It is one of the great dangers of this new technological age that we are all potential victims of “computer hacking”.
Computer hacking is an insidious and underhanded practice that infliltrates “computers”, which are like typewriters that you can play solitaire on.
The risks of hacking were brutally demonstrated in the 2007 documentary Die Hard 4.0, in which Bruce Willis spends two hours and eight minutes trying to send an email, only to give up and get someone from Generation Y to do it.
Yet despite this stark warning, many organisations have been left unprepared.
In the UK the News Corporation subsidiary News International was targeted by hackers who broke into The Sun’s website and started corrupting it with stories that weren’t about chicks with big bazoongas.
But tragically the carnage didn’t stop there. It has since come to my attention that hackers are operating everywhere.
For years now someone has been hacking into my Twitter account and inserting lame jokes about MasterChef.
Hackers have also been posing as a bunch of other Twitter users who send me messages that say things like “You’re not funny” and “I can’t believe you get paid to write this crap” and “Stop sending me those pictures of yourself or I’ll call the police”. All clearly fakes.
Likewise my Facebook account has clearly been tampered with. I have sent 87 friend requests to Megan Fox but it appears none of them has got through.
Not only that, there has been some definite interference with my Outlook account. For example, when I first came to Sydney I told my mother that I would write to her at least once a week but so far she has not received a single email.
It looks like I’m not the only victim either. Someone infiltrated Val Kilmer’s body and left 400kg of lard and someone hacked into Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and removed the plot, dramatic tension and character development.
And sometimes it’s not even the hacking itself that’s the problem. Once inside a system, a hacker can introduce something called a virus - which if left untreated can result in a hacking cough.*
In fact hacking is so widespread some people have even accused me of being a hacker, although they tend to use the shortened form “hack” which must be some kind of dialect native to the Inner West.
While it’s fair to say my keyboard skills are up there with Linda McCartney’s, I leave the high-tech stuff to our IT experts, who have a solution to every computer problem that can be solved by turning it off and then on again.
The problem is that once a rogue and uncontrollable foreign body enters even the most powerful organisation it can cause untold damage – although sadly this was discovered only after Andrew Wilkie was elected to Parliament.
*This is just a taste of the sort of jokes that can be found on my @Joe_Hildebrand Twitter feed.
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