So my kids think I'm a Computer Hacker!!

It was early September, about two years ago. School had just started back up again from summer break. My oldest daughter had just just got her license to drive. My two teenage daughters had been hanging out together most of the summer. The oldest wasn’t really taking her with her by choice, mainly when she needed gas money. But this night she needed to take her, because they were using one of her friends as the scape goat. Obviously, they went to a party that night, in a hotel, at the beach, that some guy had rented. This is where it really gets good.

The younger sister, was just getting in the rebel mode, where she really like posting bulletins on MySpace, for everyone to read. Well, me being recently separated from my husband, and had been going out also, testing the waters as a single woman, thought that I could trust my girls on the weekends. I thought they could do no wrong. Little did I know that they were testing me. My younger daughter was posting bulletins each night with less then tasteful words about her mood. Which I had replied a few times to these posts and told her that I did not appreciate her choice of words in these bulletins. But that did not stop her.

It had been a few days since I had logged onto my own MySpace account, and noticed that my youngest daughter this one morning had posted yet another bulletin, with the title being “OMG! I’m so Hungover” !
Well, I immediately opened this bulletin to read the contents, and read the full story, of both girls, and another friend of theirs going to a hotel at the oceanfront the night before. She bragged, that they got so drunk that they didn’t even know where they were, and that one of the girls was crying, and throwing up, and that my oldest daughter, didn’t drink much, but was able to drive home, and that in the morning, they didn’t even remember where in our apartment complex she had parked her Mercedes.

Prior to this when both girls had gotten up for school, which was always a chore, I remember asking them “So, what did you two do last night, and why were you late? past curfew?”
The oldest daughter spoke up and said, “We were at Erin’s house watching movies and lost track of time.”
Because I do remember hearing them come in, but I was already home and in bed, and had been out late myself drinking. So, my normal routine, in the morning was to get coffee, and to log onto the internet, and
check my email and MySpace.

This is where the trouble began. When I read her bulletin that morning, my blood started to boil. I read some names in the bulletin of people who rented this hotel, that I have never even heard of. I immediately thought to myself, “I want to kill them,” then I tried to calm myself down and think rational. I thought, Erin’s Mom, would never let her go to a party of the sort. So, I found her Mom’s number, in my daughter’s room, and decided to call, after twenty minutes of deliberation with myself. So, I called, and said, “Hi, this is Angel’s Mom, this might sound strange, but were my girls, with Erin last night?” She said, “No, Erin is out of town, at her Aunt’s house.” I said, “Oh really!” And I proceeded to explain to her what was going on. She just wished me luck.

At that point, I decided to take drastic measures, and hack into both of the girls computers, so that when they got home, their privileges to get online and have any connection with the outside world would be gone.
But first, I called the cell phone company and temporarily suspended their cell phones.

Then I had to come up with a way to punish them, that would hit them where it counts. I was going through a separation from my husband, and we were living in an apartment for the first time ever in our lives. And discipline was not one of my strong points at that time. The gears began turning as I decided that I couldn't possibly hide their computers from them. Our apartment was too small, and they would just find them, if I was ever to leave the house. I went into the youngest daughter’s room who had posted the bulletin on MySpace bragging about this great party they went too and how hungover she was. I decided to try some passwords I knew she had in the past, to no avail. This was going to take some drastic measures, so I went back out to the living room to the family computer, and started doing some fast research. I needed to have all of this done in a few hours, before school let out. I searched “forgot log on password” and immediately found many entries on password recovery. I was able to get past the log in screen to access their MySpace, but then I had to log into their MySpace. All along knowing that both girls knew how to log on at school past the firewall set up by the school system, and could be online at anytime, or log in while I am in the process of changing their passords to lock them out. So magically I just clicked, “forgot password” and luckily on my youngest daughters computer, she had left her Microsoft Outlook up, and they sent me an email with her password in it. I quickly logged on her MySpace account, changed her password, and changed her email address to my email address, and logged off her MySpace and logged off her computer, then hit, shut down.

Last but not least, the oldest daughter, had once had her computer password stolen by her nephew and brother, one time when they thought they were being cute, changing things one her computer before her very eyes, and she couldn't do anything about it. So, I remember quickly jumping online and changing her email address to my email. For some reason, we were never able to change it back. Her account, was easy to do a password retrieval. I had never betrayed her trust before, and never logged on either of my girls computers before. But, this was necessary, one they both needed to be punished, where it hurt the most. Cell phones and computers. Their life lines to the outside world. And, two, I needed to see some of her recent emails and find out who these boys were that rented this hotel room, and who these other girls were that were at this under age hotel party. Because I was not only scared for my own daughters safety and bad judgement, but for other girls that were in that room, drunk and unaware of where they were. So, I had her password sent to my email, and changed her MySpace password, after reading all I needed to see.

When 2:15 rolled around, both girls came storming in the front door, hollering, “why are our cell phones cut off?” I immediately said, “Do either of you have anything else you’d like to tell me about what happened this weekend, before I tell you about your restrictions?” They both kept walking into their rooms, and the oldest daughter screamed, “what’s wrong with my computer, why can’t I log in?” The other daughter proclaimed “what’s wrong with my computer, did you mess with them?” I said, “you are both grounded from your cell phones, your computers, and MySpace, until further notice, oh and you are not to leave this house until I say so! The oldest one said, “we’ll just get on MySpace at school!” I said, “Good Luck!” She said, “What are you gonna do, change our passwords?”……I walked down the hallway, mumbling and said, “already did!”
She screamed, “You’re a computer hacker too, and slammed her bedroom door!”