Posted On: Thursday - May 14th 2026 11:06AM MST
In Topics: Global Financial Stupidity Globalists Artificial Stupidity Big-Biz Stupidity Scams
I'd been meaning to write this post, and maybe another to go along with it, for some time. Today, Unz Review site iSteve Community commenter Mr. Anon, in this reply to the good point about scammers and old people in this post by Sam Hildbrand, got me going today.
Plus, I am tired of being told to log in again and again into the Outlook email, so I've got not too much to read right now anyway... couldn't be too important...
It's called Multi-Factor Authentication, people, MFA. Learn it. Live it. Screenshot this powerpoint, please. Big Biz has got employees on their various and sundry web "portals" (PS WARNING: We HATE, HATE, HATE web portals!) often with slightly different usernames and slightly different passwords* required.
Big Biz has the IT people making settings such that we are logged out of each of these within 5 to 10 minutes now. Sometimes, you can lengthen this logged-in time by touching, clicking, whatever... When in the entryway of multiple portals, one may need to keep juggling these things to get use out of them.
OK, but life's not that simple anymore. It turns out that this situation is not secure enough. Multi-Factor Identification is required, meaning we must give our phone numbers to people who ought to have no business knowing them. It's that or we can't use the portals we have to use to get things done.
That's due to these people:
It's not about disgruntled employees, possibly scorned lovers [We're trying to pick up more women readers here - Ed.] looking over people's shoulders anymore. Software and electronics technology has "improved" so much during this century that scams not possible before can be done, often nearly at no cost. Globalism has been a part of this. With all the connectivity, enterprised networked planeting we got doing on, physical location doesn't mean so much.
Therefore, I have been asked 3 times in this one day to log back in to read my email, with a code to my phone as part of it. It had been only occasionally, maybe once a week, before though Outlook unhelpfully doesn't tell me when - I just don't get any email for a while and figure it out eventually.
I can't say that Americans wouldn't be doing SOME of this, but, under Globalism, you've got the whole world with billions of not so well-off, but bright enough, people to do the job. That they don't have any integrity is surely a big part of it too. Therefore, Big Biz must keep fighting this, and the employees must put up with more obstacles to getting, like, work, done.
Then there's this same crap in our personal lives. It's more of the same people who are responsible, something you can easily tell when you break down and answer a call from an unknown number. (Remember when they were ALL unknown numbers? It might be HER, calling back... oh, it's not ... yes, my refrigerator IS running! I got the damn joke last time!) It's nice that there's this "sharing economy" sort of thing, in which some of us vote these people off the island by clicking "report spam", or just mash "block".
Then again, I got the "Suspected Spam" warning yesterday for a call, but the area code suggested that this was someone at a (non-IT) help desk group calling me back. He was someone that I WANTED to hear from, and it WAS that guy. We both were wondering why that message appeared.** What do we do next time? Peak Stupidity quickly discussed some telephone etiquette over 8 years ago.
If we don't answer, they could always text or leave voice mail, making it only somewhat easier to figure if we are being scammed by Indians.
Yes, back in the day, we had those annoying kids with their prank calls - I can't remember every single one of them
I never fell for the one below, but Kung Flu PanicFest aside, one time a guy really had me going, starting from a search for a printer driver download. It helps to hang up and THINK. Since the era of heavy texting started, the only time I got suckered enough to call back was in response to a car warranty message. We had just gotten a vehicle that had a warranty on it, the first and only. I don't recall even letting it get to a human before I figured "Wait. Who ARE these people?" Yeah, we know who they are.
Now, what if I call about my email? Do I answer any suspected spam call back, answer a text, or even answer an email that I might yet get? After all, the latest thing is to test that we are not being suckered into "phishing" attacks. Yes, they test us. Not to worry, as I don't want to hear from ANYBODY, when it comes down to it.
What to do? Here's Mr. Anon's quick comment that I linked to above:
Internet and phone scammers are among the lowest forms of life. It would be better for society if they were all publicly flogged.Thank you, Mr. Anon. Providing IT solutions. That's our core competency here at Peak Stupidity.
* See also a previous post Password Proliferation.
** For any IT/electronics/networking type readers, I wonder how much of this screening goes on at the cell phone company and how much on my own phone. I can see having some of each.
