A Neil Zelkin XMAS Story--And its educational to!!!!
We have made a deal with the devil. By placing all of our faith as well as information, wealth, health and everything in the hands of computer technology, we are also placing our entire society at risk of a catastrophic calamity when all this stuff gets inevitably wiped out. From the cloud into "poof!!!" nothing how will it be when those forces hell bent on wreaking havoc finally succeed at wiping the electronic slate clean?
Let's start with the blood of our world, money. Money is what keeps us fed and in bed with a roof over our head. Like most people, more like 99% of people, I have the majority of my money safely tucked away at the bank. I only keep a small fraction of my money in my pocket as actual bills these days. And with my trusty debit card, the need for that, actual physical currency that I can touch, has become almost nil. Its totally cool. I can look in on my money anytime I want 24/7 simply by accessing my bank account online or on my phone. The balance pops up my money is safe and I can live another day.
Then I wake one day and turn on the television and what do I see but every station with the same story, "Hackers Wipe Out Bank Information for 100 Million Americans!!!" the anchor bellows.
"Oh Shit!!" I think to myself.
Then it gets worse as the voice on my flat screen continues, "And That Includes Balances."
I fumble in my pocket for my phone and hit the Chase icon to load its app. By this time, I am kinda nervous because I know I need a shot a junk soon or the sickness will soon be upon me.
"Come On!!!!" I am screaming inside my head as the app just loads and loads and loads. Nothing is fucking happening. "Fuck it," I mutter as I reach into my wallet, rip out my ATM card, and start dialing the customer number. "Please Ring!!!!" my inner-voice pleads only to be quickly interrupted by a busy signal.
Fine I will just call the deli order a coffee and see if my fucking card works. Then I can hit the ATM, hit the corner and get well. It all sounds good. My mind starts to decompress when the television voice says,
"Chase Bank Was The Main Target."
I am fucked as will you and someday soon. That is unless I do a couple things. Practical things that will help me in the face of such an attack.
1) Quit Heroin ASAP. Its no longer the cool thing to do and its not really good for me. Plus as the above scenario illustrated that could be a hard fall for a bad habit. So no more heroin for me and you kids reading this at home currently on smack you should probably quit to.
2) Start cashing all paychecks and all checks for that matter at the local check-cashing joint. Just look at its bullshit service charge as not price gouging the poor but the price of security for the smart because...
3) Money will no longer just be a number on a screen. It will now be stacks of currency in your house. You can touch it, bathe in it, make it rain in your bedroom if your wife needs a kick-start or any of a thousand other fun things you can do with dollar bills. But...
4) Better buy a gun with some of those bills or risk the rest of em making a quick exit in the hands of crooks.
This is a simple plan with an even better pay-off. When the hack attack happens, I will have something in my hands to say that I can pay. Have a nice day.
