Phone Spoofing

Finally, the plebs have woken up! In this week's Mail and Guardian, there is a story about phone spoofing. It is about time really ...

How many times have you got a call, from some one telling you that they are from the bank or from a company XYZ ... how do you authenticate them? Phishing is too easy, as most people don't both ... just phone up some one and tell them that you are verifying their identity by checking their bank account number.

I remember, when I turned the tables and asked a bank clerk who phoned me to authenticate themselves. They seemed so surprised ... I take it most people don't do that from their response. But the biggest problem facing the consumer is, what do you use to authenticate a bank (or similar institution)? They do have public identifiers (company registration numbers etc) but those are public anyway. That, in the end is the biggest problem - how do you create mutual authentication without a predetermined code and without revealing any secrets? I sense a research topic ...

Movie: Ghostrider

A young man makes a pact with the devil to save his father; and when he grows up he becomes the ghost rider - the devil's bounty hunter. The idea of the movie is great; and it could have been a classic. But the execution was horrible: the script was bad; the action scenes were not that great, and apart from the CGI, there was nothing really brilliant about the whole movie. In fact, the list of plot holes on IMDB gives the idea I think ...