Challenge #01559-D098: He's Only One Year Old

My brow furrowed. "You're a thirty-foot-tall robot. How did you order solar panels?"
"Ebay." -- RecklessPrudence

I tutted at him. "You do know you can order them direct from cheaper places, right? And they're more likely to work."

"But those need a drivers licence and I can not get one."

"Show me those sites, please." The screen on his midriff lit up, displaying the sites in question. And they were all questionable sites to begin with. "Rugro... have you been using Bing as your search engine again?"

"How could you tell?"

"These are all phishing scams, my friend. Honestly, I set you up with the best filters in the business..." I activated his keyboard and checked his settings. "And you turned them all off! Why did you turn them all off, Rugro?"

"It would not let me see the sites the search engine found."

"And you conveniently ignored all the 'this site may be selling your data' warnings, didn't you?" I sighed. "Honestly. You either have the browsing safety sense of a five-year-old or my grandmother. Look at this! Virii and malware! Thank goodness your OS is incompatible, but really. Rugro... you should know better."

"They can not steal my identity. I am not alive. I do not have an identity."

"But you do have a credit history and a bank account. They can run rough-shod through that. And what if they make a virus that could hurt you? I'm doing this stuff for your own good, can't you understand that?"

Rugro pondered this while he watched the birds and I restored order in his systems. At length, he said, "You would be very upset if something bad were to happen to me. I do not understand. My algorithms are backed up. I can be in a new body as soon as it is built."

"Your algorithms, yes. And also whatever virii you might have picked up between visits. Virii which, I might add, can attack your backup system. Die of a virus and you might die permanently. Don't back up until I've done a system purge, okay? And no browsing! Not until everything's clean."

Rugro sulked. "But I was going to watch the new episode of Candy Gals."

"Watch it on YouTube."

"They do not have the newest episode."

"Of course not," I finally logged into the backup server. "Because Candy Girls is the front door for some damn efficient data-mining malware that makes that site a fortune. You're practically immortal. You can wait twenty-four hours for the episode to come out on YouTube." Ye gods and little fishes, what a gigantic mess. "Or I could turn off your wifi access until you learn 'safe' from 'dangerous'. Do you want to be in the playpen?"

"Fine," Rugro growled. "I will watch the Yogscast instead."

Relief. "Good robot." I sighed. "Pick a series. This is going to take some time..."

[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / stokkete]

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