An End to Unknown Callers
Unknown Callers
They finally found a way!
Perhaps…
I remember when I was much younger, when the phone rang at home, my sister and I would rush to answer it, see who got to it first. We would first greet with a “Hello”, sometimes we thought of being a little creative and we would also introduce whose residence was it (just like in the movies… hahaha)… “This is How’s residence”… Followed by “May I know who is that speaking on the line?”…
Then the dilemma came… If you’re laughing right now… We’re probably of the same generation…
I’m slightly above my mid-30s right now… and when that happened probably… a good 25 years ago… or so… Some of you might not be born then…
But is okay…
We didn’t have handphones back then… and to have something similar to what we have today, mobile… it was a luxury… and it was huge… and it looked something like this… Most of us were using land line telephones at home… The common brand back then in Malaysia should be Sapura, as Telekoms supplied them to all land-line users. Phones back then only had buttons, and they didn’t come with a TFT screen or an OLED display. Phones with round dials were much older…
Anyway…
When the phone rang back then, we had no idea who was that calling at the other end of the line. We had no idea from which number he/she was calling from to validate if who he/she claimed to be was true… That was probably why prank calls were kinda fun back then… We didn’t have an address book, like what you would have in your handphones today… We had a telephone directory, that looked more like a dictionary, and it was quite a popular tool for punishment as well.
Where was I… So the dilemma came…
After the caller identified himself/herself, we would cover the receiver with our hand, and we would shout in the background “Daddy, Mr. Tan (for example) is looking for you (typical Asian… how to “look” over the phone?)”…
“Say daddy is not at home!”
I used to get “A” for English… Thanks to “Peter and Jane”… My comprehension, I believe was quite good too…
“Mr. Tan, daddy said he is not at home.”
Dad sometimes does that when he’s caught busy… or not in a good mood…
I believe that still happens to us… Even today…
Sometimes we just don’t feel like answering the call…
Sometimes we have no idea who is that calling… especially if it wasn’t from a land line number shown on the screen (we could at least guess from which part of Malaysia the call was coming from) but a mobile number and, so happens to be one that’s not saved in your Address Book…
Who could that be?
We have been warned many times over the media by different sources, even the authorities, to be careful not to fall into phone scams. People calling from an unknown or unidentified number who are preying for victims… Impersonating the identity of another person, or of the authority, with the sole intention to scam or rob you of your money.
Or… there’s a call from an unknown number, one that has many digits to it… one that doesn’t seem local, not land, not mobile… and once you answer it, you get charged for quite a hefty sum of money.
Answer also die, don’t answer also die…
The answer, perhaps, is…
TrueCaller
I have been using TrueCaller since early 2018 and this App has been able to help me identify who was calling me, and who was I calling to. Yes, even who I was calling to. To find more about what TrueCaller is, and what it can do… visit this link below:
TrueCaller Official Website
Now before you take my recommendation as it is… I would also like to first make you aware of a few things, should you choose to use the App…
Like usual, 3 pointers… For this I choose P.
Permission & Privacy
That is quite a lot of information.
Permission & Privacy
Just like any other App that you install onto your smartphone, they would first need your Permission to access certain “part” of your smartphone before installation takes place, and in order for the App to be fully functional.
Among the Permissions that TrueCaller require are:
1. Camera
Take camera and videos
2. Contacts
– Find accounts on the device
– Modify your contacts
– Read your contacts
3. Location
– Approximate (network-based) location
– Find (GPS) location
4. Microphone
– Record Audio
5. Call Logs
– Write call log
– Read call log
6. Phone
– Read phone status and identity
– Reroute outgoing calls
– Add voicemail
– Directly call phone numbers
7. SMS
– Read your messages (SMS/MMS)
– Receive messages (SMS/MMS)
– Send SMS messages
8. Storage
– Read the contents of your SD Card
– Modify or delete the contents of your SD Card
9. Other
– A whole list of items here
I got the above list from PlayStore.
The bottom line is, by using TrueCaller, it allows the App to access all the information it requires, that is contained in your handphone… and the Company should also have access to those information as well.
That is quite a lot of information.
Pool
That’s why they needed your permission.
Pool
I believe it is safe to say… By using the App… or any App for that matter… you will be contributing a certain amount of information (from your side) into the common pool.
Think about it this way…
Where and how the Company gets the information from, and how does it build its database other than from its users?
That’s why they needed your permission.
Paranoid
#noregrets
Paranoid
We can always choose to look at things from one extreme, or the other…
We can always choose to be trusting or we can be paranoid over everything…
Like I’ve stated earlier, I’ve been using the TrueCaller since last year… It has only brought me good thus far, and I’ve not experienced anything unpleasant from it. You can also choose to Google reviews on TrueCaller or just simply look at the feedback, star ratings, and the number of installations by the other users on PlayStore.
#noregrets
BE CONNECTED
