The following email is a typical "phishing" scam but stands out from the crowd because, though it comprises a mere 4 sentences, it contains at least 12 errors of spelling, syntax and sheer bad writing. How many can you find?
---------------------------------------------------
Dear Customer,
Your access to Online Service has been revoked due to a mis-match of access code between your Security details. To enable you continue accessing your online account, it will only take you few minutes to re-activate your account. Click on the guide-link below and follow the directions to instant activation of your account and Security information
*Important*
NOTE: FAILURE CAN RESULT TO PERMANENT ACCOUNT SUSPENSION.
P. R. Crush
Security Advisor
Lloyds Tsb Bank © 2009.
----------------------------------------------------
I think the funniest part of all is the sinister "P.R. Crush". What a wonderful name for a heavy. I picture him as a 16 stone ex-bouncer, clad in dinner jacket and dark glasses, suggesting to potential customers that they should open an account otherwise something nasty, but unspecified, might accidently happen to them.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The signals are failing, Captain*
Left work early to visit my sister-in-law in hospital. She is in Watford, I'm in Waterloo, visiting ends at 8pm so not much time to spare. Met has major signal failure (yet again) at Finchley Road, huge gaps, crowded trains, took the Jubbly to Wembley Park, Uxbridge train arrives full and many more try to crowd on, then because a window cracks we all have to get out, two more trains arrive, both so full nobody can get on, we get told the next is on platform 1 so mad scramble over the footbridge, train doesnt stop, mad scramble back to platform 2....
And all the time the moronic announcer tells us there are "minor" delays. God knows what these people eat but it's addling their brains. Several hundred people unable to board two separate trains is not minor delays. It is a near failure of service. And all this at Wembley, where the Met stables nearly all of its trains and where its drivers begin their shifts. Couldn't they find just one train from the depot to take up the strain? Nope. The only one that did come out did not stop. Just sailed on through to Harrow empty. After which the announcer told us that by special arrangement the next one, though not supposed to stop, would make a halt to let us on. Jeepers. You'd think they were paying us for the privilege of playing with their trains.
Let me spell it loud and clear. Trains should be run for the benefit of passengers, not the other way round.
Anyway my sister-in-law decided she did not want any visitors tonight, which by the time I got home was just as well and maybe I'll be able to visit her in a calmer frame of mind soon.
*in my Scottish voice (Is this a Star Trek reference? He's very good you know: Ed)
And all the time the moronic announcer tells us there are "minor" delays. God knows what these people eat but it's addling their brains. Several hundred people unable to board two separate trains is not minor delays. It is a near failure of service. And all this at Wembley, where the Met stables nearly all of its trains and where its drivers begin their shifts. Couldn't they find just one train from the depot to take up the strain? Nope. The only one that did come out did not stop. Just sailed on through to Harrow empty. After which the announcer told us that by special arrangement the next one, though not supposed to stop, would make a halt to let us on. Jeepers. You'd think they were paying us for the privilege of playing with their trains.
Let me spell it loud and clear. Trains should be run for the benefit of passengers, not the other way round.
Anyway my sister-in-law decided she did not want any visitors tonight, which by the time I got home was just as well and maybe I'll be able to visit her in a calmer frame of mind soon.
*in my Scottish voice (Is this a Star Trek reference? He's very good you know: Ed)
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Time for tranquillity
My eyes are closed. I sit with my back warm against the padded seat There is almost no sound apart from a gentle background hum. A newspaper rustles, discreetly. Some distance away I hear a muffled cough. Around me I sense other people, still, withdrawn, wrapped in thoughts.
A hushed and expectant concert hall just before the arrival of a famous soloist? A sad gathering at a funeral waiting for the coffin? Clients at the door of a wealthy patron? Anxious patients in a dentist's waiting room?
No. Quieter and more resigned and without much hope, these are the passengers on a Metropolitan train this morning, stuck in a tunnel outside Baker Street and 40 minutes late.
A hushed and expectant concert hall just before the arrival of a famous soloist? A sad gathering at a funeral waiting for the coffin? Clients at the door of a wealthy patron? Anxious patients in a dentist's waiting room?
No. Quieter and more resigned and without much hope, these are the passengers on a Metropolitan train this morning, stuck in a tunnel outside Baker Street and 40 minutes late.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Stirring it up
I never know who, if anyone, reads my occasional outpourings. I had always vaguely thought that historians from the twenty-seventh century, picking through the remnants of our civilisation, might unearth a dusty disk from the ruins of the Google building and would hear my scribbles brought to life by their robot translators. So imagine my surprise to receive comments on my post of yesterday (on the subject of a new internet domain) from the man whose words, quoted in yesterday's Guardian, sparked off my interest. If only I could get a similar response from the powers-that-be in London Underground...
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Tel it like it is
Had to laugh when I read in the IT section of today's Guardian that some people are getting excited about a new web domain, ".tel". Apparently the sole use will be a single web page showing the contact details of the person who owns the domain. Since most people do not have unique names, this immediately invalidates the whole point, and since there is no protection as to who can register names in the first place, it is merely an exercise in internet greed, encouraging both cyber-squatting and generating FUD* in people scared of somehow missing out.
