Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Big Brother Watching Me?

I have a niece who lives in Wales. Recently she got married. She e-mailed me with her newly married name, twice. To send wedding pictures and so.

Didn't I fish a letter out of my mailbox, this morning, addressed to my niece, her name and newly wedded name, but my home address, by a Toronto Company with grocery saving coupons. Stuff I need like a hole in the head.

The only way I can think of they could do that is by reading e-mails.

Like I once took out a store's credit card, just to take advantage of a big discount on what I bought. Then I cancelled the card. But after I got lots of junk mail, and I knew it was because I fell for that credit discount, 'cause they had spelled my name wrong, and all the junk mail came to my misspelled name.

Feels weird to get mail for my niece in Wales on my address.

Wild Thing

4 comments:

Larry Keiler said...

In the US, George W. Bush & the CIA and the FBI and telecom internet providers have got themselves into a bit of trouble over unauthorized reading of emails. But that's the government...apparently it's OK if private companies do it!

Larry doesn't know how that works exactly, but maybe it's an indication that what we think of as "free" email accounts aren't exactly free. Larry uses Gmail and it's free. But Google puts ads on the page and they are clearly influenced by whatever has been written in the email. It's not that someone is actually reading the email, but the Google search engine (or whatever you call it) picks up on keywords.

Larry has never received actual snail mail related to any of his online activities. Do you have a good anti-spam, anti-virus, anti-phishing program? (That's one good thing about Gmail. The anti-spam function is uncannily accurate. However, you still have to delete them manually.)

Anonymous said...

I've got AVG Virus control. I use Yahoo, who seems to handle SPAM very well.

One of the e-mails my niece sent me was an e-greeting card. One of those freebies. Maybe that's the access point. I never use them myself. That last one she sent me, I couldn't even open without having to go to sign up for things. I didn't.

What is anti-phishing?

Hey, after I signed the petition,last night, the Green Party got accepted into the debate. Aren't I powerful???

Larry Keiler said...

Phishing: The act of sending an e-mail to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the user’s information.

Larry sez: Yes! WT you are powerful! And Larry is powerful! Together we shall rule the blogwaves!

Anonymous said...

Interesting! Phishing. I guess I have outdated dictionaries. Neither the big Oxford nor Webster have that word listed. I wanted to find the root.

It sounds like fishing. And in a way it is illegal fishing for victum's identity. Right?

There must be updated dictionaries that include space- and computer lore. I'll have to keep an eye out. Know of any?

My Webster actually has a section of space language. Probably dated too. Published in 1981. My Oxford is from 1957, LOL What did I expect???

A new Webster would likely do the trick.

I have to go phishing.

One of my niece's e-mails, sending photos, was actually Gmail. I wouldn't have noticed that if you hadn't mentioned it.