Doused

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.