Technocreep by Thomas P. Keenan Page B

line of a government minister who was in charge of protecting consumer privacy but who didn’t seem very interested in doing that. The adult approach, of course, is to ask “why do you need that?” but who wants to argue with a cashier when you are in a hurry?
    But wait, I just might want to receive a phone call from those people.
    It’s hard to imagine why you would actually welcome a marketing call, but if you do feel that way, there is a simple procedure that still protects your privacy. First, create a brand new Google Account. Then (currently this will only work for users in the U.S.) create a free Google Voice number linked to it. You can then check it periodically for voicemail, or if you really want the calls, forward it to a real telephone number. You will still have the option to undo this at any point in the future, sparing you an eternity of pesky calls from telemarketers.
    Telemarketers.
    Many countries have “do not call lists” that often fail to work properly and are even used by spammers in faraway places as lists of ­people to call.
    Having little faith in Do Not Call Lists, I created a script for having a little harmless fun with telemarketers. It was vaguely inspired by the legendary “Angel of Death prank call” in which the person called tells a cemetery plot telemarketer that he’s been “thinking of taking my life, and your call is the sign I’ve been praying for.” In his version comedian Tom Mabe even asks the hapless marketer if they offer financing for the plot, though of course he plans to need it right away. 357
    After ascertaining that a caller wants to paint my house, remotely diagnose (and hack) my computer, or clean my furnace, I express great interest but remind him or her that “You have called a premium number.” Often they will persist with their script so I repeat this until I have their attention. I patiently explain that “we charge for incoming telephone calls. It’s $75 for the first ten minutes and we take Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.” Once I did have some poor woman offer me her Mastercard number but I wouldn’t accept it. Usually they hang up, probably flagging the number in their database as “crazy person” or something like that.
    If a marketer asks for you by name, don’t say you are deceased, tempting as that might sometimes be. One woman did that and her credit card company canceled her card. Do not be abusive to the telemarketers; they are only doing their job. Also, it has been reported that annoyed call center agents sometimes retaliate for rudeness by passing your number around the room for everyone to call. 358
    There are also various hardware devices that claim to cut down on unwanted inbound phone calls. Perhaps the most famous, the TeleZapper, plays an “intercept tone” to tell the bad guys that your phone is disconnected. Of course, this can have its own unintended consequences. One customer who reviewed the device on Amazon.com said that his credit card company called to say his payment had not gone through, but got the “disconnected tone.” This “landed me in some hot water” he reported. The TeleZapper had other quirks, like playing an annoying tone on every call, and anyway telemarkers soon figured out ways to defeat it. Likewise for devices that require friends and family to have a PIN code to make your phone ring. They sound good in principle but are pesky in reality.
    I’d like to be the President of the United States.
    Well, I can’t help you with that, except to mention that the official phone number of the White House is (202) 456-1111 and it’s trivially easy to make a call that looks like it is coming from there. Sites like www.spoofcard.com disguise your caller ID and even allow you to change your voice. The main lesson is that someone can do this to you. So just because the caller ID shows the name of your bank, it