PRENOTE:  Nov. 28, I learned of a malicious hack of my computer.  This seems to have been much more than an amateur gambit.  Hopefully I can learn from this experience, and I want to pass along my own personal opinions, from my own experience.

Much of the following was written on January 20.  This PRENOTE is new, as is the POSTNOTE at the end.  The earlier contents are revised, but retain the original meaning.

The issue very personally impacted on me, and I think is very serious for any ordinary individual who uses a personal computer.  Since my e-addresses were stolen, you may have been affected.  My instinct is to apologize.  At the same time, I had no way of knowing of this theft.

I hope you read and consider this as it applies to you in your own daily life with a computer.  (Other than personal humiliation, I don’t think I had other losses.)

*

It has been a difficult time since the night of Nov. 28, 2019, when I got an e-letter in junk mail from a Ukraine IP address.  The sender self-identified as a hacker, describing material in possession generated by theft by other hackers of my property.   The writer made a threat if $500 was not deposited in a bitcoin account.  I mentioned this in a late November post, here.

I did not, nor will I ever,  take the bait – no concessions of any kind – and while my frame of mind has varied from day to day in the last eight weeks, there is no doubt that an unknown someone(s) somewhere in the world, somehow identified me as a target to be exploited and damaged.  This has surprised me, as I am only one of tens of millions of ordinary individuals who use computers in daily life.

The fact is: my computer was captured (my term) and my privacy was very seriously invaded within my own home (I do not own or use mobile devices).

Looking back, I can trace the evolution of this invasion of privacy going back probably several years, though it would be pointless to try to make such a case.  (See also the comments at the end of this post.)

*

I thought myself to be more than reasonably diligent about security,  Now I’m sure I wasn’t.

At this point, think the main advice I have for individual computer users is this:  1) assume no privacy.  2) Turn off your device when not using it.  “Sleep” doesn’t mean sleep in our context.   3) When you send something, authenticate yourself; before you open something be reasonably sure that it is safe.  Nothing you do can absolutely guarantee safety. Do what you can to diminish the risk.

Ironically, a column in Jan. 29, 2020, Minneapolis Star Tribune Business section (photo below) highlights the problem.  You can read it here.  It is worth printing out and sharing.  Share this blog with others.

page D8 Minneapolis Star Tribune January 29, 2020

Following is my attempt to tell my story only to encourage your own reflections.  While this is a long post, it will be only a tiny summary of my life in this internet age in which we live.

*

(Jan. 20, 2020): Life for the last eight weeks was emotionally topsy-turvy since I got the note on Thanksgiving night from a polite “hacker”, written in very good American English.  Right before Christmas, 2019, I essentially started over, deleting everything on my computer, getting a new e-address, and reloading (hopefully) only un-corrupted content.  My entire e-mail history was permanently erased. (I haven’t missed it!).

Back home with computer, I discovered this blog was blocked to me.  How could this be?  This is my blog.  It was the first time in 10 years of this blog that I had lost access it.  (It was, and remains, https.)

More work with more technicians.  January 20 I recovered access to the blog – at least to the extent that I could once again post at this space.  (The blog was never really lost, but was inaccessible to me, its proprietor.)

I’m grateful to the techs who did the work to recover both computer and blog.

*

My recent life experience (and contemporary national political issues) has caused me to  think a lot about the old book, then movie, The Manchurian Candidate.  It’s still available, and worth a look.

My opinion: we all have been captured by the ‘telescreen’ envisioned by George Orwell in his 1949 book, “1984“.  We are “brain-washed” constantly, and willingly.

The day I wrote this part of this blog, Jan. 20, 2020, the Minneapolis Star Tribune front page headline “above the fold” read: “Russian trolls tied to unrest in S. America”.   This is no longer a rare contemporary comment about our new world.  An e-mail from a long-time friend ‘across the pond’ the same day said this:  “It’s a jungle out there”, referring to the internet.

Jan. 4: The missing ‘tele screen” (from Goerge Owelll’s 1984)

The Manchurian Candidate?

I will never know who, when or how hackers became interested in or accessed me.  I have no idea where they were when violating my rights.  Fixing such is literally impossible.  Their base of operation was likely my own computer.

