Over the weekend I received a distressed
email from a friend telling me that she was in the midst of trying to resolve
an Internet identity theft issue. She said she was consumed for two days trying
to “fix things,” and that she was suicidal. The email alarmed me; I even
wondered if the email itself was a scam. I texted her, telling her that things
didn’t sound right, and cautioned her to stop providing any more information to
anyone, or doing anything PERIOD, until she could have other eyes assess her situation.
Turns out that my friend got sucked in by
fake Apple Support representatives via an 800 number provided to her via a
phishing email. Expert brain fuckers
manipulated her to use cash to buy Google Play money cards; she relinquished
money card information to the scammers, who then cashed in. Embarrassed, she did not want to tell me how
much money she had lost, but she admitted, “It is a lot of money.”
This story shook me up. How could my friend,
a regular technology user and reasonable, smart person, fall for such an evil
scheme? She is not alone. Victims of
online fraud in the U.S. lost an estimated $800 million in the last year. These scams often start with an email, so I
don’t respond to an email unless I know who sent it to me. I don’t open
unsolicited emails with suspicious generic subject lines and never open
attachments from an email I do not recognize; I just delete them. Also, I never give out personal or financial
information unless I have initiated the transaction. If someone is keeping me
on the telephone, that’s a bad sign. I hang up if they persist.
Still, I’m curious about these scammers who
tricked my friend. Do they inhabit the dark web? Who trained them? Who is profiting from these scams? How or
will they be caught? My friend told me
she felt as if she were in a trance, following the directions of these
malevolent imposters who kept directing her to give them more money.
I think about vulnerability and the
fraudulent/perilous nature of these times.
What does it take to protect yourself?
Laughter, anger, a gun? Hackers,
swindlers, liars, autocrats, and their collaborators surround us. So many institutions, systems, countries and
their governments operate with a breathtaking degree of corruption. The media
circus/reality television show that is being executive produced by the orange
blimp baby and masterminded by a Russian ex-spy and strong man, entrances
us. It’s crazy.
At the park today, I stopped to talk with a
small Indian girl about twelve, who was playing fetch with her golden
retriever. I looked at the forehead of
her dog, and noticed a reddish orange mark about the size of the tennis ball
that was lodged in the dog’s mouth.
“What is that?” I asked.
The girl explained that it was colored
arrowroot powder, thrown at her dog in celebration of Holi, an Indian
holiday. I asked her to tell me
more. “We make different colored powders
and throw them at each other for fun,” she said. She mentioned something about demons, but the
girl went bounding off after the retriever before I got clarification.
When I returned home I did some research and
learned that Holi is a “festival of colors" or the "festival of love”
that celebrates the victory of good over evil.Based on a story from the
Bhagavat Purana, a demon king named Hiranyakashipu, to fulfill his desire for
immortality, performed penances so that the creation god Brahma bestowed upon
him five special powers: he could be killed by neither a human being nor an
animal, neither indoors nor outdoors, neither at day nor at night, neither by
astra (projectile weapons) nor by any shastra (handheld weapons), and neither
on land nor in water or air.
Hiranyakashyapu felt invincible, which led to
extreme arrogance. He proclaimed that only he be worshiped as a God, and that
he would kill anyone who did not accept his orders. His own son Prahlad,
refused and continued believing and worshipping Vishnu, another of the big 3
Hindi deities.
This pissed off Hiranyakashyapu and he made
various attempts to kill Prahlad. King Hiranyakashyapu asked his sister Holika
for help. Holika had a special cloak garment that prevented her from being
harmed by fire. Hiranyakashyapu instructed her to sit on a bonfire, holding
Prahlad on her lap. However, as the fire roared, the garment flew from Holika
and covered Prahlad. Holika burnt to
death and Prahlad emerged, unharmed.
Vishnu appeared in the form of Narasimha -
half human and half lion, at dusk (when it was neither day nor night), took
Hiranyakashyapu at a doorstep (which was neither indoors nor outdoors), placed
him on his lap (which was neither land, water nor air), and then eviscerated
and killed the king with his lion claws (which were neither a handheld weapon
nor a launched weapon). Prahlad and all human beings were freed from the
compulsion and fear of Hiranyakashyapu, and good triumphed over evil.
On the eve of Holi, after sunset, people
light a bonfire and sing and dance around the fire, praying for the destruction
of evil. The next morning they celebrate
Rangwali Holi – a free-for-all festival. In the streets, open parks, and
outside temples, they throw colored powders and drench each other with water
and water balloons.
I’m wondering if I should stop by my friend’s house and douse her with some colored arrowroot powder. With so much evil triumphing over good in the world, I worry that we, like Holika, do not have adequate cover. In lieu of waiting for Vishnu to vanquish the demons, we must exercise caution, not fear, and celebrate all the good things with as much joy as the young girl with the marked dog demonstrated, as they ran through the park.
I’m wondering if I should stop by my friend’s house and douse her with some colored arrowroot powder. With so much evil triumphing over good in the world, I worry that we, like Holika, do not have adequate cover. In lieu of waiting for Vishnu to vanquish the demons, we must exercise caution, not fear, and celebrate all the good things with as much joy as the young girl with the marked dog demonstrated, as they ran through the park.
