Food For Thought

Food is nourishment; food for thought is knowledge. Knowledge nourishes the brain much like a taco nourishes your being. Back when I was a child knowledge was learned from reading books; books with paper pages and covers telling what was inside the book conveyed by either a picture or a descriptive phrase. Today many of us get our food for thought via the Internet on either our computers or our savvy phones. But for the life of me I don’t understand how you can get much nourishment for your brain from reading what is printed out on the screen of a tiny cell phone.

I find myself preferring to do research on my computer as long as I am able to find reliable, trustworthy sites with bona fide information that is not provided solely for the purpose of selling widgets or wazzy-wids at an online retail store. Good research information sites are available, and it helps to know how to search web site addresses for clues as to where sites originate. I learned the hard way that you need to know from where a web site is coming in.

I know that I have taken to spending many more hours reading research material on the Internet rather than going to the local library checking out armloads of books like I used to do. It is less strenuous to ‘search’ online than it is to lug home armloads of library books. Yet still I pray that ‘books’, those with paper pages and covers either soft or hard covers, are never fazed out of existence like books were, in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451".
There are still times when I take one of my books from a shelf in my library, and open the cover just to read a story; not to do research.
Books are still for reading stories.

You might call my first computer a Frankstein because it was composed of many pieces that were joined together for the first time in one machine! I loved that computer, and used it as my highway to the ‘library’ of the Internet world up to sometime in June 2004.

In June 2004 I was shopping on EBay, and I strayed from the ‘safe and familiar’ pages venturing instead to their ‘China’ pages. I saw a deep green, jade pendant that was particularly appealing to me so I sent an inquiry to the seller asking how much it would cost me to have the jade pendant, the one I liked, shipped to my address in California.

I committed a cardinal sin when I made the mistake of setting up my account on EBay so my email that was sent to my mail box on EBay, would be forwarded to my ‘personal’ email account at my I.S.P., which at that time was a small, private operation located in San Jose, California.

My Frankstein, bits and pieces computer was old as computers go. Frankie was seven when the dreaded Chinese code, that was sent all the way from China, into my mailbox, ended its existence.

I spoke in person with the man who headed my I.S.P., and he told me that when I opened my mailbox, on that day, he saw immediately a copious amount of traffic travel from my computer, and pass through his server.
To where it went he did not know.

I told him that what he saw pass through his server was more than just traffic; what he saw pass through his server 'was'
MY COMPUTER!

Everything was taken!
My programs, all of my artwork, all of my compositions, and even my email contacts were taken by the code that was sent to my computer that was sent all the way from China. The loss was devastating to me! Who would do this to me? All I did was ask the price of shipping a deep green, jade pendant from a Chinese ‘seller’ on EBay, to me in California.

In time I learned that a ‘mass surveillance’ computer program similar to NarusInsight was in use by the Chinese government. The purpose of this program was to capture information on the Internet via emails on Chinese dissidents, who were sending information back and forth between them selves trying to set up a revolution against the Chinese government! At least this is what the news article I read said was going on.

So were Chinese dissidents working on EBay posing as ‘sellers’ of deep green, jade pendants that would be wanted by me in California?

Did the Chinese government’s agents think my asking how much it would cost to ship that beautiful, deep green, jade pendent to California was somehow a code for “how many Chinese dissidents does it take, working on EBay, selling deep green, jade pendants, to overthrow the Chinese government?”
Is this what they thought?

I couldn’t salvage anything from Frankie; nothing was left; the rogue code broke through my ‘fire wall,’ and completely wiped my computer out. Because the code broke through my security, and collapsed my ‘fire wall’ I know that code, because it was that powerful, had to be sent by a government agency...an agency in the Chinese government...who else would destroy my computer when I asked how much it would cost to send that deep green, jade pendent to my address in California?

I complained to EBay about what happened to my computer, it was completely gone, and my complaint letters were met with silence on the receiving end.
I did receive one return correspondence from EBay stating that I should have let the email go into the EBay mailbox, and not have had it forwarded to my personal mailbox.
Since they felt this way why did EBay have the option open to forward all email to my own personal mailbox?

I find myself still preferring to do 'research' on my computer as long as I find trustworthy, reliable sites, and when I want to read a book I prefer the kind of book that is made out of paper; printed with ink.
As for shopping I am much more careful these days. No more shopping for me on web sites originating from China on EBay or on any other web site, that sell deep green, jade pendants.

Carol Garnier Dutra

Events in this short story came from my life.
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra

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