TWO SURPRISES, AND I DABBLE IN CYBERCRIME!

Hello Mal-Pals! I'm glad to report I'm doing a lot better than I have been recently. I'm still not feeling 100%, but I'm a damn sight better than I was when I was hospitalised. My hearing is back to normal in my right ear, which is excellent! My main bugbear is the Wi-Fi here, there are three networks and I only have access to one of them. My laptop simply isn't connecting to it, whilst my tablet finds it for a while and then loses it. It's very frustrating, the internet is basically the one place I'm truly free. I have no real privacy and can't set my own agenda. I have to ask for help with everything. There's a family Zoom call later, it'd be nice to be on it!

I spoke to the owner/manager of the home - I had my parents e-mail and ask for help, because I've consistently tried to see her about more pressing matters and have been ignored before. It turns out that of the three networks, she has no information about one of them, has a password that doesn't work for the second, and uses the one I can get on with my tablet herself. There's just no attempt at problem solving or improving things for the guests here, the staff seem so jaded and have way too much responsibility. The care home is divided into two floors and there are over sixty beds; I don't know how many are on each floor. I do know that on Monday overnight there was only one carer and one nurse looking out for the entire floor, from 8.30pm to 7.30am. This has happened a few times before, and seems to me to be pretty irresponsible. Granted, most of the residents will be sleeping, but it still seems dangerous; a nasty stomach bug or a fire would prove disastrous!

I have been playing on Reddit again with the usual suspects. I've genuinely missed carrying on my imaginary adventures and flirtations, but it seemed more polite to not play at all whilst I was feeling down than to knock out a couple of responses in between naps! My playmates know not to expect a swift response anyway, and I like trading a couple of dozen messages over the course of a day rather than fitting it all into a dedicated hour of chat.

I also set a prompt based on my new obsession, The Leprechaun's Game. I said I wanted to be the leprechaun, and that I was looking for someone to play Misha, trying to convince me to spare her husband after he stole my gold, and not to hurt her or her unborn baby. I had a response in less than an hour, because r/DirtyPenPals is mental and there are a ton of very specific and implausible situations posted every day. We chatted back and forth for a couple of hours in character; it was not particularly sexy! I did toy with the idea of staying true to the character and just demanding my gold and then killing her off, but decided against it. I might revisit the chat and decide on whether or not to post it. Maybe I'll ask the girl I played with first. Watch this space!

I was surprised by a visit from the physiotherapist, and she brought an occupational therapist along with her! I saw the physio for the first time back in February, and she told me she'd be back with the OT in the next couple of weeks. This is the first time seeing her since. For some reason the home manager had e-mailed my parents after they saw her in the corridors and asked her what progress was being made on my last visit, and my mum had told me. Nobody from the home had told me, and I'm still in isolation after my hospital visit, so I wasn't sure they'd be here. It's great that they were! Finally some progress!

We discussed my goals; I told her I'd ideally like to be able to get about in a wheelchair, then with a frame or crutches (I've used both!) and then finally unaided. I don't know how feasible that is or how long it'll take. She asked if I'd like to live independently and I said yeah, I want our of this place as soon as possible! I told her that I had physio in the hospital, and then in my flat. She said they wouldn't be able to offer it at the same level, but that they'd give me exercises I could do with the staff here. The staff sometimes can't find fifteen minutes in a day to give me a wash, but hopefully she'll get on top of them. She chastised a couple of the staff for my position in bed; I'm usually too far down in the bed to sit up as well as I'm able; when I try and sit myself up the bed lifts up the top of my back and my neck, making it harder for me than if I were lying flat. Tip your head down so that your chin touches your chest and hold it for a few minutes if you want to see what I mean: your airway won't be able to work as well and you'll get tired quickly! I also tend to end up lying diagonally across the bed due to the way my spine is twisted. The staff complained that I tend to migrate once I'm put right, and she just said they'll have to move me back more often! I could have cheered!

The other thing she's done is told them to give me a pillow! My last physiotherapist told me not to use my pillow because it was pushing my head further forward and restricting my airway and putting pressure on my neck. The OT yesterday tried moving my head from side to side with her hands and couldn't believe how stiff it is - "That's not going anywhere!" was her diagnosis. My neck muscles have been supporting my head unaided for the last eight months and my "at rest" position has been with my neck muscles straining to keep my noggin in place! What she was saying made a lot of sense.

She said I'd be better off losing some weight; I told her I'd spoken to a dietician, had altered my eating habits, quit sugary drinks completely, and was sure I have lost weight. I don't know for certain because they haven't weighed me since I got here. I just keep being told that the scales they have are broken and they're waiting on new equipment. At what point do you go from being a home that normally specialises in bariatric care, but currently can't because of lack of equipment, to being a home that straight up doesn't specialise in bariatric care? I don't think "eight months" is the right answer!

Still, the future finally looks to be brightening! I was warned the process will seem agonizingly slow, and that it will be up to me to put the work in, but I am all for it!

