I not longer claim to understand the technology that is humming around me, any more than I comprehend the apparently baseless depravity of the political process. As you know through weary repetition, I am trying my best to avoid the steady barrage of ads on television and commercial radio.

I am sticking with alt-rock on the satellite radio in the Panzer when I drive, but it is harder to get around on the flat-screen. Over the weekend, it appeared that there was nothing but the campaign, periodically interrupted by moments of football.

It is beyond irritating. I have become Pavlovian in my ability to hit the “mute” button on the remote, but the effort requires concentration and once, deep into the second NFL contest of the Sunday, it caused me to spill my drink.

That is unacceptable, and I have cast about for ways to avoid those sorts of household catastrophes. Here is something I have found handy: the new-and-bigger Panasonic flat screen TV I got to replace a dumb-and-smaller one is now aware, and possibly more so than I am.

Here is the thing that amazed this old codger: the television works off the wifi connection in the unit, and connects me directly with Amazon, which is happy to stream television shows of my choosing direct from my video library to the screen without the requirement of being attached to the bastards at Comcast cable.

Well, Comcast still provides the point-of-presence for the cable, but this is close enough to freedom for government work.

Voila! Freed from advertising, and these days that is a powerfully good thing for mental hygiene.

I am not perfect, of course, far from it. I have the same fever everyone does in this town, and I tuned into commercial television briefly to watch the historic second post season appearance by a Washington DC baseball team since 1933. The Cards shellacked the Nats after dropping the opener of the series.

It is a diversion, but it came at the cost of seeing some of the political ads.

Ick. I felt unclean. When the Nats were put down, 12-4, I decided to do the same thing to myself. It was too early, and the predictable happened.

My eyes popped open at 0200. I could not get back to sleep.  It was the rattle of cold rain on the window that did it, I think, and the chill wind that passed through the slightly-open window. I tried to get back down, but couldn’t. I felt around on the other side of the bed, not looking for anyone in particular but for the iPad.

I fumbled for my glasses but discovered that the Kindle App and even the mystery novel that opened with a triple-murder in Saddlestring, WY, could not sooth me back to dreamland.

I snuggled deep under the eiderdown and the quilt atop it as I idly flicked the pages across the screen. It must be the moisture in the air mass that brings the chill home to the bones. The damaged leg feels it most, and I dread the coming of winter, which may be penetrating in a way I won’t like. The predicted minimum was supposed to be in the low-50s, but according to the iPad, the thermometer is hovering down around 48.

The breeze through the window sent a chill radiating through the unit- a dank one. Leo-the-Engineer will not turn on the heat at Big Pink until next week, which of course will not coincide with the passing of the cold front across us, bound in from the west. The great midsection of the country is shivering ahead of schedule, and I think it is going to be a hard winter.

Between the average effort of living and listening to the surreal political show, I am a little nuts. Last week it was the news that Bank of America got hit by a massive denial-of-service attack that was supposed to cover wire transfers from depositor accounts. Attribution is always tough on these things, but rumors put the source in Tehran, which is going nuts itself over the impact of the sanctions and the cyber-war against their nuclear program.

Perhaps you have become inured to the constant stream of attack. I look at email even from trusted pals with a jaundiced eye. If there is an ambiguous or missing title and a simple link in the body of the message it means the link is bad, bad, bad. Worse even than those “Dear Beloved in Christ” solicitations from Nigeria.

I was accordingly suspicious when I got a call from the nice folks from American Express yesterday morning indicating that my account information had been compromised. There were a couple charges I did not recognize, but refused to give any personal information to the anonymous caller. Instead, I backed off the call, suspicious that it was a Phishing social-network attack.

You know about those, I assume. It is ridiculously easy to penetrate computer networks, if you know the social engineering game. A few phone calls after basic research about a company can reveal chains of command, and spoofing the email address of a superior including an attachment with an executable file…well, you know how that goes. It just requires a little homework. Open the attachment and an executable file runs and hi-jacks the machine, installing back doors for the malevolent into the “secure” server without anyone being the wiser.

So, to ensure that the nice lady on the phone was who she said she was, I demurred on confirming my address or the card number and said “good bye,” and hung up.

I found my wallet and dragged out the Amex card, which I do not use for anything except a few recurring accounts. I contacted the phone number on the back of the card. They confirmed the mystery charges and invalidated the old card number and cancelled the charges.

I asked them if it was Amex whose database had been compromised, or Netflix or Verizon or the Virginia EZPass transponder people who are the only ones who have the card information on file. The lady on the phone was coy. Any of these entities could have been hacked and the list of card numbers and CVV information compromised.

In my experience, when they call you, they already know what the problem is but will not acknowledge it to avoid liability.

Heck, all this was being done over communications that may contain components obtained from the nice folks at PRC-owned Huawei Communications. And you know about that.

I think it is going to be a long day. I will try to stay dry and warm- two things that despite the drought and Climate Change, seem to be pretty nice things to be.

Four weeks until we know against what to batten the hatches against- storms real or political, or more likely both. I cannot think of an alternative to follow, or an outcome that does not fill me with a touch of dread suspiciously like the chill wind of early winter through the window.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com