Delaware - Day 25

Trap Pond State Park
Friday, 25 January 2019

I had a scammer attempt to hijack my computer this morning and it was all very weird.

There I was, minding my own business, reading an article in the New York Times, when I suddenly found a red screen that wouldn't go away, and messages about how my computer was being penetrated by someone trying to get my banking and contacts information, and Microsoft wanted me to call them instantly at an 800 number.

It wouldn't let me get another screen so I could try a 3rd-party verification so I finally called the number.  I got someone with an Indian accent, which I figured could be a Microsoft outsourced tech, but it could also be a scam.  He wanted me to give him my login information and I kept saying how do I know you're legitimate when you've taken away my ability to do an independent check.  He kept saying some version of "trust me, I'm telling the truth," and I said Donald Trump says the same thing and he's not always telling the truth so why should I trust that this guy is.  I said all that in various ways over and over.

He had me call up a help window and type in an address, which got me to a T-Mobile website asking for my password.  (T-Mobile runs my hotspot.)  He didn't believe I'd typed in the right address and made me do it again, with the same result.  Then he got really ruffled and had me try another address, with the same result.  Meanwhile I kept moaning about this red screen on my computer and finally, in frustration, he handed me to someone he said was his supervisor.

This someone, also with an Indian accent, introduced himself as John and asked how he could help me.  I said I doubted if his name was John but then recapped the situation.  He said he'd been hired by Microsoft to handle tech problems and explained all that at length, and then went on for well over a full minute about how John is a very common name and lots of people are named John.  I thought that was even weirder than the situation had already been.

I told him I was sick of unsolicited phone calls from people who had clearly not been born down the street from me claiming that they were named Sally, and that I doubted he'd been named John, but I also recognized that people all over the world had a great deal of knowledge about computers that I didn't have and I was willing to believe that he was one of them.  Nonetheless, I didn't like not being able to check to see whether he was who he claimed to be, and it didn't matter anyway because if someone were really trying to penetrate my computer it wouldn't do them any good because I don't do online banking or online shopping and there's nothing at all on my computer that was worth stealing. 

He said I'd still need to get a security program installed which he could do for me, but there'd be a fee for it.  And I said I didn't want to pay for a security program, that that's why I hadn't already installed one, and anyway I didn't need it if I wasn't doing anything financial on my computer.

He said if I wasn't going to get a security program then he'd just hang up because he couldn't help me.  And I said what about this red screen that's still on my computer, are you going to get rid of that?  And he said yes he'd do that but he'd have to charge a small fee for it.  And I said why on earth should I pay a fee when he was the one who'd put it on my computer in the first place, that I certainly hadn't done it by clicking an online ad, because I never ever did, or by clicking on anything else suspect, that I'd just been reading the New York Times when it showed up.  So he said again about the fee and I said again I wasn't going to pay for it and he needed to get that thing off my computer, and he hung up on me.

So I thought it over and called my long-suffering brother who will be sorry he ever learned more than I did about computers, and told him the story.  And he asked specific questions about what address the guy'd told me to go to, and then said yep, it was a scam.  David said Microsoft would always use a .com address, not the .net address the guy'd given me.   And he said if it happens again to just turn everything off and wait a bit and turn it back on and I'd likely have my computer back.  By then, I'd turned my computer off and I turned it back on and sure enough, the red screen was gone.  David's so smart.

I remember many years ago, not long after my parents got divorced, my newly-on-her-own mother was telling me about advice she'd read on dealing with people who were trying to push her into something she didn't want.  The broken-record technique, she said, where you just keep repeating the same message over and over until they give up: "I don't want to go to that meeting.  Yes, I understand it's a good program, but I don't want to go.  Yes, I understand you'll take me but I don't want to go." 

While I was talking to the first guy and then to "John" I felt like I was doing a variation on that: "I don't want to give you my information, I don't want to pay you for anything.  Yes I understand other people want that but I don't.  No I'm not going to give you my information.  No I'm not going to pay you for anything.  When are you going to give me my computer back so I can check to be sure you're who you say you are?"  Over and over.  And it worked with them, just like it worked for my mom.

But it was really weird.

On the brighter side, there's a Pileated Woodpecker who has a favorite hole in a tree very near my RV, and he makes a serious racket when he's in the neighborhood so I know to go look for him

Not my photo, of course, but this is just what he looks like.  He's way up in the tree, but I could see that point on his head as plain as day.  That was the first thing I saw, and then his very red head.  And he was perched on the tree just like this bird and he kept craning his neck all around over and over.  I don't know what he was looking for, but he gave me a really good look at the black and white pattern on his neck while he was doing it.

I was lucky because the first time I saw him was the other day when I'd gone out to get something out of my downstairs storage and he Very Loudly announced his arrival, so I stopped to try and figure out what I was listening to.  It was dusk so the light wasn't great and he was pretty high up so it took me a while to find him.

But he's huge, which helped.  The bird book says he's 16½" and is North America's largest woodpecker, now that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is probably extinct.  I've seen him a couple of times now, and it's really neat to have someone like him in the neighborhood.  We sure didn't have guys like him in Austin.

Lily spent part of the morning lying on the dashboard, enjoying the sunshine coming through the windshield.  I wanted to take a picture but the camera was only a few feet away from her and I was afraid she'd jump up and leave if I came close.  She has a tendency to run away if I come near where she's lying in front of the heater or on the bench seat - as if she thinks I'm going to do something to her.  But she's only been here 2 months and I suppose is still adjusting to life in a new family.  Anyway, she was happy while the sun was there.

I picked the dogs up from day care - they were as happy to see me as I was to see them - and made arrangements for a last stay for them for next week, before we leave for Maryland.  It'll be a while before I can find a day care there, so I want them to get this last chance for doggy interaction.

I actually heard someone on the BBC Newshour use the phrase "disposable nappies."