I am sitting at my laptop unwinding after getting home from a 12 hr shift at work by playing Bubble Witch Saga on Facebook (do not judge me), when my screen starts telling to me log in. I am already logged in. What? I ignore it, after all, I am thisclose to beating this level (no I am not a kid I am 44) and logging in right now would require me to forfeit this game. BOO. I get the message again. Then Facebook gives me no option but to log back in. When I put in my password, I am led to a screen I have never been on before that shows me a map with my location (**GASP**) with a star near Chicago IL. Hmmm 250 miles away. Interesting. The message says something to the effect of " blah blah blah someone attempted to log in to your account from IP address (insert numbers and periods here that I am sure mean something to everyone BUT me) from Harvy IL at 738pm. Then it asked if I was logging in from there. I answered no. Then it sent me to another screen and told me to immediately change my password and I did.

Then it happened. I started thinking. (By the way... this is where it gets a little confusing for me)

So then, being an ATS member for a year or so, the possible scenarios started running through my head.

1) WHY on earth would anyone hack me? I am the most boring person on the planet. You would do me a favor if you got in my bank account you certainly couldnt hurt it. But wait...there is ALL kinds of stuff on my laptop. WORK stuff mainly. YIKES. I could be subjecting the company I work for to corporate spying . Nawww...who cares about Medicare. WAIT...it is open enrollment and Obamacare is on the horizon...EVERYONE cares. Crap. Should I alert corporate cyber security? I decide not to in fear of looking stupid.

2) WHOA what if the hacker and not FB just had me change my password and I, like an idot gave it to the hacker? (Thanks ATS) (Who can now just steal my family budget, menus, and family calendar. ) The hacker will now know where we are when and what we are having for dinner and what bills are due when.

3) HOLY MOLY what did I just do. I should have freaking taken my laptop out to the backyard along with my wireless router and filled em full of lead. (Again thanks ATS)

4) WHOA what if it was really Facebook trying to protect me. NAH...well...maybe. That is insane. Or is it? Holy crapola...what if Facebook wasnt the mysterious entity that alerted me to change my password..and the hacker was doing some sort of keystroke spying (read that here on ATS thanks! ).

5) Maybe my teenager was playing a trick on me. Then I instantly remembered she had my car and left 4 hours ago...she could almost be in HARVEY IL and oh crap what if she was kidnapped or something and this is her way of alerting me??????? I mean after all, between Twitter and Facebook her cell phone would have to be pried from her little fingers in ANY situation. Then I remembered the recent Jessica Ridgeway threads and got sick to my stomach. I called my daughter who was extremely annoyed but fine...and she muttered I was freaking out and I needed to "chill" and she promptly hung up on me. THen I realized she could've just posted on my facebook wall or sent a text she wouldn't have to go to those extremes if she had her phone. (NO I am not making fun of Jessica Ridgeway...I really did get sick to my stomach thinking something like that could happen to my girl)

6) What if it was the TPTB? (ATS thank you) I mean, I am a staunch supporter of the right to bear arms, and arent they rounding people like me up to put in secret bunkers?

SO you see my dilemma. A year ago I would have never thought anything else of it changed my password and resumed my boring life. NOT NOW. NOW I am seriously contemplating researching what could end up being my graduate school thesis on Cyber Security. (And I am not even in college!!!)



Can anyone else relate?

My point is ATS has me so aware of the wrong in this world that something as innocent (or not) as someone hacking my facebook account sent my head in a hundred directions in a matter of seconds.

I like to think my eyes have been opened.

It's Facebook trying to protect you. It doesn't necessarily mean someone hacked you, IP locations can be quite far off your actual location. Just make sure your password is strong and I wouldn't worry about it.

You can answer this at #1.
Nope, they were not targeting you in particular, they are targeting people who play facebook games because it is easy to fool people with pop-ups.

I have had nothing but problems with facebook games (my wife and kids both play them) and windows getting trojans/viruses that I ended up switching her laptop over to linux.

Now I don't have to worry about it.

lol it's not like hacking a Facebook account will give you much more than a simple friend request can acheive anyway.

Facebook knows your normal location probably because it knows where you log in from most of the time. If that location changes to some where considerably far away it will know something is up. PayPal has a similar, but more advanced system.