I knew that someone, somewhere had been interfering with my computer for several years – I suspected things were amiss long ago, but could not get anyone to pay serious attention.  Security scans came up with nothing, including through Apple itself.

A prime suspect seems to have been very sophisticated and undetectable malware (see above referenced column) which allowed someone to capture and control my computer without detection, even though I had  sophisticated anti-malware protection.

Since most all of us, including myself, have become dependent on the telescreen and those who manipulate media content, we have come to live in what I call “the Wild West”.  We have all become “Manchurian Candidates” in one way or another.  For us, the ‘shining object’ is the ease of technology.

*

Here’s a brief account of my personal history.  (This has been a most useful exercise for me; I’d recommend a similar exercise for yourself.)

I’m old.  “Keyboarding” came to me when I learned to type in high school in 1956.  I have long said that learning to type was one of my most valuable life skills.  I learned to type on a manual typewriter – I first touched an  electric in 1963.

I grew up before television, in a time when cameras meant film which had to be developed.  No instant photography; we couldn’t imagine taking hundreds of pictures a day, as is easily possible now, for anyone.

In college in the late 50s, computers were not on my screen.  I’d guess most of us couldn’t even imagine such things as individual computers, even in 1960.

The first “computer” I actually touched was in early 1983, an early Mac.  My Apple dealer has a 1984 version on display in his store.  Below is a photo of that machine, which looks just like the first one I touched:

1984 Apple Macintosh seen Dec. 2019

I recall that this machine was very intimidating to me, and I was a proficient typist.  It was owned by a teacher colleague.  I recall being worried about hitting the wrong key and deleting everything I’d entered….

About 1987 – I was in my late 40s – my employer began the transition to computers, which essentially were used for word processing and e-mails.  There was no talk of web sites.  We staff members all trained together on the mysterious devices in front of us, beginning with the on-off switch.  It seems amusing now, but at the time this technology was a mystery to most of us.

During that period of time, from 1985-2002, I edited a newsletter for members of a cultural organization, and it wasn’t until about 2000 that there was the first (and only) reference to e-mail address or website.  (The ‘cut-and-paste’ newsletter was published every two months, generally six pages.  Towards the end, the newsletter showed the benefits of word-processing, cleaner layout and the like, but it was not polished in today’s terms.)

In 2000, 20 years ago this month, I retired, and began the adventure of having to deal with my own computer.

Computer was and is important to me.  Communicating “outside the walls” of retirement was my personal connection to the world.  Thus my first website in 2002 included “Outside the Walls” in its name.

The first half of the years to today were with Microsoft products.  In late 2009, I made my first venture into Apple, which is what I still use, and will continue to use; strictly personal preference.  The switch was not due to any issue.  My good friend had Apple and knew an Apple Dealer he trusted.  “Why not…”?  An easy question to answer

As noted, in 2002 I established my first website.  Today I have four, all of them, like this, SSL (https).

I have never had a laptop or iPhone or similar.

100% of my work on computer is done at home.  I thought I was safe with a single device.

*

In the past 20 years,  there have been the kinds of problems experienced, I would guess, by all computer users: viruses, crashes and the like.

The general sequence seems to be: 1) a vulnerability is discovered in a computer, and exploited; 2) the vulnerability infects equipment such as mine; 3) the vulnerability is fixed…and the sequence is repeated, ever more complex and mysterious and thus subject to even worse abuse.

Hackers are not amateurs.  As we know from the news, they are often well-funded and often nationally sponsored, including, of course, the U.S.  They are specialists without borders.  They are one example of todays nuclear weapons, in my opinion (climate change, global pandemics are some others).  Imagine how it would be to see the internet shut down for just your own community.  It would be a disaster.  Likely it already can be done.

There are no borders.  My fraudster demanded money and wanted payment in bitcoins.  I refused.  I had no idea who this person was or where they were.

*

Over the last 20 years, when I have changed equipment I have transferred information from one computer to the next.  It is now possible that I also transferred hidden problems from one computer to the next – I don’t know that.

