Relative Something

We are learning some unpleasant lessons by way of Cyndie’s falling prey to the malicious marauders soiling the online communication world. The full extent of their devious intrusion is yet to be determined, but, like so many violations of our trust, it is the psychological damage that probably takes the greatest toll.

Finally, last night, I discovered that filters had been created on her account, which were routing some messages around her inbox, so she would never even see them, and deleting them. There were a curious select few, which created the question of whether it was random or with some evil intent.

One address being filtered seemed to be understandable. It was the friend who, prior to Cyndie, had likely fallen for the same trap. Thus any subsequent communication attempts from the previous victim, like maybe to alert Cyndie, would go unseen and be deleted.

I have learned a lot more about Google’s email features and how to quickly see information on my account, like, if there is any other activity, and if it is from a location other than my own. Conveniently, there is a button there to immediately log out all other sessions.

Now I know exactly where the “Report Phishing” link is, in case I do receive any suspicious messages.

I don’t know why the thug(s) took the step of deleting all of Cyndie’s contacts. Google offers a simple button click to restore contacts within the last 30 days. There also seems to be an odd number of emails missing. It is difficult for Cyndie to be sure, since there appear to be some visible, but certain specific messages she is looking for do not show up in a search.

While scouring everything I could find, related to being hacked, I stumbled upon the place to request Google to search for lost messages. Overnight, they obviously restored quite a few, but there are still specific messages missing. Their report indicates that if it doesn’t show up after the restore, it is not retrievable. I have no understanding of what step differentiates deleted messages from ones Google can retrieve, from those which even Google is unable to restore.

There is plenty I don’t understand about all this, but I have recently learned a lot more than I knew before.