When I made a little wager that my new friend wouldn’t be able to hack me, I was in for the surprise of my life. But it’s comforting to know that computer whiz Alex Paskie is on the good side, helping safeguard our community from the dangers of unfiltered technology

Photos Meir Haltovsky

Watch your back!

Game on!

This is going to be fun.

I’m still navigating West Side Highway traffic when the first e-mail from Alex Paskie arrives. The challenge is on. Fun takes on an element of tension — my new friend is determined to make the point in a way that words cannot.

A day later: Oh you expected overnight? It’s got to be methodical — like I said you are on guard. Just make sure you’re okay with me taking over your identity! Bank accounts the whole shebang.

This is my fault. I asked for this challenge doubted my new friend’s claim that I am — and most of us are actually — vulnerable to being hacked. It seemed like an intriguing challenge but Alex Paskie isn’t the kind of guy you’d accept a challenge from if you aren’t okay with losing.

The office of BlueSwitch inLower Manhattan the full-service technology and web and software development company Paskie established when he was just 22 reflects the buoyancy and confidence of its young founder. There is a low hum of people at work — answering directing guiding callers. Our discussion which revolves around empowering and equipping our community with the tools to confront technology takes place in Alex’s corner office; he plays with small pieces of motherboard computer innards that cover his desk. BlueSwitch is a company built on providing solutions and as I learn sitting in his attractive office there’s no one better than Alex himself to create solutions for the problems he knows only too well.

Crumbs 

In a community that treasured its wise men, Chacham Ezra Hamway was revered. Among the Jews of Halab (Aleppo), stories of his saintliness and virtue — and most notably his wisdom — are retold. One story perpetuated in several published works tells of the local Arab noble who, sitting down to his daily meal, instructed his wife to make him a Turkish coffee. She tarried. “If the coffee isn’t ready by the time I finish my kaak, you are divorced, you are divorced, you are divorced.” Sure enough, the drink arrived too late, and according to Muslim law, the marriage was terminated.

Eventually, the fellow came to his senses and he regretted the hasty pronouncement, but according to his tradition, it was binding and there seemed to be no recourse. He was advised to go to Chacham Ezra, who listened to the story.

“The kaak you were eating, it didn’t make crumbs?” asked the sage.

“Certainly it did,” replied the Arab.

“Well, then, the coffee was in fact ready before you finished the food, since you didn’t eat up those crumbs on the tablecloth and floor … and therefore the divorce isn’t valid.”

The whimsical tale illustrates a certain astuteness, an ability to look back, to deconstruct and break down a subject to the sum of its parts. Chacham Ezra passed on the talent to his progeny.

The chacham’s son, Albert Hamway, immigrated to America and launched a successful import business. His home, in the heart of the Syrian community in Flatbush, grew to include his married children — and eventually, his beloved grandson Alex Paskie.

With keen foresight, grandfather Albert understood the direction of American commerce, and he perceived that rather than retail or manufacturing, technology was the way to go. He purchased a computer for his precocious 11-year-old grandson; it was 1988, and the device was an old IBM 8086 PC/XP. Little Alex didn’t just see a large machine; he saw a world of possibilities opening before him.