Mayday, Mayday

by Leigh Lundin

TeleType – early texting

It’s May Day, which got me thinking about mayday and codes. How did ‘mayday’ come to be a distress signal? It’s a mispronunciation of the French m’aider, from venez m’aider, “Come to my aid,” or “Come help me.”

So, parents and writers, it’s been a long time since we posted SMS codes and acronyms in use by kids, counter-culture, and people in technology. Some mnemonics have faded into obscurity like ROFL (rolling on floor laughing) and others have been truncated like WTF.

But OMG, a number remain with us (LOL). Some not only predate texting, but at least two, BRB and GA, date back to the days of that early messaging system, the telex. I wouldn't be surprised if Samuel Morse used such abbreviations.

I confess to liking ILYSM and 'bae' (short for bae-bae). Yet, as kids search for ever-more-circumspect communication, codes change rapidly.

You may see ‘Kik’ floating around. It’s not an acronym but a messaging phone app, popular with the young and bad guys because its messages evaporate after reading.

code	meaning…
AF	As ƒ, in context with other words, e.g, “That’s cool as ƒ.”
AFAIK	As far as I know.
bae	Babe, baby.
BMS	Broke my scale, i.e, high marks for looks or deeds.
BRB	Be right back.
cook	Gang-up, dump on someone.
DOC	Drug of choice.
FML	ƒ my life, chagrin.
GA	Go ahead.
HMU	Hit me up, request for phone or message contact.
IDK	I don't know.
ILYSM	I love you so much.
KOTD	Kicks of the day, sneakers.
LMAO	Laughing my ass off.
LOL	Laughing out loud. (still in use)
OMG	Oh my God. (still in use)
OOTD	Outfit of the day.
RN	Right now.
smash	Sexy, want sex.
SO	Shout out, give recognition.
TBH	To be honest.
TBR	To be rude.
TF	WTF? (What) the ƒ?
6	Sex, often used in combination with other codes, e.g, IW26U.
9, CD9	Parent in the room, or PIR. Formerly, POS meant parent over shoulder.

What codes are your kids sending?

RansomWare 3,Recovery

 WARNING  In part 1, we discussed a nasty type of malware (malicious software) called ransomware and in part 2, we recommended preventive steps. In this final article, we explore options in the event your computer is attacked.

Don’t Pay

That’s the advice of most professionals. Besides filling criminal coffers, a better reason leaps out. FireEye Security and technical advisor Alain Marchant estimate only 60% of payees get their computer back intact. BitDefender estimates even dimmer odds, as few as half of those who pay see their files returned. Symantec hasn’t published figures but they’re also not optimistic about the odds of success.

The poor odds of successfully retrieving files has drastically impacted the ‘business’ of extorting stolen files. TeslaCrypt perps have taken two unusual steps.

1. They set up a secretive TOR ‘dark web’ message center to facilitate payment.
2. To prove they can actually decrypt files, they offer to decrypt a small (very small) file of the user’s choice.

Yet, as they try to extract payment, their pages hint at the myriad failures and pitfalls: «If step 2 goes wrong, then attempt this and if that goes wrong then try that and maybe try again in 10-12 hours… which may exceed the allotted time… blah, blah.»

Then consider the matter of who reaps the stunning profits from ransomware. It’s tempting to blame ordinary criminals but in fact, ransomware funds terrorist groups like Daesh/ISIS and al-Qaeda. State-sponsored extortionists include the obvious suspects, China, North Korea, and Russia. Technical authors Gregory Fell and Mike Barlow further accuse Iran and Israel of sponsoring attacks at the expense of the rest of us.

Ransomware is an international problem. The Russian security firm Kapersky Lab was reportedly hit with ransomware and thus turned their attention to addressing the problem. French security consultant Alain Marchant, who goes by the name xépée and cheerfully admits Marchant may not be his real name, has developed a client base of victims ranging from individuals to major companies. Here at home, developers of anti-virus products have trained their sights to the problem.

The Costs

Worldwide, malware sucks more than a half-trillion dollars out of the annual economy. Some target individual countries like Japan (TorLocker) and Russia (Kryptovor), but others are indiscriminate. The US alone loses $100-billion annually.

Cyber crime is lucrative and safe. While one or two man operations bring in as little as $1100-5500 daily, Symantec traced one revenue stream that amounted to $35 000 a day, a number consistent with a study by FireEye Security. At the upper end of the scale, Cisco’s Talos Group calculated the Angler exploit (CryptoWall, TeslaCrypt) each day targets more than 90 000 users, pulling in $100 000… every day.

Losing family photos is one thing, but businesses have lost their files, charities their revenue, hospitals their patient records, government agencies their data, and– in at least three cases– people their lives.^[1],[2]

Practicalities

Acquaintances of ‘Mark’, a victim mentioned in last week’s article, casually recommended caving to demands and paying off, ignoring the odds and consequences. Those acquaintances may be well-heeled and untouched by ordinary concerns like money and terrorist funding, suggesting if one can afford it, why not? Fortunately, Mark had a friend to help see him through the worst of a bad situation.

If you are a victim, only you understand your circumstances or desperation, but treat pay-offs only as an absolute last resort. Be prepared for the worst– your payment may go for naught.

Easy Pickings

Chances are you’ve seen web pages or pop-up windows that claimed your computer has been damaged or compromised and to call ‘Windows’ or ‘MacOS’ where ‘professionals’ for a fee will help you stamp out this insidious nuisance, one they created, although they don’t tell you that.

These are usually simple browser attacks– JavaScript on a web page seizes control of your Edge browser, or Internet Explorer, Safari, Chrome, FireFox, etc. The good news is they’re relatively easy to defeat, although getting out of the situation can puzzle an average user.

In these cases, don’t panic and don’t call the toll-free number the bad guys so thoughtfully provided. You may want to call a friend for technical assistance, but you may be able to solve it yourself.

The key to recovery is killing the script, the little program abusing your browser. You may be able to simply close the page, and if so, job well done.

Another approach is to open the browser Preferences or Options and disable JavaScript. Once JavaScript if paused, you can close the web page at your leisure, alt-ƒ4 or the more nuanced ctl-w for Windows, cmd-w (⌘-w) for the Mac. Unfortunately, FireFox made the decision to remove the option to disable JavaScript, but add-ons like QuickJS, NoScript and Ghostery give users that option. For the Mac, typing command-comma (⌘,) normally brings up preferences, but the malicious script may thwart that move.

