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Tricia Mezzacappa doesn’t just double down when wrong, she triples down.

Having been proven wrong in her accusation about my Honorable Discharge being less than it is and that I sent her Malware through an email, maybe I sent one to destroy borough computers?

Her newest email to our Borough Manager and all Council members references the incident of the borough’s computers going down last August, due to an infection obtained from an email in which a link was clicked. It was reported by me on this website, which can be reviewed HERE. At least she didn’t copy the Northampton DA on this one, so his time isn’t wasted.

She insinuates that I had something to do with it.

As usual, Mezzacappa conflated two separate issues. Those being the borough’s computer system with the borough’s website.

Let’s start with the computer infection and to make it clear, I am not throwing anyone under the bus, as Mezzacappa was informed of exactly how the computers became infected, by the employee who caused it when a personal email account was accessed from the borough’s computer. The employee immediately took responsibility for the incident.

It was an innocent mistake done by the employee and it was common practice in past years for those in the office to access personal email accounts. There was also no policy against doing so.

Upon that incident the employee was instructed not to access their personal email account from the borough’s computers. No disciplinary action was taken against the employee and as far as I am aware, the personal email account is no longer accessed from the borough’s computers.

Getting back to Mezzacappa’s newest finger pointing toward me, she references the post I made when I transferred control of the Borough website to Council President Dan DePaul. She bastardizes my statement that it could be “3 weeks or 3 years” before the website crashes into her own incorrect one of me saying that the “system” could crash in that time. Mezzacappa used the word, “system,” in order to tie the borough’s computer system to the website.

Conflate much?

In fact, the website hasn’t crashed yet. It didn’t crash when the computers were infected almost 3 months after I wrote my opinion about the website.

The website rests on an independent server, owned by the hostserver company, Hostgator. It is independent of the borough’s server. An infection of our computers doesn’t affect the website.

Now she is seeking to compare metadata from an email she received to that our employee received. I’m guessing she thinks she knows what she is actually looking at.

As to her question of why the police were never notified of a criminal act of our borough computers being infected?

Maybe it was because the employee who opened it had no criminal intent. Or, maybe because law enforcement doesn’t waste their time investigating incidents of Ransomeware infections that originate from foreign countries.

The borough did what we all do when infected with a virus. Clean out the infection and restore the files. Luckily, the borough has the services of a computer company, who made that task as quick and painless as possible.

I don’t know how much sleep Constable Mezzacappa is losing in continuing down these rabbit holes and trying to start whisper campaigns, but she needs to give it a rest. I know I’m getting tired from it.

It’s like playing Whack-A-Mole and our Borough needs attention given to real issues, not those of Mezzacappa planning on running for Council.

Below is the portion of Mezzacappa’s email referencing the computers and her “concerns.”

Joan and Council,

I spoke to you on the 6th about that malware email that destroyed the Borough’s computer files over the summer. And Dave said it was an email , with a link, that looked like a vendor invoice, when I talked to him about it in December, after I received a suspicious email with a link to www.getcarkey.com. I already explained the timing of the December email. He said when he clicked on it, the malware destroyed the system. I asked him if the email itself was still able to be viewed and I think he said it was there, but I did not ask for a copy of it. I would like a copy of it if it still exits, with the raw source data showing the path of electronic delivery. 


It would be helpful for me to have it, so I can compare that to the raw source data from the December email that I received. If its still there, I could show you how to get the raw source very easily. If you would rather that I submit this via RTK let me know, and I will. 

As far as I know, the police were never notified over the summer by the Borough when this criminal act occurred and destroyed the computer system. Any reasons?

Dave said that the Borough was able to retrieve its data from the last back-up, but had to spend time re-entering all recent data destroyed by the malware. 

I have attached a blog written by Councilman Dees from May of 2016, when his access to the Borough website was removed. Feel free to read it or not, but on page 3, he alluded to the system crashing in “3 weeks or 3 years from now” with other remarks that speak for themselves. A computer attack that occurred at Borough Hall mere weeks after Councilman Dees penned his prediction after being removed from the Borough website , raises some very real concerns, at least from my perspective.

Updated 2/10/16