Now, I am back in the office doing what I do so well to earn money to pay the bills. This year, my Accountant (whom I have had for many years), presented me with the horrible news that I owed on my taxes. Not just a little bit either, a lot! So bye bye savings account...
Well, actually, I have paid the taxes and the pain is somewhat gone, except for my depleted bank account.
I remember back when I was teen, at our local parish, our youth group had to meet with the Priest. He was all upset over the most recent phone bill. (You see, we have this phone that was mounted on the wall, right next to the Priests office. It was free for anyone to use.) This particular bill was about $700.00 more than the average monthly bill. Also, there was a "900" number that had been called over and over. Turns out that this number was for a "free sex" company. If you recall 900 numbers, when called, charge you phone bill by the minute. As I recall, this particular 900 number charged a lot!
So the Priest did find out who was doing the calling, and put an end to it. Why do I tell you this story? Well, have you ever mistyped a very popular website name only to end up on a website that you would not have normally gone to, one that is a little bit pornographic? I don't know if you ever typed in whitehouse.com instead of whitehouse.gov. Several years ago, that kind of mistake would take you to some very, well, unexpected results. Luckily, today, if you mistype whitehouse.gov with .com, you get some sort of advertising website.
I recall a particularly embarrassing situation at my first employer out of college. I was surfing the web looking for something or other Java related, when all of a sudden my 17-inch high resolution monitor was covered with the most explicit sexual content. Now this was in a training room and not my office. I did the quickest thing I could think of and unplugged my computer. It worked, the offending images were instantly gone. I cautiously looked around the room and nobody appeared to have seen what I had seen. I was relieved.
We all know that the pornography industry is one of the most profitable in the world if not the most profitable. It just isn't talked about much in casual conversation. So there is this company that has been buying 800 numbers, the numbers that larger companies provide for tech support, and such. The article is on Yahoo News here. Apparently this company is buying up as many 800 numbers as they can and have been doing this for the past 13 years. Once this company buys an 800 number it is redirected to a second company's services, which happen to be dial-a-porn. This company has computer technology that can search the national 800 number database, and anytime a number is returned, can purchase it, taking 95 milliseconds to do so. Other phone companies that provide 800 numbers as a service are having a hard time getting easy to remember or requested digits, etc. for clients because they are not available.
Some of the numbers this company has acquired include, 1-800-Metallica, 1-800-Cadillac, 1-800-Minolta, 1-800-Cameras, 1-800-Worship, 1-800-Whirlpool, and 1-800-Beatles. All of these numbers get redirected to erotic chat lines. There have been situations where 800 numbers have not been renewed due to a mistake with a phone company, user, or both. If you call 1-800-Chicago, you won't get tourism information about the city of Chicago, rather you will will be presented with an opportunity to have a one-on-one talk with a nasty girl for only $2.99 per minute. The same happened to a car dealer who had people walking around wearing tee shirts with the company name and number on them. It has happened to prisons, counseling lines, fire departments and even the Republican National Committee. They are even buying 800 numbers that are 1 to 2 digits off of very popular numbers. That way they can get you with "fat fingering" or miss-dialings.
Wow! is all that I can say. Basically you just have to be really careful in both phone and Internet usage.
Till next time,
Bill
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