What happens if you can’t close the web page and can’t disable JavaScript? You have no choice but to kill the browser and restart with a goal of stamping out the offending window. Use the Macintosh Force Quit (⌘-opt-pwr) or the venerable Windows Task Manager (win-shft-esc). You may be able to right-click on the program icon to close it. When restarting Safari and Edge, use finger dexterity to close the offending window– you may have to force-quit and restart a couple of times to succeed. FireFox is helpful here: They provide a dialogue box asking which pages you want to reopen (or not).

Note that you may have to smack down more than one browser window. At least one exploit deploys two pages using one to reopen the other if it’s closed. Both pages need to be killed.

Trust Issues

As with other ‘exploits’ (short for exploitations in professional parlance), you can (and should) take the preventive measure of downloading an alternative browser to your computer, say Opera, FireFox or Chrome. If a bad script has nailed your Safari or Edge browser, you can fall back on an alternative until you can get help.

The other key step is not to download anything you don’t trust. Don’t fall for messages claiming your Java or Flash or SilverLight player needs to be updated. Be extremely shy of web mail that offers to upgrade Windows 10. The safe way to update is not to click on the helpful button, but to locate the official web sites and manually download any updates yourself. Make certain the URL says java.com, adobe.com, or microsoft.com (with or without the www.) and no variation like javaupdate.com.

In the past, professionals have disdained automatic updates and that’s fine for them. Let them micromanage if they will, but for the average user, I break with my colleagues and suggest automatic updates might prove safer. The reason is that if you already trust a program, then its updates are reasonably safe as well. At worst, you may get a message saying that FireFox must be restarted, although if you don’t restart immediately, the updates will kick in after you quit your current session.

Apple and Microsoft occasionally check for updates. While I approve of the automatic mode, I suggest running the update check one time manually so you know what to look for.

RansomWare

Thus far we’ve discussed the simplest form of ransomware that merely subverts your browser. At present, you’re more likely to encounter web exploits than the really nasty kind that takes over your computer by encrypting files and user programs.

True ransomware programs demand payments ranging from $200 to over $2300 ($475 appears average) in untraceable digital payments, up to tens of thousands of dollars when targeting hospitals, corporations, and crippled city and county governments. There is no single flavor of ransomware. At least half a dozen strains are extant plus offshoots and variants. Each makes up its own rules and demands. Early models sought cash transfers via Western Union and later Ukash, MoneyPak, and PayPal My Cash, but nearly all now demand payment in anonymous digital money– BitCoin.

The other characteristic found in most ransomware is the imposition of a deadline, after which the bad guys state they’ll refuse to restore your files altogether and at least one variant claims it will permanently ruin your hard drives, not merely beyond recovery but beyond formatting (a highly dubious claim).

The time limit serves one primary purpose, to apply pressure and rattle the victim, to preclude the user from thinking his way out of the dilemma. A time limit makes it difficult to gather information, tools, and help. The target may not have sufficient opportunity to order recovery tools or a second drive to work from or a create a bootable disc.

Besides your backup, you will need a reinstallation disc. These days, few computers come with installation DVDs. Some computers feature a bootable partition that contain tools and recovery programs. In other cases, you must download a so-called ISO file from the internet to burn to an optical drive (Blu-Ray DVD, etc)– but you can’t safely do that from your compromised system– you either need to boot from a trusted drive or ask someone to download a recovery ‘disc image’ for you.

As far as the threat to permanently wreck a hard drive, it’s hypothetically possible but unlikely. Black hats may alter your boot tracks or drivers, but those can be repaired with a disc formatting program. In the unlikely case that bad guys were to zap your drive’s firmware, they’d have to strike after the time limit they imposed. Long before then, an aware user should have powered down his computer.

Demanding Money with Menaces

British use the term “demanding money with menaces” regarding blackmail, extortion, and kidnapping for ransom. The threat of ransomware is clear: If you don’t pay, you lose your files. But if you do pay, you may still lose your files. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, the track record is not good.

Beyond the substantial risk a victim will never see his files after payment, there are sound reasons for not paying or attempting to communicate in any way. The victimized may inadvertently expose more information than realized such as passwords and bank account information. My colleague Thrush says paying or trying to reach out tells the bad guys “they have a live fish on their line.”

If a victim attempts to reach his bank on-line, an infected computer can forward passwords and account information to the miscreants. Because the bad guys have control of their subject’s computer, they may be able to extract injurious information. A wise solution is to quickly disconnect from the internet to interrupt the outflow of information.

One-Way Communication

Security consultant Alain Marchant says about 12½% of victims opt to pay, but less than ⅗ of those cases see the return of their files even after payment. He suspects the percentage may be considerably worse because of under-reporting.

Marchant’s stats are highly consistent with FireEye reports. He attributes failures to restore hostage files to a number of factors.

• There may be no hidden server that can unlock the files. The victim has only the criminal’s word such a server exists. Maintaining servers exposes the bad guys to risks they may not be willing to take.
  
• Perpetrators may simply not bother. A one-man operation can easily bring in a minimum of thousands of dollars (or euros or pounds) a day, millions a year without lifting a mouse-finger. An extortionist whose biggest problem is hiding money from authorities may feel no obligation to release hostage files.
  
• Hidden servers, if existing at all, may be taken down by its ISP, by government raid, by weather, by a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, by power failure or other outage, or by the bad guys themselves to evade detection. Perpetrators, particularly those on the move, may rely on laptops that are on-line only for brief periods. A perpetrator who can’t connect can’t repair the damage.
  
• Because of a restricted ability to test malware, perpetrators’ programs may be bug-ridden and unable to recover the data. FireEye reports that files encrypted and then decrypted by TeslaCrypt turn out corrupted.
  
• Perpetrators may not have the sharpest grasp of time zones, which may cause a premature trashing. Problems are exacerbated within one time zone of the Greenwich meridian and worldwide during daylight savings time changes. Ransomware does not take into account weekends, holidays, and banking hours.
  
• Perpetrators may not have the sharpest grasp of exchange rates. For example, a ransom page may demand $300, but with worldwide reach, may receive $300 Canadian instead of US dollars and therefore not release the files.
  
• Victims’ machines may be knocked off-line by the same problems above that affect perpetrators’ servers.
  
• Victims’ drives may be so badly damaged, that recovery becomes impossible. Moreover, perpetrators may encrypt the very keys or tokens victims need to communicate with their bank.
  
