Pelshval

Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

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Terrorism and poverty

12.03.2017 /

Never mind the definition of terrorism (let alone the definition of poverty). As the Guardian wrote in 2001:

While most people agree that terrorism exists, few can agree on what it is. A recent book discussing attempts by the UN and other international bodies to define terrorism runs to three volumes and 1,866 pages without reaching any firm conclusion.

Let us for this particular exercise say that terrorism is the deliberate taking of civilian (i.e non-combatant) lives for ideological purposes.

Some scholars have come to the conclusion that there is no link between poverty and terrorism. Indeed, there is absolutely no denying that the world’s have-nots far outnumber the haves, and that most have-nots are anything but terrorists. Nor can it be denied that ISIS, to take an example, is headed by a man with a university doctorate. I quote Wikipedia (12/03/2017):

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, contemporaries of al-Baghdadi describe him in his youth as being shy, unimpressive, a religious scholar, and a man who eschewed violence. For more than a decade, until 2004, he lived in a room attached to a small local mosque in Tobchi, a poor neighbourhood on the western fringes of Baghdad, inhabited by both Shia and Sunni Muslims.

With a doctorate, he would at least not have been destitute. Whether he lived in relative poverty because he had no choice, or out of solidarity with the poor, or for tactical reasons must be a matter of speculation, judging from the above cited Wikipedia article.

At any rate he did live in relative poverty and he was detained at Abu Ghraib for 10 months. I have never been to Abu Ghraib, but I have been given to understand that detention there was no tea party.

Have you, dear reader, ever felt that you or somebody you cared for had been subjected to gross injustice? Now if you, as I, enjoy a reasonably comfortable living standard, your anger will probably have abated somewhat after a few days. You would certainly not seriously contemplate terrorism. Those of us who have jobs to tend, and family and loved ones to inspire with hope and love of life, cannot allow our minds to be poisoned by bitterness and hate.

But if even the simplest chores of survival were a minute by minute uphill battle and if any of your loved ones had been killed or tortured, believe me: You would be a potential terrorist. You would perhaps not be willing to kill, but you might be willing to harbour a killers, feed him and refuse to give him away, etc. That would make you an accomplice in terrorism, which in many countries is as serious an offence as active terrorism.

I fear the methods that have been employed in the studies referred to above are seriously flawed.

Poverty alone may not be enough to drive a man or woman off the cliff, and successful terrorist groups (whether white-supremacist or religious) are contingent on having leaders who are moneyed and/or educated and who are probably, more often than not, psychopaths. But the foot soldiers who make up their armies are as much victims as their victims, cf. BBC outline of terrorist groups in Africa:

They are given the feeling that they are a very important person and that martyrdom is something to aspire to – the anger over their deprivation is lowered to a feeling of comfort, to a point where the only thing they aspire to is a collective action.

Whether that action leads to their survival or death doesn’t really matter any more.

 

 

Denialists on the rampage

28.02.2017 /

First, the definitions: A denialist is somebody who plays hymns full blast when the rain keeps pouring down and flood waters rise around his house, or somebody who goes looking for his favourite fishing rod when told his son has raped somebody’s daughter, or somebody who shoots asylum seeking immigrants huddling together at a reception centre because he, not they, flunked out of school.

A denialist calls those of us who have the gall to use – from time to time – the ugly word “sustainable”: conspiracy theorists. He calls us arrogant – and by golly, he may very well be right. Denialists and everything-will-be-just-fine-ists believe that as long as they are investing and being invested in, no questions need be asked. Just turn up the volume, bring in the cake, send up the balloons, and hallelujah, the day is made, who cares about the morrow.

Meanwhile, thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands – millions! – of people across the globe open their eyes every morning to look out upon a parched field with a few blades of yellow grass, or the corrugated iron or flapping canvas of a cramped refugee camp. And the stench! I have trouble forcing myself to imagine the stench of a refugee camp.

