ALL IS WELL
It was a scam phishing e-mail. Fortunately my guy had seen it twice last week on other client’s computers On first read, it looks terrible: we have been on your computer for awhile but our program constantly updates so your antivirus can’t find it (they don’t usually do that). I hacked you through the router you use (I don’t). I have screenshots of all the nasty places you go to and I will publish them far and wide (I’m pretty sure no one I know would do anything but laugh at the tame weezy boring “wild stuff” I visit. You have 48 hours to give me $1500 in bitcoin.
If you get one that is real, one thing specific to your computer will generally be named.
Since this is apparently “going around,” the email address was “nithin-at-scaalex-dot-com” - I found it in my spam folder.
I’ve been expecting something for a long time. I had a right wing stalker who even continued after he got a visit from the FBI about making “terroristic threats” on the internet, but I haven’t heard from him since before the pandemic. Those idiots are out there, and it’s the price one pays for having an interesting and successful life, since they possess neither.
And yes, scam or not, on first read of one of these things, your heart rate will hit 180.
What rock do these cretins crawl out from under. I'm in favor of the broken bone technique, whatever body part is used to try to bring harm to another gets to have every bone in it broken, the long healing process would give ample time to focus the mind, if they have a mind, and even if they don't ,they would tend to shy away from anything that would produce a similar result. A little behavior modification can go a long way.
What struck me is that people of our vintage are often the targets of scams, but I think the vast majority of us would be totally flummoxed over how to pay in bitcoin.