I’ve often thought of spam as one of the worst things about the Internet. There’s the fact that a lot of it is done as an attempt to scame people, of course, so I don’t like that. But there’s also the fact that there’s just so much of it. Most of it is, I assume, automated by programs that run without human intervention. So there’s just spam comments and emails being created and either blocked by spam filters or deleted or ignored probably thousands a second or some other more impressive number I can’t imagine. How much energy does that eat up? I assume it’s as bad as NFTs and crap like that. The very fact that we need to have spam filters is a bad, like the internet equivalent of sunscreen protecting us from UV rays, except spam was created by people who are fine with making the world worse. It all saddens me.

I used to have a lot of problem with spam on the site, but judging by last post in my spam tag being from 2012, I thought it was less of a direct issue for the Book of PDR. That has changed. The spammers have dragged me back into their electronic underworld of internet evil.

About a week ago, someone apparently hacked into my website provider thing and used my account to create 500 new email addresses. I assume this was all done by bots and the emails began to pump out spam emails. I knew nothing of this. I am meant to get an email when someone who isn’t me logs into the account, but it didn’t happen. Also, supposedly I was sent an email by the company’s security people saying there was suspicious activity, but I received no such thing. I have to assume the spammers have ways around such things. I learned of all this when suddenly I was not allowed to send emails (though thankfully I can still receive them) and I tried to log into the control panel and I was locked out of that as well. Only when I got through to the support people did I learn what had happened.

So anyway, they let me back into the control panel and I did indeed find that someone had indeed created 500 email addresses using my domains (they were just named by numbers, which means there was a “69@contains2.com” in there, which amused me slightly). Anyway, it took me FIVE HOURS but I did delete all those bastards.

I did eventually determine that there were some logins from Oslo that I did not get an email about. I got an email when I logged in on my phone, and when Marq logged into help me, but not these Oslo occurrences. I doubt the spammers are actually from Oslo, I assume their bots just use it as a base or whatever, but now I have to hate Oslo for at least one calendar year. Sorry, Oslo.

As of this writing I do not have the ability to send email back yet. I hope that is changed soon, but I am aware this could all be worse. I love my website and I hate to see it’s fragile stability threatened by jerks.

Transcript of Rec#000435 19/08/15: My interview with Clint Rojas was more impromptu than the others I’d recorded that day. He happened to come into the store to pick up a set of keys Dante had left for him just as Adam was turning in for the night. Clint was dressed in the cheap clothes I’d noticed he liked to wear as he did his “superhero” patrols, presumably so that if they were damaged it wouldn’t matter. He was carrying his helmet. I will have to do more research on types of helmet in the future, but I would describe it as a shiny metal (iron, perhaps?) bucket-shaped helmet that is intended to cover the whole face of the wearer, with a sort of T-shaped gap in the front for the eyes and mouth. Clint agreed to speak to me with some reticence.

OCTOBER: Is it okay if I record?

CLINT: What for?

OCTOBER: For, um, posterity I guess?

CLINT: But who’s going to listen to it? I don’t want my details on that internet site of yours.

OCTOBER: Oh, that’s fine. I just intend to keep it with my files, for my own future reference. I’m sort of an information hoarder, I guess. Especially when it comes to the paranormal.

CLINT: Y’know, I never cared for the attention your site brought to me. It would be easier to wage my mission against the city’s evil elements if they didn’t know all about… what I was doing all the time.

OCTOBER: If you didn’t want people to know you exist, maybe you shouldn’t have been lifting cars over your head in public. Gets attention.

Anyway, my site was only ever about aggregating the reports from newspapers and stuff. I never wrote anything that wasn’t already out there. Believe me, I know more about you than ever made it online.

CLINT: What do you mean? Like what?

OCTOBER: Well, it wouldn’t exactly prove my point that I can keep my secrets if I gave up all the information that easily. But since it’s about you, sure…

Over the past year you’ve gotten predictable. Your nightly “patrols” generally start over by the piers. Then you scale one of the taller buildings and make your way along the roofs to North Beach. If you haven’t found anything to deal with by then, you take off the helmet and walk back at street level, keeping an eye out. You mix it up from time to time, but that’s the basics.

CLINT: You followed me?