At the moment I am listening to a sonata by Schubert. A thing of beauty. I am never hungry, never cold, never lacking. Or rather, almost never lacking. One thing, only, is missing from my life: Confidence. Confidence in the sincere and concerted will of politicians – mine and yours, the business sector – mine and yours, the media – mine and yours, voters – here and there, to make the entire – I repeat entire – world a better place for all, starting with those who lack everything, including those who manage hanging by their teeth, including even those, who, like myself, lack nothing but confidence in people who have power.

There is little hope in sight. The world’s most powerful man has understood, at least, one thing: Unless conditions improve in the poor part of the world there will be hell to pay. I doubt Mr Trump would care unless he feared for himself and maybe his family. Since it is unlikely that fleeing to Mars will be feasible within his lifetime, he is taking his typically decisive steps: Multiplying the arms budget. He seems to be saying “We will beat the shit out of them!” I’m sure he means it.

Mr Trump has reason to fear, without doubt.

It is true that UNDP figures indicate that the total number of destitute people has decreased globally. Vaccination programmes have made headway against fatal disease, and education is somewhat more available than previously, even in poor countries.

However, growing parts of the world are becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, a tendency that will grow exponentially over the next years. And with globalisation – television, internet, etc. –resentment among the have-nots is growing. Yes, it is true that Mr Trump has reason to fear. So do we all.

Mr Trump’s solution, on the other hand, is no more a solution than it was in Vietnam. There is little you can do to beat people whose lives are so miserable that death is preferable.

Cyber…

14.02.2017 /

Some time last week my two most recent posts were highjacked by a hactivist. In other words, this site was subjected to a cyberattack. Let me add, for the record: The message was clear and it was not Russian.

I am reinserting, herewith, the two posts that were destroyed.

Sharks and hyenas

14.02.2017 /

What do you tell your children when they ask you about the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization” or the “Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership”?

Maybe your children are still only toddlers. One day, however, you may have to explain to them not only the meaning of NATO and TTIP, but how you used your democratic rights to support or to not support your country’s adherence to one or the other. One day, the “democratic” world’s parents will have to explain to their children how a “redneck” who refers to international agreements as “dumb” became the world’s most powerful man. I am not sure future generations will be impressed by the replies:

  • (about NATO) “Well you see, first the communists and then the terrorists … “
  • (about TTIP) “We were all sort of one big family, so trading mainly with each other seemed natural.”
  • (about the world’s most powerful man) “We respected democracy.”

Are we, the parents – we who were once children and who now have children who will someday be parents – are we responsible for the acts of NATO, the consequences of TTIP, the stunningly irresponsible acts of the current US president? If we are not, who is?

Yesterday, there were at least 300 thousand demonstrators on the streets of Romania’s towns furiously protesting against corruption. Their votes had not been worth much, but their anger on the streets may just possibly have some effect. After all, in 1258, the English king’s angry subjects managed to restrict his power, forcing him to accept the Provisions of Oxford. True enough, rebellions have most commonly been brutally repressed, but some of them have yielded improvements for posterity.

Can we consider the election of Trump a rebellion of sorts, the result of the disenchantment of impoverished segments of the US population? Not all his voters were traditional “rednecks”, after all. Did not many of them have reason to feel betrayed, forgotten and neglected? Was their vote not a demonstration of resentment? As far as rebellions go, however, I’d say the consequences for posterity of this one seem bleak.

In my country, and probably in most others, people applying for senior executive posts are put through rigorous personality tests. They have to prove their mettle, demonstrating advanced skills and eminent suitability for the job. Not so for the president of the United States, where the voters have no say about NATO and TTIP, but they do get to decide who gets the top job.

I cannot tell you whether I would prefer to be torn to pieces by a shark or by a pack of hyenas. I have no experience of being torn apart and I’m sure I shall do all in my power to keep things that way. But I know for a fact that the US has invaded very many countries, and that the CIA has engaged in innumerable invasive, clandestine and anti-democratic operations all over the world over the past 50 years, operations the country’s own citizens don’t seem to want to know about. In many countries all over the world, there is therefore much seething hatred against the USA.

