NOT ENOUGH SECURITY

We are exhorted in endless ways to be security conscious, are we not? ...YES WE ARE.

Don't do this, don't answer that, we won't  phone you, we shall never ask you anything personal etc. etc.

I received a phone call. The guy asked for me by my surname, introduced himself with a first name and told me he was phoning about an issue I had raised about [nameless] bank. So that we could discuss the matter he would first need to go through security with me; so saying, he launched into the first (and last) personal question .

Giving me a first name was not sufficient for me, though he evidently thought it was.

No, he couldn't tell me anything more without going through security with me. And, if I was refusing to clear security with him then he could not give me any information.

One sided security here, ringing all the alarm bells. If  the call was being recorded, I wanted it to be recorded that this call was unsatisfactory. Like a good girl, I was keeping to the security rules and keeping mine safe. Surely, for his part to confirm his status to me, information could be given about when the issue was raised at least and perhaps who may have dealt with any call relating to it. (Those were my questions).

The answer: you've probably guessed it - not without me going through the [ bank's] security, with which, given the nature of the call, I was not going to oblige. Obviously tetchy, he said, in that case he would have to write to me.

I offered to phone him. Yes, I could have a number to call him on but, (there's always a but isn't there) " I am between two floors and you might not get me."
  
I await a letter.

WRIGGLE OUT OF OWNING THE JEANS - IMPOSSIBLE!

If you're going to be a 'fixer' for cash - and not that much either - then you definitely have to make sure you don't get your jeans singed in the conflagration you've created, nor should you dump them in a nearby bin.  Incidentally, I am rather surprised you did not notice you had dropped your cell phone in the ruins, during your haste to depart the scene of crime.

Is it any wonder than the law caught up with you and your mates, and rather swiftly too. You could hardly deny the phone was yours, but you did.  You even said that you'd lost it and someone else must have dropped it at the site of your criminal activities.  

The jeans...well, it was a bit difficult wriggling out of ownership of those. There were some tell tale signs of burns on your legs, in the same places where the jeans were 'singed,' and by the way, your DNA was all over the inside and outside of them.

You, your mates, and the guy who paid for the job,  got your just desserts.  

PHONES, PHONES AND CONNECTIONS. WHAT IS GOING ON?

I can understand the occasional check on the bloggers' sign-in page, as much for security as for the occasional data cleansing exercise. ....... Does data cleansing happen? 

I was mildly irritated to have my usually smooth pathway to my blog site hindered by Google wanting a phone number.  Surely, I did not want to miss all the shimmering excitement of cell phone connections to the cyber world.  Well, here's news, I sure do!   

In the tiniest ever, almost diaphanous print, even smaller than that which is found in a telephone directory,  I just about discovered the option to choose to  click to move on without divulging a phone number.  It was blatantly obvious that  by such a devious, miniscule, printed option,  the designers of the page intended to frustrate as many individuals as they could, in any intent to  decline such a questionable magnanimous offer.

Another development, (it should not affect me) anyone with smart phones, or relatively up-to-date phones, who is a registered user of Facebook, (FB) will have their cell phone numbers published with their names and personal avatars on their friends sites.  To opt out of this feature, (note, no-one was asked if they wanted to opt in) you, the Facebook user, must find the pathway to request removal of your cell phone number, which could take some time to activate, and not only that, on some phones, something else has to be switched off, or, be negated by the user.  Do not ask me what has to be switched off, as I have not got the merest idea. 

It begs the question as to how Facebook has access to the users' cell phone numbers.  I can only assume, (though I could be wrong) that if Google is requesting their bloggers cell phone numbers, then the cell phone numbers displayed on the FB social networking site may have been supplied by the users themselves when subscribing to it.   Also, if you have to request to opt out of the publicizing of your phone number  amongst the vast global numbers of contacts, contacts that some people seem to collect as trophies, you have to ask what is a personal privacy setting worth.  To paraphrase The English Bard, ....Trust, trust wherefore art thou?

A SALUTARY TALE

My cell phone signalled that I had received a text message.  The message invited me to claim a sum of money for my car accident.   There was the usual guidance to text  'yes' or 'no'.  I asked my insurance company if they had passed on my details to accident chasers.  Was the text, I was asked, suggesting I could obtain X number of pounds sterling if I claimed?  To my surprise, the question mirrored my message .  This person had received the same text, she said.  I was advised to delete it and not reply, as there was no knowing from where messages emanated; it could be a costly reply.   I was profoundly disturbed by this news as I had already replied, with a 'No'.  It was the very first time I had received a scam text and I fell for it because of the lack of experience and because it fitted circumstances that were not so distant in the past.  

On my bill were three calls outwith the cell phone package charges. One I recognised the other two were expensive  0870 phone  numbers, and I puzzled over them.   A bit of research showed, to my amazement, that these numbers were based in France!  I had been charged for receiving a text and I was charged a higher  amount for transmitting a response saying, 'No'.  

Your cell phone tells you there is a text message to open, so, that's what you normally do.  I have received yet another one of the text messages, and unfortunately, I opened it, though, this time I immediately deleted it.  In all probability I will be charged for receiving the message.  I now feel I can no longer freely open any text message I receive.  In future, I will have to treat all text messages as suspicious.  

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

Why is it, the phone usually rings at an awkward moment?

Either your hands are up to their wrists in water;

You are either in a bath or shower; or,

Just finishing your personal wash, and are dripping wet;

You're at a critical juncture in creating  something in the kitchen; or,

You are pottering with soils etc in the potting shed; or,  

You are using the toilet.

Then there is the urgent phone tone in the early morning, or just after you've gone to bed.  Personally, I think those two are the worst.  Receiving a call in our hotel room well after we'd started to doze off, around 11pm, did not create quite the same anxiety levels, just a bit of annoyance at our plans to get a bit more rest being thwarted. We did not have the expectation that we were likely to be contacted for any urgent purpose........yet, we could have been.