telephone hackers - can we upload something?

"John B. Smith" wrote

| I looked and can't find my plan anymore either (basic phone, not
| smart). But they've been charging me $6.50/month for a long time
| now.Comes right off my credit card, and if they suddenly decide to
| send you a new card you have to go thru hell to get hooked back up
| with TrakFone (if you forget the billing arrangement) I've had 2 hours
| worth of minutes for about 2 years now. Thinks it's down to 70-some
| minutes now. They frantically try to sell me minutes at the end of
| every month.

I've been very happy with them. I buy a $20 card
every 3 months to keep my minutes. There's no
account and no credit card involved. It's 60 minutes
for $20, but they always double it. It doesn't matter
because I don't use it that much. I just use it as a
portable phone booth.

Sometimes I forget to buy minutes on time but
they've never exercised their right to zero out my
minutes for that. When I had to buy a new phone
because they stopped supporting 2G, they were
very helpful about getting it switched over. I've
had nothing but good experiences with TracPhone.

But it's certainly not for everyone. The people I
see furiously texting as they walk down the street
would burn through their $20 in 2 blocks if they were
using a TracPhone. On the other hand, I pay $20
every 3 months and they usually pay up to $1,000
for the phone and $100+ per month. Aside from
occasionally wanting a camera, I don't miss anything
a computer phone can do for me.

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:50:42 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote:

"VanguardLH" wrote

|
| I don't see a $7/month Tracfone plan. The smallest smartphone plan I
| can find at Tracfone's web site is $15/month (200 call minutes, 500
| texts, and 500 MB for data). I cannot find a Tracfone smartphone plan
| with no data quota. Their basic plans roll calls, texts, and data all
| together into a minute quota for varying number of service days. The
| smallest basic phone plan that I found is $9.99/month for just 30
| minutes (talk, text, & web).

I use a Tracphone, which I only keep in my truck
as a portable phone booth, turned on as needed.
The phone was $10, I think.
I have to buy $20 worth of minutes every 3 months
to keep my minutes. That's it. I now have about
2,000 minutes stored because I rarely use it.

At $20/3months that's about as good a price as I'm getting!
Thanks for the idea. I'm a little surprised to find a kindred
cell-soul in a tech-savy place like this. I'm more than a little weird
about phones. I say re my cell phone that I don't give a damn about
talking with anyone unless I want to call THEM. (Part of that I
suppose, is that the sound is crappy and I"m deaf. On my landline,
talking to someone that I WANT to talk to I'm liable to hang onto the
conversation even when they are trying to hang up. I'm a selfish phone
user, so sue me.
I originally bought the little TrakFone to carry on my bicycle to call
911, or maybe a taxi in an emergency. I have got some use out of it in
various other situations though.
Portable 'phone booth' - what's a phone booth? Is that where Clark
used to change clothes? You won't find any in my area.
No camera on my phone and I had to pay $5 more than you!
I wouldn't consider using a cell phone while driving, hands-free or
not. A fighter pilot I'm not. I need all my faculties.


I can use data and a web browser, but it's
a limited, cheap flip phone and it's not meant for
that. I once made the mistake of reading a text
and I think it cost me something like $4 worth of
minutes! The message was from my niece,
announcing that she was at Starbucks and would
"be right over". Great. It cost me $4 for her to
tell me she's not here yet.

I can't see who sent a text without reading it,
so I just never read them. And despite turning
on the phone only once every couple of weeks,
on average, I do get some junk calls. But I don't
check my messages unless I'm expecting a call.
Though it's surprising how many people actually
don't believe that I'm not using my cellphone.
They think that's my "real" number because that's
how they use their cellphone. So once I give them
the number they insist on calling or sending texts,
then complain that I didn't call back. I have to
explain again that I really don't use my cellphone
much and that I *might* get their phone message
next month.

Awhile back I tried the camera on my Tracphone.
It works OK! But I can only get the images off with
bluetooth, and they seem to be blurry. I haven't
yet figured out whether that's a fault of the phone
or just a dirty lens.... Not as good as an iPhone, but
then again, it was 1/100th the cost.

"John B. Smith" wrote

| At $20/3months that's about as good a price as I'm getting!
| Thanks for the idea. I'm a little surprised to find a kindred
| cell-soul in a tech-savy place like this.

I find a lot of people are surprised. ...."But, I thought
you were into computers and all that?"....

