Wednesday, September 28, 2005

rediff relief?

My rediff mailbox is haunted, I fear.

The other night I dreamt of a close friend and woke up in a sweat. It all seemed so real. She was unwrapping delicious pizza and stuffed rolls for me to eat. And I was wondering in my dream why I thought she wouldn't be there. Why I thought I wouldn't meet her.

When I woke up startled and very disturbed I knew why. Because my friend died almost 2 years back. The dream nagged me for a major part of the day. And in the evening, when I checked my mail, I find 4 forwards from my dead friend's id. It blew my brains out. I panicked and screamed for the hubby. He came running and was terrified himself, I think. For he told me to just delete them.

As he was leaving for more work in the night, he muttered, "You should have read the mails. Maybe she's trying to reach you. You know her death remained a mystery..."

"Will you stop that!! It was junk, maybe virus! And thanks for taking away my piece of mind now!!" I yelled.

I didn't sleep a wink and kept some poor friends awake chatting the whole night. The next day there were more forwards. I deleted them too. And the next day, there was one from her father. It freaked me out. But I decided to open one and see.

Beautiful messages, some with pictures, spewing philosophy mostly about cherishing friends, the value of time and life itself. But who could have hacked into her defunct since two years account and taken the trouble to send pretty messages to people?

I think like this, and so reasonably because it's not yet dark. Come night and I keep wondering what she is trying to tell me... and... and I get so psyched that I almost start seeing her.

Hubby's useless solution is to get rid of the rediff id. And my refusal is understandable. It's my first ever email id which is all mine! Where I didn't need to add 123 or date of birth after my name to get an identity. I thought of blocking her mails. But felt I would be betraying her.

What do I do?

36 Comments:

Blogger Erosimian said...

it could be possible to get the IP address of the sender from the mail header.

then u can find the ISP on which the sender is and finally, find the sender if u lodge a complaint to that ISP.

7:56 pm  
Blogger Prerona said...

u could just call rediff help and ask them to trace it for you

8:16 pm  
Blogger Dream Owl said...

If you have good virus protection, I'd say open one of them...you know it's going to bother you until you figure it out anyway.

...Or just keep deleting them.

10:40 pm  
Blogger Unknown said...

First, let's calm down and think hard. You say you got some e-mails from her father. Right?

Why don't you just open up a few of her e-mails and see what's in there. If it's junk you can sleep over it. Maybe somebody just hacked into her account and was trying to scare people on her address book. RELAX!

Let her dad know that someone hacked it!

11:16 pm  
Blogger gulnaz said...

it does sound freaky!!! something out of a movie like the ring, i think somebody has made a new email id using her name as her old id must be deactivated by now or else somebody must have known her password and kept her id active by checking in.
perhaps you should call up her dad, get it clarified and if its not her father blocknig her id is not a bad idea as its surely not her and you would certainly be not dishonouring your freind.dont reply to those emails though, they might be the work of some spammer.

12:35 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

frist night capers and now this "old-frnd-new-visit" thingy ;) wow u are upto something! making good PRs in the world of the deads :-?
You see she was a phriend & he was a hubby's cousin, so these gotta be friendly ghosts yaar, something like aladdin's gennie- just befriend them, and you'll have a nasty time with them exploring new horizons *grin* *grin*

Ok ok.... jokes apart, you didn't did anything wrong to anyone to be haunted by them or have hallucinations of guys sitting and crying on stairs!!! C'mon some frnd of her's might knew the password or someone might be spoofing the mail ID itself. Even there are services on net which let a person schedule mails for future delivery!!
{I am afraid if I die today and my gf gets this personal mail on her bday in 2008, would she too get soo worked up :O}

chillax lady, ghosts got better things to do than haunt a sweet blogger :D

2:29 am  
Blogger Arundhati said...

Woah! What da hell...

Maybe the lady's father, husband, brother is using the ids? I dunno, I don't believe in ghosts etc (or don't want to believe at least for next few months, hubby is going to Japan you see.) In any case, there has got to be a rational explanation!

But whatever it is.. don't freak out, dear.

3:03 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Just be.

4:05 am  
Blogger Geo said...

Man, you practically dine with ghosts all the time...?
Nice company!!!

9:24 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow, ghosts using the internet ?? The age of technology is here indeed !

But jokes apart, that is pretty freaky, and I can only imagine how it must have disturbed you. I think blocking the id would be the best thing to do.

10:06 am  
Blogger Swathi Sambhani aka Chimera said...

gosh! is it true??
sounds so hindi-movieish ...
i guess tracking using the IP shouldnt b very difficult ,
get the help of frends n rediff n i'm sure u wud blog 'bout
how it was jus another hacker at work...

12:30 pm  
Blogger Nupur said...

"ghost in the machine?"

I do agree with gulnaz that that id may have been recreated by someone else..... but why the fwds coming to you?!

Spooky Spooky!!!

12:35 pm  
Blogger anumita said...

duttan: Welcome. That sounds a little complicated. But am relieved to find out it is possible to trace the sender. Will try to get it done. Thanks a ton.

prerona: That is an option.


baobhan sith: I know I got to get to the bottom of this. And if I find the prankster, I have quite some torturous punishments in mind!

kapil: Her dad has never sent me a mail before and he has definitely not sent me the 'friendly' forward I got! But thanks am more relaxed now.

gulnaz: The problem is I have never been able to face her parents after she died. It unnerves me to see them. I need more time to get in touch with them. I would probably get used to the forwards in time if they continue.

ashish: Dont you make fun of me or I ll send them all over to you!

arundhati: That was the same night I kept chatting till late with you (remember your heavy lunch?) But I was too scared to even bring up the topic with you and I just kept eating!

atul: I am. Thanks :)

under the spell: Welcome. I have opened all the mails. They are all harmless forwards. Soppy cute messages. That worries me even more. Why would anyone hack and not want to do anything destructive?

geo: You want some?

ash: I know it sounds funny. But believe me at night when you are all alone and you see a mail from a dead friend, it doesn't make you laugh!

