My Facebook Messenger gets a virus, some old and newish photos of Thanet

I had some malicious attack on Facebook Messenger yesterday and in view of the current situation, where it may be the only means that people have of contacting some family and friends I thought I'd better explain what happened in some detail.

One of my friends sent me a message via Facebook Messenger, titled “Michael is it you” and unthinkingly I clicked on the video in the message.

This infected my Facebook Messenger and it sent out about 30 messages to friends saying the same thing. I think it highly likely that some of them will have their Messenger accounts do the same thing mine did.

This didn't infect either my computer or any other devices, I've run my virus checker and so on. Most of the advice about this on Google makes the suggestion that your computer may have been infected and that you need to buy expensive anti-virus software. I think the bottom line here is, that it is only Facebook messenger that was infected and this is probably more Facebook's fault than mine.

I got a message from Facebook asking me to change my password which I did. However Facebook stopped me from much of my usual activity including messaging the people who had been maliciously messaged, apart from those who replied to me telling me they thought I had some sort of virus. Anyway I think they stopped me from sending messages apart from replies and sending or posting anything with a link in it.

I tried messaging Facebook Help, but this isn't working properly at the moment so I couldn't actually get a sensible message though I believe that after 24-hours I can post normally to Facebook and I can use messenger normally.

The new version of Facebook, (you can switch between the old and new versions using the dropdown top right of Facebook) doesn’t even show you that the messages weren’t sent, the old one does.

I think the real rub here is is that if you have friends and family who you are worried about during the current pandemic and the only way you have to contact in them is Facebook messenger, you may need to consider that Facebook can randomly turn it off because of something that you haven't done.I would strongly recommend that people reading this make sure that they have several different ways of contacting their family and friends.

Another aspect of the current situation is being able to contact your family and friends reliably using your smartphone if you suddenly wind up up.in hospital.

I would say that at the moment everyone really needs to have a smartphone that they have configured, in case they wind up isolated from everyone else, and for those not used to using a smartphone they need to practice using it while they are well.

I would strongly recommend installing WhatsApp and learning how to use it it to make video calls and perhaps even engage in videoconferencing.

I would also strongly recommend making sure that there is sufficient memory in your phone, which may mean you need to put a bigger memory card in it, then and before you order one you need to check to see how big a memory card you can actually put it in your phone. Then to download a variety of material that you might want if you can't get a decent signal..

Top of the list is making sure that your contacts are up to date, after that it depends on what you enjoy with me it’s BBC podcasts, lectures about subjects that I'm particularly interested in, Oxford and Cambridge universities both have good downloadable lectures often that can be downloaded as audio files only.

I am adding to this, make sure the contact number on your lock screen is set and showing the right number, see Ray Sun's comment below.

I would think it would be also be a very good idea to make sure that you have comfortable decent headphones and possibly your charger.

 Ramsgate Pier I think this is a fairly early one of the pier

 These two are both Jebb's cycles, later motorcycles in Margate, both taken around 1905

 These two are both Margate Old Town floods in 1953

Next some Broadstairs 2011 photos

Link to the rest of the Broadstairs photos I took that day in 2011

"Coastal residents are being advised that, due to a lack of food sources because there are fewer people about feeding them, seagulls may be more hungry than normal and may behave aggressively.

A BBC article related to out local history about the murder of Thomas Becket and air pollution
here is the link

plurp