When you live in a plastic world the bad guys have more opportunity

Fair warning. If you are my friend on Facebook and you want to keep receiving the latest Clay County news and weather updates, or see cute pictures of my grandkids, and I send you a friend request, please be sure it is from me and accept.
I had to delete my old Facebook account (old, as in the one I used this morning) because some nefarious no-goodniks was using my good name to get my friends to accept their friend requests. And, most of them I am told, are not people at all but accounts set up by hackers.
So, to protect my Facebook friends, I deleted my Facebook account and set up a new one that was pristine without any friends in it.
I had over 3,000 so-called “friends” under my old account. There is no way I will have even half that many in the future. Why? Because from now on I will only accept friend requests from people I know. So, if you send a friend request and I don’t respond, send me an email and explain how I know you or why you want to be my Facebook friend. The address is frankphillips@gmail.com.
Now, why did I accept all those requests from people I don’t know? Well, we have this thing called “Facebook Live” and people seemed to enjoy the broadcasts I did on it. So, when I got a friend request I automatically accepted them. After all, one has to build up one’s audience, especially if one works for a media company like The Brazil Times, right? Wrong! Bad idea and I won’t do it again.
I am debating doing my morning show on YouTube. I have a few dozen followers on there already and if people really like the morning show they will follow me there.
I plan to keep doing live videos of breaking news.
At the risk of sounding my age, I don’t like the direction technology is going. I love my Android phone. I really like my Chromebook computer. But it seems things get out of control too easily.
The first problem I had with Facebook occurred when a friend’s account was hacked and he allegedly sent me a message saying he had received a large amount of money and I could too.
I called my friend on that old-fashioned telephone device and found out that, no he hadn’t sent the message and yes he knew he had been hacked.
When I told others about the experience, one guy basically said I was “a dumb so-and-so and no one who was smart would be hacked or believe the hackers are who they say they are.”
I hope he has been hacked and changed his mind about things.
Well, in the old days, when I made a note, I wrote it or typed it on a piece of paper. I could lose that piece of paper but it never could be edited by someone in cyberspace and no one could convincingly tell others I was sending them a letter unless they forged my signature. Fortunately, I was never important enough to have my signature forged -- I think.
Anyway, that typewriter I used was hefty and was made of steel with a rubber roller and plastic key caps. The computers and phones I use today are mostly plastic. even the parts that connect to the Internet are mostly plastic-- integrated circuits, etc. (or does that date me? I use to enjoy that new invention the transistor radio! Hold on -- the circuit board was mostly plastic.) It’s just that plastic makes things cheaper. The Internet makes it cheaper to send messages. Hackers have a much bigger opportunity today than forgers did 50 years ago when it was a big deal to this tyke to get a letter with my name on the envelope! Now, I throw away hundreds of emails a day.
Well, anyway, if someone approaches you in cyberspace and says he, she (or it) and I are friends, don’t believe it! If you find me on Facebook, it is probably me but you really won’t know, will you?