A Paper Bag Over Your Head

My brother called on the weekend, kind of panicky about a computer problem. Actually, it was a printer problem. I guess when they were going through the printer set up, it asked them if they wanted the ABC News daily updates. They clicked OK and every day they got pages of news highlights printed up for them.

I am no computer geek, but Steve is a neophyte when it comes to computers. He has never had a need or desire to surf the web until about a year ago. I have had many different computers over the years, starting with a Commodore 64 and in my own slow, painful way I learned a few things about how to deal with a malevolent computer. Sometimes, it is best to junk the beast and start fresh with a computer that doesn’t know how ignorant you actually are.

I walked Steve through the process of de-selecting an option; it was pretty simple, only taking us about 30 minutes. Freakin’ printer! We got to talking about computers and the security that they have or don’t have. I thought I was a conspiracy freak, but Steve is even worse than I am. I tried to tell him that “THEY” know all about him and nothing he does will stop "THEM" from knowing. He actually had a piece of paper that he used to cover the camera on his computer to keep “THEM” from watching him. I told him that “They” would more likely put a lens in his big screen TV if they want to watch. Oh, sure the computer too. I told him not to worry because “THEY” have little or no interest in a couple of old farts like us.

I didn’t convince him and I am sure there is a little square of paper covering his camera right now. 

Mine too.

Today I was reading a Temperance Brennan book and in it, her mother found the location that an email was sent from. It sounded really simple and I figured that it just couldn’t be that easy to find out someone’s location from their email. Guess what? It is! I just looked up an old email from a buddy that lives on Vancouver Island and not only did it show a Google map of the area (Parksville), it gave me his longitude and latitude as well as the first three digits of his postal code.

That was from a free program that anyone with wifi can access. There is a version of that program that you can pay for which I have to assume would have even more information. I just can’t imagine the programs the governments of the world have at their fingertips. I don’t want to imagine. 

You just keep that piece of paper covering your computer's camera Steve, and while you are at it put everything electronic made in the past twenty years in a paper bag too.

Oh, and you had better put a paper bag over your head as well.