12:52 pm  
Blogger anumita said...

swathi: You give me hope swathi. Thank you and I hope I shall soon be able to blog about trashing a hacker. In my dear friend's memory.

nupur: Exactly. If someone got her id, why was the new user given her address book too?

12:57 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I am a software engineer. This is nothing freaky. You can easily spoof sender email ids. No "account hacking" is required. I have done this before just for fun. Someone is just playing a prank. Actually you can try it yourself in Outlook express. Just change your id to something else and send a mail. I had used the "mail" command on Unix which lets you specify other mail addresses. Infact this is how spammers send mails. Just some smart kid trying to freak out people.

1:51 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

freaky....no advices from me...all possible advices are already there on ur comment box...BTW I wonder why death is such a recurring theme on ur blog

2:21 pm  
Blogger poonam said...

oh you got more?? freaky. but i think i would agree with the techies here. it's got be some spammer's work.
you dreaming about her can only be a coincidence. :)

2:30 pm  
Blogger Stone said...

Just chill, chill, just chill ? (Repeat 7 times)

7:18 pm  
Blogger hope and love said...

c'mon.. dont be silly..
:))
u should have opened the mail and sent a reply too..

8:38 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey anumita
Just chill. People who had loved you can never harm you.
Believe in that and open those mails.

9:00 pm  
Blogger GratisGab said...

It's a prank girl. Relax. Whoever is doing this will tire of it soon enough.

Your dream timing is spooky though!!

9:13 pm  
Blogger junat said...

wow , now thats a new aspect of cyberworld . of course matrix reloade did give us a glimpse of cyber-ghosts .
ofcourse many a people have told u what all u can do . so i dont think i can add anything to it.

10:27 pm  
Blogger Jay said...

Just my luck reading this post before bedtime... that's bloody creepy!

8:52 am  
Blogger Ardra said...

anu, i've nothing more to say abt the blog itself- all has been said...but i've been enjoying reading up all u'r blogs- many more to go...and I shall return..
rgds
ardra

2:40 pm  
Blogger Weary Hag said...

Call me nuts but I actually like this sort of thing. One of my best friends died about 18 years ago. I came home from work late one night several months after and almost keeled over because there was a message from her (just a typical, "hi, how ya doing? miss you, call me" type of message). I truly had palpitations and felt faint. I finally realized this was an old message that somehow, I had rewound back to on my answering machine. Still... it was extremely spooky ... but I laughed and said right out loud "Well Nancy, if this is your idea of a joke, I love it!"

Try to go with it. Send a reply but create a separate email to do so, don't hit "reply" to the email you received. That's how viruses can activate if there is one in it.

5:53 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ok...i think u should just open one and check. It just might be a spam mail...like the ones i keep getting from my mail id or friends' (i dont know how they do it!).

bips

8:47 pm  
Blogger shub said...

eeeee.....spoooooooooooooooooky!!!!

11:07 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

//Dont you make fun of me or I'll send them all over to you
Esshhh :-ss me and making fun of you! you have biiig PRs in the world of deads - I wouldn't dare call you names. ROTFL =))

hey I was just suggeting some ways out and wishing you had a gennie! and was hinting that you are sweet blogger!

2:31 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Some kinda virus, probably. I get spam mails from mySELF and I know for sure *I* didn't send them!

4:44 pm  
Blogger Abhishek said...

Got a clue from this blog that u were 2 close to this friend of yours...or may be, u were "fast friends".Is it so?
N there is nothing to afraid abt getting mails from that ID.Some prankster must be at work.
N finally u revealed ur mail address: is it anumita@rediffmail.com
sorry for posting it if its right. ;)

6:37 pm  
Blogger Pranav said...

:)...maybe we need to requisition an exorcist..:)

But no..this has to be a prankster who was known to you/your friend - a spammer would not send sweet forwards. It could also be a common friend who somehow broke into the id - cracking old ids is very easy since people didnt bother a lot then about secret answers to secret questions. Get the IP of the machine that is sending these emails - its a matter of technicality then.

3:41 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Did you try checking the year they were sent. Once my yahoo mail starting popping up my year old and two year old mails because it sorted only by date and month and forgot to consider the year.

I was thrilled to see some mails in my inbox from long lost friends until I read them and asked myself why they are writing year old news again.

1:53 am  
Blogger AmitL said...

Hi,Anumita,I am sure it's a virus..replicating itself from your friend's PC..or,it's someone there,sending out messages....why,I get emails with my own unique userid,but,with idiotic attachments...so,I defi don't have a split personality,do I?:)Stop worrying..

9:31 am  
Blogger anumita said...

Thanks guys. I am not bothered anymore. Boo to the mails!! The pattern is, they flood my mailbox on sunday. So it's probably someone who misses office during the weekend :) And when I do find out who it is, I am going to spook the hell out of that person!!!

7:20 pm  
Blogger AmitKen said...

though i personally dont believe in ghosts, coz i've never met one... but even if there were ghosts, it's interesting to know that they are internet savvy too ;-))

chillax yaar.. smbody is playing pranks..

11:42 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

somebody must have hacked it.. forget it.. keep the mail and forget it

12:02 pm  

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