Chronicle the Tenth · The Anti-Counsel

How to Stay Safe Online? You Cannot.

Subjects ask how to stay safe online. Very well. The court has prepared official safety guidance. The royal lawyers insisted on the word "guidance". The guidance follows. It has been tested extensively on the Squire, who survived, in the sense that he is still with us.

Understand first that you cannot be safe online, for the same reason you cannot be dry in the sea. The King accepted this truth centuries ago, on the day the internet followed him home and would not stop screaming. What remains is not safety. What remains is style. Herewith, the royal safety measures, in order of decreasing sanity.

The official royal safety measures

Measure the First: print the internet and lock it in a drawer. A hacker cannot reach paper. The court began printing in 2019. We are 0.0000000041 per cent complete, the east wing is full, and we are out of yellow ink, which means the sunsets of the internet are lost to us. A sacrifice. Security demands sacrifices.

Measure the Second: confuse the algorithms by living an unpredictable life. The machines cannot target what they cannot understand. The King has purchased seventeen left boots. The adverts now show only bewilderment and one extremely hopeful cobbler. Victory.

Measure the Third: answer urgency with geology. When a missive declares itself URGENT, the court replies by carrier snail. Sir Reginald has completed four deliveries since the coronation and misdelivered three of them, which the court considers a form of encryption.

Measure the Fourth: stare at the router until it respects you. Twenty minutes daily, arms folded, crown on. Does it improve security? Unknown. But the router has started blinking apologetically, and in this court we take our tributes where they land.

Measure the Fifth: choose a cloud of good family. If your data must live in a cloud, insist upon a cumulus of noble lineage. The court interviewed several clouds at great expense. All of them turned out to be a warehouse in Slough. The interviews continue.

Measure the Sixth: perfect two-factor authentication. The court's two factors are a horse and a portcullis. To reach the royal accounts one must satisfy both. Nothing has logged in since March, including the King. The learned call this "locked out". The court calls it "impenetrable" and has issued a commemorative coin.

Measure the Seventh: if you suspect a breach, turn the kingdom off and on again. The court performed this once, in the great panic of the spring. It worked, in that the breach ended. It also cost us a Tuesday. The whole Tuesday, subject. The falconer remembers a grey mist and then it was Wednesday, and nobody has been able to tell him different.

Sire, I have reviewed the guidance in full and I wish the record to show that none of this is advice. It is a list of things that have happened to us.

The Fool is correct, and this is the entire point. Advice is boring, subject, and worse, it works, and then you would have no need of your King. Those desperate for the working variety may consult the ten dreary decrees on the front page, which the learned assure me are effective and which have never once made anyone laugh at a feast.

ROYAL SAFETY LEDGER, YEAR OF THE SNAIL [■■■■■■■■■■] Safety achieved ............ CEREMONIALLY [■■■■■■■■■□] Left boots acquired ........ SEVENTEEN [■■■■■■■□□□] Clouds interviewed ......... ALL SLOUGH [□□□□□□□□□□] Tuesdays recovered ......... NONE. GONE.

Stay safe online, subject. You will not, of course. But the wish is traditional, like "good morning", or "this password is temporary". Sir Reginald departs with this chronicle at dawn. Expect it by autumn.