OK, I do have a BS in math and an MS in Computer Science, but that’s from the punch card era.  My son considers himself an expert on all devices electronic since he can follow his teachers’ instructions and successfully post Google Doc assignments online.  In his opinion even more impressive is that he can do a corkscrew spin in a B-29 bomber without damaging the plane and his virtual crew.  So I was surprised when the other day he came to me in a panic because his phone had been hacked.  What?

He said that he knew it because no matter what he did all it does is go through the beginning of the phone’s boot before shutting down.  I doubted it.  First I had to explain that the problem is probably his battery is dead.  Impossible he said since it would start booting, it the battery was dead that couldn’t happen.  I explained that phones and computers in general, have a second, smaller battery, to save BIOS settings when “the battery” dies or in the case of computers they’re powered off.  To prove it I got a new battery and sure enough it didn’t charge either.  I asked what that could possibly mean.  He had no idea other than his phone had been really massively hacked.

I explained that the symptoms would indicate that there was probably a problem between the outlet and the battery contacts.  Of course he was flummoxed as to how to test this.  So first we replaced his charger with the one from my phone—didn’t work, and then we replaced the power cord from my phone—didn’t work either.  I noticed that the cord wiggled around in phone’s connector, so I asked if he had dropped his phone while he had it plugged in and of course he had.  He had apparently broken the contacts in the connector.  A multimeter confirmed this.  Use of a multimeter was another later lesson along with one to teach him the symptoms associated with the loss of an internet connection.

Is it just me?