A Library of Alexandria magnified to infinity, the Internet brings the world to a glass monitor small enough to fit in a large suitcase. Wonderful? Of course, and that same flat screen allows us to send e-mails by the dozen, as opposed to snail mail, which is slow and expensive.

 

Talk about a modern-day Garden of Eden!

 

Sadly, our Garden of Eden is incomplete without Serpent. Nattily dressed and smiling like one of those old-time Mississippi riverboat gamblers that just stepped out of a time machine, the hacker fills the void. Actually, said hacker is just as likely to be an unshaven, pot-bellied, techno-goon.

 

We who qualify as Senior Citizens—the most anemic marriage of two words that ever was, but there you are—remember a sepia-toned world where words held meaning; where a message, whether by telephone or encased in an actual envelope, more likely than not meant what it said. But these days if you get a breezy greeting, such as “Hi,( your first name here)” and the message that follows delivers a  get rich-quick scheme, you have just received an unwelcome visitor.

 

Should we emulate Elvis and shatter the glass screen? Of course not!

 

Just be careful.