Apparently, there’s this episode on The IT Crowd where Jen has to make a presentation to the rest of the company, so Moss and Roy give her a box and tell her it’s The Internet. When she makes her presentation, Moss and Roy are surprised that nobody is laughing. Turns out everyone else thinks the box really is The Internet.

I haven’t actually watched this episode. I started watching IT Crowd the same time I started watching Big Bang Theory, but I didn’t get into the former. Actually, I didn’t get the former, though both were recommended by my baby brother.

Here’s the thing. IT Crowd is hilarious to those who understand it. But me, I’m like the people in Jen’s presentation. The jokes aren’t jokes. They’re real life. So each time some Support guy giggles over questions that are asked, I frown in puzzlement and say,

‘You know, I asked that once.’

And I still don’t get how you can fix machines by turning them off and on again. It works, I’ve seen it work, but still!

I’ve always wanted to be a geek. I think they’re hot. I get super excited to hear geekinese. It’s not so much the language – it’s more the way they light up. Geeks are often socially awkward. They may not be the stereotype nerds, but they sit quietly as you talk about – oh … I don’t know … Britney Spears? But the second you mention gigs, bits, and apple, they’re like a jock at a soccer match. It’s adorable.

I’ve always wanted to understand what they say when they start with the geekspeak, but I’m content to watch their eyes dancing. Plus, geeks are really good in bed. At least the ones I’ve had were.

That aside, I try to be a she-geek. It’s hard because I’m slow with these things. I’ll see a geek do something cool and get him to explain it – in English. But they can’t really do that because what’s obvious to them isn’t obvious to me. I once tried to get a buddy to show me how to get my comp to stop making strange noises. We were on G-talk, and the conversation went something like this.

Him: Have you checked the oiuoijoiypiu?

Me: oiuoijoiypiu?

Him: Yes. It’s the one that runs the rtftretrd on the trdtdtrs.

Me: trdtdtrs?

Him: You don’t know? Okay look, why don’t you click on the polkpokpoi and see if theutuytiuyr is working?

Me: theutuytiuyr?

Him: Yes, it’s the little blue button next to the i87887987.

Me: i87887987?

Him: I’m going to bed.

[One day, I shall find my very own geeky love who finds my blondeness cute.]

Thing is … I pick up on things fairly fast, so if the geek is patient enough to teach me, I’ll be doing it like a boss. Then the next time a pal gets stuck on their machine, I will casually throw around the iuyhpyu and the 7yiuhliuy8 and they will think I’m some kind of binary genius. I have friends who think I’m a whizz with computers. Poor suckers.

I remember explaining Twitter to a pal once. A week before, we’d both been n00bs [aw crud, it doesn’t work on Georgia. Meh.] But after Sessions with Geeks, I explained my lessons to my pal using big words like aggregator, client, and url shortener. I could see his  jaw drop miles away.

I often call myself the Queen of Technobofia, because I’m aware of the gaffes that I’ve made. I especially feel that way when my computer won’t go on. I call my baby brother wailing, he comes over, touches the machine, and it wakes up. I still insist he has traces of Micah Sanders in his blood.

There are things I can do for myself. I can post links, images, and youtube videos. I can explain why wordpress is better than blogger [though I really don’t get tumblr]. And I put some cheeky text into my comments thingie – though I really can’t remember how I did it. It had something to do with code, xml editors,  and Google. I have no idea what any of those are. Except for Google. Still, I’m far from pulling stunts like this. This would be so cool.

Anyway, this morning, I bumped into this story. A geek had his laptop stolen, so he accessed it remotely, found an embarassing video of the thief, and posted it on youtube.

First off, the video wasn’t all that embarassing. Compared to me, the guy dances quite well. Second, I wondered if it was a hoax. Can you actually get onto someone’s computer and pick off videos and files? Really? I posted the question on Twitter and got zero response.

[People on Twitter are interesting. Sometimes, I’ll post a trivial question and get 10 responses in five seconds. Other times, I’ll post something importnat and hear … pindrop. I wonder what the criteria is.]

I wondered if someone could access my machine. There’s a lot of stuff on here that I wouldn’t want on youtube. I also wondered about wireless safety. People always say it doesn’t work, but I wonder what you can do with it. I mean … if someone breaks your password, they can use internet without paying. That’s the worst they can do … right? They can’t get my details and access my house keys … right?

You’re probably wondering why I’m so worried. It’s not that my laptop is stolen or anything, but it’s had at least five previous owners, and I’m concerned that one of them might be watching while I type. Creeeeeepy.

I went a-googling but I couldn’t find any explanations in English. All I got was:

‘Remote acess is a yguygouyu that lets you iuihj8uihu9 in the computer that is oiuoiup98uoiu;o.’ Ai!

In the end, I ran into this story and this story. They both explained – in English – exactly how remote access works. Yay! It turns out you have to pre-install it onto your machine.

Buuuuuut … since my machine has previous owners, they could have installed it long before me. And I’m still shaken about the IT guy who remotely [and un-ask-ed-ly] put porn on my office desktop. It had sound and everything … and I didn’t have my headphones! Luckily, I was alone when I opened the machine. Man!!

 

So, the point of this post is to wonder aloud. What exactly can a spurned geek do – and more to the point, what does he not have access. I’ve written once before about how easy it is to cause cyber havoc via chat, but knowing someone can get on my laptop and turn on my webcam is a whole nother story. I wonder if The Net and stuff like that is as far from the truth as we think…