Filkhaven security note

[madfilkentist]

Recently I got one of those extortion messages that claims to have recorded me on video watching pornography. These are nonsense but are accompanied by a password to give alleged "proof." They seem to think I've been reading porn on Filkhaven IRC, since that's where the password they sent came from. (At first I thought it was LiveJournal and mentioned that to several people at OVFF, but checking when I went home revealed I was mistaken. It wasn't LiveJournal.)

I take good care of my passwords, so if the password for my handle was breached, it's likely others were. This could be a problem for anyone on FilkHaven. I haven't been on there in ages, so if you see anything that claims to be from me, be suspicious of it. You may want to change your password.

Ookla needs help

[madfilkentist]

I got the following forwarded to me over the weekend:

Posted to the Ookla the Mok facebook page earlier today: So, I'm writing with some bad news. Last weekend, after having an absolutely wonderful time at Archon, we woke up Monday morning to discover that someone had broken into our trailer and stolen all of our musical instruments, microphones, effects, gear, and merchandise. This is obviously terrible, and really puts the whole "forty cakes" thing into perspective.
 
We don't want this to be the end of Ookla, so we're asking our fans to help us out however they can. Please consider donating to the campaign linked below, and/or boosting the signal for us by spreading the link far and wide.
 
Thank you all so much for your support over the years. It is appreciated more than you could ever know.

This is real. I talked with Rand at OVFF. The GoFundMe page is here. I just tried to donate on it and don't know if I succeeded or not. It didn't give me any error messages but didn't leave the donation page or otherwise acknowledge it. I put so many protections into my browser that I sometimes run into situations like this, so you may have better luck. The website ooklathemok.com isn't showing a PayPal button. In retrospect, I should have just handed Rand some money.