Because there is a constant search for vulnerabilities, and because the skills related to computer are shared by lots of technologically gifted people who work (or have worked) both within the industry and in criminal enterprises, etc., and some cross boundaries to the dark side, I doubt there will ever be a time when there is absolute security.  I do my best.  I did my best.  I aspire to do better.

We are in dangerous times.  “Manchurian Candidates” is not an abstract concern for the future of our society in 2020.  Each of us are both part of the problem, and the solution.

Live and learn, I hope.

POSTNOTE Jan. 30, 2020:

I sat down one day during these two months to jot out things that had happened over the last 20 years in my own computer life.  I had quite a long list of events.  I simply want to point out two examples.

Most recently, right before Christmas, and at the time that I decided to scrub everything from my computer and start over, I happened to be on-screen when a phantom arrow scrolled to the Malware icon, and turned off the Malware.  Such an arrow was not unknown to me: legitimate folks have asked permission to go on screen with me, to help resolve a problem.  The normal protocol is to help me find what needs to be clicked, and I do the work.

Hackers know the technology and don’t ask permission.

My most dramatic example, however, is one I have rarely said out loud, since it is so bizarre.  But now seems a good time to make it public.

I got my first Mac in the fall of 2009.  It arrived and I picked it up, out of the box.  I got the usual assistance, and took the machine home.

Some time later, I was just looking around in my new machine, and happened across the page for media files.

Then and now I rarely use media, other than the normally available items such as YouTube.

This particular day in 2009, there were two items on my computer, and one of them immediately attracted my attention.  It was a short talk by a person I know who had been elected to a Minnesota State Office three years earlier, in 2006.

I didn’t know the politician then, but he and I met right after the 2006 election, since he had agreed to speak to a group of which I was president, and his election had changed his plans so that he couldn’t attend our meeting in person.

He said he’d make a short video that we could use. The person who did the video had preceded me as president of the organization I now represented.  I knew her well.

On an agreed day we met at a community access station in a suburb, and the incumbent office holder  proceeded to make a short, five minute video for our use at our meeting.  It was so well done that there was no need to edit.

In some unknown way, that brief talk that was on my new computer in late 2009, was exactly as I had heard it when I watched him videotape it at the community access station in November, 2006.

It turned out that that at the meeting (which, of course, I had attended),  the video part didn’t work correctly, but the audio was perfect.  I was the custodian of the tape, which the newly elected leader had asked that I return to him, which I did.  To my knowledge there was no copy made by anyone else.

I have always wondered how it was that this 5 minute talk by a then-largely unknown Minnesota politician, which I had personally witnessed being made, and then heard being presented one single time, ended up inside a brand new Mac, where I listened to it once again.  I can’t answer that question, but I’ve always wondered.  The evidence is long gone….

POSTNOTE 2, FEB. 18, 2020:  After the original post (above), I sent the link to the politician, specifically to fact check my assertion which appears directly above, at the end of the original post. This was his comment on Feb. 1, 2020: “I now remember your mention of this very, very odd situation – still a mystery ! Great biog post – all of us have some form of this experience and you nailed it!  Thank you.”  He served two full terms – 8 years – in his elective position, and remains very active in civic affairs.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day.  Each year I see my Uncle Frank Bernard’s death as the USS Arizona explodes.  I have written about him many times at this and other spaces.  He experienced war, up close and very personal.  He and millions of others are witness to the horrors of war.  As the song lyric goes, “When will we ever learn?”

*

Tomorrow, Sunday, December 8, noon CST, on TPT Life Channel (Minneapolis-St. Paul area), see the one hour edition of this wonderful film.  Here is the TPT link with details.

This film will be shown only one time.  (A week or two ago was a free preview week, since expired.)

The film has much historical significance, including rare archival footage of the enactment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations Dec. 10, 1948, in Paris.

The narrator of the film, Garry Davis, joined the Army Air Force as WWII was in its early stages.  His brother has been killed when his Destroyer is bombed off of Salerno.  The insane incongruity Davis comes to see from killing others to avenge his own brothers death in war, leads him to make a decision to become a Citizen of the World – an adventure in idealism.