I write Windows software and do some web design.
But computer phones, to my mind, are a lifestyle thing.
Actually I didn't use computers until 1998. I just didn't
have a use for them. I still keep my appointment notes,
works notes, estimates, etc, in a 4x6 notebook. Paper's
cheap and pencils/pens are easy to use.

There are a number of reasons I haven't wanted a
computer phone:

* Expensive. I don't need another high monthly
utility bill.

* Privacy. I don't care to wear a tracking collar
that a dozen companies can use to record my
activities.

* Privacy - part 2. I don't want people to be able
to reach me all the time. If I go for a walk I'm out
walking. If someone can suddenly interrupt that feels
like a collapsing of time and space. I find time and
space rather luxurious. And since I'm not an emergency
doctor, there's generally nothing so important that
it can't wait until I get home.

* Sleaze. As phones get increasingly sleazy, with
more and more spying by Google, apps, Apple, etc,
I feel like I'd need to learn the OS if I wanted to
use a computer phone, in order to manage the sleaze.
I'm not sure if I could even have that much control.
Even if I can, I don't really want to spend months
mastering a phone OS just to shovel sleaze.

Most of my work and personal communication
is actually not on a phone at all but on email.
Peoples' schedules have become so variable that
it's easier to email. I don't have to know what time
they eat dinner.

I *really* dislike the idea of texting. So many
people I see are slaves to their phones, as they
manage a constant stream of incoming texts. And
when those let up they have to update their
Facebook page.

It all makes me worry about the kids. They're
growing up with little experience of what it means
to be alone. Hive mind. They even have Alexa
monitors in every room. I would have thought that
young people would be the ones to have some immunity
against tech-mania, but they've never known
anything else. They'll probably need a month in a cabin
to give them a reference point.


| No camera on my phone and I had to pay $5 more than you!

Whoa! $15 bucks and no camera! You got ripped off.

On 7/20/2018 6:26 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I had one of these calls yesterday - "your computer has stopped
communicating with the Windows server", or something like that.

I used my usual: "hang on while I get the police on the other line";
that usually makes them hang up pretty smartish.

However, thinking about it afterwards, I wondered: would it be possible
to devise something that could do something to their systems, while
pretending to do whatever they ask? I've never gone beyond the initial
call - I have always seen through them so far, it's not been difficult!
- so I don't know what they ask you to _do_.

I suspect it isn't likely to be possible, but it would be _so_
satisfying ... (-:

NoMoRoBo free for many VOIP services.

HiYa, RoboKiller, and TrueCaller for iPhones.

But nothing can stop spoofing of phone numbers as long as FCC regs do
not mandate fixing to source.

--
Zaidy036

"Mayayana" on Sat, 28 Jul 2018 09:50:42
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
"VanguardLH" wrote

|
| I don't see a $7/month Tracfone plan. The smallest smartphone plan I
| can find at Tracfone's web site is $15/month (200 call minutes, 500
| texts, and 500 MB for data). I cannot find a Tracfone smartphone plan
| with no data quota. Their basic plans roll calls, texts, and data all
| together into a minute quota for varying number of service days. The
| smallest basic phone plan that I found is $9.99/month for just 30
| minutes (talk, text, & web).

I use a Tracphone, which I only keep in my truck
as a portable phone booth, turned on as needed.
The phone was $10, I think.
I have to buy $20 worth of minutes every 3 months
to keep my minutes. That's it. I now have about
2,000 minutes stored because I rarely use it.

Back in the day, I had such a plan. And the rolled over minutes
would max out. So every three months or so, I'd just call everybody,
especially out of state, and gab away.

Snerk, I now recall getting called by a friend who had a WATS
line, because he had minutes to use or lose.

tschus
pyotr
--
pyotr filipivich
Next month's Panel: Graft - Boon or blessing?

Zaidy036 wrote:
On 7/20/2018 6:26 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I had one of these calls yesterday - "your computer has stopped
communicating with the Windows server", or something like that.

I used my usual: "hang on while I get the police on the other line";
that usually makes them hang up pretty smartish.

However, thinking about it afterwards, I wondered: would it be possible
to devise something that could do something to their systems, while
pretending to do whatever they ask? I've never gone beyond the initial
call - I have always seen through them so far, it's not been difficult!
- so I don't know what they ask you to _do_.

I suspect it isn't likely to be possible, but it would be _so_
satisfying ... (-:

NoMoRoBo free for many VOIP services.