Hence, for any country, a military and / or trade alliance with the USA is a very serious liability. To put it more succinctly: Iran is far less of a threat to world peace than the USA which, under its current leadership, is even a threat unto itself.

Each country needs to consider its defences, to be sure. Self defence is indeed vital and includes avoiding entering into or sustaining alliances with bellicose expansionist states (even if they are lucrative to powerful segments of the population).

So how about reconsidering our options?

Takk, Ketil Bjørnstad, takk!

14.02.2017 /

Verden som var min var faktisk også min, i hvert fall noe av den. De ytre hendelsene, flyene som datt ned eller ble kapret, Francos død, de fryktelige latinamerikanske diktaturene, Palestina, som jo var et stygt åpent sår den gang som nå, Maos død, fiskerigrensen, Alta-vassdraget, Jimmy Carter, oljen, … alt det delte vi alle.

Men musikken var også min. Den hadde jeg nå for det meste glemt, men jeg har ligget og lest de vel 1000 sidene med ikke minst Ketil Bjørnstads egen musikk på øret. AKPs kulturtyranni gjaldt også for meg, slik det rammet alle som ikke nøyde seg med svensketoppen, samtidig som AKP også bidro stort til en veldig kulturell frodighet.

Ketil Bjørnstad har brakt meg tilbake til noe jeg selv knapt kan huske, mitt liv. Jeg oppdager at jeg har vært så travelt opptatt av å leve at jeg ikke har giddet legge levd liv på minne. Ketil Bjørnstad bringer mye tilbake til meg, samtidig som han minner meg om tanker og observasjoner som også jeg har gjort.

Det er ikke lett å være både menneskekjær og annerledes, å være både innenfor og utenfor, eller rettere sagt hverken det ene eller det andre.

Med fare for å fornærme ham, ville jeg ha ønsket ham velkommen til pelshvalenes rekker, om det ikke var for at pelshvalsamfunnet eksisterte lenge før meg, uavhengig av meg, og vil fortsette å eksistere så lenge det finnes folk på jorda.

Ketil Bjørnstad understreker flere ganger at han ville for mye. Både musikk, poesi og prosa. Han ville tilhøre både sin egen og forgangen tid. Han ville ha trygghet og frihet, havn og det villet havet, urban kultur og isolasjon. Var det for mye forlangt? Innen bokas siste punktum, har det sneket seg inn en mørk undertone: en dyster forsmak på neste bind? Jeget, Ketil Bjørnstad, stikker fingeren i halsen og spyr på nyttårsaften til det neste tiåret.

Jeg tror han vil mye med denne boka, kanskje for mye. Mens jeg leste, kom jeg stadig på “Jag vil tacka livet” av Violeta Para, som jo begikk selvmord, slik Radka Toneff skulle gjøre i 1982. Hans bok er en takk til dem han husker med varme. Siden han ikke har til hensikt å utlevere dem, minner takksigelsene mest om takkekort til bryllupsgjester. Utallige figurer passerer revy som pappfigurer. Men som leser ser jeg dette nettopp som et uttrykk for hans autentisitet: Han skriver om tiden, om seg selv, og han kan ikke la være å si “Takk!”

Dette er derfor ikke – teknisk sett – hans beste bokkomposisjon. Man dras gjennom mer eller mindre interessante hendelser i kronologisk rekkefølge. Men man leser videre, ikke minst fordi – der man minst venter det – slår den store forfatteren her og der gjennom med en aldeles nydelig liten perle begravd i historien.

Jeg vil til slutt understreke at den som skriver Verden som var min på en så ukunstlet måte er intet mindre enn forfatteren av Jæger, noe av det beste som noen gang er skrevet på norsk, slik jeg ser det. Det var komposisjonsteknisk bombe, det!

New year next year?

