240 DEAR HACKER

240 DEAR HACKER

Dear 2600: So I was fired from my job today. I was working at this Place called

Consumer Card Services. It’s based in Oklahoma, but I was working out of the satellite office in Phoenix.

Anyhow, what we sold was financial backing on credit cards. We had

a list of rebuttals and if the people were to ask “how would people get my account information?” the response I was supposed to give was, “Well, Mr/s (blank), maybe you’ve seen this on the news lately, but there are malicious computer criminals called hackers who will stop at nothing to get your account information so that they can make charges on your credit cards.” I refused to say this. I explained to them many times that this is not correct and the media is not correct.

Because it was only my third week, I was supposed to still be following my script verbatim. But doing it my way, I was making five to seven sales a day, even though the quota is three a day (the service is $200). So the boss was monitoring when I did it my way. The boss called me into his office and said he was letting me go. I went back to my cubicle to get my briefcase and my two supervisors were going through my briefcase. They said it was because they wanted to make sure I didn’t steal anything. I happened to have the latest issue of 2600 in there (they published one of my letters!), so one of my supervisors held it up and said, “What the f__k is this? You stealing credit card info?” I was so pissed off that I grabbed my briefcase, stuck my mag back in, and walked out the door. To think that just because I read 2600, just because I defended hackers, I must be a thief.

I feel saddened and hurt that that is the view the public has of us. Tuxedo Mask

More importantly, you should be proud that you stood up for your convictions. It may feel like shit but what you did took courage and you’ll feel better in the end. Hopefully you’ll inspire others to do the same and then we may actually get through to some of these thickheads.

T H E M A G I C O F T H E C O R P O R AT E W O R L D

Dear 2600:

I work for a marketing research company. What we do is call you at work and ask you to do surveys. We don’t call people at home on purpose. Occasionally we will have a home number listed. I apologize and terminate when that happens. I get people who say “please take me off your list” and hang up. The funny thing about this is that we can’t really take you off the list. We mark “RF” and continue calling other people. The reason we don’t take you off the list is, well, we don’t have access to the list. The lists are usually obtained from the company that is having us do the survey. My point is if you want your name permanently taken off the “list,” you have to find out what company the survey is for. Usually you can ask what company the survey is for, but sometimes we can’t reveal that information. But if you take about three minutes, you can easily find out. There is always at least one question that reveals the company, always. You can give bull answers until you get that one vital piece of information, then just say “thank you, good-bye” and hang up. Or you can continue to screw with the person giving the survey. After you get the company name, you can call them and yell at them and have your name taken off. If you refuse to give information, we can always get what we need, so you might as well give it. The only thing that we would have a hard time getting is employee number and total revenues if it is company policy not to give that out. There is always someone who will slip. And not giving your business address is pointless. I have fun getting those and all other information that was refused if it is needed to be able to turn the survey in. And remember to be nice. We know your name and address, you don’t know who we are. One other thing: those stupid registration forms people fill out... that’s just asking to be called.

CgK We trust you realize that you’re the scum of the earth and we’re glad you took the

time to write with this info. Perhaps some of our readers can help us compile our own list of these survey companies. Make sure your phone has a ringer on it.