Let Technology Be Your Fact-Checker
Thunder Bay – TECHNOLOGY – Letting the technology do the heavy lifting, sometimes means fact-checking before posting on social media.
There is a post getting attention in the city this morning on Social media.
Posters claim you can find out if your smart phone is being tracked or wiretapped: “*#21# then press call. You’ll see if you’re being tracked. It should all say disabled, otherwise you may have a problem. A former RCMP friend shared this with me recently.”
Ever notice it is always similar with these posts? An expert told me… in this case, a “Former RCMP Friend”.
Those are ways to gain credibility.
The truth is there are a number of ways, on an iPhone to enter or change information.
In this case, entering *#21# on your iPhone simply allows you to check call forwarding.
The results of dialing “*#21#” do not show whether or not an iPhone has been compromised in such a manner. The featured sequence of special characters and numbers is one of several interrogation codes, also known as feature access codes, that allow users to quickly check iPhone functions.
There are a number of ways to check facts. Google or GoDuckGo or any other search engine is your first start. If you see these kinds of posts on social media, put the text into the search engine and see what comes up.
Chances are you will be able to stop your concern or panic right then and there.
Snopes.com is another great resource to fact-check social media claims.
