Happy Ending

[Dreamer]

So on the last day of 2013,
I lost my Samsung Galaxy S4....


What a great way to end an already shitty year!


Thankfully, I had the lock screen enabled,
and by what I've been told,
unless the person is a super tech-savvy nerd
with lots of hacking experience,
I should have some peace of mind knowing it's safe.


I mean, I'm not a politician or celebrity,
so even if they were an experienced hacker,
why would they bother?
It'd make more sense to just wipe it clean
and sell it for a quick buck... right?


I've been having horrible panic attacks
going over all of the insane scenarios in my head [SIZE="1"]
(e.g. someone posts all of my pics and videos online for the world to gawk at)[/SIZE]
of what became of my phone and the data in it.


I know I must have dropped the phone somewhere in my driveway,
so I know one of the neighbors has it,
and being that they're not good honest folk,
I don't plan on seeing my phone ever again.
Knowing it's someone who knows of me,
adds to the heavy distress.


My SD card remains in the phone,
and I've been told, unless manually done,
the only info on it should consist of videos and pictures,
and maybe some apps.
I didn't have pictures or videos that were sexual or too embarrassing,
but extremely private and sensitive stuff nonetheless.


It just freaks me the fuck out
thinking that someone has access to what I look like,
and access to cherished private intimate moments of my life,
if for whatever reason they discover the SD card,
know what it is, and get nosy.


The phone's deemed worthless
as I had my mobile carrier scrub the serial number
so that it can never be used again by whoever had it,
if they happen to wipe and restore it to factory settings.


Thankfully,
I have insurance on it
(too bad it doesn't include protection for my $50 phone cover),
so for $180,
I am getting new one shipped to me...


I'm trying my best to come to terms with it,
justifying it as a "lesson learned" to comfort myself,
and move on, but it's not coming by easily for me.


I've fallen into a deeper into depression,
and currently am failing hard at embracing the "New Year mentality".




How do I overcome this?

Anyone here gone through a similar experience,
and were you as shaken up about it as I've been?

[EvenOlderButWiser]

Don't you have any locator apps installed on the phone?

I use Prey, and recommend it to anyone with a smartphone (Android or iOS)

Have a look at http://preyproject.com

I have it on all my smart devices.

Having a PIN set up is obviously a good idea to protect your data, BUT - it also means the finder has no idea of how to contact you. So I also set up my lock screen with alternative contact details - including an email address, that the finder can see without needing the lock code.

Good Luck with trying to get it back.

ObW
X

[Evan88]

Sorry to hear about that...

You dont wanna know how many times i've lost my phone, there are so many pickpockets and thieves here. Tsk.. Of course I was shaken up, got really frustrated since it always happens to me. Maybe i look dumb or something thats why they always prey on me

You are even lucky since you think you lost it in the driveway or in the neighborhood since there is still a chance of getting it back...if you have apps for security or anti-theft then better, your phone will be synced to your laptop and whenever the phone is on wifi, the location will be known.. Maybe consider havingthat app on your new phone. Anyway those are just material things, at least u know to take care of your things next time

[partis]

I know how you feel, when I can't find my phone I start going into panic mode.

It has all my text messages!
It has all my photos!
It has my mothers telephone number! etc etc

Important to remember these things are of little importance to a complete stranger even though they are to you. Chances are its a new phone with new SIM, dont worry :-)

[sillyboy86]

I lost my phone few days before xmas... Very annoying cause I used it as a mp3 reader, and I had an SD with 8GB of music in it. Also not the right period to find another phone with a new number, have back the old one etc... At the end I bought a cheap shitty mobile which I don't like, with a phone company which I don't like and trying to put in a new sim card with the old number I discovered that the phone is blocked and I can use it only with one company blahblah.

On the old mobile...I was worried only for the telephone numbers.

It's a chaotic-not comfortable object in a chaotic period... I mean, I would be 'happier' to wait few weeks to lose my phone, or maybe before... Not now. I don't even have the time to go at the store and blahblah, so this mobile is completely useless to me, and I need to buy a new one very soon.
One friend told me: - 'It's a signal that you're changing your life... etc'

[NorthLondonLad]

oh thats terrible! I lose my iPhone all the time - but it's usually in the house - but the find my iphone function is a god send! Good luck with your new phone! x

[Dreamer]

Don't you have any locator apps installed on the phone?

I have Lookout,
but, at the time I first lost my phone,
I didn't have the log in info required to sign-in to my account,
and had no way of accessing it until I got a temporary phone.
(Will explain why below)

My admin login info for my computer was stored on my phone
so, if your next question is:
"Why don't you know your passwords for such things off the top of your head, or perhaps have them written down?"

