Hi Folks,
I must say, I would doubt very much that anyone is being hacked by "BigPharma" just because they are posting on FixHepC or any other Hep-C forum. If that was really happening, and if it ever came out, the negative publicity would be enormous. A bit like tapping Princess Diana's phone calls. As a business model, I am sure their best strategy is to continue to talk as if generics and buyers clubs do not exist.
But the reality is that these days, as soon as you post an e-mail address on-line, you will be subject to all manner of probes by automatic software. A lot of this is not real "mal-ware". It is just search engines trying to collect up-to-date mailing lists for special interest mail-shots.
For example, did you know that every time you upload a photograph to FaceBook, within 2 seconds it is automatically processed by automatic face recognition software to identify who is in the picture ... Except in certain European countries where this is against the law?
But there is also real mal-ware out there as well that will attempt to find the password of your mail account. Often it is just to hijack your account to be able to send spam in bulk. But if your main mail password is cracked, that could lead to more serious intrusions...
Probably many of don't need to be given basic advice, but here are a few tips anyway:
* Use disposable mail accounts for one-off on-line purchases and for on-line social networks.
* Use non-memorable passwords that use all the characters on the keyboard and no real names or dates.
* Have two computers / laptops / ipads. One for the social stuff on the web and one for serious stuff like your real-life friends, your work, your on-line banking.
* Never download "free stuff" from the web onto your main laptop or ipad.
* Never reply to unsolicited mail
* Never tell anyone else your passwords (including your kids)
* Install mal-ware detection software on your computer.
And if you really want to close all the doors and windows:
* Use Linux or Mac instead of Windows as the operating system on your "main" machine (or even on all of them)
Cheers,
(and if any spam-bots are reading this, you can reach me here: vororo 911 at gee-mail)
Diagnosed Jan 2015: GT3, A0+F0/F1. Fatigue + Brain-Fog.
Started Sof+Dac from fixHepC 10-Nov-2015. NO sides.
Pre-Tx: AST 82, ALT 133, Viral Load 1 900 000.
Week4: AST 47, ALT 58. VL < 15 (unquantifiable).
Week12 (EOT): AST 30, ALT 26, VL UND
Week16 (EOT+4): AST 32, ALT 28, GGT 24, VL UND
Week28 (EOT+16): AST 26, ALT 22, GGT 24, VL UND
Ever grateful to Dr James.
Relapsed somewhere after all that... Bummer!
Jan 2018: VL 63 000 (still GT3).