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[ 5 minute read ]
Access Denied
There is a 1992 sci-fi horror film called 'The Lawnmower Man' with Jeff Fahey (Jobe) as an intellectually-challenged gardener and Pierce Brosnan as a scientist who tries to enhance Jobe's intellect using virtual reality simulations and drugs. There is a scene in which Jobe is somehow locked into a computer program and had become malevolent. Jobe tries different routes to escape the software and escape into the real world. 'Access Denied; Access Denied; Access Denied', hundreds of times.
Buying a new phone on monthly terms is the same. I have two Sim plans. I don't want any more plans. I intend to get rid of one Sim and its plan in favour of an unlimited plan. Great! A new phone with an unlimited plan with my existing service provider. Can't do that. Access Denied. I have to buy the phone with a useless 50GB data plan. Quite simply, I would throw that Sim away and buy a Sim elsewhere for less per month that has unlimited everything.
I am beginning to understand how wretched the world's population is. Even I, who have absolutely no need for a SmartPhone have to buy a 5G device in case 4G becomes obsolete in the next ten years. I, however, insist on a phone with no A.I. installed as standard. Nor can it be a Google thingy. Any phone I have will be exclusively used for texts and voice, but I don't want any voice recognition technology listening to me or the other person I am talking to. Access Denied.
Look at it this way. Now that we have A.I. we all need to security vet our closet relatives every time they call or text us, even face-time us. Our voices and our faces, from those photographs on your phones, can be reproduced and animated, to fool even our own mothers, spouses or partners, and our children to make them reveal secrets to A.I. Your A.I. reproduced face can be used to face-time your children and tell them to meet you somewhere remote. Of course, you could set up security safe words but you would never be able to use them because it would be one of your character attributes that a bad actor using A.I. would definitely use. There are no photographs of me beyond the age of eighteen, and even that one is an oblique view of me. Any guesses why? I don't use MS Teams or speak or have my webcam on in Forums or Tutorials. Unfortunately, last year, I was compelled to talk in real-time to my tutor. Serious security breach! People are uneasy if they cannot build some rapport by also making other people vulnerable though. Nobody needs to see me to understand what I am saying.
My bank tells me it is removing an extremely secure way for me to log in online that only allows me to see the balance. I cannot do any transaction other than cancel Direct Debits. I would never want full online access to somewhere where my money is. Soon, I will need to keep my money under my mattress. Before the end of the year, the only way to access my bank account online will be by using an app that provides full access and allows any transaction including money transfers. Maintain Good Security - Access Denied.
I have to get a SmartPhone to safeguard against future rubbish that someone cooks up as being healthy living. 3G is being switched off by the end of the year. Phone Security - Access Denied.
How horrendous it must be to recognise that this is the life we live, in which we cannot have peace because other people do not know peace. We cannot have good security because other people are caught up in a frenzy of revealing their own information by storing personal stuff on SmartPhones, and a blanket and SIMPLE way to protect them is necessarily thrown over all customers of digital services. This is a nightmare. I am wondering if it might make me feel bullied rather than steered towards purchasing stuff I absolutely don't want. Later, I will have to talk to someone in Customer Service, who has little customer service training, at my phone service provider, to TELL them what I want. I will, inevitably have to have a discussion on my needs. I don't want a discussion and if any marketing is attempted I will change service providers at the end of the contract in November. I tell them this, but the marketing goes on and on. I could end the contract early, today, for £23.83. I don't even care if I lose my phone number.
I don't get addicted to anything, except maybe sugar which would take me about two months to give up. I can gamble, get drunk or smoke cigarettes and then just stop, and never crave a return to them. Advertising has zero effect on me. I sometimes hear what is being advertised, but I never buy it. NEVER! I am immune to desire and want. I am only compelled to have what is necessary to freely exist in a crazy world of greedy clamour and chaos.
I am beginning to understand how difficult it is for people to conduct normal lives, when they are forced to have superfluous conversations when a simple click online would be easier. Access Denied. Businesses are too far ahead of themselves. They cannot provide something that they want to sell. No wonder it takes so long to get through to talk to someone in customer service or the 'tech' department. Everyone is forced to go into lengthy detail about what they want. Oh no! Maybe people don't know what they want, and so they are 'guided' into catering to their 'want' and desire for things they previously did not know exists. Oh no! How sad!
You know, I am not particularly interested in being social for the sake of sociability. I definitely do not need to incessantly chat or be in contact with anyone. In that, I am wholly fortunate. There are so many ways to avoid customer service rubbish calls. Take 'roaming' for example. I would never upgrade my plan. I would simply buy a monthly unlimited plan for £20 upfront somewhere, and then never allow more payments. Job done. Or, like I normally do, buy a Sim in the countries I am in and put it in an unlocked phone. I can't understand why anyone would voluntarily want to mess with a phone or Sim plan, ever.
A long time ago, when people went into supermarkets there wasn't much choice between products. Take breakfast cereal for example. There is a whole aisle of poison to confuse shoppers these days. The list of ingredients on one product has only one line. 'Wheat'. I actually haven't looked at Shredded Wheat boxes but an advert told me that a couple of days ago. In Shredded Wheat there is only wheat. Simple living.
I studied marketing at FHEQ level 6 because I wanted to understand how people are fooled into making purchases. The overall driving force for purchasing is family, friend, school and work colleague, famous person influence. Parents are the major influencer. The marketer's job is more than halfway done before they even get out of bed.
Such is my frustration. I almost bought a phone with a Sim plan that I would pay for, but never use, simply to get the phone and be able to get on with my day. I can buy a Sim plan that I actually want separately. Is that what people do, to get what they want? Pay through the nose for stuff that is useless but is essentially tacked on to something they do want?
I have a dumb-phone but because the world has SmartPhones My security protocols must be compromised by upgrading to a device that will inevitably replace Chip and Pin that is already replacing money transactions. Even though I won't be using the SmartPhone, I have to buy it now because all SmartPhones will have A.I. installed as standard. That then, will be the time to throw all your talking and viewing devices away. However, I suspect no-one will, so I won't be able to either.
Thanks a lot!
At 8 o'clock this morning I will have to talk to someone about getting something I fear and loathe; ultra-connectivity to entities I detest.