Although, a fool and his money are soon parted,
you don’t need to be a fool to be parted from your money. 

You don’t have to be a fool to be unwillingly parted from your money. You can merely be an idealist with a mediocre ability to judge the honesty of others or, as I seem to be, too trusting for your own good. Alternatively, an internet connection and a minute or two of carelessness can do the job. Or a router that lacks the most up-to-date protective software — and we’ve been looking for one that does have the most up-to-date software and they aren’t even for sale yet. How about a cellphone with a back door? How about a worm in your root directory?

Anyone can get hacked including the most sophisticated users. You don’t need to be old, stupid, or technically challenged. Hackers are smart. They have software and hardware more powerful than yours. If they are out to get you for whatever bizarre reason, they can do it. It might take a while, but they’ll get there.

It might not even be an internet problem. It can be an inept roofing job, an incompetent plumber, or simply a really bad workman. Maybe you hire a contractor who doesn’t complete the work, but walks off with your down payment. Unless it’s a lot of money, the odds are that you’ll win in court, but wind up with even less money than you had before. How about inspection companies that fails to notice any of the problems in the house? Were they inept or paid off? I could go on and on, but why bother? Especially when you get on in years, you become a target for every scammer and spammer on the Internet or any guy who owns a pickup truck and a ladder.

Your only other choice is to not go online — which given our current reality, is hardly realistic — or let your house fall apart. another impractical solution. So many things these days you can only do online. Our State government pretty much runs online. That’s how you get your driver’s license and your registration. These days, if you don’t have a cell phone, you get punished for it.

I am not alone in worrying about cell phones. I recently spent the money on an “unhackable” bag which supposedly protects credit cards and my cell phone. No matter what anyone says, they are easily hackable for anyone with the right software and you can buy the software online. People to distrust? How about anyone you bump into in the grocery store or hospital waiting room. I finally have a good phone and I enjoy it, but it worries me. It works better than our regular “landline” which isn’t a landline, but runs on VOIP on our WiFi. I often wind up using it rather than the other phone because it has better sound and on a good day, I can see my friends’ faces. But it worries me.

Checking to see if we are home? Or just one of those automated services that dials a thousand number a minute. They don’t care if you are there or not. Out of all the calls they make, someone will be home. One of them will give them them just enough private information to misuse. Hackers get smarter every day and so do the phony roofers, plumbers, and handymen. Last time, they hacked my router. I got a new router. But I bet they have a hack for that, too. Meanwhile, I discovered I couldn’t update my router without a cell phone and even with a cell phone, I couldn’t figure out how it worked.

The only problem? All the new routers have the same hackable software as the old routers. In theory, they are working on better software. In reality, by the time they work out how to upgrade current software to beat the current hackers, new hackers will be miles ahead of them. In the meantime, watch out for guy with a pickup truck, a ladder, and a willingness to do the job at half the price.

Categories: Computers, Computers, hacking, Hacking, Home repair or upgrade, Identity Theft, Wi-Fi

Tags: fraud, hacking, Marilyn Armstrong