Answer:
Well, I'm super paranoid and OCD,
so I make my passwords for everything EXTREMELY complicated,
using a very long mix of symbols numbers, and lower/upper case letters,
and I feel having such information on paper stashed away somewhere is far too risky.

I therefore had to use my guest account on my computer,
which I never use personally,
therefore, it doesn't have my account sign-in info saved on the browser
for easy access to my online accounts.

Thus, I had no access to my Google Gmail account
which is needed to, in turn, reset my Lookout account password
so that I could access it,
and promptly locate and/or wipe the data off my phone.

Unfortunately,
the only method of resetting my Google account password is to have a pin number texted my phone,
consequently, I had to wait to activate my current temporary phone,
which meant deactivating my lost phone,
which means I now have no way for Lookout to Locate or wipe my lost phone....


That's where I am literally right now,
as in, I just called my phone service carrier,
and they're in the process of reactivating my lost phone
so that I may have a final attempt in locating
and (at this point) just wiping the data off of it for some peace of mind.


I couldn't call yesterday because customer service was closed....
so ya... my life is sucking hard at the moment...

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I can't say this has ever happened to me. Oh sure I have lost stuff before in the past, but I never found it that devastating a loss to cause me to worry about it (the thing).

I find the paranoia aspect of password making to be an indicator here of a more seriously troubling phenomena of this 21st century. People are trusting their machines with data that they don't want anyone else to learn. Back in my day we kept such data in our head. No passwords needed.

The fact that losing a telephone is a life altering, traumatic event for you tells me that perhaps its time you re-look at this dependency on a device and try to figure out what ancient people did before the cellphone became our wet-nurse, brain, and provider of social and antisocial activities.

Perhaps you should take something away with you in this experience, perhaps rethink the technology dependency you have in this 21st century and do something to move away from being so deeply attached to a machine that can be lost, stolen, broken and lead you to such misery.

Hmmm?

[MisterTinkles]

Did you call the phone company you are with, to use the GPS to find the phone for you?

Or call your number to see if anyone answers and offer a reward for the return of it??

Did you call the local police station(s) to see if anyone turned in a phone?

[Dreamer]

The fact that losing a telephone is a life altering, traumatic event for you tells me that perhaps its time you re-look at this dependency on a device and try to figure out what ancient people did before the cellphone became our wet-nurse, brain, and provider of social and antisocial activities.

Perhaps you should take something away with you in this experience, perhaps rethink the technology dependency you have in this 21st century and do something to move away from being so deeply attached to a machine that can be lost, stolen, broken and lead you to such misery.

Honestly, I hate technology,
but I find it's uses and the convenience that comes with it well worth the risk.

I believe where I fucked up was not being prepared for this scenario,
by backing up all of my data
so that I could restore it to future replacement mobile devices,
and not being able to wipe my phone remotely....
as it seems that from a whole day of calling
and attempting to locate and wipe my lost phone with the Lookout app remains unsuccessful.

I'll consider having my passwords kept in a form other than digital from here on out;
maybe bury them out in my back yard for future emergency reference :tongue:

I'm not going to revert to having a house phone,
and keeping all of my documents in paper-form.
A house fire could incinerate non-digital things,
and since those aren't replaceable,
they can't be reliably "backed-up".
Sure one could make copies of paperwork,
or physical pictures, but those too are at risk of being lost forever,
and plus, I DON'T DO WELL WITH CLUTTER!

On another note,
I couldn't live comfortably
without my home computer and internet access....
it's not possible.
I'm a news-junkie,
and need to be "in-the-know" as much as possible
on the world around us,
or I'll feel get all claustrophobic in a sense.
TV news is unreliable and severely biased,
and I can't count on that to get a proper "news fix".

Also, Youtube is a requirement
for satisfying my entertainment needs,
and Pandora is second on that list;
not to mention,
as a young man with an unfortunately insatiable sex drive,
I'd explode to a sticky death without the freedom of unlimited free porn.

As sad as it may sound,
Gayspeak is my main outlet for socializing with other people;
I'm a deeply introverted soul.
I mean, I came here to squash this bad experience in the butt,
as I have for many crappy situations before.
Without technology,
I couldn't be here in my online presence
to converse with you fine folk.

I'm just undergoing a grieving process, I guess....
as I feel less burdened as the hours passed by.

I'm hyper-sensitive,
perhaps to all things,
and I don't handle change very well,
so I don't believe it's so much a "dependency" on technologies,
as much as it is a problem with my coping skills to undesirable negativity,
as well as just accepting and moving on to and from everyday things.
I'm working on it.


Thanks for the feedback.