Authenticating phone calls

When bankers phone you, they need to know who you are.  You must be a signatory to an account belonging to the bank, or the bank must not disclose the details of the account to you.  For this reason, the bank would ask you a number of questions to verify that you are who they assume you are.

Even when they have initiated the call, and not you.

The same principle applies to accounts for utilities as phone, internet, gas or electricity.

But how do you know that the calling party is actually who you think they are?  If it is really an employee or an agent of the bank (or utility company), and not an imposter?

Of course, it is possible for unscrupulous employees or agents to steal your private data as well.  But this is less likely to be the issue, as it is more tracable.  The bigger concern is for an outsider, through social engineering, con you into disclosing details that should remain private between you and your service provider.

You should authenticate the person on the other end of the line - especially if you do not know who they are.  They should be able to send you an email, a net-banking message, an SMS, or disclose a private piece of information to validate that they are who they claim to be.

Many of us, as customers, are used to being verified, but are not used to doing the verifying task ourselves.  We don't often think of doing so.

Do you think so?  How do you think the systems can work for two-way authentication?  How can we protect ourselves from being manipulated and cheated by the bigger organisations and the criminal minds?

Student thinking

Students are supposed to learn, right?  And learning results in passing exams, right?  That means that a good student, knowing enough to pass exams, has a good level of intelligence, right?

Maybe not.  The mentality of passing exams hampers one's ability to think, apparently, if the Secret Teacher's article is to be believed.

Secret Teacher found that students had difficulty thinking things out for themselves.  Thinking is a strenuous exercise.  They need guidance to think - how big to draw a diagram, what words to use in a sentence, what conclusion should they arrive at, what are the correct answers, how many examples to give, etc ... what will show up in the exams - as they see their goal is to accomplish what is required for the grading tasks, in order to receive good grades.

The objective of actually learning something is not present in their thoughts.  Thoughts are distractions.  Showing the marker what he wants to see in order to be deemed worthy of good grades is the actual goal.  Figuring it out for one's self isn't.

Do you see this kind of mindset in students today?  Or is Secret Teacher's observation not universal?

I think that to a degree, Higher Education does not want students to think.  They want students to gather thoughts from other "experts" as they need to read up many references and quote them in essays.  Research is mostly repeating laboratory exercises and quoting from other people's work.  The only time when students get to do any real thinking is when they are working towards their Ph D, but even then, much of the work is in consultation with other "experts" in the field, as they gather information through readings and discussions.

To have a thought to abstract is probably "wrong".  Thinking is good, but it needs to be verified.

What do you think?  How should one think?  According to the norms that society and the education system tells us to?  Or may one think more independantly?

Who is to guide, if the instructors are wrong?

Can one really discern right from wrong?  How?  Is education the answer?

Change your first language

"What was your first language?" was a question in a recent questionaire that I read.

It led me to think: does one change one's first language?  Is that possible?

I subsequently posted my question on Facebook.

What my friends answered was a revelation to me.  Here is a summary of what they said:

• "First language" implies "native tongue" and fluency in that language.
• Her husband is fluent in four languages.  His first language is changable, depending on who he is talking to.
• She has two first languages, and has a hard time deciding which is really her "first".
• Another friend claims English as his first language.  He has since learned two other languages, and is quite fluent in all three.  He claims that his heart language is not his first language.
• Yet another friend picks up languages quite quickly.  She said she learned Indonesian because she thought she would live there, and Danish because her husband prefers to speak to her in that language.

Is this your experience with languages?  What does "first language" mean to you?  Do you have experiences to add to my list?

Please share.  Thank you.

Ethnicity

Shakira was disappointed to find that Filipinos in New York would not connect with her based on their race.

She wished to speak her language, enjoy the food from her ethnic background, talk about things from "back home" with people that she thought were from her country of origin.  However, the people she wrote about did not wish to connect with her that way.  They preferred to identify themselves as Chinese instead.  Or terminate the conversation and walk away as quickly as they can.

Why is this so?

Have these people forgotten their roots?  Are they ashamed about where they have come from?  Are they like the proverbial "kacang lupakan kulit"?

Or is Shakira racist in wanting to connect with people of the same ethnic background as herself?  Is it wrong to wish for such connections?

Many Filipinos that I meet are like Shakira.  They long to connect with other Filipinos, especially while they are not in the Philippines.  Even if they have lost their Filipino citizenship, they would identify themselves as Filipino, cheer for Manny Pacquiao, speak in Tagalog, and eat food that originated from that country.  However, not all Filipinos are like this.

Which behaviour is better?  Holding on to one's origins in preference to mixing with others while abroad?  Or mixing with others in preference to having friends from one's ethnic origins?  Does it matter?

Does it change for people whose ancestors migrated several generations ago, as compared with first generation migrants?  Or visitors and temporary visa holders?

What is your experience in this matter?