Cybercychosis
Linda has gone through computer torture for the past two weeks, after she got a DSL line into her office. Viruses showed up. Anti-virus programs consumed hours in failure. Finally a tech was brought in for two days of work and a huge bill. Linda was back at restoring programs to her now reformatted hard drive. Not everything is going smoothly, and there's no one to bill for the work. PacBell denied they should have told her to get a firewall. They did, however, offer her a $200 office visit, which looks marvelously inexpensive in hindsight, if it would have avoided this rebuilding.
Now some may think this is extreme, but if I would ever support the death penalty, it would be for people who create and distribute (knowingly) computer viruses. Bring back the 'lectric chair. Start the power on low. The gratuitous cruelty of their acts — the incalculable cost in time, money, patience, and attention — manifests an attitude that needs to be squelched with all possible dispatch. It is not a prank. What if the person is delayed in a crucial point in her work, and a discovery is delayed for weeks or months or years?
And when they get the chair, let's put the spammers up close and personal to the exorcism. These people — like telemarketers who won't go away — are the sleaze of the earth. I told one the other day that she should be ashamed of herself. She laughed sardonically. Which is why I strongly support legislation that will stop the nuisancers. There should be a special ring to the phone, and if if it's not answered within 15 seconds, the call is disconnected.
On the Internet, any unsolicited mass mailing should be paid for; how 'bout a tenth of a cent each. That would discourage them. Plus on the subject line, there would have to be a special symbol that indicates the email is from a stranger, unsolicited, and dispatched in bulk. You should be able to reach a smart computer or a warm body if you hit "reply" -- no bogus addresses that don't go anywhere and no redirection to confusing web sites. If you hit "reply" and type "remove" on the subject line, your e-address needs to be (1) plucked from their files, and (2) they need to notify the source of that address that the addressee requested removal of their name the list.
Thank goodness that Linda is computer-savvy in a way that she remembers most of the tricks that she needed to kluge her machine into relative collaboration. She called a coupla times to ask how she could get the desktop icons to stop arranging themselves, and how to get the Palm resynching again. I'm pleased that I had a few of the answers — some of which were similarly, agonizingly hard sought by yours truly — which could make her tasks check-off-able more quickly.
Before dinner, she'll head over to her gym for an hour of kick-boxing. It's great balance for the mental gymnastics that have been wearing down her cerebral muscles. Woe be it to any cybercychotic she meets in the parking lot.
And that's SetonnoteS...I'm Tony Seton.