Comments:
Adam Smith
Saturday - May 16th 2026 11:33AM MST
PS: Greetings, Dieter!
I'm happy to see you and even happier to hear that you are out of the hospital. (Again.) (I've honestly been a bit worried.)
I hope you're well and look forward to hearing that you have progressed from ๐ ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ก ๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ to doing great. (or something even better than that.)
Cheers! โฎ๏ธ
I'm happy to see you and even happier to hear that you are out of the hospital. (Again.) (I've honestly been a bit worried.)
I hope you're well and look forward to hearing that you have progressed from ๐ ๐ก๐๐๐ ๐ ๐๐๐ก ๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ to doing great. (or something even better than that.)
Cheers! โฎ๏ธ
Moderator
Saturday - May 16th 2026 4:12AM MST
PS: "But I had also lots of bans on X - - poeple complain regularly about x-posts of mine - and I gained access to X via - gmail;..." Yes, that's why I tried to keep these people separated. I use protonmail now. Since yahoo cut me off completely, I went to protonmail.
I understand the 'synergies", so to speak, where your gmails can come to your phone, be stored on their cloud, search works with mail, or whatever, but that's the kind of thing I avoid. My wife doesn't, but then she doesn't write too much political on any blogs, is not on X, etc. She doesn't read this one, BTW.
That sounds like a rough time. Take care of yourself, Dieter. We'll see you here or on TUR.
I understand the 'synergies", so to speak, where your gmails can come to your phone, be stored on their cloud, search works with mail, or whatever, but that's the kind of thing I avoid. My wife doesn't, but then she doesn't write too much political on any blogs, is not on X, etc. She doesn't read this one, BTW.
That sounds like a rough time. Take care of yourself, Dieter. We'll see you here or on TUR.
Moderator
Saturday - May 16th 2026 4:08AM MST
PS: Haha, having fun with the nieces and nephews while trying to teach them things their Moms won't? I hope they still invite you for Thanksgiving, Alarmist. That's been a problem for some families. or so I read.
Dieter Kief
Friday - May 15th 2026 4:07PM MST
PS
I had lots of traffic, bc. I used my gmail-account as digital storage not least for scientific papers.
But I had also lots of bans on X - - poeple complain regularly about x-posts of mine - and I gained access to X via - gmail; - - - - we have ca. 3000 paid! government overseers in Germany to make sure, there is no "hate" postet on X - -and X seems not to look into these complaints really, but react to a certain number of them with shadow bans, bans of the direct messaging function, red flags, even the disappearence of my followership every once in a while - which would be restored after some time - - and so on.
Thx. Mod. - -I've been to the hospital one more time -- for the longest stay in my life - - eight hours short of a full week, bc. of sepsis (treatment mistake by my family docs). And no - it was not exactly fun but: Finally successful - and now I'm stil a bit weak and - - kinda fine.
(Btw.: I also commented at your fine Helen Andrews article.)
I had lots of traffic, bc. I used my gmail-account as digital storage not least for scientific papers.
But I had also lots of bans on X - - poeple complain regularly about x-posts of mine - and I gained access to X via - gmail; - - - - we have ca. 3000 paid! government overseers in Germany to make sure, there is no "hate" postet on X - -and X seems not to look into these complaints really, but react to a certain number of them with shadow bans, bans of the direct messaging function, red flags, even the disappearence of my followership every once in a while - which would be restored after some time - - and so on.
Thx. Mod. - -I've been to the hospital one more time -- for the longest stay in my life - - eight hours short of a full week, bc. of sepsis (treatment mistake by my family docs). And no - it was not exactly fun but: Finally successful - and now I'm stil a bit weak and - - kinda fine.
(Btw.: I also commented at your fine Helen Andrews article.)
The Alarmist
Friday - May 15th 2026 12:02PM MST
PS
I remember when MFA stood for Master of Fine Arts, though when my nephew asked what it meant when my sister finished hers, I told him โIt means sheโs a mother effing artist.โ
I never figured out why my siblings keep me away from their kids ๐ค
๐
I remember when MFA stood for Master of Fine Arts, though when my nephew asked what it meant when my sister finished hers, I told him โIt means sheโs a mother effing artist.โ
I never figured out why my siblings keep me away from their kids ๐ค
๐
Moderator
Thursday - May 14th 2026 5:55PM MST
PS: How are you doing, Mr. Kief, health-wise? It's very good to hear from you.
