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30 July 2012 By Saeed Qureshi One of my readers, a devout
Muslim castigated me for deviating from the path of
God and religion and hence according to him, the
nemesis came in the form of my breakdown of internet
system. He sternly advised me to seek Almighty's
forgiveness for my errant conduct. I am not aware if the divine
forces can be so sensitively revengeful against a
humble mortal like me and strike me by ransacking my
internet communication system and making it
dysfunctional. If at all such a vendetta or curse is
to be fallen, it should be doled out to a more
deserving individual whose conduct should be
egregiously repulsive, and unpardonably sinful than
that of mine. I may be a sinner on a very low
or negligible scale but I cannot be equated with a
person for instance Bashar- al-Assad who is
slaughtering his people as if animals in a
slaughterhouse. His nemesis is yet to come. I have
never killed even a sparrow in my life. I have been
helpful to the people in need of a help. And I seldom
offended or harmed anyone by way of harsh tongue or by
a bad deed. I do not claim that I am an ideal or a
moral icon. I am a humble person with least mala-fide
intentions towards anyone. So the pious Muslim who warned me
of the divine wrath because of my deviation from the
religious course might be magnifying or
misunderstanding the concept of the divine
retribution. Or else he is nurturing a bleak or lurid
picture of mine in his mind. Or he was just trying to
use the common ploy of the preachers to frighten me
from the annoyance of God and even hell fire for some
sins that I don't remember I have committed to earn
the internet impasse. All the aforementioned narration
was beside the point. What I wanted to convey is the
cardinal point that in this age of breathtaking
technological leaps, the users who are now addicted
to it, despite its umpteen boons, can also be stung by
it. It is a blessing that can occasionally turns
sinister. As such it has got nothing to do
with the morality or religiosity of a person. The use
or misuse of technology in terms of morality can be
drummed up by only morons or religious fanatics.
Technology and science is neither secular nor
religious. Neither has it any code of ethics nor any
religious faith to follow. In one stroke from an invisible
and canny hand, my several thousand emails went off
the storage, my incoming and outgoing emailing
disabled and I remained without any email linkage for
days together. This landslide started with a weird yet
fake email from the Yahoo that my password has been
changed. It also directed me to respond which I did
and moments later everything on the screen was frozen
with email chunks disappearing like snowflakes. Except me, everyone else on my
list received a weird email detailing my miserable
plight in Spain. It stated that I was totally bereft
of all the belongings and money etc with the SOS call
to the readers to send me the money to bail out from
that traumatic predicament. Some of the caring and distressed
friends and well-wishers wanted to confirm if I had
really gone to Spain overnight because the previous
night we had participated in a Mushaira cum a fund
raising event. They wondered how come I could have
reached Spain in matters of a few hours. Earlier for quite some time I
have been receiving such dubious emails beseeching on
behalf of so many other acquaintances or friends who
stated to be stranded in distant lands. They
described themselves to be in a state of inertia and
misery with no money or even documents to move beyond
where they were stuck up. Being involved in the internet
for ages, I possess a modicum of intelligence or
understanding or sense to decipher such emails. I
would at once understand that these are spams and
money making scams floated by extraordinary clever
individuals or groups that excel in sneaking into or
stealing the confidential information of other
internet users and utilize it with perfect skill and
adroitness to their advantage. However it is not all
reprehensive or doleful. Such dacoity can be
immensely productive and rewarding as demonstrated by
Julian Assange through Wiki Leaks that unraveled the
deeply hidden secrets of intentional deceit, diabolic
politicking and the momentous decision making behind
the thick curtains of secrecy and stone-walling. The irony is that despite
sophistication in technology, the search engines such
as yahoo and Google cannot locate or catch these
exceptional masterminds or unbeatable intelligent
mavericks. They elude the best of tools and minds to
find them and their hideouts. So this odious practice
of farce, fraud and forgeries to cleverly swindle and
rob the gullible and kind hearted with such mind
boggling techniques, would continue unchecked and
unabated. If we cannot over-awe or
out-smart such odious happenings for the time being,
then let us accept this situation as a vicious and
ugly reality and learn to live with it. It would
prevail until a more powerful technology is invented
to browbeat these ingenious spammers, smart hackers
and sharp scam-peddlers. May be my case is a blessing
in disguise and can serve as an eye-opener for others
to escape such a malady. |