31.12.2016 /

Looking back, the wonderful 2013 documentary Inequality for all, in which Professor Robert Reich humorously and with endless patience explained a few very basic economic facts about what is absolutely vital for a healthy capitalist society, seems prophetic indeed. Many of the US citizens he interviewed for the film spoke their mind back then, and have presumably cast their votes now.

Those that did not vote for Mr Trump, should have paid better attention when the film was released. Or maybe the US media, as opposed to The Guardian (review), did not inform the US electorate about it?

The non-Trump media scathingly refers to Trump voters as, at best, victims of “populism”. The word populism is generally used in a pejorative sense, but I shall quote a definition I found in Wikipedia today. Interestingly, it is not pejorative.

Populism is a political style of action that mobilizes a large alienated element of population against a government seen as controlled by an out-of-touch closed elite that acts on behalf of its own interests. The underlying ideology of the Populists can be left, right, or middle. Its goal is to unite the uncorrupt and the unsophisticated (the ‘little man’) against the corrupt dominant elites (usually the orthodox politicians) and their camp followers (usually the rich and the intellectuals). It is guided by the belief that political and social goals are best achieved by the direct actions of the masses. Although it comes into being where mainstream political institutions fail to deliver, there is no identifiable economic or social set of conditions that give rise to it, and it is not confined to any particular social class.

On the basis of that definition, I’d say people would do well to vote populist.

However, assuming, as most of us do over here, that Mr Trump is even more corrupt (if possible) than the average US politician, and even less concerned (if possible) with the plight of “der kleine Mann”, I’d say the problem lies not with the voters, but with the fact that his voters actually believed that Mr Trump cared about them. And why did they do that, I ask? My question is rhetorical, of course, because I know the answer, as do you, I hope, so I won’t spell it out.

I too am worried about what havoc the dangerously reckless and ignorant Mr Trump will wreck after 20 January. But above all, it saddens me that far too few have understood the lesson to be learnt from his victory. It is not, repeat – NOT – that the majority of US voters are more fundamentally racist, misogynist and sexist than voters in other countries. Nor are they more stupid and easily duped.

The lesson to be learnt is not really very difficult. The problem is that neither on this side or on your side of the Atlantic do people want to learn it. It hurts. It’s like finding out that Father Christmas is just a fairytale.

I can only repeat: Start by watching Inequality for All, and pay close attention.

We must all hope that as many as possible of us will live to see next year’s New Year.

Encryption when sharing information

21.12.2016 /

This post is indented as a sequel to the previous one, which I believe should apply to everyone. I repeat: If we all look after our digital privacy, as we look after our health, say, we shall be protecting the social scientists and journalists who are sticking their neck out to tell us what we need to know.

This post, however, will be for those who are actually at risk, i.e. the social scientists, journalists and non-violent political activists who provoke the political powers that be.

***

To send a file to somebody else, when you want to be sure that only the intended recipient can read it, you could of course simply password protect it, but passwords can easily be cracked. Besides you would have to send the password, and the message in which you send it could be intercepted.

An alternative is to use 7zip  – which is available to  all major operating systems. With 7zip you can encrypt the file. You would do this if you want to transfer a large file, or several files, via your cloud service. You would still have to convey the password though.

The most commonly used way to protect the privacy of email is with PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). The program PGP itself is not free, but there is a free alternative, based on the so-called OpenPGP standard.

Now if you use an email client that provides PGP support — and yours may very well do so, although you do not know it — you should study its documentation. If not, you should consider changing your email client. 

Wikipedia has an article comparing email clients. Search on the page for PGP and you will find a table that might be useful to you. If you normally only use Webmail, you might consider starting to use a dedicated email program (“email client”).

PGP’s alternative to the issue of passwords is a set of “keys”: One “private key” which only the sender possesses, and one “public key”, which can be published openly on the net yes, on the net! The sender AND the recipient must know each other’s public keys, and this is where your software comes in.

Your software should  be able to generate both keys and store them. It imports and stores also the public keys of people with whom you want to communicate, and keeps track of what messages are to be sent to or received by whom. Finally it should check incoming keys, and encrypt and decrypt as needed.

