Pretext is in the news today regarding the latest HP boardroom shake-up, and how the information got out of the boardroom. Back in the day, we used to call this kind of thing “social engineering” — Hi, my name is Joe Smith, and I lost my ID badge. Can you look up my account online? sort of thing. These warnings about pretexting from the Federal Trade Commisssion are worth reviewing with your family and others who might be inclined to divuldge personal information via that most insecure of communications devices, the phone.

One of the things that my father taught me at an early, pre-Internet age, was never give out this information to someone. Thanks, Dad!