Last time we looked at deceptions involved in faking calls, circumventing personal cell phone bans, and borrowing phones. Here is Part II of our catalog of telephonic deceptions.
- Faux hang-ups
- In these days of frequently broken cellular connections, we've all become accustomed to interrupted conversations. Usually, broken connections are due to malfunctions. But some people have taken advantage of the situation by actually terminating calls they no longer wish to continue. To avoid paying a social price if they do it angrily, they break the connection while they themselves are speaking calmly, as if engaged in the conversation. Their conversation partners then assume that the broken connection is a mishap, but the conversation breakers don't renew the connection, and they don't pick up if their partners try to renew.
- Common mistakes: breaking the connection while the other person is speaking, or breaking it while audibly angry.
- Background sounds made to order
- Background sounds might not be what they seem. You can buy recordings of background sounds from airports, train stations, busy streets, traffic jams, sports events, arguing kids, and more. There are even apps for recording your own custom background sounds, to ensure, for example, that flight number announcements match what they are supposed to be, or that the arguing kids are actually your kids.
- Common mistakes: re-using a recorded background sound once too often with the same person, or using a busy airport background when the airport in question is actually closed by weather or mishap.
- Caller ID spoofing
- Caller ID spoofing In telephone conversations,
background sounds might not
be what they seemwas the key technique used by the hackers working for News of the World. Using a paid service, the call initiator provides two phone numbers — the number to call, and the spoofed caller ID. The service then places the call to the first number in such a manner that it appears to have been originated from the second. This deception can make a call appear to come from a phone different from the originator's phone. Thus, for example, the originator can appear to be calling from work when actually calling from his or her mobile phone. If the originator's work phone is forwarded to his or her mobile phone, not even an immediate callback will unwrap the deception. - Common mistake: failing to control the background sounds of the originator's location well enough to match the location of the spoofed phone.
Caller ID spoofing can present real security concerns. For example, in the News of the World scandal, Caller ID spoofing gave abusers access to voice mailboxes that were not protected by password access. Most voicemail systems do provide this option, but most users never turn it on. Is your voice mailbox protected by a password? First in this series Top Next Issue
Is every other day a tense, anxious, angry misery as you watch people around you, who couldn't even think their way through a game of Jacks, win at workplace politics and steal the credit and glory for just about everyone's best work including yours? Read 303 Secrets of Workplace Politics, filled with tips and techniques for succeeding in workplace politics. More info
Your comments are welcome
Would you like to see your comments posted here? rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend me your comments by email, or by Web form.About Point Lookout
Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.
This article in its entirety was written by a human being. No machine intelligence was involved in any way.
Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.
Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.
Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.
Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
- Responding to Threats: I
- Threats are one form of communication common to many organizational cultures, especially as pressure
mounts. Understanding the varieties of threats can be helpful in determining a response that fits for you.
- Ground Level Sources of Scope Creep
- We usually think of scope creep as having been induced by managerial decisions. And most often, it probably
is. But most project team members — and others as well — can contribute to the problem.
- Suppressing Dissent: I
- In some groups, disagreeing with the majority, or disagreeing with the Leader, can be a personally expensive
act. Here is Part I of a set of tactics used by Leaders who choose not to tolerate dissent.
- The Opposite of Influence
- The question of why some people are so influential has a partner question: why are others largely ignored,
or opposed, even when their contributions are valuable?
- Stone-Throwers at Meetings: I
- One class of disruptions in meetings includes the tactics of stone-throwers — people who exploit
low-cost tactics to disrupt the meeting and distract all participants so as to obstruct progress. How
do they do it, and what can the meeting chair do?
See also Workplace Politics and Ethics at Work for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
- Coming May 15: Should I Write or Should I Call?
- After we recognize the need to contact a colleague or colleagues to work out a way to move forward, we next must decide how to make contact. Phone? Videoconference? Text message? There are some simple criteria that can help with such decisions. Available here and by RSS on May 15.
- And on May 22: Rescheduling Collaborative Work
- Rescheduling is what we do when the schedule we have now is so desperately unachievable that we must let go of it because when we look at it we can no longer decide whether to laugh or cry. The fear is that the new schedule might come to the same end. Available here and by RSS on May 22.
Coaching services
I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.
Get the ebook!
Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:
- Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
- Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
- Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
- Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
- Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
- Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )
Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500-1000 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info
Follow Rick
Recommend this issue to a friend
Send an email message to a friend
rbrendPtoGuFOkTSMQOzxner@ChacEgGqaylUnkmwIkkwoCanyon.comSend a message to Rick
A Tip A Day feed
Point Lookout weekly feed
Beware any resource that speaks of "winning" at workplace politics or "defeating" it. You can benefit or not, but there is no score-keeping, and it isn't a game.
- Wikipedia has a nice article with a list of additional resources
- Some public libraries offer collections. Here's an example from Saskatoon.
- Check my own links collection
- LinkedIn's Office Politics discussion group