
Nature has many versions of Caller ID spoofing, one of which is most familiar to dog owners. Pictured is Duma, a wolf at the UK Wolf Conservation Trust, as she rolls to capture a scent atop a mound. She's rolling on some aftershave sprinkled on the ground a few minutes earlier. Scent-rolling is believed to be a method for disguising the individual's own scent, as a means of avoiding detection by prey. It provides olfactory camouflage. Photo (cc) by 2.5 Retron courtesy Wikipedia.
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 issue in this series
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Related articles
More articles on Workplace Politics:
Managing Pressure: Communications and Expectations
- Pressed repeatedly for "status" reports, you might guess that they don't want status —
they want progress. Things can get so nutty that responding to the status requests gets in the way of
doing the job. How does this happen and what can you do about it? Here's Part I of a little catalog
of tactics and strategies for dealing with pressure.
How to Undermine Your Boss
- Ever since I wrote "How to Undermine Your Subordinates," I've received scads of requests for
"How to Undermine Your Boss." Must be a lot of unhappy subordinates out there. Well, this
one's for you.
Some Hidden Costs of Business Fads
- Adopting business fads is an expensive organizational pattern, with costs that extend beyond what can
be measured by the chart of accounts most organizations use. Here are some examples of the hidden costs
of business fads.
You Can't Control What Other People Think
- Ever think that the world would be a much better place if you could control what other people think?
Maybe it would be. And maybe not...
Recapping One-on-One Meetings
- Some short one-on-one meetings produce important decisions without third-party witnesses. Instead of
relying on fickle memory to capture these results, send a recap by email immediately afterwards. Recaps
improve decisions and make them more durable.
See also Workplace Politics for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming July 23: Microdelegation
- Microdelegation is a style of delegation in which the delegator unintentionally communicates the task to the subordinate in such detail and so repetitively that the subordinate is offended. As a result of this delegation style, many subordinates feel distrusted or suspected of fraud or goldbricking. Available here and by RSS on July 23.
And on July 30: What the Dunning-Kruger Effect Actually Is
- Although the Dunning-Kruger Effect is widely recognized, people describe it — and understand it — in many different ways. Some of these expressions are misleading. Proceed with caution. Available here and by RSS on July 30.
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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