• Victims usually don’t possess a clear understanding of bitcoins. Some attacks require users to install modified TOR browsers to arrange payments. While these measures help perpetrators hide from authorities, victims lose time and possibly their files while trying to figure out the process.
• Victims’ anti-virus software may belatedly catch and delete the ransomware program making recovery impossible.
• Multiple malware infections may collectively interfere with each other. Victims may inadvertently exacerbate the problem by researching malware on the internet, triggering secondary infections that make recovery impossible.
  
• Victim’s computers may reinfect themselves as drives are brought on-line.

Recovery

Clearly the odds of recovery are better with anti-ransomware programs, assuming data hasn’t been deliberately damaged beyond encryption. If at all possible, create and work from an external drive. You may find better success removing the computer’s hard drive and hooking it up to a clean computer. The idea is to keep the virus dormant while attempting to remove it and correct the damaged files.

At the end of the countdown period (typically 72 or 96 hours), some malware strains sabotage the rest of the hard drive, erasing boot tracks and directories. Marchant suggests it might be possible to turn back the clock in a PC BIOS by several hours to extend the period of analysis and recovery. For this to work, the computer must remain disconnected from the internet.

If there is an extant key, it may not reside in a remote server at all but could be buried in your machine. That can help assist programs in decryption.

Following are a few Mac and Windows resources to help in preventing and recovering from ransomware.

Anvi Defender AVG BitDefender BullGuard Cisco Talos ClamAV•ClamXav

FireEye/Fox-IT HitMan Pro Intego VirusBarrier Kaspersky Lab MacScan Malwarebytes

McAfee Intel Panda Sophos Anti-Virus Symantec / Norton WinPatrol WebRoot AntiVirus

Be safe out there!

RansomWare 2,Vampires and Zombies

 WARNING  Last week, we discussed a particularly vicious type of virus, one that poses a severe risk to your computer’s contents. It’s called RansomWare and it’s coming to a computer or cell phone near you. This week, we offer specific steps to protect yourself.

To infest and infect, one of the givens of vampires is that they must be invited into one’s home. Dracula and his ilk may mesmerize or seduce, but only when a victim throws open the window can the creature waft in.

Viruses– and more typically a variant called Trojan horses– work the same way. A colleague hands the victim a flash drive, or she (or he) clicks a disguised download button or the attachment of an email. Voilà, she’s unknowingly invited the devil into her life.

Sometimes the effects are relatively minor– they may quietly turn the target into a zombie server, a computer that sends out spam, illicit files, and even malware without the owner’s knowledge. The truly bad infections can suck the lifeblood out of the system. Ransomware falls into this latter category.

Recently, Dale Andrews received an apparent email from Velma with an attachment. Strange… she rarely emails and I knew our secretary hadn’t emailed anything since the beginning of the year. Fortunately Dale didn’t open the attached payload. It may have been nothing more than a Nigerian scam letter… or it could have been considerably worse.

Pleadings

My colleague Thrush keeps enough computers to power Bulgaria, nearby Serbia and Romania. He thinks like a pro; he takes security very seriously.

His friend Mark phoned– he’d been hit with ransomeware. Arriving home in the evening, Mark had sat down at his computer, tired and less than alert. One of his emails raised the spectre of a lawsuit; it included attached court documents.

He downloaded them and… innocently unleashed the wolves. Whatever had been attached, they weren’t pleading papers. A screen popped up… his computer had been encrypted by ransomware, demanding a few hundred dollars to return his goods.

The man immediately detached his computer from his local network (LAN), one that included his backup mechanism and his wife’s computer, which fortunately contained their most critical files. His desktop was done for, but quick action saved their most important files.

Defense

The best protection against malware (malicious software) and ransomware in particular is to prepare your fortress now.

I. Backups

Back up, back up often. I previously mentioned it’s critical to back up to drives or discs that can be detached. The reason is that if your backup drive is on-line when malware strikes, you could lose your backup and everything on it.

A simple strategy used in the early days of computing is to make grandfather-father-son backups: You cycle through your discs (or tapes or other media) reusing your oldest backup each time. This includes one vulnerability in that you may back up defective or damaged files without realizing it. For that reason, archive a backup each month or so. Tuck it in a drawer or bank vault and exclude it from the recycling.

Consider using Blu-Ray discs with write-once technology. Those discs are not only less expensive than rewritable discs, they’re safer in that they cannot be later altered and their life span could last for decades.

The Macintosh includes a backup program called Time Machine. It can operate in manual mode, which is useful for detachable drives. It also offers a continuous mode in which changed files are backed up every hour to an attached drive, the cloud, or a NAS (network area storage) unit. Continuous backing up is great unless ransomware attacks the backup files.

A method of safe continuous backup is possible for desktop computers using these steps:

1. Ensure files you want backed up are either in your public folder or outside your home folder altogether. In other words, make sure items to be backed up are visible beyond the confines of your user folder.

2. 

   W-D My Passport back-up USB drive

   Establish another user account called Backup. If set up properly, it should be able to see the files and folders you want backed up. Keep things pure. Do not use this account to surf, read email, or shop on-line.
3. Attach a back-up drive, cloud storage, or NAS using a password. Only the Backup account should have the passwords readily available. Don’t access these drives from your main user account(s). (Western Digital external drives not only provide good back-up programs, they also allow the drive to be password protected.)
4. Start the back-up program, providing its security services with passwords if needed. Don’t log off the Backup account when returning to the main user account.

While you’re working, the Backup account will quietly save your data. If you are attacked, malware won’t be able to get at the back-up drive. You need only consider this for continuous automatic back-up programs like Time Machine.

II. Modems, Routers, and Firewalls

The Backup account acts as a sort of firewall to seal off back-up drives from the rest of the machine. Chances are your router as well as your computer contain software firewalls. Because of the variety of manufacturers, I won’t attempt to address specifics other than to suggest learning how or seeking help in using them.

With the router, keep open ports to a minimum. Use long passwords for both your modem and your router. Be careful whom you let into your network. Some wireless routers allow ‘guests’ with imposed limitations. If both your router and your guest’s computer, tablet, or phone features a WPS button, you can permit guests to connect without giving out a password.

III. Computer Settings

Besides judicious sharing and firewall settings, a seemingly minor option offers major potential. By default, both Windows and the Mac don’t display common extensions (.doc, .rtf, .gif, .mp3, .exe, .app, etc.) An invisible extension might look a little prettier, but that extra piece of information might help you save your computer.

Say you get a breezy email purportedly from a friend containing an attachment called FamilyFotos.jpg. You start to open it but, if you’ve activated the showing of extensions, you’ll see the full name is FamilyFotos.jpg.app … uh oh!

