Computer Virus Postcard

Why the mobile networks are to blame for phone "hacking"

Posted on 7 Jul 2011 at 09:00

Paul Ockenden says lax security allowed unscrupulous journalists to break into people's voicemail

Right now it’s impossible to switch on the radio or TV news without at least half of the bulletin being devoted to “phone hacking”. Alongside the genuine news reporting, there’s a lot of blame being dished out.

In particular, the newspapers and their staff are being lambasted for using dirty tricks, while the Metropolitan Police is being blamed for its ineffectual investigations.

I wonder whether I’m alone in thinking that the real blame belongs elsewhere? As far as I can tell, the majority of these so-called “phone hacking” incidents involved calling the victim’s mobile from one phone and then, while you’re speaking to them (or while they are trying to figure out a silent call) you call their mobile again from a second line, so that this time you get put through to their voicemail. While listening to their greeting, you can press * (at least from most mobile networks), type in the person’s voicemail PIN, and happily listen to their messages.

The problem is that a lot of people, perhaps the majority of them, never change their PIN from the default number supplied by their network, so it’s pretty easy to listen to any messages they might have been stored on their voicemail. This is despite the fact that just about every phone manual and network website I’ve ever seen mentions that you ought to change your voicemail PIN immediately.

Some people have argued that listening to someone else’s messages this way is no more “hacking” than walking through an open door is trespassing, although I’m not sure I’d go that far. I think that mobile owners who didn’t change their PIN need to shoulder at least some of the blame if their phone gets hacked – but, for me, the biggest share of the blame ought to lie with the mobile networks themselves, because in these security-conscious times I don’t think there’s any place for the concept of a “default PIN”.

Imagine if your bank sent you a debit card that employed a default PIN until such time as you changed it – that isn’t even thinkable, is it? Well, the same should be true with the mobile networks - although most have now rectified their policies in the wake of this scandal to force people to set a new PIN when their voicemail is first set up.

Internet Marketing, Computer Information,frauds, and Scams

Either Google or I mixed up their birthday date.  In my last newsletter I had it down as September 7th. It seems I was wrong. Google says its September 27th. (I like the day 27, as it is my birth date). But they need another 70 years to catch up to me.

 Check their birthday page out, go to;

http://www.google.com/tenthbirthday/

 WEB PAGE TRANSLATION This feature is particularly helpful if your search has non-English results.  Google offers a facility to auto-martially translate a page for you in English.  Currently, Google supports Italian, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese languages.

CURRENCY

It’s fairly easy to work out a price for your item in another currency. For example if you sell chairs for each in the US and you want a price in British pounds, simply type ’35 USD to GBP’ and Google will give you a rate.

WARNING FROM HOLLAND

Do not open any message with an attachment entitled ‘POSTCARD FROM HALLMARK,’ regardless of who sent it to you. It is a virus which opens A POSTCARD IMAGE, which “burns” the whole hard disc C of your computer. If you receive a mail called’ POSTCARD,’ even though sent to you by a friend, do not open it!

This is the worst virus announced by CNN, Microsoft and the most destructive.  This virus was first appeared in July of this year and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disk.

CLIPBOARD

Your Clipboard can be seen by any hacker.  For your protection you should not copy passwords, credit card numbers or other sensitive information. To prevent this from happening go to: Internet Explorer: Click Tools, Internet Options, Security tab, Internet section. Go down to the Security level box, and click the Custom Level button. Scroll down to Scripting, and find the entry, “Allow Programmatic clipboard access” or “Allow paste operations via script”. Click Disable or Prompt. Click OK.

LIGHTSIDE

A service call

Customer: “Can you give me Jacks phone number please”?