The Definition of Insanity
March 11, 2026
As many loyal readers are well aware, I have an email address with a large free provider which I’ve had for decades, dating back to when you needed an invite to sign up with them. Sadly, in recent years, it has proven to be quite popular with others. People all around the world have mistakenly used that address to sign me up for email subscriptions and accounts at various websites ranging from grocery stores to dating sites. In fact, that address has traveled the world more than I have. Despite the fact that I have never been outside North America, that address has been used by people as far away as Italy, Norway, South Africa, Germany and the UK.
Thanks to one particularly thick-headed moron in Florida who tormented me for nearly three years, I already had enough material for one book on the subject, and even though he seems to have ridden off into the sunset, there have been many other volunteers who have stepped up to take his place. As a result, I now have more than enough fodder for a second book.
One juicy chapter of that future book will include my recent adventures with another numbskull who’s bound and determined to give the idiot in Florida a good run for his money.
Nearly three weeks ago, I got a notification from Apple telling me that they were unable to reset the password for my Apple account, the one tied to the email address in question, because there were too many unsuccessful attempts to answer my security questions. To protect the security of my account, I would not be able to reset my password for the next eight hours.
Standard protocol one would expect from a large organization when you keep entering the wrong information. Except for the fact that I wasn’t the one entering the password or security questions. Someone else was.
My thought was that this guy must have bought a new iPhone or iPad and, while setting it up, he was trying to log in with “his” Apple account. Without an Apple ID, you can’t access the Apple Store. But he entered my email address instead of his own.
I expected a couple of more iterations of this, at most. Surely this guy would soon figure out that he’s using the wrong email address and enter his own, I thought.
Sadly, however, as I would soon discover over the coming weeks, I seriously overestimated this guy’s IQ. And seriously underestimated his determination. Stupidity and stubbornness is a dangerous combination.
With dogged tenacity, he has continued to try to crack the security questions so he could reset the password for “his” Apple account. Questions, by the way, he’s not going to be able to answer, even if they let him do a large-scale dictionary attack. Knock yourself out, I thought.
But repeated failure has not stopped him or even slowed him down. Rarely has a day passed without getting one of those notifications from Apple. Considering that they probably let you try three times before sending off one of those messages, he’s likely made over 50 attempts over the last three weeks.
You know what they call it when you do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result.
The definition of insanity.
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