HiYa, RoboKiller, and TrueCaller for iPhones.

Are those free too?
--
Quote of the Week: "Ants never sleep." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet
Note: A fixed width font (Courier, Monospace, etc.) is required to see this signature correctly.
/\___/\Ant(Dude) @ http://antfarm.home.dhs.org / http://antfarm.ma.cx
/ /\ /\ \ Please nuke ANT if replying by e-mail privately. If credit-
| |o o| | ing, then please kindly use Ant nickname and URL/link.
\ _ /
( )

On 07/28/2018 10:52 AM, Zaidy036 wrote:

[snip]

But nothing can stop spoofing of phone numbers as long as FCC regs do
not mandate fixing to source.

What if phone companies could recognize numbers that don't belong to
anyone's phone and change the caller ID to 000-000-0000, or some other
number that everyone could block?

And change the NAME to "Junk Caller".

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"I have noticed all my life that many people think they have religion
when they are troubled with dyspepsia." -- R.G. Ingersoll

On 7/28/2018 5:25 PM, Ant wrote:
Zaidy036 wrote:
On 7/20/2018 6:26 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
I had one of these calls yesterday - "your computer has stopped
communicating with the Windows server", or something like that.

I used my usual: "hang on while I get the police on the other line";
that usually makes them hang up pretty smartish.

However, thinking about it afterwards, I wondered: would it be possible
to devise something that could do something to their systems, while
pretending to do whatever they ask? I've never gone beyond the initial
call - I have always seen through them so far, it's not been difficult!
- so I don't know what they ask you to _do_.

I suspect it isn't likely to be possible, but it would be _so_
satisfying ... (-:

NoMoRoBo free for many VOIP services.

HiYa, RoboKiller, and TrueCaller for iPhones.

Are those free too?

I believe so. Why not look in App Store?


--
Zaidy036

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

I'm often very wary of
popups - especially "are you sure you want to leave this page" ones -
and don't trust their X. I use the back button. (And if possible avoid
ever again going to the site where the popup appeared.)

Google got around the page authors from presenting those "do you want to
leave" prompts by using Javascript's onbeforeunload event. Some pages
record a state and leaving them means losing that state; i.e., you
cannot go forward and than backup to a prior page while retaining data.
Since the point of the prompt is to ask if you really meant to leave the
page, it is not necessary for that prompt to be issued by Javascript in
the web page. Instead Google Chrome presents its own dialog triggered
by the onbeforeunload event. You aren't clicking on a mysterious and
unknown element presented by the web page that could have covert
Javascript behind it. Instead the web browser presents the dialog and
all it does is prompt if you want to leave or stay on the page. It was
the misuse of the onbeforeunload event that spurred Google to display
their prompt instead of some possible malicious one presented by code in
a web page.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/...onbeforeunload

Under Android, I'm not sure what the apps do regarding fullscreen ads
that present a "Close" or "X" button. I suspect those elements are code
within the ad page, not a web page rendered and protected by behaviors
in a web browser.

Thanks for the information [on how Android leaves backgrounded
processes running. (Does it apply to iOS too?) _Is_ there a way to
exit such an app. terminally?

I don't use iOS (or any Apple stuff), so I haven't checked how that OS
handles exit requests. It is because users are accustomed to processes
getting unloaded when the user exits the program is why they get caught
offguard regarding process management under Android.

There are plenty of apps that kill backgrounded apps. Some are rather
crude and blast everything away, including phone dialers (e.g., Hangouts
Dialer) or other apps that you do want in the background all the time,
including some system processes. I used DroidOptimizer. It will let
you whitelist which backgrounded apps to not kill; however, its default
is to list user-mode processes. To keep Hangouts Dialer loaded (for
wifi-based calling for free), I have to select to show system or all
processes in DroidOptimizer afterwhich I can then pick the Hangouts
Dialer app AND the Hangouts app to stay loaded. Hangouts Dialer is an
ancilliary app that is useless unless the Hangouts app is running.

In message , VanguardLH
writes:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
[]
Thanks for the information [on how Android leaves backgrounded
processes running. (Does it apply to iOS too?) _Is_ there a way to
exit such an app. terminally?
[]
There are plenty of apps that kill backgrounded apps. Some are rather

So your answer to "is there a way to exit app.s terminally" is "by using
yet another app", which to me is "no" (-:. I was hoping there might be
something vaguely equivalent to using shift-delete rather than just
delete in Windows Explorer. [Yes, I know you can change the default for
that as well.] But sounds like there isn't.
[]
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. -Leo Tolstoy,
novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

In message , John B. Smith
writes:
[]
My little TrakFone has a setting for 'Silent' which i use all the
time, But it is not silent, it means you are choosing the buzzer, or
vibration mode. I don't know if I could set ringtones for my real
contacts or not, never looked further since can't silence the phone.

