Computer Fun

December 9, 2019

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving a lady with the bank called.  “An unauthorized attempt was made to withdraw funds from your checking account,” she said. She recommended we open a new account. We did that, although we kept the old one open, just in case.

Monday—a big day: the plastic mediport was removed from my chest in a 45-minute surgery. No more hospital visits for a few months—for me, that’s big.  I tried to rest after the operation. But that afternoon my IRA website locked me out. The IRA people advised that somebody had tried to get in. They shut down access to it until we took our two computers to an IT pro to be scrubbed. We hauled them to Best Buy and got in line.

Every organization you do business with by using your computer says the same thing: create passwords of six to 20 characters, use capital and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. Don’t use your birthday or street address. Don’t use family member names or initials in cute ways the bad guys can decipher.

Computer wizard that I am, all my passwords consisted of my kids’ names. I cranked in the same “user name” for nearly everything. I kept a Microsoft Word file on the computer that listed all our passwords. I thought I was clever. To the pros, I was a fat target.

I recall, when visiting a friend, asking him for his “wifi” address so I could use my laptop computer while at his home. He stared at me as if I were with the KGB, looked around the room, then thrust his cellphone in my face, showing something like, “Ovb5*gq?wrt7-txt4L.” I blinked. No one is going to get into his business. And no doubt he changed it after we left.

We didn’t lose any money from either of these intrusions. The guy who got into the bank account tried to withdraw $4,500, which we didn’t have. He went for broke, lost, then moved on to another fat target. We were lucky.

We picked up the computers at Best Buy. The tech guy said they didn’t find any problems. The intrusion was an attempted identity theft, not a computer problem, he added.

So we changed the passwords. I started a new project: calling the water company, the power company, the mortgage company, and everyone else who takes money from our checking account or pays us through it. I was amazed that Social Security, after serenading me for forty minutes, simply took the new account number over the phone.

We all know, but hardly ever think about, how technology has transformed our world, from the cosmic to the trivial. When Sandy and I met with our pastor for his blessing a week before my October surgery, he demonstrated with a smile how he could order “Alexa” to turn on the lights in his office. We laughed.

We live online every day. Every business operation, except the kid stocking shelves, bagging your groceries, and loading your car, is associated with a website. A company, charity, or college that doesn’t have one doesn’t exist. So all week I sprawled on the sofa, the phone stuck between my ear and my shoulder, listening to bright techno-people guide me to nirvana. I spent an hour as a woman with the water company directed me to click on links, then sub-links, looking for “delete bank information.” Someone else walked me through downloading an “app,” which did not work.

We started using the bank “bill pay” function a few years ago. I recall writing checks, sticking them in envelopes, licking stamps. People still do that, but the cost of stamps has become annoying. If you get the hang of using the bank website, paying online is easy.

Computers are tools, like rakes and hammers. They enable marvelous breakthroughs in the design and performance of highly complex systems used for navigation and communications, manufacturing, defense, finance, medicine, and so on.

The unsettling question: are we any smarter? Many published authors can’t write a coherent sentence or carry an intelligent story line. My book club assignments (Aug. 19 post) are a six-book losing streak. Are we morally stronger, more tolerant, more honorable? Republicans exist afraid of a “tweet” from the president. Answering my own question: No. No way.

Not smarter, not better. That was never the point. More efficient, in many ways. For you and me, computers are communication systems. They link us with others, in a lazy sort of way. Do our emails and “texts” really replace letters or phone calls? How many of your Facebook “friends” are friends?

There’s the dark side: all kinds of online crime—identity theft, fundraising scams, porn. We’ve all heard the horror stories. Thousands of folks, including some very savvy ones, have lost millions with a few keystrokes. The bank reported that our account hack was traced to Collegeville, Penn. Never heard of it. Our son, who knows computers, said that’s a dodge—the hacker may be “spoofing” a computer in Collegeville, but could be in Toronto—or anywhere.

Yet there’s the exception that proves the rule. The low point, so far, is a demand by one company that I obtain a medallion signature guarantee, more authoritative than notarization, to complete a two-page paper form, then mail it back. Paper form? What about your website?

I visit the local branch of our bank. Someone said the manager could do it, but he left early, come back tomorrow. I was there at 9:00 AM. Uh-oh, he actually is not authorized. I need to go to Lorton, five miles up I-95. Fighting the dregs of rush hour, I drive to the Lorton branch. I explain why I’m there—medallion signature guarantee.

The manager, Chris, shakes his head. He could do it, but it would then have to go to the legal department for approval. He squints at my form. At the bottom of the second page there’s a sentence in tiny print: “medallion signature guarantee is required if a voided check is not included.” He hands it back to me. My branch gave me a facsimile of a voided check, which is not a voided check. “Try that anyway,” he says.

At home, I stick the paperwork in an envelope, attach a stamp, and mail it. Then, an email from the bank: “Sign up for our mobile app today!” I’ll think about it.