Reliably Unreliable
A huge data breach occurred at ATT.
While ATT can't protect your information, it claims that cancer-causing wireless is a reliable and acceptable replacement for landlines:
"While some landline users don't consider the alternatives to be good enough, AT&T argues that wireless is a suitable alternative to copper landlines. AT&T said that mobile service is 'highly reliable' and now offers 'substantially better quality than earlier versions.'
'Although some might cling to the belief that POTS [plain old telephone service] offers still better call quality, consumers have reached the opposite view: as noted, the overwhelming majority primarily use mobile wireless service for their voice calls,' AT&T's application said."
[Maybe it has something to do with unlimited wireless being available at under $17/month, while ATT landlines can easily run $60/month?]
Landline Phone Owners Are Protesting AT&T’s Plans to Drop Service
The only thing ATT has provided that's reliable is the landline service it wants to jettison.
When the electricity goes out for hours or days, the one thing still working has been the hardwired landlines. If allowed to stop providing landline service, inevitably people will die. They will have names and addresses.
And if ATT gets away with ending landlines in California, that will open the proverbial floodgates to that happening nationwide.
It's possible that the same California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which has facilitated Californians having crappy electrical service, will stand up to ATT—but don't hold your breath. If CPUC does so the first time, don't expect that moment to last.
But it's not like ATT cares about lives any more than it cares about properly safeguarding data.
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The leak prompted a “robust investigation supported by internal and external cybersecurity experts,” the telecommunications giant said Saturday.
[Why didn't ATT spend the money on the so-called experts befrore this happened?]
The compromised data appears to be from 2019 or earlier and included the information of roughly 7.6 million current customers and 65.4 million former ones, AT&T said.
[Snip]
The leaked information may have included customers’ names, email and mailing addresses, phone numbers, Social Security number, dates of birth, AT&T account numbers and passcodes.
73M AT&T customers personal data posted on the dark web, company says