I have just recieved a very disturbing text message on my mobile phone. It invites me to phone up a premium rate number in order to "win" something or other. The call will cost �1.50 ($2) per minute, or more if I call from my mobile phone. Rules and regulations are available from a P.O. Box somewhere in Liverpool. But that's not the point.
The point is that
someone has sold me out. I'm trying to recollect who knows my mobile phone number:
- Myself
- My phone company
- My friends
- My boss
- Some shops on the web (like British Airways, for example) who want a 'Daytime telephone number'
My friends are all ultra-loyal to me, as am I myself, so that rules them out. My phone company has just launched an advertising campaign to point out that they
don't spam your phone, so that's either propaganda or they're ruled out.
That leaves my boss and the shops. Now, Nortel aren't exactly in a rosy position, but they're not that desperate for cash. British Airways, on the other hand,
needs everything it can get. No doubt British Airways will claim hackers stole its customer's phone numbers and sold them, but that's an unlikely story. BA probably sold the numbers itself, along with its soul and its sense of
British fair play.
What do you think?
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