Exactly—could easily have been much worse, and anyone without at least a little IT knowledge might not have realised. Kind of shows the lengths they’ll go to now, getting employed at targets etc.

My dad l, who worked in tech / IT his whole life (retired now) l, had a problem with his ISP. Called to report it and the next day they called him back, got him to install ‘remote support software’, etc. He eventually saw what they were up to and pulled the plug. Turned out 2 guys at the ISP were selling support tickets to the scammers.

So the expectation was there—who knows how many people they got before they were found.

FTFY

I want to hear the story about the fixer’s mother. She sounds impressive.

I taught my kids our family motto when they were just 6 and 4. “He who puts his nose too hard to the grindstone gets bits of shredded nose in his flour.”

It’s served us all well for many many years.

Back in the 1990s, a colleague and I manage to get the “Performance Enterprise Network Information System” project endorsed and launched across a team of several hundred people. Someone remarked it was a bit of a mouthful. We were very proud.

Children of Ruin paints a glorious picture of the possibilities.