The hitch is obviously that the recipient must also be using PGP encryption. But PGP has grown pretty universal, cross-platform and is inherent in many application. However, as with all software, new versions tend to be incomprehensible to older ones. (Compatibility issues can often be solved by altering settings.)

Most of us are not yet used to using PGP for email, though, so though it can easily be handled by our email programs, it may take a while before we all catch on.

At any rate, do not be discouraged, because once you have your keys properly stored and have understood how to use them, encrypting your stuff (with the proper software) is not difficult at all!

Encryption

18.12.2016 /

To me, the word “encryption” sounded sinister until very recently, when I realised I’d have to take the consequences of what we are seeing these days. And guess what: digital protection – even encryption – isn’t difficult at all. There are programs that do it all for us. I believe that what I am proposing in this and the following post need not even make a dent in anybody’s wallet.

In view of the medieval state of race relations in the US, and bearing in mind Mr Trump’s penchant for decisive action, I think we should not place too much trust in the rule of law in the US, for instance. It’s a good idea to be prepared.

In general, in a world that is increasingly being governed by individuals who label political opponents as “criminals” or even “terrorists”, we should think of the consequences of such labels, not necessarily for ourselves – at least not yet – but for reasons that I will return to a few paragraphs further down.

Many of our rulers are willing to resort to what we in the west recently (i.e. pre-Snowden) considered “the unthinkable”, to stay in power and, in many cases, to improve their financial leverage.

There is also a rising number of people who are learning the tricks of cybercrime. For all you know, your next-door neighbour might be one of them, in which case he or she may be particularly interested in your WIFI network.

Most of us are not terrorists or criminals, although we might be leftist or Moslem or environmentalist or black or even Mexican. We might, however, be deeply dissatisfied with our rulers, and we might even be organised, say in an activist civil rights group. Organised opposition has always been regarded as a threat, or at least a nuisance, by the powers that be, and is now becoming increasingly risky. In many countries, of course, it has always been deadly dangerous. What’s new is that the number and potency of tools to penetrate people’s private (digital) worlds have grown exponentially over the past years.

What’s new, too, is that year by year, in all countries, law enforcement and secret services are being given wider powers to use these tools. This is quite understandable because, after all, there is a real threat of terrorism, and there is a real and growing threat of serious cybercrime.

Meanwhile, political improvement is contingent on our all understanding as much as possible of what goes on. Some journalists, social scientists and whistle blowers are putting their necks out to protect us by uncovering the crooked acts of cynical rulers and magnates. By doing so, they risk their lives in many countries, and in others, including mine, they risk finding themselves without a job.

We need them. We desperately need them! Only by knowing what is actually going on, by being able to dismiss false rumours, libel and “post-truth” propaganda (see Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year), do we have any chance of improving the world we live in. They – the journalists and social scientists – hopefully know how to protect themselves, but by doing so, they will inevitably seem suspicious: “Why is NN encrypting his stuff? Why is that woman using a VPN server? Are they terrorists?”

Since they are trying to protect us, the least we can do is to try to protect them, in essence by protecting ourselves.

If only to protect our bank account information, password lists, copies of passport and driving licence, intimate letters and pictures etc., we should start thinking about digital personal protection. When we started using email, in my case in the late eighties, it seemed very difficult. We had to put a lot of effort into it. These days, it’s all so easy that kids are social media experts before they can add and subtract. Did we think this was the way it would always be? If so, our thinking was flawed: Sic transit gloria mundi.

Sooner or later, the alternative to using only pen-and-paper may well be to encrypt everything; computers, phone calls, email, social networking – the lot!

Meanwhile, there are a few very basic steps we should take, apart from everything we hear every day (e.g. being wary of links in emails and on websites). The measures cost us a few extra seconds, but then again – let us not forget how very, very much more time-consuming everything was, just ten years ago.

