＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:https://skawa68.com/
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
1. My first encounter with a computer and programs was in 1979
The first time I saw a personal computer was in 1979 when I was transferred to the office administration department at the head office. It was an IBM desktop personal computer, and the system personnel were simply inputting “commands” (instructions) in programming language, such as “Query ・・・・” and other “questions that specify conditions,” and “extracting” from the “database” those that met the conditions! .
At that time, I still remember the image of a system development staff member going through hundreds of pages of “system program books” (detailed program specifications), desperately searching for ‘bugs’ (originally meaning “bugs,” but here it means “errors in programs”) that caused system errors. I still have an impression of him.
It is amazing that a pianist or violinist can play many classical pieces by heart, or that a chess or Go master can remember the exact details of past games, but I also remember marveling at the system developer who graduated from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and created this huge “system program” all by himself!
2. I started using computers at work in 1989
I myself started using a personal computer at work in 1989, and the storage medium (recording media) used was the floppy 8-inch floppy disk invented by Dr. Yoshiro Nakamatsu, aka “Dr. Nakamatsu(「ドクター中松」)”. Later, we moved on to smaller hard floppy disks, and then to CD-RW and USB memory devices. At that time, it was still shared, not one per person.
Subsequently, one computer was assigned to each person in the company, and “paperless” and “Web-based decision-making” progressed, making it impossible to work without a computer.
3. I started using a computer at home in 1998 (Windows 98)
Around 1995, the “Internet” gradually began to spread, and the era of “one computer per household” began. Soon, along with the rapid spread of the Internet, the era of “multiple PCs per family” or “one PC per person” also began. The Internet penetration rate in Japan has increased 21-fold in 10 years, from 3.3% in 1996 to 70.8% in 2005.
4. The threat of computer viruses
Along with this, a number of troubling issues have arisen. The first of these is the threat of “computer viruses.
One of my company’s computers also received a fake email that looked like an informational email about “flu vaccinations.” There was a risk that anyone who opened the attachment would become infected with a virus, so the systems department, upon detecting the abnormality, immediately issued an “emergency instruction” to everyone not to open attachments.
Also, a female part-time staff member was looking at the real Kyoto City Aquarium homepage when she came across an “advertisement” for a “xx% discount campaign.” When she clicked on it, an abnormality occurred on her computer screen, and she immediately had to “procedure to disconnect the company’s LAN cable,” causing a commotion. In the end, the computer became unusable. As you can see, there are methods for slipping viruses into real homepages, so it’s important to be careful.
Since around 2014, there have been a number of incidents of fake e-mails (unsolicited e-mails) being sent under the guise of “absentee notification by courier companies,” and courier companies have announced on their websites that they “do not contact absentees by e-mail at all” and have called for caution.
This also shows that if you click on the URL in the email, a message will appear saying, “We are currently experiencing high volume of traffic. Please wait a while before clicking again,” and that your computer will be infected with a computer virus (a large amount of spam emails will be sent). If you receive an email from a company or individual you do not recognize, you would probably delete it immediately, but you should be careful as it is easy to be fooled by emails pretending to be from delivery companies.
Computer viruses are expected to become more and more sophisticated in the future. Anti-virus software is constantly trying to keep up with new viruses, but it is a constant battle.
If a USB flash drive or other device is infected with a virus, another person’s computer using it will also be infected with a virus, so we should be careful not to use or share anything that is not new.
Other than “viruses,” “malware” (a generic term for malicious software or malicious code created with the intent to operate in an unauthorized and harmful manner, such as “computer viruses” and “worms”) includes “worms.
Famous examples include “Trojan horses,” “spyware,” “ransomware,” and “bots.
5. anti-virus software
Most people have some kind of anti-virus software installed as a countermeasure. I have installed the latest version of “Virus Buster Cloud” from Trend Micro Inc.
ウイルスバスター クラウド ダウンロード3年版★2ヵ月無料延長実施中！★【ダウンロード版だからすぐ届く！すぐ使える！】
VirusBuster Cloud” constantly monitors your computer for virus threats while it is running with a ”real-time scan. In addition, if you set up a “reserved scan” (as a rule of thumb, once a week), you can rest assured that the entire system will always be scanned even if you forget to do so.
In addition to that, I also subscribe to VirusBuster Digital Life Support Premium as a consultation service where I can speak directly with an operator.
ウイルスバスター クラウド + デジタルライフサポートプレミアム ダウンロード3年版★【365日年中無休の充実サポート付きセキュリティ対策ソフト】
When using Internet banking, you may sometimes see a screen for downloading “anti-virus software” recommended by banks, but if you install two anti-virus software programs, they may interfere with or eliminate each other and make your system unstable. Please use only one antivirus software that you feel you can trust.
In addition to “computer viruses,” there are other concerns such as “information leakage” when using the Internet marketplace or Internet banking. What we can do about this is to “not store passwords on the computer” and “change passwords（「パスワード変更」）” on a regular basis. We can only hope for strict information management by market operators and banks that offer Internet banking services.
6. malicious business practices that display fake screens and attempt to induce the purchase of security software
By the way, as a side note, according to an announcement by the National Consumer Affairs Center, there have been a number of malicious business practices recently that attempt to induce users to purchase security software by displaying a fake screen saying that they have been infected with a virus while using the Internet. Between April and September this year, there were 2,135 consultations, 534 more than in the same period last year. Some of them are said to be “scams” that sell “software with no security features at all. Beware, beware.