I could have done without a fright from TalkTalk, on which I depend for my telephone, internet, links to the outside world, work, income and almost whole life. I don’t like this dependency, but there you are, that’s what life apparently has to be like nowadays – online, everything showing, available to millions of invisible robbers and even more scary than it ever was. I was frightened enough already, more or less permanently, usually hyperventilating and feeling sick and clammy, because I’ve always known that any minute something horrible can happen, and now it has, thank you, TalkTalk.
I used to be frightened of human burglars climbing in the windows in the dead of night, but now they don’t have to break through anything. They’re in here already, emptying my bank account, and stealing my “data”, so that tomorrow, next year, or any time – I can never, ever relax – a pretend M Hanson can rear up and take over the original, and I’ll have been really and truly wiped out.
Panic stations. Now I’m advised to “remain vigilant” because “cybercrime is on the rise”. What hopeless advice. How am I to be “vigilant”? What am I to look out for? Thin air? By the time visible traces of robbery pop up in my statement, it will be too late. I couldn’t change my password, the website was closed temporarily, and Talk Talk won’t let me leave. It will only “consider [my] request”, which I think is a tiny bit saucy, seeing as they got me into this mess in the first place.
“You are catastrophising again,” says Fielding. “And you’re paranoid. They’re not after you. You’re only a little person. If they wanted to, they could get everyone on earth’s money, homes and identities. We could all lose everything, even ourselves, and be out on the street. They can spy on you, see everything about you, and they can wreck the world, blah blah ...”
Now who’s catastrophising? Anyway, everything’s calmed down a bit. They can’t clean out my bank account (whoever “they” are) using the stolen details alone, says TalkTalk. So that’s all right then.
