Tuesday 6 June 2017

A job offer? I have been selected for interview?

My internet service provider used to be very good at removing spam mail before I ever saw it.  Not any more.
Since that small but excellent company was swallowed up by a much larger one I have been getting all sorts of job offers. I have been selected for interview more than once - the nature of the role has never been specified but never mind. They like me. I could earn thousands each week. 
Oh and there are the offers of reduced price flights, holidays, and other items. There are the offers to tell me my fortune and provide me with a soul mate. Solar panels have shone out.
I drop them all into the "junk" folder and block the senders. It doesn't seem to make a lot of difference. They get a new email address and continue their attempts to get me to part with what little money I have.
And it all makes me realise how frighteningly easy it is to use the internet to commit crime and to encourage others to commit crime. No, this isn't about social media and actively and openly encouraging people to commit acts of terror. That's all too easy too but it is the much more subtle attempts that are, for me, even more frightening.
If I was looking for a job then one of the emails that popped up this morning might well have had me making more inquiries. It addressed me by name. It knows something about me that could have been discovered by trawling the net - and it is something I have no control over. The information belongs to another organisation - a list of past scholarship winners. It is years old but still, in their terms, relevant. It is just the sort of information a scammer likes to latch on to and use - except that I am not looking for a job. 
You don't even need to be able to program a computer search these days. Other people have done all that for you. All you need to do is type in some search terms and away you go. If you are younger or smarter or both then you can sneak in back doors and steal information you have no right to have. You can sell it on to people who will use it to make more money.
And all this makes me realise how terribly, horribly, frighteningly easy it must be to recruit people. All you need to do is offer them something they want and give them a good reason to want it. All you need to do is offer them a few virgins and tell them it is what their god wants. You can sit back and watch them kill themselves or get themselves killed and cause all that terror and distress. You can watch taxes rise and smile as leaders in the community give in and do just as you ask - after all if they don't there is always another young one willing to give all. 
These aren't job offers. Indoctrination isn't interviewing.  Reading with understanding is something which requires constant vigilance. I hope I can remain vigilant.
 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I haven't had any job offers lately, but I was notified that I was a beneficiary of an estate in the heading of an email. I ignored it because I know there are no multimillionaires in even the furthest twigs of the family tree, unfortunately.