I’ve known of this film project since 2011, and immediately became intrigued with the value of the project.  I’ve said often that I asked to show the original rough draft to a group of high school students in St. Paul in November, 2012.  I wanted to see how kids would react to a movie narrated by a 90 year old man, reliving his 20s, during the time during and after World War II.

The student response to a completely unknown product was enthusiastic, and it convinced me that the film would have great value as a teaching tool, to help young people engage in becoming leaders to determine their own future.

If you’re in the Twin Cities area, watch the film if you can.  You won’t regret taking the time.

POSTNOTE: Jan 23, 2019: There will be more on this issue within the Jan. 20, 2020 post.  Check there about Feb. 1.

POSTNOTE Dec. 9, 2019: Last Thursday we went to the film starring Tom Hanks, “A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.  It is highly rated, deservedly so (I give it a “10”).  Early on, you learn that this is not what you expect a film about Mr. Rogers to be.  Early on, there is specific mention of “forgiveness“.  See the film, it will fill in the blanks.

The topic in the headline is addressed, briefly, below, beginning at “Back home….”  Between Thanksgiving and today, there is evidence that the threat is being activated; unrelated, but pertinent, my mac has auto-updated the new operating system – neither requested nor unusual.  I do not plan to change e-addresses; but e-mails for the time being will be infrequent.  Anything received that appears to be from me, should not be trusted on first glance.  This space is unrelated to the e-mails, and should be more trustworthy (though nothing is certain).

Give yourself a Christmas gift, and see the Neighborhood film.  It is a film with lessons for all of us, including myself.

*

This is written the eve of Advent.  The topic, Extortion, seems unlikely at this season.  But hopefully will make some sense at the end.

Thanksgiving Day was a delightful afternoon with family.

During the afternoon one of my grandkids, 17, was showing me a feature of her iPhone.  She had taken a photo of me, and she attached it to some other persons body, and it looked very real, and it was instant – the old photo shop on steroids.  Of course, it was amusing, but at the same time, scary.  If kids can do this, what about adults who are extremely savvy with technology?

The same afternoon, I had brought along a “real” camera – Grandpa’s box camera he had probably bought in 1910, and used until he died in 1967.  My son-in-laws had been kidding me about my regular camera, the ypte one rarely sees these days.  Here’s a photo of the old camera, the real deal, taken today:

1910 Box Camera

These old cameras were used with great care and discretion.  A roll of film might have eight exposures, and possibly one roll would be used in the course of an entire year.  There was one school picture a year, probably taken with a single camera; if family groups came together, maybe there was one photo.  You wouldn’t know how the pictures turned out until the roll was developed, often many months later.  Those single images made up the history of families, unlike today explosion of instant and careless photography that can be used and misused.

Back home, a few hours later, at home, separately, life changed instantly.  In came a piece of junk e-mail from someone I’d never heard of, from some other country.  This was a well-written business style letter, demanding several hundred dollars in bitcoins with a threat to send something to my entire e-list if I didn’t pay up in 50 hours.  It was a distinct threat.  I’ve had this happen once before.  I’m still piecing this together.  It appears that my computer was pirated and misused, including to tale a few seconds of film of me two or three years ago, taken without my permission.  They had activated the camera on my computer.  They apparently have been lurking quietly in the background somewhere in the world.  I had been hacked, I was told by the letter write, and apparently internet criminals have decided they can make a few bucks off of me.  I won’t pay them a nickel, and whatever the personal consequences of this piracy I will pay.  The perpetrators were and remain invisible.  The e-mail address was situated in Ukraine, but that’s all I can tell for certain.  These days you take nothing for granted, unless you actually know well the person(s) with whom you’re corresponding.

I take all the precautions but apparently they’re not enough.  No system is completely secure.  Things are getting worse and worse.  My e-mail account has apparently been compromised, and is apparently not remediable, so I’ll have to work around it for the time being.  What is regular for me, will no longer be regular.  I don’t relish this, but it is apparently necessary.

I’ve had e-mails supposedly from myself, including my correct e-mail address, which I didn’t write or send….  I don’t respond to any of these, but it is scary.  On the home telephone line, these days, come hundreds of spam phone calls, some of them, recently, using our name and home phone number as the originating number.  They’re mostly pitching insurance, and their content always identical.