Maybe there's a fairly quiet ringtone you can select as the default,
with a louder one (such as the default one) you can associate with the
numbers in your known list.
[]
I looked and can't find my plan anymore either (basic phone, not
smart). But they've been charging me $6.50/month for a long time
now.Comes right off my credit card, and if they suddenly decide to
send you a new card you have to go thru hell to get hooked back up
with TrakFone (if you forget the billing arrangement) I've had 2 hours
worth of minutes for about 2 years now. Thinks it's down to 70-some
minutes now. They frantically try to sell me minutes at the end of
every month. Unless I"m expecting a call I just ignore the goddamn
thing. Apparently with all current plans available they force you to
buy minutes every month. Most of my friends have chosen Consumer
Cellular and a better quality phone for about 4 times what I'm paying.
Maybe that's in my future.
[]
Some years ago I bought a 3-2-1 SIM - some permutation of 3p a minute,
2p a megabyte, and 1p a text (I can't remember which is actually which).
I bought ten pounds' worth of credit when I bought the SIM. Last time I
actually checked, I had 7 or 8 pounds something left. I don't turn the
'phone on most of the time. (It is actually a smartphone - Android 4.2,
IIRR - but I don't have much on it. There's a good wifi-network detector
utility, which a smartphone seems a good host for; I can't remember what
else I've got on it.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. -Leo Tolstoy,
novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Mayayana wrote:

"John B. Smith" wrote

I looked and can't find my plan anymore either (basic phone, not
smart). But they've been charging me $6.50/month for a long time
now.Comes right off my credit card, and if they suddenly decide to
send you a new card you have to go thru hell to get hooked back up
with TrakFone (if you forget the billing arrangement) I've had 2 hours
worth of minutes for about 2 years now. Thinks it's down to 70-some
minutes now. They frantically try to sell me minutes at the end of
every month.

I've been very happy with them. I buy a $20 card every 3 months to
keep my minutes. There's no account and no credit card involved. It's
60 minutes for $20, but they always double it. It doesn't matter
because I don't use it that much. I just use it as a portable phone
booth.

Depends on the Tracfone-locked phone you buy. Some Tracfone phones have
single minutes, double minutes, and some have triple minutes. The last
Tracfone that I had was a Triple Minutes model (which is a lifetime
feature of the phone). Whatever minutes you buy get multiplied by the
type of Tracfone you bought.

Also, if you buy their 400-minute yearly card (expiration is after a
year instead of one or a couple months), often they run specials where
you get bonus minutes. I would buy their 400-minute yearly airtime
card, it got tripled to 1200 minutes, and they gave a bonus of 200, or
more, minutes provided you entered a promo code.

They don't do double- or triple-minutes with their smartphone plans,
only with their basic plans (which roll the call, text, and web minutes
all together into one quota). The 400-minute/year airtime card costs
$99, which gets tripled because of which Tracfone phone that I bought.
With the perpetual rollover of unused minutes, I had about 3000 minutes;
however, in a year, I still had to buy more airtime to avoid expiration
of the subscription. For another $100, I could get a 1500-minute/year
airtime card that tripled to 4500 minutes. I don't even use the 400
minutes tripled to 1200 minutes (plus any bonus they offer), so I don't
need to pay another $100 to store up even more rollover minutes.

Sometimes I forget to buy minutes on time but
they've never exercised their right to zero out my
minutes for that. When I had to buy a new phone
because they stopped supporting 2G, they were
very helpful about getting it switched over. I've
had nothing but good experiences with TracPhone.

As I recall, they would send me a text and an e-mail notifying me about
an expiration soon to arrive. However, there were a couple times that I
didn't renew before the expiration. When I asked them about it, they
said they give a 30-day grace period for renewal. I might be late but
I've not yet been over a month late.

It wasn't Tracfone that discontinued 2G. It was the cellular carriers
from whom Tracfone buys cheap in bulk to reparse to their customers.

