kismetism

Finally resumed some coding today. Not a whole lot, but a significant amount considering how much I have NOT gotten done since turning the paper in. And I have the next steps visualized, so I won’t be as likely to get roadblocked by sheer reluctance to think.

I’ve been high strung for the past few days (7-9) because my WoW account was compromised (i.e. someone hacked my account). For me, having played a single character for nearly five years and to have that almost very nearly taken away from me … don’t laugh, but it’s really pretty harrowing. Say all you want about the supposed triviality of said online identity, but I’ve invested money and time and energy, which makes me very emotionally attached to this batch of pixels and to have some stranger run my avatar around without my permission… it’s a bit like having someone take and destroy the musical instrument that you’ve practiced and played on all your life.

Anyway, managed to turn the situation around relatively quickly… thanks to immediate discovery of the misdeed. Took back control of the account, locked a spare authenticator on it, then assessed the damage. Kirlune, my main, had her bank more or less cleaned out and all of her currency was gone, including badges. My other characters on Eredar were likewise robbed of their gold, but had less to lose in terms of gear. Luckily the hacker didn’t have time to investigate the other servers I play on, or he would have discovered that I have two fairly well-to-do characters on Moon Guard… these remained completely untouched.

Ticketed a GM and was incredibly surprised and gratified when the turnaround time was several hours later; everything was restored to its original state. It probably helped that I was able to provide timestamps for when the altercation occurred, but nevertheless it was pretty amazing customer service.

I’m irritated because I’ve run countless virus and malware scanners on both of my computers and have failed to find anything, so I still don’t know how I contracted the keylogger… which puts me on edge. I’m going to have to format my desktop, but haven’t quite found the time yet. And now I’m on pins and needles all the time with every disconnect, wondering if it’s a hacker trying to get in, or when I receive an official-looking phishing attempt in my e-mail. It’s like I’ve been psychologically brutalized to some degree and, as a victim, am now living in a permanent state of fear.

I’m sure it will go away eventually, but in the meantime, I’m still using a password made of completely random letters and numbers that I have written on a piece of paper because there’s no way in hell I’ll remember it. Sigh.