I use e-mail a great deal.  The extortionist said they’d commandeered my e-mails and if I didn’t pay up, the humiliating film would be distributed to them all.   I shall see.  I’m doing what I can to stop this, but I will not succumb to threats.

The new technology is wonderful, but it has a very serious downside, and I am experiencing it as I write.  I want to publish this on the last day of November, so that I can have a fresh start in December, in Advent.

Let’s work for a better world.  Merry Christmas….

Grandpa Busch at center, with shotgun.  At left, his Dad; at right his younger brother.  1907, at the new farm in ND.

Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019: the beginning of free week for The World Is My Country.  #3, below.

This is about the film The World Is My Country, the inspiring true story of Garry Davis in his youth, told by Garry Davis when he was 90.  I hope you read this brief blog.

I rarely urge anyone to “read this”.  This is an exception.  Please read and share.  It will take only a few minutes.  For your ease, I’ve provided all the links which appear in #1.

1.  MOST IMPORTANT:  The general description re Sunday, December  8 (Minnesota Public Television), and Nov. 20-28, 2019 (anywhere). World is my Country007.  The links included in #1 follow:
2. The brief clip about the one hour film is here (2 min 41 sec).  At the end of this clip, there may be three additional clips from Arthur Kanegis, one a personal commentary to Greta Thunberg – the one with the photo of Mr. Kanegis.  I found this commentary very moving and interesting.
3. Sign-up for full film (one hour) preview Nov. 20-28, (possibly till Dec. 1), here.  This on-line feature is accessible anywhere.  An expanded version of the film is 84 minutes, and was the version shown at the World Premiere in 2017.  It is also available.
4. Channel finder for TPT (Minnesota Public Television) for Sunday, Dec. 8,12 noon, only in Minnesota area,  Click here.
5. Minnesota short subject re 1971 World Citizen Declaration here (scroll down to 3rd).
6. Response to World Premiere April, 2017 here.
7. Where updates will be posted, here.

PERSONAL:  My only stake in this film is that I hope it is seen and discussed very broadly, especially with and among young people whose future is ahead.  The film is thought-provoking.  I first heard about The World Is My Country at a small meeting with producer Arthur Kanegis in June 2011 (photo below taken at that meeting).  Later, I asked and received permission to show an early rough draft of the film to a group of a dozen high school students in November, 2012.  I wanted to see how young people would react to a story told by an old man of 90 years, about what he had done in the late 1940s forward.  Succinctly, the kids were attentive and engaged, even with a longer film, in very rough form.

PLEASE SHARE.  The first event begins Wednesday, November 20, available via internet (see #3 above).

Arthur Kanegis explains concept of The World Is My Country about Garry Davis at University of Minnesota, June, 2011.   Counter-clockwise from 1:00: Dennis Dillon, Arthur Kanegis, Joe Schwartzberg, Gail Hughes, Bharat Parekh.  Dick Bernard taking photo.

COMMENTS (See end of post.  Comments received by e-mail are being saved in a draft folder, and will be posted in total sometime after the public broadcast on TPT on December 8.  Look back about Dec. 12.)

Today is the day I wear my dog tags, from U.S. Army days, 1962-63.

Dog Tags. U.S. Army 1962-63

I’m a vet, as are my two brothers, as are many relatives.  My event of choice each year since 2002 has been Armistice Day of the Veterans for Peace.  This mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune featured a column co-authored by two men I know, personally, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer and Mike McDonald.  You can read it here.

Actually, my first recognition of Armistice Day was November 11, 2001.  We were at Gatwick Airport in England, awaiting our flight home, and at 11 a.m. an announcement asked for two minutes of silence in recognition of the 1918 Armistice.  I still find it hard to believe the absolute silence in that International Airport.  It stuck with me and the next November 11, I believe it was at Ft. Snelling Cemetery, I attended my first Vets for Peace observance, and repeated the story of the previous year.  World War I was no picnic….

