[dba-Tech] Why I just destroyed my cell phone

[Arthur Fuller]

They are way too easily hacked, and even though you would have to know a
lot about mathematics to guess mine, there are bots that can be purchased
for an insignificant sum and then employed on an army of easily-compromised
phones, and also tablets. Desktops are better protected, but even these are
at serious risk.

I could be wrong, but I think that my land-line is safe. Even there, if I
don't recognize the incoming number, then I don't answer. I don't even
answer when someone is buzzing my apartment number -- not without a prior
phone call that he or she will be arriving momentarily.

There is also the cost of a cell phone. Given that I receive a couple of
calls a week. typically from bots trying to sell me subscriptions to
magazines I never read, or alternatively whose content I can obtain on the
net, I simply don't answer, and pretty soon they stroke me off their list
of potential victims.

These companies have cubicles filled with underpaid employees who push a
button and dial the next number in a sequence. If I had any say in the
matter, I would outlaw them all, and send the employers (not the employees)
to prison. This is not a "freedom of speech" issue: this is harassment,
plain and simple. I'm tired of it and I want it to end.

Fortunately, my contract with Bell.ca enables callerr-ID, and I have only a
small number of friends that know my number, so it's relatively easy to
delete the bad guys and girls.

-- 
Arthur