Or, say you visit SexyBuns.com, download HunkyGuys.mp4 (yes, I’m talking about you, Jan Barrow Grape of 103 Rodekyl Lane, Armadillo, Tx 78657) and spot that the complete file name is hunkyguys.mp4.exe

These are big clues that those files are not friendly.

Show extensions by visiting Control Panels Files and Folder Options (Windows) or Finder Preferences (Mac) and checking the appropriate box. Now you can have more confidence that LegalPapers.pdf is truly what it claims.

☑ MacOS X show extensions

Use extra caution with .doc and .docx files. Unknown files may contain malicious macros and may even suggest you turn macro support on if it’s not. More recent variants reportedly can leap the divide from MS Word to infecting the rest of your computer.

If you wish to peek at unknown Word files, use WordPad (Windows) or TextEdit (Macintosh) or equivalent text processors that ignore embedded macros. Whenever possible, use .rtf instead of .doc as a far safer alternative.

☒ Windows hide extensions

Email filtering not only keeps annoying mail out of your in-box, but it can also provide a line of defense against malware. Even if you blacklist/whitelist, keep in mind that bad guys may have hijacked a friend’s contacts list and try to spoof their address relying upon your trust.

IV. Too Helpful

Be wary of too-helpful emails and pop-up windows that offer updates to Flash, Silver Light, or Java, and especially shortcut links to your banking web site. If you receive an email supposedly from PayPal, your financial institution, HealthVault, IRS, Social Security, or other site containing personal and financial information, don’t click on any embedded links. Instead, type in the URL address yourself to be assured you’re not accessing a ‘spoof’ site trying to trick personal information from you.

Consider the irony

Notices urging upgrades– usually employing pop-up menus– can serve as fronts for malware. Don’t fall for the false convenience. Be cautious of notices your computers has been infected with a virus. If your browser screen locks up, get help. Don't call the toll-free number on the screen.

Such notices may try to trick you into installing nasty stuff. If you think you might need a newer Flash player or Java component, then hie directly to their web sites and check for download versions.

V. AntiVirus Protection

Obtain a good anti-malware suite, either free (like AVG) or from Kaspersky Lab, Symantec/Norton, BitDefender, Malwarebytes, or WinPatrol. They each take different approaches. BitDefender’s defense works as a sort of vaccine. The free Panda Ransomware Decrypt Tool tries to restore deliberately damaged files.

If at all possible, remove the wounded drive from its computer, or create and boot from an external drive to work on the damaged device. It’s possible the infection has altered the boot sectors of your hard drive. If you’re able to decrypt your damaged files, move them to a safe place and totally reformat the damaged drive.

The Myth of Customer Service

One of the internet ‘memes’ floating around the web speaks of ransomware ‘customer service’. This irresponsible wording is tantamount to insisting a rapist gives good customer service if he doesn’t kill the victim. Even professional developers who should know better use this expression, an indication of naïveté rather than an expert opinion. A paid criminal that restores files only 50-60% of the time does not exhibit good customer service.

More on that next week. In the meantime, avoid zombies, vampires, and malware.

RansomWare 1,The Threat

 WARNING  A particularly vicious type of virus poses a severe risk to your computer’s contents. It’s called RansomWare and it’s coming to a computer or cell phone near you.

Although no longer engaged in software design, I enjoy keeping an eye on technology. RansomWare had risen on my radar as an up-and-coming annoyance, but I hadn’t appreciated the level of threat it’s become.

Virus sophistication has risen from the early cutesy messages to vandalism to zombie-bots… hidden programs that turn your computer into a secret spam server. In the past, viruses were largely preventable and recoverable.

That’s changed. Bad guys have figured out how to monetize infections that can wipe out your photos, movies, letters, tax records, your home and work content. They can obliterate your recorded life.

The viciousness doesn’t stop at the personal level. We know only of attacks made public, but ransomware has assailed small businesses and large, county offices, schools, charities and non-profits.

The criminals behind the scenes have no compunctions. A favorite soft target has been hospitals where lives hang in the balance. Forensic experts believe some of those penetrations were deliberate attacks from the inside. To wit, someone deliberately hand-planted a ransom virus in hospital computers.

Even police agencies have been hit and– to the disgust of many– they paid the ransom. How can criminals be stopped if police dump public money into their coffers? For all anyone knows, the attackers may have been terrorists or state-sponsored Daesh/ISIS or al-Qaeda, China or North Korea, all badly in need of euros and dollars.

Destroying a victim’s computer’s contents can ruin years, even decades of work and study, crucial research and development. RansomWare can devastate careers and ruin lives. It even takes lives, at least three known victims, father-son deaths and a student suicide.

What is RansomWare?

A type of virus or infectious malware, ransomware invades a computer, renames and encrypts your files with mathematical, non-reversible encoding. The malicious program then offers to reverse the damage in exchange for a demand ransom ranging from two- or three-hundred in dollars, euros, pounds sterling, or the equivalent in untraceable bitcoin, into thousands. If the black hats recognize a high-value target like a hospital or government agency, they may demand tens of thousands of dollars. Some programs set a three-day deadline after which they promise to wreck the machine beyond repair.

The ransom virus lingers in the target machine long after the damage is done. Worst of all, victims face a substantial probability that even if they pay the ransom, they won’t get their files back.

At present, the worst of ransomware mainly attacks Windows computers, but Macintosh and Unix/Linux users shouldn’t grow complacent. One Mac malware program contains no mechanism to restore files after payment. Black hats have already breached a major Java component (JBoss) and some ƒ-head will figure out how to devise a devastating Unix-based attack. It takes little more than catching a human in a weak or distracted moment.

W-D My Passport back-up USB drive

Now is the time for all good men and women…

Kindly accept today’s article as a heads-up, a wake-up call to take steps now to deal with this eventuality. Writers among us may be able to glean facts for a fine techno-thriller, but safety comes first. We’ll be discussing

• backup, backup, backup
• computer settings
• modems, routers, firewalls
• virus prevention and ransom software
• pop-up and email software ‘updates’

Back-up

Next week I’ll share more detail but consider immediately buying one or more external drives for backing up your important files:

• Western Digital USB Passport series starts about $45 including Mac and Windows back-up programs.
• Flash drives are conveniently small although speed ratings of larger capacity drives can prove excruciatingly slow. These are convenient if you concentrate on backing up your data rather than your operating system or programs, which you can presumably otherwise recover.
• Safest and cheapest of all, you can toast a permanent copy of your data to a Blu-Ray DVD if you limit your back-up to data only. Prices start around $120 for single-layer 25gig drives and increase for dual, triple, and quad-layer models. Single-sided media cost less than a dollar a disc; dual-layered discs run less than three dollars.

