WIKILEAKS

PayPal, whose parent is eBay, says it stopped allowing people to pay for donations to Wikileaks through them from a letter from the US government.  PayPal suspended payments to Wikileaks last week, and has been followed by Visa Europe and Mastercard.  Amazon and Swiss bank PostFinance have also cut ties with Wikileaks. (see more here)

Hackers immediately attacked those whom they see as WikiLeaks enemies.  Among the attacked were MasterCard, Amazon and PayPal causing several corporate Web sites to become unavailable or slow down markedly.Apparently no individual accounts were compromised in any way. (click here for the NY Times article.)

The whole issue is really a can of worms.  People's right to free speech, giving money where they choose to causes they seriously believe in, and issues of jurisdiction become paramount as the world overlaps itself.  When the government is unable to pass a bill to prevent unemployment checks to those who desperately need them, it sets people to wondering about the things theyh do that are not forced to be voted on, just done in the name of security.

According to some people familiar with the State Department leaks, they seem to be rather serious in the negative affect they have on our relations with other countries, many of whom say they will not speak to Americans in the State Department because they can no longer trust that names will not be written down and who knows where they will turn up. Nevertheless, as always in situations like this with whistleblowers, it serves to make everyone aware just how fragile our secrecy and operations are in terms of keeping our laundry, dirty or otherwise, to ourselves.

EXERCISE IN FRUSTRATION

Unable to type since the malware I quarantined kept popping up elsewhere, I ran the over two hour total system scan.  It would find a new object and quarantine it and the computer would work properly for a bit.  Then it would repeat freezing the keyboard and changing the current screen in the process  I cursed in the air with very unladylike curses (having picked them up in several languages here and there over the years).

Eventually, the retrieval method stopped working and the cursing renewed vigorously. (The neighbors might not have known how good it was to have my AC on and windows shut).  I went to my second drive and deleted the whole folder that had been a backup to an old drive a few years ago, one I just never got around to attending just as my closets are full of clothes I no longer wear and my kitchen drawers are full of tools I no longer use.  I figured that I should not only put it in the trash bin, but I also deleted it from the trash bin...hoping never to see any of it again.  Meanwhile I decided to buy the Malware program I had been using free..  I had tried before to pay for it and download it but the malware that was on prevented me from typing the info needed to purchase it.   The program said it accepted several of the cards I held , but only through PayPal in which my account had not been updated to the new expiration date I had neglected to send to PayPal.  This all began to feel as though I was sliding down a banister and picking up lots of splinters in a very sensitive and painful area.

Once I was able to update PayPal, hoping fervently that the malware wouldn't peak-a-boo me again, I managed to successfully handle the update to PayPal but, while I had a reference number, there were no instructions on downloading the malware I had just purchased.  Meanwhile, the computer is working as it should, for several hours. Now I just can't believe it is a problem solved so I sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop.

DIFFICULT SITES TO MANEUVER

There was a time when I used PayPal. When I changed my ISP and my email address changed, I forgot that PayPal had me listed under another address so I was not able to log on. I tried logging in at the old address (as I had at another site) to find where it asks if you have changed your email address and to,please, make the change now, with very clear, specific steps for doing so. At the time, I was in my usual rush and, after finding no way to change my email address, I paid with a credit card and promptly forgot about PayPal.

However, now five months later, I realize that many shopping sites prefer using PayPal and my original reasons for signing up resurfaced. This time I bit the bullet and just went on as a new account. That works for me but I wonder how long it will take for them to clean out their database. Since they are owned by eBay, I presume that it is a very data base.

Finally, after many tries (I would not have persevered had it not been very important to the person for whom I was ordering), I was able to succeed in setting up an account and able to order my item on the spot. There was no explanation of what the difference is in shipping rates. I was guessing that Priority (simply because it costs more) must be faster than First Class. There seemed to be no overnight delivery which I would have preferred. Oh well, I wish the techs or amateurs who make up these sites would try to use them or that there was someplace one could give them some tips on the frustrations customers experience on ordering from some sites, or going through phone mazes that never ask a useful question or list the right category!