Tricking people into sharing personal details and logins by pretending to be someone else — known as phishing — is surprisingly effective. Some of the smartest people I know have been taken in by it and it only takes a moment’s lapse in concentration or uncertainty to fall for it. The maths is simple: it barely costs anything to send an email to 100,000s of people and it only needs a few people to get caught in the net for it to pay off.

Also, look out for targeted spear-phishing attacks where scammers may seem to know specific details about yourself to make the attack more credible. Or what’s known as whaling — the targeting of high-profile figures such has heads of companies or celebrities with elaborately planned and sometimes very convincing schemes.

You can also check if you’ve been caught in a data breach at: Have I been Pwned.

Types of phishing

If you’ve ever been close enough to lightning when it strikes you may be familiar with the startling high frequency thunderclap or crack it makes. But the high frequency soundwaves of the clap are attenuated by their travel through the air away from the source so that from a kilometre or so away all you hear is the growling of the thunder rumbling away as it clatters and rebounds off everywhere it hits.

I learned about this from Randall Munroe’s fun book How to: Absurd scientific advice for common real-world problems.

Thunderclap or rumble

Clayton Christensen, in his book and article ’How will you measure your life?’, discusses what he learned about how to live a life of integrity. Among other things he says:

It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,”…you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place.

I think this is relevant, both in the small things — whether to work out today when it’s raining —  and in the larger decisions which help us be proud of our lives.

The dangers of just this once