But as always the joy is to be found in the quote of someone pushing this new domain. Like so many in IT, he clearly has no real idea what people actually do with it. Step forward and take a bow, one Andy Chantrill whose words of wisdom read thus:"Every minute, thousands of people are getting off planes, and what is the first thing that they do? Turn on the BlackBerry," he says. "Some of them will be thinking ahead to renting a car. For them, it's RentalCars.tel - the directory quickly connects them to an agent, saving time and hassle. Or maybe you're thinking of sending flowers? Florists.tel will let you quickly find your nearest florist."
Can't dispute his first line. Every minute people do indeed disembark from planes. And now we leave reality behind. Some may indeed resort to their Blackberry, or other mobile device. But the vast majority do not. They scramble for their luggage. They fight for trolleys. They queue up at Passport Control. They check their tickets and itineraries, and ensure that the foreign cash is still safe in their inside pockets.
But to Mr Chantrill the very next thing that our intrepid travellers do is to think about car rental. Ummm. Most travellers do not actually rent cars you know. If they did, the termini of airports would be crammed full of rental establishments. Instead there will be couple of sad booths, one empty, and one with a bored clerk smiling hopelessly at the passing crowds. But in any case, anyone with an ounce of sense rents a car before arrival. And if you have decided to take pot luck, then you do indeed go straight to a booth. Or you call a rental agency you have an account with. You don't stand about phoning some "agent" who may well be in a call centre the other side of the world and start making arrangements for a car that might be the other side of the airport with no way of getting there other than by courtesy coach that takes a hour to arrive.
No matter. Whilst waiting for that coach you can do the next thing that everyone does when they get off a plane. You order some flowers. Now what does Mr Chantrill suggest - you walk through the terminal and pick a nice bunch of daffs for your host? Nope. This is the insane world of the internet salesman remember. What you do is use your Blackberry to find the nearest florist. In an airport? If there is a florist on your way out you will surely see it. If not, what is Florists.tel going to do? The nearest florist to Heathrow, for example, is probably miles from the airport and, being in the back streets of Hayes, entirely in the wrong direction for the vast majority.
My final thought - I possess a rather unusual name and probably could have my own .tel domain. But if you know me you know how to contact me already. And if you don't, you can find my email on my website. So I shall not be getting a .tel domain name. No flowers, by request.
*FUD mlud? An ancient acronym denoting "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt",propaganda tactics favoured by some in the IT biz to disparage competitors
But as always the joy is to be found in the quote of someone pushing this new domain. Like so many in IT, he clearly has no real idea what people actually do with it. Step forward and take a bow, one Andy Chantrill whose words of wisdom read thus:"Every minute, thousands of people are getting off planes, and what is the first thing that they do? Turn on the BlackBerry," he says. "Some of them will be thinking ahead to renting a car. For them, it's RentalCars.tel - the directory quickly connects them to an agent, saving time and hassle. Or maybe you're thinking of sending flowers? Florists.tel will let you quickly find your nearest florist."
Can't dispute his first line. Every minute people do indeed disembark from planes. And now we leave reality behind. Some may indeed resort to their Blackberry, or other mobile device. But the vast majority do not. They scramble for their luggage. They fight for trolleys. They queue up at Passport Control. They check their tickets and itineraries, and ensure that the foreign cash is still safe in their inside pockets.
But to Mr Chantrill the very next thing that our intrepid travellers do is to think about car rental. Ummm. Most travellers do not actually rent cars you know. If they did, the termini of airports would be crammed full of rental establishments. Instead there will be couple of sad booths, one empty, and one with a bored clerk smiling hopelessly at the passing crowds. But in any case, anyone with an ounce of sense rents a car before arrival. And if you have decided to take pot luck, then you do indeed go straight to a booth. Or you call a rental agency you have an account with. You don't stand about phoning some "agent" who may well be in a call centre the other side of the world and start making arrangements for a car that might be the other side of the airport with no way of getting there other than by courtesy coach that takes a hour to arrive.
No matter. Whilst waiting for that coach you can do the next thing that everyone does when they get off a plane. You order some flowers. Now what does Mr Chantrill suggest - you walk through the terminal and pick a nice bunch of daffs for your host? Nope. This is the insane world of the internet salesman remember. What you do is use your Blackberry to find the nearest florist. In an airport? If there is a florist on your way out you will surely see it. If not, what is Florists.tel going to do? The nearest florist to Heathrow, for example, is probably miles from the airport and, being in the back streets of Hayes, entirely in the wrong direction for the vast majority.
My final thought - I possess a rather unusual name and probably could have my own .tel domain. But if you know me you know how to contact me already. And if you don't, you can find my email on my website. So I shall not be getting a .tel domain name. No flowers, by request.
*FUD mlud? An ancient acronym denoting "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt",propaganda tactics favoured by some in the IT biz to disparage competitors
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