Marketroids

[rslade]

OK, it's not exactly news that I do not suffer fools gladly, but we don't have a "smart-aleck answers to common nuisances" board.  Yet ...

[Sound of Rob's cell phone ringing]  [You can imagine any sound you like for this, since very few people have ever heard it.]

Rob: Hi.

Mareketroid: I'm looking for Rob Slade.

R: Hi.

[Pause while Marketroid figures out that she's not going to get anything more informative without saying something herself.]

M: I'm calling from PRG ...

[Rob's mind is already wandering, idly toying with what kind of company would have a name so similar to the acronym for pseudo random number generator ...]

M: ... and we're wondering how you're succeeding with [indistinct] marketing.

R: We never buy anything over the phone, and that's how we've stayed successful.  Goodbye.

I know that smart and highly trained people stay up nights trying to find the exact wording for cold calling scripts, attempting to ensure that someone can't give a quick, glib answer to your question and hang up.  I also know that, statistically, it doesn't matter to telemarketing firms, and that the poor peons on the front end never provide any feedback to those in charge.  But I still find it odd that my number doesn't have a permanent entry in telemarketroid databases stating "calling this guy is fruitless and frustrating."

[CISOScott]

I still can't believe the telephone makers made it possible to spoof numbers. (tongue firmly in cheek)

And why they haven't done anything to stop the telephone companies being able to make money off of other people abusing their system......Ohhhhh....wait.... nevermind....

[rslade]

> CISOScott (Community Champion) posted a new reply in Industry News on 07-31-2019

> I still can't believe the telephone makers made it possible to spoof numbers.

This is not Alexander Graham Bell's fault.

In the beginning, if you wanted a phone, you had to buy two phones: one for
yourself, and one for the person you wanted to call. No chance to spoof phone
numbers, since there weren't any phone numbers.

Then came the telephone exchange.
"Betty, we need Dr. Barnes."
"He's out at the Foster place. I'll ring there."
This was good for availability, but bad for privacy.

Then came the guy (I think it was a funeral director) who invented the telephone
switch.

Then came monopoly breakdown, and all kinds of new tech, including completely
insecure ways of passing caller-ID, plus Voice-over-IP (which took all the ways to
phreak the phone system, and all the vulnerabilities of data networking, and rolled
it all into one big insecurity).

====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
rslade@vcn.bc.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca rslade@computercrime.org
If you're reading too fast to argue with what you're reading,
you're reading too fast.
- https://twitter.com/jgsphd/status/231763427243216896
victoria.tc.ca/techrev/rms.htm http://twitter.com/rslade
http://blogs.securiteam.com/index.php/archives/author/p1/
https://is.gd/RotlWB

[denbesten]

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@rslade wrote:
Then came the guy (I think it was a funeral director) who invented the telephone
switch.

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Strowger was his name. And yes, he was a funeral director.  Story has it that the wife of his competitor was a telephone operator whom he believed to be costing him business, motivating the invention.