My other surprise yesterday was an e-mail from a carpet cleaning company in Ohio giving me all the information I needed to log in to their system under the alias of a new employee, Tammy S, who apparently has a similar e-mail address to mine. I don't know what you'd have done under the circumstances, but I decided to wreak merry havoc!

I logged on to the system with the temporary password the HR department gave me, and was asked to create a strong password with upper and lower case letters, a number, and a special symbol. I settled on The-N-Word420. I was asked to verify I was the real Tammy by entering a code that the system sent to my e-mail, not hers! Once I did I was in!

I went to her account page to see what information I could alter. Not much, except deleting her cell phone number and changing her correct e-mail to my one to keep her from proving who she was and spoiling my fun!

I decided to set a security question for good measure: "Do you like butt stuff?" The correct response? "Hells yeah I do!"

There wasn't much else I could do, other than add an account photo. I wanted something featuring nudity, but also playful and a little anti-authoritarian. Luckily I had the perfect photo saved on my phone:

I was hoping there was an internal messaging system or staff forum, but no such luck! You could read newsletters and announcements and the like, but there was no real opportunity to be a nuisance. I did put in a request for paid absence on the 20th of April, saying "You don't want me in the office on 4/20, trust me!"

I gave it a while, then e-mailed the HR department. The e-mail they had sent me mentioned some forms to fill out, and I couldn't see the icon to access them. The message I sent read as follows:

Hi guys,

Thank you for welcoming me to the Teasdale Fenton team! I am very excited about this new opportunity - I only wish I could have been here on Cinco de Mayo - I love tacos,  as I'm sure you'll discover!

I'm working my way through the welcome pack; I've completed Part 1 but can't for the life of me find the blue bell referred to in Part 2! I've attached a screenshot so you can see what I mean. If it helps I have no problem being paid in cash, off the books. I worked that way on a previous job and found it much simpler than filling out all these forms!

Whilst I've got you guys, I was wondering if we're one of those lame companies that do random drug tests? I only mention it because I read an article that said those tests give a surprising number of false positives! It's quite scary when you think about it.

Thanks for your help,

Tammy

I sent the e-mail to the HR department, after attaching a screenshot showing tabs open for Pornhub ("Free Porn Videos") and ImageFap ("Free Porn Pics") and the bawdy avatar. I was aiming for "extremely unprofessional" without being completely implausible or abusive. Still, I was rumbled; I never got a response, and the password was reset. I figure Gmail gave me away; I hadn't changed my name in my Google account, so my real name might have shown up on their end. I don't know.

Here's the thing, though: I clicked the "Forgot password" link and I was asked to prove I was the real Tammy by providing her social security number! I had taken a screenshot of her account with the risqué avatar I had uploaded and guess what? I had captured her social security details too! The game was still on!

I entered her social security. I gave my e-mail as her real one and then asked for the proof of identity code to be sent there! How stupid is that? I set her password to MeAgain!69 and pressed forward into her account once more.

Once inside I saw they had replaced my picture with a tasteful "TS" on a blue background, Tammy's initials. I had a quick look online for the perfect picture to convey my mood, and settled on the following:

I was very happy with my choice: rude but tasteful, and playfully defiant! I do love apparently amateur snaps like this one, though I always hope they're posted with consent. I assume if a woman poses for a photo like this in this day and age she must know there's a good chance the photo will end up online and spread far and wide. Anyway, I found myself locked out again after a few minutes and the account was frozen. I decided to send another e-mail to HR showing my hand. I also thought I may as well try a little extortion, because you don't get opportunities like this falling in your lap every day, and if you don't ask then you don't get!

Hi guys!

So obviously I'm not the real Tammy. Unfortunately, you've sent me all the information I need to fool your system into thinking I am her, and have given me her personal information including her cell phone number, e-mail addresses and social security number.

I'm prepared to keep your failure to protect your employee secret, and refrain from harassing her through your company website and via her e-mail, cell and social media, if you send $1000 to my PayPal account.

Thanks in advance,

Not Tammy

Boom! I am a white collar criminal! I cannot justify my actions morally, but I feel absolutely no remorse for what I did. Their system is poorly designed and they were sloppy with their information. Companies pay big money to have weaknesses in their systems highlighted, it's usually done by shoulder surfing someone on the premises and then accessing the system with the details they observe. Passwords are largely meaningless; the average person has 140 online accounts, so obviously we use the same passwords more than once. Furthermore, you wouldn't remember a password difficult enough for a dedicated computer to guess; that's why two step verification and biometric proof is the way of the future, though as I proved yesterday, the two step procedure needs to be set up right!

I'm thinking I should write to Tammy. She has a second e-mail address that I saw when I went back in, I could e-mail both and let them know what a bad job her new employers did of protecting her, and maybe ask her to ask them where my thousand bucks have gotten to!

Good idea? Bad idea? Let me know what you think!

Peace!

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