Ransomware: [This] is a type of malicious software, or malware, that prevents you from accessing your computer files, systems, or networks and demands you pay a ransom for their return. Ransomware attacks can cause costly disruptions to operations and the loss of critical information and data.1
IRL: An acronym for the phrase “In real life”
I had my first experience with ransomware years ago when I managed to download a corrupted file that locked my computer up, making it impossible to use. While I didn’t know enough to avoid downloading that corrupt file, I did know that I’d be a fool to believe that paying a ransom would actually result in my computer becoming usable again. Why would I trust a person who was willing to forcefully and stealthily disrupt my life for the sake of lining his pockets? Why would I trust a covetous scammer to change his ways once I gave in to his demand for money? The problem is that with my refusal to pay the scammer, I had to completely start over. My only option was to erase my hard drive and install a new operating system on it. This meant that I had to be willing to let maybe a hundred or so documents cease to exist.
So I bit the bullet.
I wiped the hard drive, installed a more secure operating system, and began all over, reminding myself of God’s Sovereignty over all things. And today, I know better. I have a better understanding of where and how ransomware is installed on computers. I have a better understanding of how I can avoid having my life, digital though it be, locked down by a scammer whose main goal is to exercise power over me via the mechanisms of fear and extortion.
Maybe this is why from the onset of COVID-19’s popularization by the media, I didn’t trust what I was being told. The hustle, the con, the scam was too familiar. We were being told that if we did not walk in lock step2 with unconstitutional, authoritarian demands that our everyday lives would remain inaccessible to us and our loved ones.3 If we ever wanted to “get back to normal,” they claimed, we had to practice the ineffective ritual of social distancing,4 refrain from even the most common forms of physical contact with other people,5 isolate ourselves from our pets who might otherwise provide us with companionship and a small dose of dopamine to help keep us from getting depressed while in isolation,6 cover our faces with masks that are, well, useless,7 and be vaccinated by the billionaire son of a eugenicist, a man who also happens to be obsessed with population control.8
We were being told that our lives were being held ransom until we made the payment demanded of us – absolute compliance with unscientific and, in some cases harmful,9 rituals that deny us of our God given freedoms. And up to the present moment, there are many people who are still playing along in this “theatre of the absurd” who have no intention of breaking the fourth wall. They believe that their lives will return to normal if they simply comply, comply, comply. But are they right?
Will we be liberated when we renounce our liberties?
No. Contrary to the opinion of the inadvertently(?) Orwellian dystopians among us, freedom is not slavery. The coronapocalypse will not end if we pay the ransom. Like the hacker who had no intention of restoring my files to me had I paid him the ransom he demanded, con men in the government and the media will only use our compliance to continue to exploit us.
We need to remove the OS, as it were, that made it possible for this ransomware IRL – namely, the media’s mythical portrayal of COVID-19 as the cause of the end of the world – to ever become a means of violating our basic human liberties. We need to “not be conformed to this world, but...transformed by the renewal of [our] mind[s].”10 If the world is selling us panic, then probe the foundations of that panic. Do those foundations exhibit rational coherence? Can those foundations be deduced, even in principle, from the teaching of Scripture? If the answer to those two questions is no, then is there any grounding for the panic?
Starting over is not easy, but it’s necessary.
1 “Scams and Safety,” Federal Bureau of Investigations, https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-scams-and-crimes/ransomware, Accessed July 1st, 2020.
2 See “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development,” Rockefeller Foundation (May, 2010), pp.18-25. Downloadable here – https://thewatchtowers.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Rockefeller-Foundation.pdf.
3 See Villasanta, Arthur. “Coronavirus: US May Never Get Back To 'Normal', Dr. Fauci Warns,” International Business Times, April 6, 2020, https://www.ibtimes.com/coronavirus-us-may-never-get-back-normal-dr-fauci-warns-2953810.
4 See Wood, Patrick. “The Miserable Pseudo-Science Behind Face Masks, Social Distancing And Contact Tracing,” Technocracy News & Trends, June 1, 2020, https://technocracy.news/the-miserable-pseudo-science-behind-face-masks-social-distancing-and-contact-tracing/?fbclid=IwAR1zA4mMFdRmbSpoNwsQQAB9W8D4UcIMoipiZkm7Ol_MSnCA9F_et_wDFtg.
5 See Calicchio, Dom. “Fauci on US after coronavirus: No shaking hands ‘ever again,’” FOX News, April 9,, 2020. https://www.foxnews.com/health/fauci-on-us-after-coronavirus-no-shaking-hands-ever-again.
6 See “If you have pets,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Updated June 28, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/pets.html.
7 See Brosseau, Lisa M., Sietsema, Margaret. “COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data,” Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, April 1, 2020, https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data.
8 See Corbett, James. “Who is Bill Gates?,” The Corbett Report, May 1, 2020, https://www.corbettreport.com/gates/.
9 See Blaylock, Russell. “Blaylock: Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy,” Technocracy News & Trends, May 11, 2020, https://technocracy.news/blaylock-face-masks-pose-serious-risks-to-the-healthy/.
10 Rom 12:2.