This year I’ll hopefully be at the Capitol steps in St. Paul, when Larry Johnson completes an 11 mile walk from Minneapolis, and those of us in attendance will walk down to the facsimile Liberty Bell at the Veterans Service Building for a ceremonial bell-ringing, 11 bells, 11 times, at 11 a.m. on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

This past year I have three specific memories of War.

1. June 30, my sister, her husband and I represented the family at the Walsh County Historical Museum in Minto ND, where a fragment of the USS Arizona was dedicated, a gift from Joseph Voorhees.  I had never met Joseph, who mysteriously made contact through a comment on my blog page several months earlier.   It turned out to be very much for real, and Joseph and his brother, Thomas, met us at Minto on the appointed day, and the completely legal fragment was dedicated to the memory of our Uncle Frank, and Floyd Wells, another Walsh County sailor, who had died at Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, as well as to the memory of their parents, Joseph and Deloris Voorhees.  Their Dad had been in 82nd Airborne, and engaged at Battle of the Bulge and other missions as a demolitions specialist.  It was a moving day.

June 30, 2019 Walsh County Museum Minto ND fragment of USS Arizona presentation. The USS Arizona fragment is in the frame.

June 30, 2019 Minto ND Walsh County Museum Presentation

2.  In early October I was at a gathering of descendants of early residents of Hugo-Centerville MN.  I had not been there before, so knew only the person who had invited me, and the guest I had brought.  There were the usual stories, including one from a man who talked about the feet of a relative – perhaps his Dad, or Uncle – I don’t recall the specifics.  This man, a war veteran, a farmer, was never seen without his shoes on.  And after a while, the kids naturally wondered.

As I recall it, at some points he was seen without shoes, and his feet were hideously disfigured, a consequence of war-time ailment untreated, or inadequately treated too late.  I wish I had paid more attention to the details.  It was an incredible story of the lingering effects of a long-ago war.

3.  Finally, last Saturday night, we were at at the 9th annual Building Bridges Awards Banquet of the Islamic Resource Group, an event I’ve attended almost every year.  The MC opened the meeting, attended by over 200 in suburban Brooklyn Center, remembering the indigenous original occupants of the land on which the hotel stood, and then recognizing all of the veterans of service in anticipation of todays.  It was a very appropriate and solemn touch.

At the gathering, I found myself thinking back to the first Awards dinner I had attended, and why.  The answer turned out to be easy to find: it was at the beginning of my blog dated September 5, 2010: “The abundant insanity (that’s what it is – insanity) around the proposed (and approved) Islamic Center in lower Manhattan caused me to revisit a significant time in my youth“.  (I hadn’t paid attention to this issue since 2010.  Here’s a very long synopsis viewed Nov. 10, 2019.)

This business of war and peace is very complicated.  We seem perpetually prefer war while saying we are for peace.  Armistice/Veterans are synonymous this day, which just happens to be the first day of the week dominated by public hearings on impeachment of the President of the United States.

Pay close attention.

COMMENTS (additional in blog comments below the photos): 

from Molly:  I found this very moving… a brief clip, illustrated with old photos, of Leonard Cohen reciting the WW1 poem, “In Flanders Fields.”  Blessings, each, and prayers for peace on this Armistice Day.

from Fred:  Enjoyed, very much, your thoughts about Veterans Day. Growing up when I did, nearly all of the men I encountered from my father’s age cohort— family, friends and Dad—were veterans. Most never talked about their experience since nearly everyone had been part of the war effort.

POSTNOTE: The Vets for Peace bell-ringing at the Veterans Service Building was accomplished, in spite of near gale force winds and frostbite weather (under brilliant blue sky).  The number attending was low, but more than normal because another group was there at the same time.  I have not yet got “the rest of the story”, but the other group, there to ring the Liberty Bell, included former Governors Al Quie and Jesse Ventura (second photo below).  There certainly was enough room for both groups, who were cordial to the extent one can be social in very frigid conditions.

Vets for Peace group approaches the Veterans Service Building Nov. 11, about 10:40 a.m.

Former Governors Albert Quie and Jesse Ventura ring the Liberty Bell Nov. 11. Several others took their turn. The rope wasn’t very cooperative, breaking or coming lose on several pulls

Vets for Peace Bellringers, Nov.11, 2019