of hoping and praying that your anti-virus holds up, you just start a Sandbox and ‘tada!’ you have an extra throwaway computer! Run programs in it, access the internet, copy files wherever. When you’re done, close the Sandbox and everything in it is GONE forever.

Find out how to turn on Windows Sandbox here. (I didn’t say “download” it because you already have it if you have Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise or Education build 18305 or Windows 11!)

It’s not as powerful as other virtual machine software like Virtualbox or VMware but it’s way easier to set up!

And just in case you need a real Windows 10 install in a virtual machine, you can get it for free.

I’m starting to use a web-based Microsoft Outlook for a new job and I swear to god Clippy still works there!

To translate into English: every “helpful” prompt the app gives me is asinine, anti-helpful and makes me think scornfully, “What the hell were they thinking?”

After 5 months of continual use, I can say that Dynalist is my favorite productivity tool!

In brief, it’s a To-Do list manager. The format is pleasantly simple: start with nested bulleted lists, add some slick search tools, keyboard shortcuts, works-anywhere (Chrome, android app, etc), and Google Calendar integration and BAM, I’ve got a great todo-list, note-jotter, keep-me-on-time tool!

It’s sweet spot is working with short bullet items, up to 30 words or so. You can also write longer documents in it but for true document writing, it’s better to just link to a Google Doc.

I tried several other todo list managers last year and this one came out on top! I paid for a year’s access but if you don’t need the Google calendar integration, the free version works perfectly well!