The key factor is to backup weekly or as frequently as your willingness to risk your most recent data allows. Then, once you’ve taken a backup, disconnect that drive from your system so it won’t fall victim to a ransomware infection.

Take an extra moment and visit your Control Panels (Windows) or Finder Preferences (Mac). Change the default setting to show all file-name extensions. I’ll explain why next week, but it may help you catch malware masquerading as innocent files.

Stay safe. See you next week with malware vampires and zombies.

Duping Delight

“He lied for pleasure,” Fuselier said— Supervisory Special Agent Dwayne Fuselier, a clinical psychologist and an FBI investigator.
In this case, he was talking about Eric Harris of Columbine notoriety. But millions of people who aren’t mass murderers also lie for pleasure. They tread beyond compulsive, they go beyond obsessive– they lie for enjoyment, gratification, and amusement.

Psychologist Paul Ekman says lying represents a key characteristic of the psychopathic profile. He calls it ‘duping delight’.

It’s rare for the average person to get to know a criminal mind. I’m not talking about the desperate committer of crimes or those who’ve lost their way, but people who deliberately set out to steal or defraud for no other reason than they wish to.

Oddly enough, most fraudsters I’ve personally known have been disbarred lawyers. Truly. Wait, I’m not picking on lawyers as a class nor am I providing fodder for lawyer jokes– we can do that another time if my friend Dale turns a blind eye. But for unexplained reasons that seem beyond coincidence, the major swindlers I’ve encountered have been former attorneys and one a former judge. They all hail from Florida as well, formerly a haven for con artists and scammers selling underwater parcels of land.

My friend Sharon sent me an Orlando Sentinel article titled “Husband of disbarred attorney sues her, alleging fraud, forgery.” Strange as that sounds, it barely hints at the machinations involved… you’ve got to read the article.

It put me in mind of another lawyer whom I’ll call Dr. Bob Black.

Judge Not Lest… an opinion piece

I met ‘Dr. Black’ at a local college campus. We chatted between breaks. He failed to let on he’d been disbarred, although he mentioned numerous times he’d been a judge. He shared he was raised in financial comfort and had been well educated. His relationship with his parents, especially Bob Sr, sounded complex and later left me wondering about the residual effects.

Black had bought a minor mansion in an Orlando historical district. He’d gutted it and was in the process of slicing its interior into small apartments when the Historical Society called a halt, pointing out that ruining a historical building and establishing multi-family residences in a single-family zone was forbidden. Unfazed, Black put it up for sale, advertising it as partially converted to apartments but possibly not mentioning the legal stumbling blocks.

At the time of his real estate ventures, Bob was also hawking a computer he called the Macintosh XLS. I recognized the machine as an Apple Lisa, the forerunner to the Mac, although Black claimed it was not a Lisa but a super-advanced product that outclassed other computers— especially its price of $10 000, about five times the price of a Mac at the time.

A little research showed he was buying refurbished units from a company in Shreveport, bundling them with freeware and shareware, and offering training worth “thousands of dollars.” As it happened, he was paying less than $40 for adult classes at Winter Park Tech where my friend Geri taught. Geri found herself with more than one of his victims in her classes, including one man whose wife was dying of cancer and was barely holding together emotionally.

The Scheme

Black was buying outdated, refurbished computers for a few hundred dollars, adding freeware (free software) and $40 worth of classes, and then selling them as high-end products to the unsuspecting.

Dr. Black was a snappy dresser. Even at casual gatherings he wore suits, and under his suits he wore sweater vests, not a common sight in Florida.

He liked talking to me, even when I’d call him on some of his shenanigans. When I asked barbed questions, he showed a politely bland face, no anger or irritation at all. I wondered if he masked his feelings or felt nothing at all. Did he choose me just to have one person to talk to?

He claimed to have been a judge, and apparently that was true. The ‘Dr’ part he tacked onto his name– He liked the sound of it. Beyond the connotation of ‘juris’, it had no more meaning than the ‘Dr’ in Dr. Pepper.

Judgment-Proof

Black confided he was ‘judgment-proof’ and explained he maintained real property in his wife’s name and kept all his other assets offshore. The topic of disbarment didn’t disturb him… he simply acted as if he didn’t hear those questions, although once he hinted at a political misunderstanding.

One of his controlling peculiarities was to arrange meetings with clients at odd minutes on the clock, say 9:42 or 10:13. Black claimed he was too tightly scheduled to waste appointments on the half or quarter hour.

His attitude toward ripping off people was entirely incomprehensible to most observers. Black exhibited zero contrition but especially no shame whatsoever. He displayed a bullying arrogance toward anyone he could. He may have fancied himself superior to lesser people; others were merely ants that he righteously stepped on if they got in his way. Bob seemed to typify a sociopath in every sense of the word.

The Detective and the Reporter

A pair of related calls came in on my consulting line. Geri had referred one caller, a former New York City homicide detective who’d been defrauded by Black. The other was from our local WCPX star consumer crusader, Ellen MacFarlane. The detective happened to know Ellen’s mother, a NYC judge, and her sister, a force within the New York Department of Consumer Affairs. They asked me if I would provide technical knowledge for an exposé of Dr. Bob Black.

Ellen suffered from multiple sclerosis, but she was a fighter. I sat in on the interviews, sometimes feeding her questions. Black’s strategy was to answer no question directly. If she asked him about reselling obsolete equipment, he would respond with a rambling discourse on Steve Jobs, Reaganomics, and local gardening regulations. He exhausted the lady, but Ellen managed to air the segment.

The detective wasn’t done. He sued Black and called me as a witness.

We sat waiting for Black in the judge’s chambers. At nearly half-past the hour, the phone rang. The judge put it on speaker phone: A whimpering Black claimed he was deathly ill.

The judge said, “Frankly, Mr. Black, you don’t have much credibility around this court. However, I’ll continue this case if you get a doctor’s note to me within three days.”

Upon my return to court, I bumped into Black. He always acted polite to me and he did so this time, impervious to my cool nod. This time, the parties indicated they were considering a settlement. I wasn’t called to court again so I don’t know what, if any, judgment or restitution was involved.

To say Black was a scoundrel or a rascal is to diminish the impact he had on others. The Yiddish word ‘gonif’ comes close, implying a thief and a cheat.

