Why am I on a soapbox so much lately?

E commerce, E banking, E bill pay, E what ever involving money bothers me. Certainly I do a fair amount of this only because it is sometimes the only way to get the things that I want, for example my paycheck. In both of my current places of employment I no longer have an option to have a physical check handed to me as payment for my work, even less likely would be to have actual currency given to me. There is no choice in the matter. More and more banks are controlling everything we do via computers and the internet, which is more than a little scary. Now you may say the amount of transactions which are completed every single day without issue are enormous compared to the problems which exist. Sure one needle in a haystack isn’t a problem unless you are the farm animal that has to eat that haystack. There is not a single day that goes by where I don’t read, see or hear about someone being hacked, defrauded or missing money because computers are being used to attack people. Our police are woefully ill equipped to investigate these crimes and good luck getting someone to even take a complaint because of jurisdictional issues. Our legislative bodies are worse because 99% of those in power have no clue how computers work enough to do anything at all on one let alone make laws which are effective at governing the use of computers to prevent crime. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “computers crimes are thievery most foul.” There is little way for the victim to know that they have even been attacked and if they are attacked they have to prove that they are not actually the offender. I am all for progress, however the banking industry and commerce industry have to really make things safer for the public to use them electronically. The banks and businesses simply do not care because it isn’t their money; it’s your money that is being taken. Law makers and law enforcement agencies need to step up their game in dealing with these problems. Until people start to feel the sting of this wrong doing, it will continue to grow and grow because there is little or no chance that they will be caught and if they are they will not have to pay any money back and will unlikely see any jail time. Do what you can to protect yourself, however eventually you will find the needle in the haystack and most of the time it will not be a pleasant experience and will probably end up costing you a lot of time and some of your hard earned money. Well, that’s all for now, other stuff to follow most likely Happy Birthday if it’s your birthday and a very merry un birthday if it isn’t your birthday Thank you for reading, please subscribe, Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood. Ciao, PS 3 Gamer Tag: invisible don PO Box 4425 Roanoke VA 24015