A landscape of knowledge

By Johnny D. Symon

I guess the past three weeks or so has for me reinforced an old adage that life is what you make it, and due to my volunteering to help a very close friend with her computer problems, I also rediscovered an undoubted fact that on aiding a friend in need you discover hidden mysteries. And when those things are uncovered they present a landscape of knowledge spanning out in all directions. At least that's what I've recently discovered. I realized that when one willingly offers to serve the needs of others, be they good, bad or ugly ones, mysteries become meaningful, and life just that little bit simpler and more rewarding.

I wrote some time back that a friend had been using a computer with a pirate XP program in it. Miraculously this 80-year old lady remained ignorant of this fact until I stepped in to iron out her numerous system problems. I noted first and foremost that someone had ticked a box preventing any connection to Microsoft home-base. Since 2003, when the computer was installed in her home, there had been no system updates or patches. Inevitably I then discovered that the thing was riddled with viruses, worms, and HTML Trojan spyware, and other things too numerous to mention.

The guy who installed her computer was also acting as her mail server. Most of her viruses and malicious code etc. arrived as a raging torrent each time she opened Outlook Express to download her day's mail, and each time she performed this act her computer would freeze up. Then she'd resort to the only trick she knew, and it was a bad one, she'd simply pull out the plug and risk shutdown failure. All of those problems and more fell upon my shoulders three weeks back when I set about restoring order and balance.

I unchecked the contact for Microsoft and expected the usual security updates. Instead I received notice that the program was most likely a pirate version. This left me with two options; to buy a new XP or Vista, or rake out the hard disk and install the still sealed legitimate XP disk that originally arrived from Dell (Ireland) in the box. I noted that although the lady received her computer in 2003, the XP that came with it was the first offering of 2001. Nevertheless, and despite its antiquity, I opted to clean install the vintage disk, old it may be, but at least it was legal and legitimate.

I forewarned my lady friend that she could expect to receive a mountain of updates, and sure enough they began to fall upon her system like the Georgia rain, but not before I installed a topnotch XP Repair tool and an equally topnotch antivirus, spyware, firewall, and anti-hack program. I discovered nigh on 800 critical system and registry faults before installing the legal XP, and when I checked the legitimate OS this figure had reduced itself to 147, and now no faults remain.

But the security system I installed, that took the place of a lousy free antivirus my friend's computer dude had installed, after he'd deleted her full pay version of Norton, unravelled the mysteries placed within this lady's computer by an apparent botch artist. For after hours of painstaking work to stabilize her OS and seal up the system from outside interference, I watched one hack attempt after another and many attempts to plant new spyware into her system.

One final process remains to be completed, which is to drop her old mail server and replace it with one which only sends the genuine article. Today my 80-years-young lady friend's computer screen is no longer riddled with pop-up windows offering the wonders of pedophilia, group sex, and sadomasochism. It's all been replaced with order and stability. The lady has regained her property for the first time ever, for from the first day she went online her property became the property of others, and they conducted their business from within the comfort of her own CPU.

During all of those four frustrating years with a pirate OS the lady never once heeded the prompt window to send an error report to Microsoft, one click of that button back in early 2003 would have revealed the mystery of her unstable OS, and I no doubt would have offered to sort out her early-day problem. Sadly as each identical window popped up, the lady would click "don't send." Robert X Cringly once remarked that ...

"If the automobile had followed the same
development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-
Royce would today cost 100 dollars, get
a million miles per gallon, and explode
once a year killing everyone inside."

The last time I took a look over the lady's computer was last night, and everything was in order, except for one thing, and for me it's a big thing, which is an ever-popping window declaring yet another quarantining of the latest Trojan Spyware attempt and hack-attack. I sat back and watched each attempt and puzzled over why an 80-year old lady's data would be so desirable. I had already ascertained that her hacker was no expert in the field. This guy was a rookie and a botcher. So my thoughts drifted away from the attacks, to concentrate on the computer's contents.

You see, despite being 80 years of age, this lady is most active, running a holiday let business in Southern Spain, and she's also putting together the final installment of a major life's work, which shall be published in book form in the near future. The book illustrates the many decades in which she studied, at close quarters, a rare African tribe, and I reckon at least one of those items that forms part of her life, encased within her hard disk, has become of interest to outside sources. Nowhere within her documents can be found any form of password protection, meaning that her Intellectual Property had been open to inspection worldwide for four years. Even her holiday let clients list could prove of value to any similar business entity in her region of Spain.

Here's where my earlier reference to "a landscape of knowledge" gets unfurled;

I began to view my friend's computer as her home and her nation. For years her borders were open and uncontrolled. Foreign visitors arrived and departed without her knowledge and consent, and her security services were cheap and inadequate. The wealth of her nation had become the booty of foreigners. Her land was in fact under the governance of illegal aliens.

I viewed her failure to click "send an error report" as a person forgetting to request God's help in their time of need, even a nation requires God's help and guidance once in a while, usually at a time of deep crisis, though sadly seldom before. I began to pull in two recent events out-with my friend's problem, that at least in my case, further proves the point.

Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister, has finally made objection to Russia's claims over the Arctic Circle. I made reference to this type of dispute in earlier eds, chiefly "The March of the Hutheads" and "East, West, and the Crisis of Ignorance." Canada is first on the list to experience the early effects of Arctic Energy Fever, and I predict the self-same effect way down in the icy wastes of the Antarctic. I reckon that we'll all discover to our cost that Space is not the final frontier ... both Polar Ice-caps are, and I'm certain that we'll all discover near unlimited reserves of minerals and crude beneath their surfaces.

The second event I began to mull over, alluded to above, was a situation that began for me shortly before I wrote "Crème de la Kremlin," July, 2004. I had in fact written this ed in response to a series of confidential assurances from high sources that Romano Prodi, ex-EU Commissioner, was working against Western interests in the employ of Russia's KGB. Recently I read a document, courtesy of the Italian Secret Service, where they also are confident of this fact. And yet, unlike the good old days, as regards the loathsome act of treason, no one is calling for Prodi's head ... it's almost as if treason and treachery have become an acceptable part of political public life. The striving for a One World Government as a League of Nations, has relegated each Sovereign Nation to become a part of the whole.

Therefore I saw my friend's computer problems as a microcosm of our latter-day world problems, except for one thing; my friend found that someone was willing and able to pull her problems back from the brink, and stabilize her nation, her interests, and her property. Order was returned, in the shape of her own personal nation, whereas there is at present only reticence by world leaders to an ever growing problem.

But with our very own Alan Keyes stepping into the brink for '08, a decisive solution to America's deep, wide, and far-reaching problems has become available. He offers to tighten the borders and take care of that which lies within. He pledges to abolish personal taxation, and return true freedom for the individual. He represents a genuine solution to a more than genuine problem, and I reckon by doing so the man will be placing his life in great jeopardy should he succeed and enter the White House, for America's enemies lie not only from without, I believe the greatest enemy of all dwells deep within its midst. I therefore pay tribute to Alan Keyes for his strength, his honesty and his integrity, and above all for his selfless bravery ... qualities deriving from faith in God and a love for his country and people.

Let's all install Alan Keyes into the breach that's ever widening and see if he don't prove to be the best firewall and antivirus Presidential system in the history of the United States of America.

© Johnny D. Symon