Most of us would like to leave the world a better place. Besides social currency, reputation is a reflection of future self, the part that remains after we’re gone. We can’t all be great authors, musicians, artists, nurses, and teachers, but we can be good people. People who don’t care are alien to the rest of us.

I’ll bracket this article with “in my opinion,” but Black made a living from cheating people. He could argue he gave naïve people what they asked for (“They should have done their homework”) and what he promised (“So what if I sold them free software and who’s to say the $40 course isn’t worth thousands”).

For all that, my greatest astonishment centered around his lack of shame. I used to attend LegalSIG, a special interest group run by a local law firm concerning matters of business and law. Black would attend, showing no chagrin, no humiliation, not the least discomfort. Most people would not put themselves through such mortification, but Black felt no discomposure. He was internally ‘judgement-proof’ emotionally as well as financially.

Friends asked why ‘Black’ singled me out to talk. Partly, people found it easy to chat with me, even confide, but also I could listen without hating him, which I suspect many of his colleagues and victims must have done. From him, of course, I heard only fragments of his exploits. He never mentioned the word ‘victims’, but hinted those who’d fallen for his schemes were weak-minded. He sometimes suggested when his prey rose up, they were unfairly trying to victimize him for being the more clever.

I can’t read a mind like his, but I began to suspect that if he dealt with emotions at all, he might have felt no wrong. He might even have believed himself entitled, that he had the right to exploit lesser humans, those who could not harm others. If so, I feel sorry for him. But I'll never know for sure.

The Boorn Brothers

Last month, we brought you stories by Abraham Lincoln and Wilkie Collins about actual cases of wrongful conviction that nearly resulted in hangings. As mentioned in the articles, a few critics assumed the Collins novella, The Dead Alive, might have been based upon Lincoln’s own defense as a young lawyer. However, Collins premised his story on another American murder trial that took place in Vermont, 1819-1820.

Boorn Brothers
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I stumbled upon the case in an interesting book published in 1932 by Yale University, Convicting the Innocent. Whatever your views regarding capital punishment, the chapters read like fiction and, apart from footnotes, don’t come off the least bit academic.

Here now is the actual case that Wilkie Collins fictionalized into his own story.

WiTchcraFt

by Leigh Lundin

So Tuesday, friends invited me to celebrate a birthday with dining and a movie. Our birthday girl selected a film applauded at Sundance, a ‘Christian horror’ flick that supposedly “terrified” Stephen King– she chose The Witch.

Critics praised it with adjectives– thought-provoking, visually compelling, deeply unsettling, intelligent, meticulously researched, historically accurate, carefully crafted, detailed, brooding, numinous, magnificent, smart, artful, gut-wrenching, creepy, atmospheric, beautifully crafted– an immense atmosphere, a little gem.

And yet, friends and I literally struggled to stay awake.

Movie audiences often regard films more positively than reviewers, or rather they side with critics who give higher ratings, but are more reluctant to agree when professionals pan movies. Rotten Tomatoes calculated an 89% approval from 160 reviewers. It’s especially beloved by the Satanic Temple, which endorsed The Witch and hosted screenings. Meanwhile, only half of 22 000 audience members liked it.

Stirring the Pot

Is The Crucible still required reading in high school? We not only read Arthur Miller’s play, we studied the history of Salem witch trials. My girlfriend lived a short oxcart ride from Plimoth Plantation, where the story begins. She suggested a tour of Salem and the nearby cemetery with its slate headstones. I entered the movie theatre looking forward to the story and its history.

Puritans were singularly unpleasant people. The English could not abide them; the Puritans could barely tolerate themselves. They detested other brands of Christians. Once, they hanged two Quaker women– as inoffensive humans as ever one might encounter– passers-by in the wrong place at the wrong time. To take them in, the local Indians must have been saints.

The film commences in 1630, ten years after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. For context, the Salem witch trials wouldn’t come until much later, 1692.

Family Portrait

The Witch features surprisingly few Indians… zero, by my count. Instead, the film focuses on one family: husband William, wife Katherine, baby Samuel, Katzenjammer-like twins Mercy and Jonas, coming-of-age son Caleb, and beautiful, ethereal daughter Thomasin. These are the children all parents want.

Caleb follows his father, learning how to build, plant, hunt, and the work that makes a man. Sexual awakenings confuse him. He shares with his older sister a protectiveness toward the baby in the family.

Witch language: Enochian.

The focus soon shifts to gentle Thomasin and the remainder of the story plays out through her eyes. She seems too delicate for hardscrabble pioneering, yet she works uncomplainingly.

The characters are portrayed well enough, although growing to like people only to see them destroyed is always difficult.

Double, Double Toil and Trouble

Plimoth Plantation

What was wrong with the movie?

Our David Dean knows something about Christian horror as evidenced by his novel, The Thirteenth Child. That atmosphere builds, mystifies, intimidates and terrifies. In comparison, The Witch merely disappoints.

To writer-director Robert Eggers’ credit, he didn’t belabor the portrayal of witches, wisely choosing to understate. Unfortunately, his deft hand lacked in other ways. My overwhelming feeling was sadness for a likeable, struggling family unraveling through little fault of their own except, you know, they weren’t Puritan enough. Sadness and boredom… and I usually admire historical detail.

Eggers would have been well-served to study writings of New England horror by H.P. Lovecraft, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft especially turned environment into atmosphere, forged words into weapons, nay, gnashing teeth that rend a reader’s imagination and devour hope.

Cauldron of Crises

The movie’s far bigger problem is a lack of plot. The family leaves the religious colony to homestead on their own. They face calamities in feeding themselves as crops, livestock, and hunting fail, and later, crises of conscience. William represents Job in the New World. If something goes wrong, it must be God’s will.

This isn’t a plot, it’s a premise, a series of vignettes maybe caused by witches, maybe not, barely threaded on the same spool. Worse, it’s an audience waster for anyone other than film students.

In the hands of M. Night Shyamalan, the production would likely feature a darkly intricate plot, more mystery, less ambivalence. Everyone has to start somewhere and this is Robert Eggers’s first film. But time and money are precious, and whereas we ponder the harsh lives of the Puritans, I suspect future generations will wonder why The Witch received an 89% rating.

Wilkie Collins - The Dead Alive

Wilkie Collins, 1853

So often the stories we enjoyed as kids don’t hold up when we reread them as supposedly mature adults. Dale Andrews discussed this in particular about the Hardy Boys and I’ve noted this recently while rereading S. S. Van Dyne.