  • Text messaging encryption. Thanks to Edward Snowden, Signal has become quite a hit. It’s so seamless that once you’ve installed it, you won’t notice you are no longer using your phone’s stock SMS app, except that it’s faster and doesn’t hang.
  • Wifi router protection
    Wifi routers must be new enough to yield so-called WPA2 protection (at least).
  • “Anti-virus” software
    You should not rely entirely on Defender, if you are using Windows. There are several excellent and powerful anti-virus protection schemes that are free.
  • VPN (Virtual Private Network)
    If privacy protection is an issue for you — and to my mind it should be, if only for the reasons given above  conceal your IP address.  This is probably one of the most important steps to take if you are a fact-hunting dissident. Many services provide access to VPN servers in various countries, and competition is fierce. Most of the best services are no entirely free, though, or rather, those that are tend to plague you with adds or restrict your bandwidth. On the bright side, most of them now require no technical know-how, just that you press a button. There are numerous lists of “best VPN” services, free and non-free.
  •  
  • Storage on external drives
    Store as little as possible on computers, tablets and smartphones. (Plug in your external drive and move private stuff to it, then remove the external drive at once.) If you don’t use cloud storage, this should do (assuming your computer doesn’t have digital parasites lodged in its entrails, your external hard drive is securely stored and never leaves the house, and the house never burns down).

Cloud storage

Most people use cloud services these days, if only to transfer files. Besides, people are often more or less unwittingly constantly connected to their operating systems’ “Store”, storage spaces, sharing services, etc.and to social services.

  • TLS/SSL protocol
    Respectable cloud storage services use a TLS/SSL protocol for data transfer (HTTPS://). That isn’t much, but better than nothing.
  • Encryption
    Some services encrypt your stuff already before it leaves your computer. They say that you risk nothing and that they have “zero-knowledge” (about you and your stuff). This sort of service is used by companies. But why not do your own encryption before uploading anything to your cloud. with good software, it’s a cinch! So:

     

    • What is good software? Since good encryption depends not on your software, but on the algorithm used by the software, the software you want will depend on whether it is easy to use, can relate to your operating system and serves your needs in other respects. Leading encryption programs all use basically the same algorithms, the best known of which is AES (developed some 20 years ago).
    • Veracrypt is one such (free) cross-platform program (i.e. for Mac, Windows, Linux, but not for mobile systems). I am mentioning it not least as it is the program used in the following link which I am including to demonstrate how very easy it is to encrypt whatever files you want to keep out of any private or public eye: encouraging demonstration

Phones and tablets

Being an open system, Android is more vulnerable to malware attacks than are IOS devices. Over the past two years or so Android has been rocked by some pretty serious security issues, e.g. “Stagefright”. So serious were they, in fact, that phones that come with Marshmellow (or newer) installed are supposedly encrypted by default (!) Yes, you read correctly, by default. In other words, Android is not taking any chance, nor should you, so encrypt!

  • Encryption
    Older phones, with Android versions from Gingerbread up, can optionally be encrypted. Details about how to do this may vary depending on your phone and version, but  this guide gives an idea.
    IOS phones have been encrypted by default for a while. Older phones can also easily be encrypted.

Flash drives

Some people will want to encrypt their entire computer. If so, they will probably have used their operating system’s tools for doing this. (BitLocker on Windows, and FileVault on MACs). Encrypting flash drives is, if anything, all the more important since they tend to get lost or forgotten.

  • The same tools as for computers
    BitLocker (Windows), FleVault (Mac)and, again, Veracrypt, can encrypt flash drives (USB sticks).
    Here is one of many guides.

In my next post I shall touch upon sharing (most importantly by email) with PGP.

 

 

Scylla and Charybdis

05.11.2016 /

My compatriots seem unable to talk about anything else, so great is their dread of waking up on Wednesday to learn that what they consider … – actually, I’d better not say what they consider him – … anyway, that he will turn out to be the world’s most powerful man.

The media here is unequivocal, to my regret, disregarding a whole set of human foibles, one of them being that a human being inevitably tends to consider the bad guy’s counterpart a good guy.

