If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably noticed that after all these years, something has changed and my page now looks as if Julie Andrews should be dancing across it while singing, “The hills are alive.”
Believe me, it wasn’t my idea...my blog recently was the target of some nefarious foreign hit men.
For years, I have been writing this weekly missive, baring my soul to the world, just because I love to write. I never even realized I might be able to earn a bit of money from it, if I had a few advertisements posted on it. The catch, however, was advertisers actually had to WANT to advertise on my site, and I very rarely promoted my blog to anyone. I mean, my whole thought process thus far has been, “It’s just here…for anyone who happens to find it.”
But then I posted a story called “The Ugly Fingernail and the Dictionary,” about my battle with a ganglion cyst at the base of one of my nails. Suddenly I had nearly 8,000 views, which was about 7,956 more than usual. And advertisers slowly became interested.
I guess I have to thank the 8,000 ganglion-cyst sufferers who Googled “ganglion cysts,” and came across my blog, believing I actually was going to offer them some sage advice for solving their problem.
And for that, I sincerely apologize.
Anyway, a few small advertisers soon arrived and paid me a penny every time someone clicked on one of their ads.
And in the 14 years since they started advertising with me, my total earnings have been $44. So in another 200 years or so, I figure I might be able to book that dream cruise to the Bahamas.
But more realistically, I’ve always had high hopes that someday I actually would receive my first advertising-based check, which has to reach a minimum of $100 before each payout.
Two weeks ago, my optimism hit an all-time high when some popular retail companies I’d actually heard of asked for approval to post their ads on my blog. Of course, I leapt at the opportunity. They made me feel as if I’d finally reached the big-time…and they maybe would make it possible for me to finally hit my $100 goal before I’d have to use it for my funeral expenses.
Then, in the blink of an eye, everything changed.
In place of the attractive ads for stylish shoes, delicious-looking foods and exotic vacation destinations, several ugly-looking ads suddenly appeared directly over them, concealing them. These replacements were printed in plain text with links that said, “Click here now!” or “Download this PDF file immediately!”
When they didn’t go away after three days, I knew something wasn’t right. So I contacted the IT experts.
“Have you changed or added any widgets lately?” the guy asked me. And then, “Did you check your gadgets?”
Widgets and gadgets? Was he for real? I had no clue what he was talking about, and suspected he was making up stuff as he went along because he sensed I knew zilch about modern technology. He reminded me of my uncle, who used to own an auto-repair shop. Whenever a woman came in alone, he would have fun making up names for auto parts he’d swear her car desperately needed (his favorite being the “framistram”) just to test her level of cluelessness.
Anyway, after much trial and error (mostly error on my part), the tech informed me I was the victim of something called “malvertising,” where cybercriminals overlay legitimate ads with their own malicious ones, so they can get paid when someone clicks on them…or even worse, lure unsuspecting readers to their own sites…all of which are scams.
I was told to go to my ad-approval page and block them. That sounded simple enough, even for someone as technologically inept as I am. But when I reached my ad page, the malvertising ads weren’t even listed on there for me to approve or block.
“That’s not good,” the IT guy said. “It means they have bypassed the advertising company that posts the legitimate ads and have infiltrated the whole framework of your blog.”
Oh, great, buddy,
tell me some more good news.
My first thought was why would these crooks pick my blog, of all blogs? I’m just an impoverished old lady trying to earn that first $100. Why wouldn’t they pick someone who has 10 million followers and is driving a BMW, unlike me, with my 2004 PT Cruiser that’s in desperate need of a brake job before I end up like Thelma and Louise?
Let’s just say when it comes to the bad-luck lottery, I always seem to win the top prize.
So, after spending days trying to smoke the perpetrators out of their hiding places and failing, the IT guy raised the white flag and told me I would have to shut off my “allow advertising” button, change all of my passwords and then – and this part was the most painful – delete and re-design my whole blog as if it were day one. However, he assured me that such a drastic move would be worth it because it would wipe out anything that had newly been added (especially without my permission) to the old version.
The only good part was I was able to salvage my archive of past blogs listed on here, which was declared safe.
So now you are seeing the new version of my old blog. And it has NO ads. The experts told me I can try adding them again in a couple of weeks, and hopefully by then the hackers will have given up on me and moved on to some new, unsuspecting victims.
But what if they still remain lurking about, just waiting to immediately pop up again? Then I will have to change my blog all over again…or just give up.
So I suppose time will tell.
In the meantime, I also am currently dealing with a totally different problem for which I will have to contact yet another support person…my DirecTV’s Genie box has developed a problem called a “handshake glitch” (another term I thought someone was making up just to taunt me). What that means is the Genie has become a controlling bully and is making my TV do weird things like shut off in the middle of a program or download some entire TV series I’m not even familiar with, and in the process is sucking up all of the Internet data I’m allowed each month.
Then when I use up all of my data, my Internet provider punishes me by reducing my service to the old-fashioned dial-up speed, which is slower than a snail on sedatives. No kidding, my download speed went from 140 to 1! One! I can prepare and eat a three-course dinner before I even get online.
So am I having fun yet?
I never thought I would say this, but I really am beginning to miss manual typewriters and TVs with rabbit ears.
Life seemed so much simpler back then…even without Spanx.
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