The term “geek” has a negative connotation sometimes, but that is unfair, there are hero geeks as well as trolls and hackers, and one of them came to our rescue this morning after a hacker in France got hold of my bank login and password – he either entered my computer or Maria’s or some other computer with this information. The break-in effort triggered alarms at the bank – they shut down all access to my business bank account –  and after some confusion and alarm yesterday, I called Stored Tech a computer security and systems firm in Glens Falls, N.Y. and hero geek Rob Barrett came running to the rescue early this morning.

The John Wayne era is America is long dead, hero geeks come rushing to the rushing via remote computer sharing systems, Rob took control of my Mac this morning from his office an hour a way as I watched in fascination and he went whizzing through it, repairing permissions, finding disorganization, scouring every file and e-mail message for malware (malicious software), viruses, damaged or corrupted files. There was nothing  bad in my computer, not even a bad piece of e-mail – Rob says when there is trouble with Macs, it is almost always through  e-mail.

Rob is a geek and has the storied geek personality (remember I wrote a book on Geeks, appropriately called “Geeks” ) – focused, professional, (he has six Apple computers at home)  more or less tolerant of the clueless and amazingly knowledgeable and confident, it felt wonderful to have him rocketing around in the computer looking for villains and trolls, it was kind of exciting to watch. We got along, he was fun to work with once he understood I was autistic. (“I don’t want to tell anybody else how to set up their computer,” he said, but….”). I was happy to hear his suggestions, they were great.

There are heroes still, they just don’t ride in horses wearing white hats. Rob installed various software that would block any hackers at the gate, alert him at his computer if any damaged or dangerous files entered the computer and slipped past me, and put monitoring software to guard my e-mail. No system is fail proof, but I wouldn’t want to try and get into this one. There are all kinds of different protections running around the clock now, whether I am on the computer or not, and while he was whizzing through, he repaired about 1,000 obscure permissions and programs that were damaged – I didn’t even know what they were.

We live in a tense and different kind of world. I was actually feeling sympathy for the bank, vaults and guards don’t do much good in the modern world, villains can be anywhere, coming at any time. I have been on the Internet almost from the beginning, and I am not paranoid about it, or fearful of it, there are many worse dangers in Washington,  it has been a challenging but creative and satisfying experience for me from the beginning. No one has ever harmed me online, except for some of the angry furies in the animal world, outraged over one thing or another.

But reality and change go hand in hand, the blog is my work, the computer my livelihood, I get messages, mail and images from all over the earth, sometimes thousands each day. My blog ought to be protected, and so should the many people who come and read it all day. If you watched Rob work, you would feel as safe as I do now, as safe as one can feel. I’ve signed a long-term contract, he is a partner in the enterprise now, and I have to say I will feel a lot easier knowing he is out there, he will know if there is trouble before I do.

If my French hacker tries to return, he will get more than he bargained for. We are protected.

I prepared him for Maria, a true technophobe, I said you will miss me in a few minutes, and when Maria tried to give him her Apple Store password instead of her computer password, I took the dogs for a walk. They’ll work it out.

Rob is finished with my computer, he is going to work on Maria’s, poor geek. I told him he has to come visit the farm, he said he would. I’ve learned in life that there are times when you need help, and that there is help if you are open to it. Another bit of trouble that was meant to be, that helped me navigate the world in a saner way. Here’s to the hero geeks, the John Wayne’s of our world, they still exist, riding software instead of big horses.

Welcome to my world, Rob.