Mexico City: Digital Prey, Part 2

My Little Red.

I had it all figured out, didn´t I?

So the universe had other plans.

To wit:

A day or two before I left for Mexico City, my plan was to arm my back-up phone with a cheap data plan from the US just to get a phone number and run a new Google voice number.

Oho, said the universe. Remember "too smart for your own good"?

First: It did not appear easy peasy to get a sim card for a phone that didn´t already have a phone number attached. By that, I mean a cheap pay-as-you-go plan.

Second: While I perused the options at the big box store, I pulled out my backup phone to see if it was compliant with a card that might work, I pressed the power button, and ....... nada. It was dead. Dead dead.

Thus, new plan. Make my life a lot simpler by just taking my main phone. A relief, really.

Now about my Little Red. I tested her two days before I left, the day before I left, and all good.

But now I´m in Mexico City. And what.the.fuck. I switch her on and get a blue screen with the demand that some bullshit bitlocker thing is being prepared. I need to find a bitlocker password for an app that I had never turned on.

I spent a day in Mexico City trying to crack this problem, to no avail. I´m locked out of my laptop.

Damn Microsoft. The very reason I don´t mess with a microsoft email account is that microsoft locks you out of your email at the drop of a hat and there is no way to get anyone´s attention to get back in. Bitlocker is supposed to be a security thing to protect users, but instead it is keeping me out of my own house, using an app I never signed on for.

The guesthouse where I´m staying has three computers I can use, but there are refugees from the caravan here, and my need for a computer does NOT outweigh theirs, so I have found an internet cafe around the corner to use.