Sarah Hoyt describes a successful attempt to infiltrate her communications two years ago:
I have found out recently that when my phone got spoofed, and my email hacked, back in April of 2021, it was part of an effort that involved a lot of people on our side getting that happening to them at the same time. The email was then used to send insulting emails to those people they thought were monetary supporters. At the same time, the emails were rifled for “incriminating” messages, used to bring legal charges against these people, or to discredit them with the community at large.
It did a number on my mind for various reasons. Note I’m not saying who was behind the hacking because I don’t know. But the fact that legal charges were brought in some cases makes you think… well, you know, the Stasi is real even though it goes under other names.
For the record, the attempted hack was curtailed earlier (and there are now measures in place), by pure luck. I happened to be up really late for me, through being too tired to go to bed. (It’s a thing.)
Also for the record, the shenanigans attempted didn’t land, because their ideas of who I am appear to be pure leftist projection. While I have monetary backers — Hi, y’all — for this blog, they’re not political monetary backers, and they don’t send me emails encouraging messages or slants. In other words, there is no journolist on the right, and there is no equivalent of Soros directing our efforts.
Most of what my email contains are actual personal things. Messages from friends and family. Kids and cats pictures. The occasional editor email, though now that I’m not doing comics, not even that. Links to blogs that hope I’ll link them, or links a friend found interesting. Discussions of how a book did with a friend.
So most of the insulting, (highly racist slurs, btw) emails were sent to friends telling me how much their book had made, and one to my comics editor. None of them “landed” because the reaction were immediate texts saying “Sarah, you’ve been hacked.” First, because I don’t use that language, and second because the messages made no sense since these weren’t political backers but friends. (Even the comics editor became that.) And because it was curtailed early, there was no time for fake emails advising violence, or fake posts on facebook to be made.
The other thing I found out at the same time, through incidental comments in a chat, is that the next attempt was to tap into people’s internet to capture the stream. Doing that on ours is bizarre, but yes, we do have proof that was actually done to us just before we left Colorado. The only reply to that is “Dudes, wait and get it when I post it on the blog or publish it.” Because there is nothing, literally, in either my email or my internet signal that couldn’t be made public tomorrow because most of it is. Oh, some of my correspondents would hate to have their emails made public because they are in the political closet, but they’re not political operators. They’re professors or scientists or members of the Armed Forces (not high up.) Knowing they associate with me at all might bring questions, but then again most of them use pseudonyms, and the emails themselves are blameless. “Hey, have you read this?” and “Look at the cute face my cat made” comprise 99% of it, the rest being maybe more personal and less political than that.
However, the fact that so much effort was made made me queasy. Particularly because I know some of the other people to whom this was done, and they’re much bigger. My claim to “bigness” is posting over at instapundit, (which is yuge) but other than that, I’m medium-small and I’m just a science fiction writer with a nasty politics problem.
While it would have been useful for us to hear about this two years ago, it’s still good that Mrs. Hoyt is going public with the surveillance state’s attempt to interfere with her relations with her readers and supporters. It would also be useful to know how many other public figures were targeted and how successful those efforts were in their attempts to sabotage them.
In the meantime, it’s vital to always remain aware of the constant attempt of these bad actors to infiltrate every organization and every group of people that aren’t completely submitted to the Narrative. The lidless eye is always on you, which is a simple fact of human existence that you should accept with equanimity and utilize to inspire you to do more and do better.
None of this is new. Epictetus made it clear nearly 2,000 years ago.
Yet God hath placed by the side of each a man’s own Guardian Spirit, who is charged to watch over him—a Guardian who sleeps not nor is deceived…. So when you have shut the doors and made a darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your Guardian Spirit, and what light do they need to behold what you do?
Man’s surveillance state is but a poor, twisted, and fallen version of God’s. And we know which one holds the real power.