A Yankee Notebook: Preying upon the least protected

Boy, was I ever right! Not only does Old Scratch revel in his fairly recently improved access to the human race, but he also comes at us in various ways. Most commonly, he trolls formerly forbidden fruit past our noses. He also invades our infrastructure, as the Chinese, for example, are doing in preparation for future clashes of national interests. He’s the king of disinformation, who spreads lies that snare the attention of the “poorly educated” whom a current candidate for president claims to love.

Yep, Beelzebub is everywhere we look. He’s as happy in Cyberland as a cow in the corn. As I age, I find him increasingly present. The recent pandemic classified many of us as “compromised,” which gave us first dibs on vaccines. All we had to do was get onto the appropriate websites and sign up. Right! Which citizens over the age of 21 do you suppose least capable of dealing with websites designed by young tech wizards with minimal people skills and empathy? No surprise: the elderly.

There’s no doubt that the internet has opened up doors and information formerly undreamed of and inaccessible to us, the old folks. Remember plowing through the card catalog and the Guide to Periodical Literature? On the other hand, it’s exposed us to the activities of some very bad people and reminded us that we are surrounded by a surging sea of scoundrels who’ve identified us as the most vulnerable targets.

I use Facebook a lot. I’ve had to quit responding to items on its sidebar, Messages, because naughty people often lurk there, looking for useful scraps of information to exploit for nefarious purposes. To friendly message-senders, I most likely appear curmudgeonly, but it’s just self-protection.

A few weeks ago, urgent notices began popping up in the right-hand corner of my computer screen, warning me that my security system had expired and directing me to click on the notice to renew it. I didn’t have a security system, and I wouldn’t have touched that notice with a 10-foot pole; but they must have hoped I’d click it inadvertently or out of frustration. I avoided it as I would have a rattlesnake, and eventually it disappeared.

It was replaced almost immediately by this cheerful, friendly greeting, coming in (like the notice about my failed security) over and over several times a day, ostensibly from Facebook: Hi, Willem, We noticed an unusual login from a device or location you don’t usually use. Was this you? Now, this may be perfectly legitimate. But it’s going into the pigeonhole labeled “Rattlesnake” (Trash) without comment. It has all the earmarks of a phishing expedition, and given the mess created when any of my accounts is suddenly closed by a security breach, it’s too much of a risk even to acknowledge it.

There can’t be too many scams more cynical than those targeting the elderly, who are least equipped to deal with them. We’ve just finished several weeks of horrid commercial messages interrupting television broadcasts and plugging “Medicare Advantage.” We’re urged over and over to cash in on our homes’ value with reverse mortgages or to realize the “gold mine” we’re sitting on by selling our life insurance.

My late wife and I were snookered once by a “granny scam,” an alleged grandson calling from Mexico for money to cover an accident. I still can’t quite believe we fell for it — probably because my wife was a more naturally sympathetic person than I. Our local bank manager spotted it and saved us from further distress. But it reminded me, in retrospect, of the reason careful cavepeople survived. If a rustling in the grass suggested to one, the wind, and to the other, a saber-toothed tiger, guess whose genes were best adapted to survival of the species. My father was right — Satan does inhabit the internet. But when he rustles the grass, the smart old folks don’t smile and think, what a lovely breeze! They send it straight to the Rattlesnake box.

Willem Lange is a regular contributor to the Weekend Magazine. He lives in East Montpelier.