One of the earliest novels I read in the 4th or 5th grade was a battered copy of The Moonstone, one of the many hundreds of books my family hoarded in case of cultural collapse and literary starvation. At the time, I didn’t know The Moonstone was special, that it was considered the first modern English mystery novel. I simply enjoyed it so much I would remember it for decades.

Its author, Wilkie Collins (1824–1889), is recognized as one of the great authors of the Victorian era, reaching his peak during the 1860s. It was during this decade he published The Woman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866), and The Moonstone (1868). Also during this time his friendship with Charles Dickens grew and developed to the point of collaboration.

Bully

Many of us feel a particular distaste for school bullies, but Collins credits a class tormentor for awakening his creative talent where he “learnt to be amusing on short notice.” When Collins was 14, he appeased his in-residence persecutor with stories. “It was this brute who first awakened in me, his poor little victim, a power of which but for him I might never have been aware. … When I left school, I continued story telling for my own pleasure.”

The Dead Alive
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The Dead Alive
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Today’s The Dead Alive, sometimes called John Jago’s Ghost, features at least one bully and arguably a second. Note Collins’ smooth, modern style. While not as ‘deep’ as his friend Dickens’, Collins’ writing isn’t nearly as dense. Some Victorians require intense mental mastication, but Collins’ words dissolve on the tongue like a well-made pastry.

A few reviewers believe Abraham Lincoln’s Trailor Murder Mystery was answered by this Wilkie Collins’ story. That assessment is likely a mistake. While it’s impossible to determine whether Collins was aware of Lincoln’s case, it’s far more certain Collins based his story on another American case, that of the Boorn Brothers in Vermont. Not only will readers will find the parallels irrefutable, but Collins himself admits such in his afterword.

And now, a tale by Wilkie Collins…

Abe Lincoln's Mystery

Abe Lincoln: rail splitter, a riverboat crewman, an inventor, a country lawyer, a congressman, a poet, a president, the great emancipator… and murder mystery author.

Tomorrow is Presidents Day in celebration of our great presidents, Abraham Lincoln (12^th Feb), George Washington (22^nd Feb), and in some states, Thomas Jefferson (13^th Apr). To honor them, SleuthSayers brings you a murder mystery written by our 16^th president. (Bet you didn’t see that coming.)

We normally picture the lawyerish Lincoln involved in contracts and torts, bailments and agreements, the dry essence of civil law. The man also practised criminal law. He’s particularly recognized for winning what became known as the Almanac Case, in which he looked up the position of the moon in lunar tables to discredit a witness.

Earlier, Lincoln wrote “A Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder” back when he was still a country lawyer. To be candid, it’s not a murder mystery in the expected sense, but based upon an actual 1841 case in which Lincoln defended one of three brothers accused of murder.

His client didn’t pay him, so Honest Abe monetized the experience in a different way… by selling a story about it. Fortunately, he went on to other pursuits and the rest, as they say, is history.

Unlike traditional murder mysteries, the story doesn’t contain the customary dénouement. It’s written as a puzzling happenstance without a true resolution.

Some contend Wilkie Collins’ charming 1873 novella, The Dead Alive (a.k.a John Jago’s Ghost) suggests a solution for Lincoln’s story, but in fact Collins based his tale on another American true crime story known as the Boorn Brothers murder case.

• In April 1846, The Quincy Whig published Lincoln’s story under the title “A Remarkable Case of Arrest for Murder.”
• In March 1952, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine retitled and republished the story as “The Trailor Murder Mystery.”

Now, from the Presidential of the United States…

Florida News

by Leigh Lundin

Tis Febrrruary, the season of hearts and flowers, of birds and bullets and funeral bowers.

Wait! What? Ah, it’s Florida and long past time we caught up with the happenings in the nation’s maddest state.

Till Death Do Us Part

Milton, FL.  You’ve turned thirty and finally found that special someone. What can be more romantic than a marriage and honeymoon in Florida? That’s what a couple planned, a pair who made their living invading homes, kidnapping, robbing, and stealing cars. This darling duo made their way to the Sunshine State where they parted in a blaze of hyperbole… or perhaps a little less. Self-styled Bonnie and Clyde, Brittany Harper and Blake Fitzgerald, eloped on a crime spree from Joplin, Missouri through Tuscaloosa, Alabama, then Perry, Georgia before they ended up in a shootout in the northwest corner of the Florida panhandle. Bonnie survived, Clyde did not.

Don’t Mess With Mom

Hialeah, FL.  Armed carjackers, frustrated when one woman simply drove away, tried to steal another woman’s car with her two children in back. Mom tore one guy out of the driver’s seat, ripped off his face mask, and was about to kick his ass when they sensibly, if belatedly ran off. Notice the lady’s mother-hen strut as if defying them to return.

Everyone Knows It Takes a DeLorean

Pensacola, FL.  Dude in his muscle car hit subsonic speeds and crashed through walls of a tax business and a casket company, the latter a thoughtful touch in case something went dreadfully wrong. The driver told police he was trying to accelerate fast enough to time travel. Methinks he’ll get plenty of time.

Judge Not Lest…

Fort Lauderdale, FL.  Lest ye be judged, according to Matthew, Matthew Destry, circuit judge in Broward County. A character in my story ‘Swamped’ was based on a real judge, albeit an unstable one, not unlike this man of the bench. In Lauderdale, Judge Destry is known for his wild and unusually harsh sentences.

• A defendant was hospitalized at the time because of a suicide attempt. The judge tore up the woman’s plea agreement of one year, and sentenced her to ten years for missing a court date.
• Destry has a reputation for severely punishing defendants who ask for trials rather than seek plea deals. The judge gave a sixty-year sentence to a non-violent felon on parole stopped for a suspended driver’s license, having tinted windows and a loaded magazine (but no gun) found in a car. Sixty years.
• The judge also has a reputation for arbitrary pettiness. Known for starting his day late, he kept staff, witnesses, and lawyers in court until nearly midnight on Halloween, denying families the right to spend the evening with their kids.
• Strangest of all, he allowed one prosecutor to sit on a jury in the same trial his fellow prosecutor was litigating. In most places that’s called a conflict of interest.