I had looked at Net10 (also ran by Tracfone as well as StraightTalk) but
it wasn't as good a deal for me. Consumer Cellular (CC) is more
expensive. A yearly 1500-minute/year Tracfone airtime costs $199 which
is tripled to 4500 minutes per year for my phone. CC costs $15/month
for 250 minutes (and that's without adding a text/data plan, so you just
get talk) which would give 3000 minutes at $180/year. Tracfone for 4500
minutes at $199 with talk+text+data or CC for 3000 minutes at $180 for
just talk. For the extra $19/year, Tracfone is the better deal with
1500 more minutes and includes text and data access. I've had good help
from Tracfone, too. Republic Wireless has $15 talk (unlimited) + $5
data (5GB/month), or $20/month with a higher talk quota than Tracfone
but that would be at $240/year.

By using a Google Voice account along with their Hangouts Dialer app
(ancilliary to the bundled Hangouts app), I get free VOIP calling. My
ISP (Comcast) also has their own free VOIP service (Voice2Go). Wifi
calls reduce how many minutes I consume from Tracfone and why I have
even more to rollover. At home, there's always wifi (I don't even have
a telco/POTS line anymore, just use the wifi via ObiTalk VOIP adapter
that works with Google Voice). At many places I visit, there's wifi.
When vacationing, we get Internet access (which is wifi) for free or
cheap for use with out laptops and netbooks, so we also have wifi for
calling. However, cellular has the advantage that an existing call gets
transferred between towers. Leaving a wifi hotspot and your call ends.

But it's certainly not for everyone. The people I see furiously
texting as they walk down the street would burn through their $20 in
2 blocks if they were using a TracPhone. On the other hand, I pay $20
every 3 months and they usually pay up to $1,000 for the phone and
$100+ per month. Aside from occasionally wanting a camera, I don't
miss anything a computer phone can do for me.

I found a cell phone at a restaurant on the floor. The owner probably
dropped it out of her purse on the way out (which is where I found it).
I went through the About phone info but nothing there to identify the
owner. I went through the contact and found "Mom", so I called her mom.
As I was talking with her mom, her daughter just came in the door. I
told the gal I was leaving her phone with the manager (and also told the
manager the gal was coming back for her phone, so the phone wouldn't
disappear from the "lost and found" box). When I was hunting around for
owner information, I happened upon her phone billing. Geez, $250/month!
I lock my cell phone but the lockscreen has text saying "If found,
please call myhomephone", so there's some chance a good samaritan will
call me to say they recovered my phone. No having to dig through phone
billing, About, or hunt through contacts.

I haven't found a reseller as cheap as Tracfone for how I use my cell
phone. I don't need my phone grafted onto my ear or get a Bluetooth ear
bud to constantly prattle on the phone. Cell phones have turned normal
people into super-needy prattling wimps, but then so, too, have the
social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn).

"VanguardLH" wrote

|When I was hunting around for
| owner information, I happened upon her phone billing. Geez, $250/month!

What kind of service would cost that much?
I thought unlimited everything was only around
$100.

Mayayana wrote:

VanguardLH wrote

When I was hunting around for owner information, I happened upon her
phone billing. Geez, $250/month!

What kind of service would cost that much? I thought unlimited
everything was only around $100.

I only saw some billing info (which trying to find out who was the
phone's owner). The service itself was not described. All of us looked
at each other in surprise wondering what the hell would cost that much,
and what job would require that much talking, texting, or data quota.

I had a muscle car that I dumpe more than 3 times its purchase price to
get blueprinted and super customized. That was my passion at the time.
To others, such expense was ridiculous. Depends on your passions and
how deep are your pockets. Back then, I had a ton of disposable income.

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

So your answer to "is there a way to exit app.s terminally" is "by using
yet another app", which to me is "no" (-:. I was hoping there might be
something vaguely equivalent to using shift-delete rather than just
delete in Windows Explorer. [Yes, I know you can change the default for
that as well.] But sounds like there isn't.

The criteria of process management through user interaction with the OS
without use of any ancilliary software was not stipulated in your
original inquiry.

You are equating a file delete operation with process management.
Windows doesn't let you exit (unload) a process, either, unless you use
additional software. Most users hope the "exit" within an application
actually unloads it. Not true if the app is just a frontend GUI to a
service: the GUI process unloads but the service keeps running.

Even Windows Explorer is NOT part of the OS. It is an application: a
file manager and a desktop manager. So you ARE using yet another app to
choose to delete or permanently delete a file.