On the other side of the globe, however, the US side, I suspect that apathy has settled in. I wish to send a greeting to fellow humans “over there”, as we used to say back in the 1890s and in the decades between the two world wars, when hordes of my countrymen fled from poverty to the States:

This is your chance, man! Pull up your socks and turn your country around. Start work now! Today! Look beyond Scylla and Charybdis. What you want is an honourable future for your country. Tell them you no longer accept the shame of your country’s universally known human rights record. A country so rich in natural and financial resources, with such wonderful universities! Yet so many destitute people, lousy schools and ignorant citizens. Such appalling treatment of blacks! So much brazen racism! So much narrow-minded, sanctimonious bigotry!

Your system isn’t working, quite simply. It never will. Something’s got to change, or the whole structure will topple. The United States’ resistance to change is almost as pathetic as that of some religious fanatics’ with whom I am sure you don’t want to be compared.

Look to Canada, for instance. If they can do it, so can you. Right?

Digital perdition

05.11.2016 /

You do have your password ready, don’t you?

Do you have more than one email account? Each requires a password, of course. So do your websites, blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts… And your bank account – that goes without saying – each of your bank accounts.

Take comfort, it’s just a matter of time before banks will give up providing online services: too risky. Too many accounts are being hacked, and banks can’t endlessly afford to cover their clients’ losses.

And where is your internet service provider? At a café? You’re in luck then, because you won’t have to remember the very intricate password of a private router. Only, you may be out of luck, because there are a lot of accomplished hackers waiting and watching over open networks, ready to send you a key logger with which to capture the password to your bank accounts. You won’t even notice, most probably, but from then on, your PC will be remote controlled.

True, your cloud service looks after you and sends you reassuring messages: Not to worry, everything you write on your screen will be carefully stored. If you throw a temper tantrum and hurl your device at someone, or if a hacker ruins it, don’t worry, be happy, nothing is lost.

You log in with a password at work, I suppose, and if you make purchases on the Internet, each of them has to be confirmed with a password, two in fact – one to the company from which you are making the purchase, and one for your bank. They’d better not be identical, you know, and they’d better be “strong”. Strong passwords are per definition impossible to remember, non-pronounceable, non-readable and defying all mnemonic tricks, the sort of thing only a sadistic teacher would ask a pupil to memorise.

You probably purchase all your airline and train tickets online. Guess what: You will need passwords each time. And you’d better have a printer ready, because if you don’t you wont be able to access your tickets when you need them, i.e. at the airport – unless of course, you remember the password.

I have to log on to my library every once in a while. It demands not only a password but a user name I never remember. Speaking of user names, one of my electricity suppliers insists on using my long- deleted passport number as my user name and will not allow me to change it. Needless to say, it requires a password too. In fact all my electricity accounts do – I have three of them.

I also have Kindle and iTunes accounts, each requiring passwords, and Goodness knows how many tablets and computers on which to read my Kindle books, all password protected, as is my mobile phone. Mind you I have four phone service accounts – depending on where I am in the world. And I look up words in various dictionaries that require passwords. Many people use Spotify, Netlix and or other streaming services. Guess what they demand: PASSWORDS.

My bicycles are locked with passwords – keys get lost. Believe it or not, I can still get into my car with a key, though.

I haven’t tried dying yet, but I am sure I will need a password to do so. What really worries me, though, is that my poor children will need a password to get rid of my earthly remains.

But hope on the way. On Wednesday, the US will have a new president. Regardless of who that president will be, he or she will probably inaugurate a near password-free era. Unless you are terminally ill or get run over by a reckless driver – you are likely to live to see the lifting of the password tyranny that haunts us all.

Fingerprints on touchscreens will replace passwords, and people will be glad – nay, relieved – to submit their fingerprints and be free of the password tyranny.

If your next president has a pronounced dislike of Russians, Mexicans, homosexuals, leftists, Wikikileakists, rightists, Kurds, Iranians, Moslems or Jews, not to mention critics, universal fingerprinting will be very useful, won’t it.

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