The Beanster Blog

The other day I posted about mobile phone spam, and just yesterday evening I saw my friend post screen caps of a SMS conversation with a peddler of our information. The cost of your phone number is 1 Philippine peso. As suspected the banks is where one of the leaks comes from. In this case it seems that an employee of one of their contractors is doing the dirty deed. I do not know if what he is doing is illegal. It should be isn't it, I mean I doubt that this is sanctioned by the Banks, or his employer. You would think the bank would take care of our information better. I guess not. I have attached the screen caps bellow. ( Photo credit: Mikey C.) I have attached his info also (if they sell our info, I am giving away his info for free) Ben Laxamana benlaxamana@gmail.com +639174887038

We've all gotten the computer generated SMS scam messages, the fake winning notification for a raffle you never joined, the Binay text brigade telling us how Binay is great or the devil incarnate (I get both). And yes iOS7 has the Block feature (which we all love) but why are we getting them? Well for one thing it means it works. These spammers and scammers would not go on doing this if they were not making a profit. Another question is how the heck did they get my number? Let's go into that.  I got my Freedom plan late Dec-2012, then I got an All-in plan Jan-2013. The All-in plan became my primary number.  - Family, friends and business contacts - Google - for account retrieval - Citibank - for 2 step verification - HSBC - BDO - for 2 step verification The Freedom plan my secondary number.  - I printed this on a flyer during my six months at Ortigas & Co., - I posted it online via tweets and facebook updates I opt out of telemarketing an...

I'm pretty sure the internet isn't the proper venue for anything you don't want to get out. If you don't want it broadcasted don't put it on the net. Simple. Sometimes you need to say or write things down as a form of coping or dealing with your surroundings and situations. It may help you understand things better or earmark the matter for future discussions or whatever. Very similar to journal writing but it's digital and can be multimedia. The problem then lies on accessibility of such a post. Is the site you are using privacy heavy? For sure you shouldn't use twitter, Facebook, Google+ for such things. Who can view and comment on it? A totally private blog shared with select people protects the post somewhat but not totally. A digital online journal can be both liberating yet dangerous as it is online - if your pw get's hacked then the poop will hit the fan. If you leave your browser open and someone sits down & reads your bookmarked stuff then yo...

As Lando once said: This deal is getting worse all the time… Yep there was a time that facebook was the most private of the networks. That day has long passed and we have seen facebook do little to help it’s users to protect their privacy and their content. I’m a fairly tech/web savvy person and even I got confused with how facebook privacy kept on changing for the worse. I really really hated how facebook kept on hi-jacking links. I also did not appreciate the LIKE system spreading like a cancer all over the WWW. So this morning: I removed ALL my LIKES (there were A LOT over the years) changed all my interests to “Facebook Privacy Sucks” deleted my mobile numbers and finally de-activated my account. The only downside that I am seeing is that I don’t have access to the company facebook account, like it or not, facebook is the biggest social network out there and you would be fool if you did not want your brand on there. I might re-activate my account to get access to my company f...