Warning! Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

Don't let yours get Lost in Space

It is an old TV series and a new remake, Lost in Space, a takeoff of Robinson Caruso lost on an island.

I am going to deviate from  the usual style, this is something that has been playing on my mind  for quite some time and the play is getting stronger.  Many times I am very slow on the uptake of cosmic senses. Decades ago I was going to a charismatic Christian church, the ones with the fake  dogma: speak childish babble and the Holy Spirit will take over and you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit and be sure to put 10% in the offering plate. This is instant connection  to the cosmos, so yes sign me up, I can babble; or not. These are the fastest growing churches, at least they were years ago, mega cathedrals, TV broadcasts and lots of financial and other hanky panky. My favorite was Terry Cole-Wittaker who did a slightly different version of the babble called the name it and claim it. She amassed a small fortune and then  said good-bye, claiming to have not and received a nice bump on her last day. She named it and claimed it.

 I had  the great education of being  a Gideon for many years, Gideon's are those  Bible  in the hotel room guys.  President for a few years, held an unofficial national title of hatchet man, whose duties I refused to perform after doing a thoughtful investigation. I had the opportunity to speak in many different churches, and always checked out their mission statement and dogma statements before speaking. My favorite was the Mennonites, I became close  to their leader and his family and enjoyed their company and conversation.  Good honest compassionate people that work hard and smart. It was nothing like I expected, the only down side or upside was you had to like blue.

Tiny story about being slow  on the cosmic uptake. At the charismatic church many of the members were addressing me as Pastor Dave. I was not a Pastor, and even though I corrected them, they continued. Some were wanting me to take over the youth ministry. Which I did not really want to do. One morning during the sermon, while the kids  were all in their respective  classes a loud deep voice said "what are you doing here when I want you in there!"  Well I knew  immediately what there was, in the youth class. I quietly asked those next to me if they had heard a  voice other than the guy doing the sermon, and all said no. So I decided to take action and got up and headed  to  the teen classroom. Just as I was about to reach the door, it opened and out stepped the youth pastor, who was complaining and saying he quit.  I then became the youth pastor. Had a good time with the kids, getting them to engage   and think.  Mostly did this by asking questions that were easy to answer and then moving on to others in a logical direction until they came to the conclusion on their own as to what was proper and not.  I would not tell them what they should think, but if they came to the  conclusion on  their own, then they would own it.

On to Lost in Space. I like to ask the why question, then look for answers that fit the parameters. Some time ago the FireFox browser started  to offer save your login and passwords for  web sites. Very convenient, especially for those prone to lazy, which fits me. Then I noticed that other browsers were doing the same thing, and now it seems like every piece of software you download  offers this "security" and peace or is it piece of mind.

I am an expat, which means I  do not live where I am a citizen. It has its own set of  problems.  I keep a stateside bank account and a stateside address to have that stateside bank account. However when I go to purchase things on line, my IP does not match with my billing address or the shipping address and I get denied the opportunity to finalize the purchase. There are a multitude of problems, especially in the financial area  that expats must deal with.

One way around this  was to download a VPN, a Virtual Private Network and hide your IP, disguise it as  being some other location that corresponds with your billing address. This circumvents lots of problems, maybe. I did an exhaustive search of VPNs, their ownership, how they worked and looked for pit falls and other dangers. Decided upon NORD, had to pay, downloaded it and it worked nicely. They offered a service for free that stored your logins and passwords.  They even had a nice advertisement  for it, a cartoon video with a cute cartoon girl that  was  daunted by all of the dangers of the internet and finally found NORD and could put on a cute animal mask and be perfectly safe. I declined,  but daily they sent me emails touting their free service.  I am always wary of free, nothing is free, somebody gets something out of it.

I then noticed other software that offered this type of security service and that started to bother me. Why were they doing this and what were the dangers? I checked on ownership of the companies, and saw that they started out innocently, good smart people founding them, but then noticed that some dubious players came in and made the  original founders wealthy and took over the service/software. Why? Control of  data, access to data, yes  all of those things available. Long chains of ownership, several levels and then at the bottom or the top you get the people that are telling you to take the vaccine, that they have made for the pandemic, that they have made for the virus, that they have made; and it looks ominous.

Imaging for a moment that some dubious or evil intentioned party has access to your financial accounts, the passwords, the logins etc. Image that they also have access  to a super computer or large cloud computing services.  Please store your logins and  passwords with us we will keep it safe,  well  until we don't.  The devious options are numerous, and it all goes under the heading of "because we can". Imagine that they empty your account, claim that they were hacked, and your money, all digital is gone and not recoverable.  They could wipe out every account that you have. You can make up your own options and scenarios here. Not to sound like a robot, but Warning, Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

The hidden powers want to eliminate cash, and for us to enter into a digital world. What could go wrong there? Internet outage, power outage, large scale cyber attacks, almost endless opportunities for malfeasance and paralyzing problems. Imagine that world, that scenario. It is where they want us to go. Total control in that scenario. Because they can, they can target individuals, large groups, large geographic areas etc. Coming  to a playhouse near you.

To another story, which is just a story, but I like it, came from a movie. There was this young boy that heard a voice that would tell him things and those things always came true.  One day the voice told him that his father was going to die the next day. This troubled him immensely, he could not get to sleep that night or stop crying.  His father came in and questioned him, finally getting him to tell what was so troubling.  The next day the father went to work and could not concentrate on work, so troubled about what his son said. When he returned home in the evening he started to tell his wife about the troubling day and all of the mistakes he had made at work, his wife interrupted him and said, ”I had the most miserable day; the milkman died on the front porch while delivering the milk."