Arkansas in the cyber-age, continued:
Jack Holt, Jr., the former chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, was in deep trouble. He and wife Jane were vacationing in Spain and were mugged. Their assailants took all their money, cell phones and credit cards. He was forced to e-mail friends from Madrid: “I am having problem in settling the hotel bills and other expenses, I need you to loan me 2000 Euro to sort out the hotel bills here and also take a cab to the airport. Please I really need your financial assistance. Let me know if you can help us out?” An e-mail link was provided for those willing to assist. Those gullible enough.
No, the Holts were not in Spain, had not been mugged. But they had been hacked. If the e-mail plea for help were not so shopworn as to tip off even the casual cyber-communicant (and these days, who the heck is that?) the bungled punctuation in the message should have been notice sufficient of a scam. Evidently it was; at a holiday party Holt said he was unaware of anyone falling victim to the fraud, and could only roll his eyes at its audacity. Evidently it sometimes works, else the bunko artists, here or abroad, would long have ceased trying it.
The trouble for the former Chief began when he clicked on what he believed to be a benign link e-mailed to him by a source be believed to be benign. Malignant it was, and the Holts have suffered some “collateral damage” as a result.
Of course you have heard of the Twittering juror, the one whose use of social media during testimony and jury deliberations produced the repeal, by the Arkansas Supreme Court, of a capital murder conviction and death sentence in Benton County. (The juror also dozed). The cost to the taxpayers will not be insubstantial; likewise, the psychic penalty on the victim’s family, which will have to endure a second trial.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
The stakes are not always so high when digital devices come into unwanted play, but they nonetheless can become quite personal. Consider the a recent festive December night, not a Christmas event but a surprise wedding anniversary party for a couple treasured by more friends than they can count, and more than possibly could be invited. The host and hostess pruned the guest list to 50 couples, anxious and regretful that more could not be bidden. It proved a delightful, heartwarming occasion.
A chill began to set in the following day. Not only the host and hostess but the honorees began hearing terse expressions of hurt feelings by those not invited. It was revealed that one of the guests had Twittered throughout the evening, telling everyone on his roster about the event, the buffet, the bar, the entertainment, the decorations — and naming everyone present he recognized.
Said wife has gone from cooing to crowing. Typically we give one another a “big” Christmas present each year and a few smaller ones, and she got her big one early. (I won’t disclose which of the several available cyber-tablets she asked for, but Steve Jobs’ heirs, and his shareholders, are smiling). Figuring she already had guessed, and that it would hardly spoil the season if she received it early, she received it early, and it did anything but spoil the season, for she had indeed guessed, and was rearing to charge it up, fire it up, load it up, send up messages and download movies, TV shows, books, pictures of the grands, what have you. I didn’t even wrap it before I gave it to her and still I was her hero.
The same tableau played out two years ago when I gave her (and me, on some kind of two-fer deal) a smart phone (Jobs, again) a few days prior to Christmas. Might as well have given her a new Mercedes, so delighted was she. Earlier this year a digital reading device (books, magazines) joined her cyber-arsenal, along with the expected wireless equipped laptop and a couple other pieces of hardware I can’t identify. Warning: do not come near our home if you are wearing a pacemaker.
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Steve Barnes is a native of Pne Bluff.