A brown manila envelope from England through Sweden just came in the mail, the contents were disappointing ....

Six days back I went on Amazon and bought a new set of matched-key doorknobs for my home. I installed them and think they're pretty neat, Alexa even congratulated me on the purchase. It is a bit annoying, every time I leave the house now, Alexa says my grip should be firmer on the back door and when using the front door, she nags me about my blood pressure and heartbeat.

A bit annoying but now I can lock my house from anywhere in the world using my iPhone. I even set it to lock/unlock when my car's wifi signals that I'm leaving or entering the driveway.

If someone comes to the door, I can see them and speak with them. It works like a charm but my Echo Dot has started to turn on the stereo automatically and gripes when I come home if she doesn’t like the music I was playing in the car.

I was about to complain to Amazon when the package arrived. Inside were, of all things, printed sheets of paper. I mean, who in the world uses such things anymore? The first packet was stamped “Secret and Classified”. Apparently it was a transcript complete with Date/Timestamp and IP address between several CIA agents.

The CIA agents were arguing about the fingerprint and DNA samples taken from a device using an extended string of letters and numbers to ID it that, strangely enough, looked familiar. It took me a while but I found the string molded as a serial number into the front doorknob I’d just purchased.

The second, separately formatted packet was a discussion between three IRS agents who referenced a discussion by two ‘other’ agency members ID’d by a codename with the same string of letters and numbers (obviously the CIA agents). The IRS agents were laughing at the confusion suffered by the CIA and at the same time arguing between themselves about the images taken by my Samsung Smart TV compared to my doorknob’s images. They also mentioned something about uncooperative transmits between my Alexa and the Samsung audio channels.

The third panel had a hand written note (would you believe in PENCIL? Again, who uses a pencil? My kids don’t even know what a pencil is!) marking it as NSA. The NSA packet was a report confirming the accuracy of the video and audio contacts as verified by the automated night-lights on my electrical outlets and the audio taken by “stationary orbital platform Sb7D5332 from “E7 Window Vibration Acoustics”. The report also commented that there probably is interference issues in the new Amazon chip compliance circuitry with the other agencies.

A fourth and final panel contained a summary of emails circulated between some Google executives in three departments in Siberia, China, Sweden and Canada (again, ‘Google’ was pencil annotated). They discussed the three sets of US agency conversations, reporting their own internal data gathering systems confirmed the sensor communications problems and were deciding whether they should notify the corresponding agencies in China, Afghanistan and Russia about potential problems and the best way to do it.

The package had a very nice letter from the WikiLeaks Staff attached. (Actually typed on an old typewriter! Neat!)

So, I’m returning the doorknobs to Amazon today. Not sure about an excuse for the return but they’re pretty good about refunds after all, the doorknobs aren’t working properly.