the following day he and Mel had gone out to buy one. He installed it on the home computer that Mel rarely touched, but that Ruth often used.
“See,” he said, when they were done transferring files and programs. “Take it out, and there’s the whole computer in a gadget hardly bigger than a deck of cards. Keep it in your purse or your pocket, plug it in a home computer and you’re all set.”
“If confidential information is on it, does that mean no one can find it on the main computer, or even know it’s been there?” Mel asked, thinking of the many times he had read that investigators had seized someone’s computer and found damning information. They had seized computers at his company. His late company, he corrected. It had gone bankrupt two months earlier.
Ryan shook his head. “Not just like that. The computer has a record of the external drive, so searchers would know about it. And the original data is still recoverable, of course.”
Mel would have asked more questions, but Ruth said lunch was ready. As they ate, she asked how the visit with Ryan’s parents had gone.
Penny and Ryan exchanged glances and she ducked her head, played with an olive on her plate and remained silent. Mel watched her with a pang, recalling how she used to play with olives or peas, rolling them around, chasing them, and both he and Ruth had pretended not to notice.
“It was fine,” Ryan said without inflection. “We showed them around the city, they did some sightseeing on their own, then back to JFK and Orlando. I doubt they’ll ever visit New York City again. They don’t like it.”
“They want us to have children,” Penny said in a strained voice. “We said we planned to, just not yet.”
Ruth’s lips tightened, but she did not comment, which Mel thought was commendable. Neither of them liked Ryan’s parents. Too reactionary, too authoritarian, too sanctimonious, they had agreed, adding more and more pejoratives to follow the too until they were both laughing.
“I don’t think any allegation voiced yet has been too screwy for them to swallow,” Ryan said in the same flat tone he had used before. “I can’t imagine how crazy it would have to be before they would draw the line.”
“Some of the teachers are caught up in a kind of madness,” Ruth said in a tight voice. “They listen to the same talk radio, that Bob Fellowes, or television programs all parroting the same message, and just accept whatever is said.” She shook her head and changed the subject.
Those three little scenes, Mel thought, did it. Any one of them alone would have been forgettable, but the three coalesced, merged, and his world changed.
The alarm he had set went off. Ruth would be home in an hour and he planned to have things started for dinner. His confession would have to wait. He exited his word processor, closed the program and shut down the external hard drive which he had named X. He unplugged the X drive, slipped it in his pocket, and plugged in one hardly bigger than a cigar, one he thought of as X2, but was also named X. It held their passwords, email addresses, a few other things, enough to justify its existence. The hard drive Ryan had plugged in was named H, and it backed up the entire computer.
So now he had three external hard drives, Mel reflected, and derisively added, thus I embrace the digital age, better late than never.
He had been the general manager of publications, the official news letters, shareholder reports, and such that were routinely published. With a secretary and several staff members there had been no need for him to learn to use a computer at work, and he had not even attempted to explore it. In the last six months, however, he had come a long way, he thought with satisfaction. He had discovered search engines, blogs, Google, Wikipedia… Very early on, he had decided he needed to hide what he was finding on the Internet and he had bought X, the big second hard drive to save Ruth’s peace of
“See,” he said, when they were done transferring files and programs. “Take it out, and there’s the whole computer in a gadget hardly bigger than a deck of cards. Keep it in your purse or your pocket, plug it in a home computer and you’re all set.”
“If confidential information is on it, does that mean no one can find it on the main computer, or even know it’s been there?” Mel asked, thinking of the many times he had read that investigators had seized someone’s computer and found damning information. They had seized computers at his company. His late company, he corrected. It had gone bankrupt two months earlier.
Ryan shook his head. “Not just like that. The computer has a record of the external drive, so searchers would know about it. And the original data is still recoverable, of course.”
Mel would have asked more questions, but Ruth said lunch was ready. As they ate, she asked how the visit with Ryan’s parents had gone.
Penny and Ryan exchanged glances and she ducked her head, played with an olive on her plate and remained silent. Mel watched her with a pang, recalling how she used to play with olives or peas, rolling them around, chasing them, and both he and Ruth had pretended not to notice.
“It was fine,” Ryan said without inflection. “We showed them around the city, they did some sightseeing on their own, then back to JFK and Orlando. I doubt they’ll ever visit New York City again. They don’t like it.”
“They want us to have children,” Penny said in a strained voice. “We said we planned to, just not yet.”
Ruth’s lips tightened, but she did not comment, which Mel thought was commendable. Neither of them liked Ryan’s parents. Too reactionary, too authoritarian, too sanctimonious, they had agreed, adding more and more pejoratives to follow the too until they were both laughing.
“I don’t think any allegation voiced yet has been too screwy for them to swallow,” Ryan said in the same flat tone he had used before. “I can’t imagine how crazy it would have to be before they would draw the line.”
“Some of the teachers are caught up in a kind of madness,” Ruth said in a tight voice. “They listen to the same talk radio, that Bob Fellowes, or television programs all parroting the same message, and just accept whatever is said.” She shook her head and changed the subject.
Those three little scenes, Mel thought, did it. Any one of them alone would have been forgettable, but the three coalesced, merged, and his world changed.
The alarm he had set went off. Ruth would be home in an hour and he planned to have things started for dinner. His confession would have to wait. He exited his word processor, closed the program and shut down the external hard drive which he had named X. He unplugged the X drive, slipped it in his pocket, and plugged in one hardly bigger than a cigar, one he thought of as X2, but was also named X. It held their passwords, email addresses, a few other things, enough to justify its existence. The hard drive Ryan had plugged in was named H, and it backed up the entire computer.
So now he had three external hard drives, Mel reflected, and derisively added, thus I embrace the digital age, better late than never.
He had been the general manager of publications, the official news letters, shareholder reports, and such that were routinely published. With a secretary and several staff members there had been no need for him to learn to use a computer at work, and he had not even attempted to explore it. In the last six months, however, he had come a long way, he thought with satisfaction. He had discovered search engines, blogs, Google, Wikipedia… Very early on, he had decided he needed to hide what he was finding on the Internet and he had bought X, the big second hard drive to save Ruth’s peace of
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