Here's the deal with my yahoo mail thing (a post I should write though some of this was explained in the post or two about this site maybe going down due to GoDaddy's having made me an un-person). Because I hadn't logged into any of the 3 for a few weeks, each one asked me a code that I could read at the other one. (I was not about to give them a phone # back when I arranged this.) So, I was truly screwed and lost mails going back to 1995, 1997, and about 2005. Gotta say, I'd have probably never read those old ones, but they would have told me a lot about my former self.
I'm glad you're good on gmail. I assume that it was the same deal - not enough "activity". Why do they care so much? Do they really need that server space back?
Here's the deal with my yahoo mail thing (a post I should write though some of this was explained in the post or two about this site maybe going down due to GoDaddy's having made me an un-person). Because I hadn't logged into any of the 3 for a few weeks, each one asked me a code that I could read at the other one. (I was not about to give them a phone # back when I arranged this.) So, I was truly screwed and lost mails going back to 1995, 1997, and about 2005. Gotta say, I'd have probably never read those old ones, but they would have told me a lot about my former self.
I'm glad you're good on gmail. I assume that it was the same deal - not enough "activity". Why do they care so much? Do they really need that server space back?
Moderator
Thursday - May 14th 2026 5:51PM MST
PS: That first link goes to a really juicy article, Adam. I've always recommended "cron jobs", meaning you regularly STOP a script you've inserted somewhere that does "DELETE DATABASE" until you don't because you don't work there anymore. At that point it runs...
One wonders about any background checks or recommendations about these 2 guys. I guess it's not cool to ask "have you ever been to jail, for say, white collar IT crimes?" or maybe check.
Ahaah. I fixed those links - thank you. I do have an excuse for why they hadn't been working. On the computer I was working on TUR get you "Hmmm, something went wrong..." (Yes, I should tell him in Bugs & Suggestions some time.) So, I was going to insert those links from another device, but I had to go and forgot. Fixed now, including Mr. Anon's short comment in full at the bottom.
One wonders about any background checks or recommendations about these 2 guys. I guess it's not cool to ask "have you ever been to jail, for say, white collar IT crimes?" or maybe check.
Ahaah. I fixed those links - thank you. I do have an excuse for why they hadn't been working. On the computer I was working on TUR get you "Hmmm, something went wrong..." (Yes, I should tell him in Bugs & Suggestions some time.) So, I was going to insert those links from another device, but I had to go and forgot. Fixed now, including Mr. Anon's short comment in full at the bottom.
Dieter Kief
Thursday - May 14th 2026 2:17PM MST
PS
My gmail-account has been blocked / closed for a month - - I stayed calm and send a few requests by mail to google asking them to open my account up again. - - And all of a sudden I was send an e-mail and had to answer it to get a code and then enter the code etc. - - and the my gmail-account was accessible again. - I left the minor quibbles out.
My gmail-account has been blocked / closed for a month - - I stayed calm and send a few requests by mail to google asking them to open my account up again. - - And all of a sudden I was send an e-mail and had to answer it to get a code and then enter the code etc. - - and the my gmail-account was accessible again. - I left the minor quibbles out.
Adam Smith
Thursday - May 14th 2026 11:24AM MST
PS: Greetings, Achmed,
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-virgina-man-charges-relating-deletion-us-government-databases
Yet another example of foreigners doing the work that Americans are too lazy to do themselves?
Also, the links in your first sentence are not linking to the places you intended...
https://www.unz.com/isteve/isteve-open-thread-24/#comment-7618292
https://www.unz.com/isteve/isteve-open-thread-24/#comment-7618371
Cheers! โฎ๏ธ
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/drop-database-what-not-to-do-after-losing-an-it-job/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-virgina-man-charges-relating-deletion-us-government-databases
Yet another example of foreigners doing the work that Americans are too lazy to do themselves?
Also, the links in your first sentence are not linking to the places you intended...
https://www.unz.com/isteve/isteve-open-thread-24/#comment-7618292
https://www.unz.com/isteve/isteve-open-thread-24/#comment-7618371
Cheers! โฎ๏ธ
Heartfelt thanks Adam!