OCTOBER: Didn’t need to. I’ve seen you a couple times, but also I’ve spoken to other people who’ve seen you. Street Sentry sightings usually get some discussion online. You show up on the security cameras at the Worldful building most nights. I… well, I like to use their cams for research.

CLINT: What, you hack into them?

OCTOBER: Not important. The point I was making was that I can be trusted with a recording of this conversation. Right?

CLINT: Whatever. What was this about? The paranormal?

OCTOBER: Your helmet, I guess. It’s the source of your power, right?

(He is silent for almost twenty seconds.)

CLINT: Yeah. I guess it’s obvious. The helmet makes me strong. Fast. Agile. Even smarter, I think.

OCTOBER: How?

CLINT: No idea. I put it on and it’s like… it’s like something courses through my veins. Some kind of ice-cold energy. Charges me up. Clears my head. If I have a headache, when I put it on, it’s gone right away. I feel like I can take on the world.

OCTOBER: Could I try it?

CLINT: No. Oh, no. No.

OCTOBER: Why not?

(Another brief silence)

CLINT: Same reason I wouldn’t hand someone a loaded gun. I feel like it’s my job to keep an eye on this helmet. My duty to make sure it stays safe and nobody uses it for evil. No offence.

OCTOBER: Fair enough. I was just curious about the sensation. Anyway, what do you know about it’s… origins.

(This time he is silent for almost a full minute, while he paces the room.)

CLINT: I don’t know anything about it really. We found a box in the woods–

OCTOBER: We?

CLINT: I mean “I”… I… I found a box.

No, it was we. My brother and I. But leave him out of it. We were in the woods a few years back. We found a box. Looked like a treasure chest almost. No lock. Had a bunch of stuff in it, but the first thing I noticed was the helmet. I put it on right away… it was magic.

I knew immediately: this helmet was meant for me. Like it was given to me by God.

There was other stuff in there. My brother took a sword. One of those ones they have for fencing, I think. But then we heard something. Something big. We ran.

So… no, I don’t know the origin of the helmet.

OCTOBER: And your brother’s sword?

CLINT: Don’t know the origin of that either.

Anyway, I wondered: if God gave me the helmet, then why? What was my destiny that I needed the helmet for?

OCTOBER: And you became the Street Sentry.

CLINT: I didn’t come up with the name. That was you Internet people. But, yes, I decided that the biggest problem in the world is all the chaos and injustice, so a person with power should help with that. I started by helping out people in emergencies when I could.

OCTOBER: Like the fires and car crashes and stuff.

CLINT: There was a flood during that first year too. And I helped out during a blizzard too. Wearing the helmet, the weather doesn’t bother me as much, that’s another thing it does.

OCTOBER: Pretty good.

CLINT: Yeah. (Another moment of silence)

I didn’t want to make it about fighting. But there are bad people out there. It started with a street gang that called themselves the Downtown Demons. They were just wrecking up the town, you remember I assume. You grew up here. Then LeSauvage and her Syndicate goons noticed me.

These are people who are actively making the world worse for the innocent people who live in it, you know? I always thought, what kind of God would allow bad people like that to ruin lives, and it never make sense. If people do evil, they deserve punishment, but the universe had no interest in making sure they got it from what I saw.

But now I had this helmet from God? So, I had a mission. I can do my part to make it all make sense.

OCTOBER: By punishing the bad guys.

CLINT: Someone has to.

OCTOBER: It makes sense why you’re training with Dante. From what I’ve gathered he loves the idea of punishing the bad guys.

CLINT: He’s a bit more extreme than me.

OCTOBER: Doesn’t strike me as a “God” type either.

CLINT: Heh. The other day while we were training he said something about how he once knocked out a bunch of Syndicate guys by poisoning a batch of brownies at a funeral then robbed them all. So I said “Poisoned brownies? Is nothing sacred?” He said something like “Nope. Sacredness is just made-up bullshit humans pretend matters, like fashion trends and love.”

Dante can be scary, actually. But he’s super tough. While he’s on our side, I’ll learn a lot from him, I’m sure. For my mission.

OCTOBER: Yeah. Honestly, if Adam didn’t vouch for him, I don’t think I’d want to be in a building with him.

CLINT: Anyway, if you’re looking for information about the paranormal, seems like he’s the guy to ask.

OCTOBER: So I hear.

To the Beekeeper Chronicles