Eat Smart at WalMart

Lecanto, FL.  Poor WalMart is unfairly targeted for the weird people who hang out there. Too few stories reach the liberal press about its fine dining opportunities– wine, sushi, rotisserie chicken, and delicious hot cinnamon rolls, all with comfortable seating plus a uniformed chauffeur, courtesy of the Citrus County Sheriff’s Department. That’s what happened when a woman, high on meth and mad with munchies, appropriated a motorized cart and raided the food aisles, scarfing down the good stuff. I trust she chose a lively sauvignon blanc for the sushi.

Tastes Like Chicken

Melbourne, FL.  A burglar managed to elude police, but he couldn’t escape destiny. He stumbled into the quiet cove of an annoyed alligator in the unfortunately named Barefoot Bay Lake. Said burglar is no more.

Dr. No, No, No

Boca Raton, FL.  Professor James Tracy is a Sandy Hook shooting denier, as well as a 9/11 denier and even a JFK assassination skeptic. According to him, it’s all part of an Obama conspiracy, but the sad part has been his harassment of the little victims’ “alleged parents” (in his vernacular). Florida Atlantic University finally had enough and fired him. The conspiracy reached far vaster proportions than the professor imagined– everybody detests him.

Electric Hybrid Vehicle

Crystal River, FL.  Dude got pulled over although he was far below the speed limit… and below the door sill of an SUV and below the “You have to be this tall” signs in theme parks. The little feller was only three, but he handled his big rig better than motorists from Boston, New York, Canfield, Ohio and that Back-to-the-Future musclehead above.

That’s the news from the Sunstroke State.

Flash Fiction– The Gamble

Imagine a game I invite you to play. Here are the rules:

1. You put down $1. Me, nothing.
2. We flip a coin.
3. If you win, you get 50¢ back.
4. If I win, I get your $1 bill.

In a nutshell, I’ve described exactly how lotteries work. Simply substitute ‘the state’ for the first person pronoun and ‘the public’ for the second person ‘you’.

Astonishing, isn’t it? You could make it more accurate by substituting ‘the poor’ for ‘the public’, because that’s the lottery’s primary target.

The lotteries like to tout the advantages. “It allows people to dream for a little while,” says Florida’s own lottery commissioner.” “It pays for education (sorta, kinda)” insists New York’s. “It allows the public to join in a social exercise,” claims a professor.

But for all that, the lottery has one, sole purpose: It’s a cynical tax on the poor. Do politicians honestly believe states implemented lotteries to entertain the masses? Or even benefit their citizens in some way? They’re put in place to shift taxes away from those who don’t want to pay– the wealthy.

A young woman named Cinnamon represents the lotteries’ prime target. Convinced she couldn’t lose, she blew her family’s $800 (or much more depending upon the source) rent and grocery budget buying tickets. I feel sad for the girl, even sadder for her family, victims of the lottery culture.

But she’s got chutzpah. She went on Go Fund Me, where some of us might donate a little to people with serious medical issues. (Consider helping writer Kevin Tipple’s wife Sandi for her cancer treatment.) Our plucky girl Cinnamon wrote this:

Please help me and my family as we have exausted [sic] all of our funds. We spent all of our money on lottery tickets (expecting to win the 1.5 billion) and are now in dire need of cash. With your small donation of at least $1.00, a like, and one share, I’m certain that we will be able to pick ourselves up from the trenches of this lost [sic] and spend another fortune trying to hit it big again! PLEASE, won’t you help a family in need. DONATE NOW.

The rational among us might have expected her to have learned a lesson, but notice the words bolded by me.

As you might imagine, people were scathing, but– surprise– some donated until Go Fund Me took down her donations page. Now she claims it's all a joke, ha-ha. Thing is, I've personally known desperate people who empty their wallet at the local lottery store.

My friends Sharon and Cate, seldom at a loss for words, managed a few choice ones. Inspired by them, this little bit of flash fiction came to mind. Our colleague Vicki Kennedy tells me this form is called a ‘drabble’. Please don’t confuse our fictional Nutmeg with the real Cinnamon whom we prefer to believe is much classier.

The Gamble by Leigh Lundin After the lottery tops a stratospheric billion dollar pot, Nutmeg wagers her family’s rent and grocery money. To her surprise, she loses. Even her car’s repossessed. She visits the local charity, which shoos her out the door. Matters go from bad to worse after she’s arrested for prostitution. Police visit charity officials. “Miss Nutmeg claims you sent her to WalMart to peddle her ass.” “For a job, sir. I told her to pedal her ass to WalMart.”

Shout at the Devil

© DreamsTime

by Leigh Lundin

I’ve been wrestling with a story. I know the plot, I know where I want it to go. But the characters are fighting back and they’re dirty combatants.

The first draft– too funny. Humor is difficult to craft, tricky to get right. Here I’m striving to craft a serious mystery, one with a dark twist ending, and it comes out… amusing, comical. Funny doesn’t work with dark, deathly endings.

If you don’t believe me, check out Shout at the Devil, Wilbur Smith’s novel or Peter Hunt’s movie. Setting: German East Africa. British aristocrat Roger Moore falls in love with Barbara Parkins, daughter of hard-drinking, hard-fighting poacher Lee Marvin. Those two bear a daughter. They enjoy tweaking the noses of the humorless and relentless Germans colonizing Tanganyika. Fun and games. Very droll, slapstick. Then World War I breaks out and the wicked German commander sinks their dhow, burns their house, and his nasty Schutztruppen kills Moore’s and Parkins’ daughter– Lee Marvin’s granddaughter.

Within a page, the story jettisons its humor and turns 270°. The light comedy: gone. In its place: death, destruction, misery, heartbreak, revenge.

No! No! It’s like digging into a lovely dessert and there, under the chantilly lies sauerkraut. Give me cabbage or give me cake, but not both at once, please.

Back to the writing board. Literally from scratch, I start again. The characters behave seriously at first. A woman wronged is designated my protagonist, kind of an anti-heroine. But then a guy steps in and, if you know men, they can’t resist heroically saving a damsel in distress– it’s coded in their DNA. But now it’s interfering with the plot where my anti-heroine is supposed to find her own resolution. Just like a guy, huh?

And then two characters decide to fall in love. That’s a tribulation because guys with their defective DNA can’t get hints. Despite her best efforts at subtlety and suggestions, the lad can’t decide if she’s interested in him or it’s strictly business. He’s petrified she might think sexual harassment, ruining a friendship and career.

While I haven’t started from zero again, I’m negotiating with my characters, wanting my anti-heroine to get through the plot. I’m willing to put the aforementioned relationship on the table and let the oversexed pair have their way with one another, but so far the greedy sods want everything their own way. They’re pretty certain they’ll win.

© Booker Prize