Cragnet

I have recently changed my address with two companies who deal with my pension and life assurance and am shocked by their processes. Both companies security checked me over the phone and allowed me to change my contact details for correspondence. The checks were random asking for information only I knew. After confirming my new address they said they would send me a letter to the new address as a final confirmation. I have no issue with being security checked on the phone and am happy that they changed my address. What really gripes me is both companies failed to tell me that a letter would still be sent to my old address advising me again that my address had been updated. It would appear first hand that the companies are looking out for my interest. I accept it is the 21st century and that ID theft is ripe. Therefore I can certainly understand if someone was impersonating me and did the change maliciously this service would be useful. However, I think they are just covering themsel

I was at a friends last night giving their PC a check over - I would call this more akin to a yearly car service. My friend asked the question I usually get - what security protection do you use? Nowadays being a linux user I have AV installed but don't use it in realtime and either use the built in linux firewall or rely on my router's firewall. Due to the lack of linux based malware or viruses I am confident this will keep my machine clear but am still wary what I either download or click on. In time this may change as more people begin to use linux but now it is relatively secure. I mentioned this to my friend but did say on the two windows machines that I have I use freely available products such as Free AVG and spybot. Using these and being wary what is either being downloaded or clicked on are usually sufficient to catch most things. My friend was running McAffee that was bundled with his broadband provider but costs per year. He was quite surprised to find that