Somehow I was not feeling very active today, and spent much of the time catching up on
yesterday and the email that was once again lagging. About the only thing of interest is
how Bruno has been transformed now that
we let him out again. It goes to show how little I really understand cats.
Into Ballarat today for my
six-monthly health checkup. All seems to be well except for one new issue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomerular_filtration_rateeGFR was 52 ml/1.73 m²,
while it should be greater than 60.
How serious is that? Paul wasn't overly concerned—yet—though it's clear that it's something
to keep an eye on. And I need to read up on the issue. The most obvious thing is this
crazy measurement per 1.73 m². Is that a conversion from some archaic unit? That's 18.6216
ft², not exactly an obvious unit. The Wikipedia page is
remarkably detailed, and comes up with this explanation:
Since these formulae do not adjust for body size, results are given in units of mL/min per
1.73 m², 1.73 m² being the estimated body surface area of an adult with a mass of 63 kg
and a height of 1.7 m.
That's not me. But it's not clear whether this makes the result better or worse.
After that, a booster vaccination for Shingles, and I was off.
I have been receiving more and more SMS requiring my action recently. Health First have taken to sending me SMSs requiring my action. I had asked them not
to send me SMSs requiring my response, but they kept doing it. Explained to the
receptionist again, and she promised to stop it. She also asked me to sign a sheet of paper
assigning Medicare benefits to Paul Smith, something I have never had to do before. And then a few minutes
later I received the same request by SMS, but only if I divulge my date of birth.
And then last week Dorevitch Pathology sent me an invoice via SMS, but were only prepared to show it to
me if I accept their Privacy Policy (their capitalization). Sorry, people, that's the wrong
way round. If you want something from me, you identify yourselves.
And then there's the s[cp]am from ANZ
Bank last month. As suspected, despite the appalling presentation and security, it was
really from ANZ, and I received a couple of letters in the mail about it. ANZ is just round
the corner from Health First,
so I went there after my doctor's appointment, watching a large display while I waited that
explains their security concept: ANZ will never ask you... including the PIN that they send
to identify you. Of course they do! That's the whole point.
OK, maybe there is a point in sending this kind of SMS. But they're going about it
all wrong. It's high time that somebody stopped using birth dates for identification
purposes. And if things are sensitive, they should perform their multi-factor
authentication much more carefully. Currently is somebody steals my phone and has to
identify himself as me, sending a PIN to or similar to the same phone is no security
whatsoever.
It's ironic that I first signed up with ANZ in 1997 because at that time they performed a
kind of MFA: I had a little dongle similar to the RSA SecurID which produced a random
number every 30 seconds, and which I had to type into an ATM. That was quite advanced at the time, and
I was impressed. Sadly things have gone downhill since then.
But there is a partial solution: fingerprint recognition. Aussie Broadband do that (one of
the few things they do right). Why can't others? I should investigate how secure they are.
But things aren't all that bad. After ANZ I went to Dan Murphys in the Delacombe Town Centre to pick up some
pre-paid beer. I should have had an SMS (this time without requiring me more than showing
it on pickup), but for some reason I didn't receive it. Never mind, what's your last name?
L-E-H-E-Y. Ah, there it is. And she helped me put it in the car.
What a good way to steal booze!
Today I took my old mobile phone, hirse.lemis.com, with me into town as a backup
GPS receiver and with the vain hope
of setting up WhatsApp on it.
I stopped using it because it can no longer make normal phone calls. But WhatsApp doesn't
use the phone network, and it seems that I can use it to make phone calls over the Internet.
Only WhatsApp is so hard to navigate that I didn't bother.
And then I noticed a tell-tale bulge on the back of the phone. Battery dying? It's not old
(in fact, I ordered it 5 years ago today). Should I replace it? Should I replace the battery? I don't
really use it much, so that might just be one that got away. And maybe 5 years is about
right for a mobile phone. hirse replaced the Nokia 3 that developed the same symptoms after only 2½ years.
