Boost Mobile Knows Everything About You And Your Family
from the and-we-wonder-why-there-are-data-leaks? dept
Someone I know once went through the process of getting top secret security clearance for a project he was working for at work. This was many years ago, but he tells a great story how pretty far along in the process he spent nearly a whole day in a room with two government investigators quizzing him about all sorts of inane things. Towards the end of the tiring interview where my friend was getting increasingly frustrated at the pointlessness of the questions, the investigators suddenly started asking very specific questions about something a somewhat estranged relative of his had done years and years earlier — and the guy realized that the entire interview was leading up to that point to find out whether or not he was somehow connected to this event that happened when he, himself, was a child. He said it creeped him out to realize how much the government knew about stuff that was barely related to himself. Of course, that was many years ago, when the biggest fear was the “Big Brother” of government and what they knew about you. These days, Big Brother is all of the various corporations that have been collecting data on you. Witness the experience of Russell Beattie, who tried to renew his Boost Mobile account today only to find himself freaked out about the “security” questions the company started asking him. They were digging up random old addresses of his to make him identify them, and then asked him to correctly identify the age of his father and brother — information he wasn’t sure how they had on file. Of course, the silliest (or perhaps scariest) part of all of this is that such data is apparently easily available to the basic social engineer. So, by making these questions part of the “security quiz” for a mobile phone service, if anything, that data is now more widely available — which doesn’t seem to make Russell any more “secure” than he was before. If anything, it makes his private life less secure.
Comments on “Boost Mobile Knows Everything About You And Your Family”
What are people saying about you in other language
What if everyone unknowingly lives in a world of ignorance, surrounded only by what they know in their own language? Are there foreign language speakers, foreign media reporting on you? Is an embarassing picture of you being posted in foreign news, that you never knew?
Would you have known from English media that Jackie Chan is a loyal communist who hates Koreans?
http://kr.news.yahoo.com/bestclick/shellview.html?articleid=2005052411422448084&date=20050524&rank=14
Jackie Chan has told Chinese media that he does not wish to work with Korean actors anymore, and that he will not visit Taiwan for at least 4 years.
The words came after Jackie Chan attended the Cannes Film Festival for his latest movie, “The Myth”. Jackie said that Koreans are paid too much relative to their abilities. He was especially upset at actress Kim Hi-sung, who played the heroine in The Myth. He said she has no acting skills, and her language abilities were an embarrassment. She kept laughing during the filming of the movie, wasting huge amounts of film. She also embarrassed Jackie Chan with her terrible English when he was talking to other celebrities at Cannes.
However, Korean media is reporting the complete opposite, giving glowing reviews of Kim Hi-Sung as having both gorgeous looks and as a great student of languages. It said Jackie Chan was gushing with praise for her.
Also, Jackie Chan said he would not go to Taiwan for 4 years, apparently timed for scheduled talks between the mainland and Taiwan.
Re: What are people saying about you in other lang
That’s a very good point! I bet there are probably files, photo’s, snippets, etc. on most of us floating around worldwide in corporate, media and government dB’s. Privacy is dead. The only solution is a mid-life identity switch. Might be a big future biz idea!