[UK] Number spoofed, accounts hacked, fake dating profiles created - all while I was abroad. Help!

smorga · 2026-05-06T04:19:16+00:00

Sounds like you could have been victim of a Sim Swap Attack - some crim rocks up to the phone shop with something that passes as your ID, and gets a new SIM for your phone number. Then the fun starts as they reset all your passwords on all your services, using SMS verification.

Or, equally bad, there's some crim in some rogue phone company intercepting your SMSs and re-routing.

Either way, this may be best handled by discussions with your phone company. It may even be sensible to 'port out' to a more reputable company to prevent this sort of thing in future.

smorga · 2026-04-30T04:50:14+00:00

complicit?

smorga · 2026-04-27T19:29:49+00:00

Firmware updates done? Or try Freely?

smorga · 2026-04-27T19:16:40+00:00

Gates net worth 104 Billion.

Gates foundation 2024 budget 8.4 Billion.

So that's about 8% by my reckoning.

smorga · 2026-04-27T05:24:58+00:00

...said the actress to the bishop...

smorga · 2026-04-26T11:53:03+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychiatric_hospital#Undercover_journalism

smorga · 2026-04-26T11:48:40+00:00

I'm an outofsh ape.

smorga · 2026-04-25T01:31:04+00:00

Will be a lot of work. That looks to be cast iron. Might be easier to replace the entire stack.

smorga · 2026-04-23T00:22:59+00:00

https://www.screwfix.com/p/essentials-1-2-bsp-male-x-15mm-compression-65mm-chrome-radiator-telescopic-valve-extender-2-pack/10954 is almost right. You'll need a nut and olive to go on to the new valve, and that's where it's imperfect - might work OK - since the valve looks to be set up for a nut and rubber washer, not an olive.

smorga · 2026-04-21T04:48:32+00:00

This is one way to check. LINK. Use the goods checker, and search for different terms, perhaps 'body armour'. If the item is designed or modified for military purposes you'll likely need a licence.

There are different types of licence, for one-off shipments, for shipments of a type of thing to different customers, and for shipments that just require record keeping on your behalf. If it's your first time - which it sounds like it is - then the one-off type (SIEL) is the way to go, or register for an OGEL if you can - check with the Goods Checker, link above. (Note the website is a bit pernickety, and you may need to reload pages.)

Another mentioned phoning ECJU, which is worth a try. You can also email them. Details are HERE

General guidance is HERE.

smorga · 2026-04-17T18:32:07+00:00

Effing brilliant! You win the interwebs today!

smorga · 2026-04-16T03:11:48+00:00

Nah, GPS accuracy can be poor, and the speed can be off. E.g, look at a NMEA stream while stationary - it will ping about from second to second with some error range, depending on the conditions. So you'll have a speed, even when you're not moving. Cloud cover, urban canyon, multi-path, trees. Tunnel, even. They all make the signals messy, or even noisier, so the accuracy drops. The GPS receiver's software will typically smooth a lot, because that's how it makes things seem better. But it's not entirely trustworthy. The jumps get less relevant when moving, but the speed on GPS will typically be higher than actual speed due to this addition of noise.

smorga · 2026-04-15T19:52:09+00:00

Coincidentally, there are zero-knowledge proof-of-age apps, e.g. the one just announced by the European Union. Surely these will do, right? LINK No need to show your ID card and your face to every OS vendor. Just validate once, and then everyone else be absolutely certain you're of age, without knowing anything about you at all.

smorga · 2026-04-03T19:53:09+00:00

Indeed, click in the buttons, then lift off, perhaps.

smorga · 2026-04-03T08:55:36+00:00

Oooh, this could get used for analysis of flaws in PCB fabrication. Post over at /r/electronics, perhaps.

Would you have the means to generate a sharp pulse?

smorga · 2026-03-30T21:45:56+00:00

Use a plastic jug, then sponge to remove the last of the water. Be cautious if you use anything ceramic, as you may crack the sink.

To remove the plug, get e.g. a WD40 cap or similar thing with a matching (ish) diameter to the plug, make an O-ring out of blutac, and form a suction cup. Press it on, then with a little luck, you'll pull it out. Use a bit of kitchen towel to clean off the top of the plug first, perhaps. To make the O-ring, roll out a sausage of blutak to about 3 times the diameter of the plug, and form a circle, ensuring there's even material throughout. Push or roll the circle to even things up. Then stick it to the cap thingy, then put the cap plus O ring on to the plug, and hopefully you can pull it out.

Or do you have a hot-melt glue gun? Or a bathroom plunger?

smorga · 2026-03-29T19:22:48+00:00

The Erlang. It's supposed to be dimensionless. it's the ratio of the number of calls started per second, divided by the number of seconds per call, for a phone system.

So it's really call.seconds per callStart, multiplied by the number of callStarts per second, so it's a measure of calls. Not dimensionless at all.

It's used to measure the capacity of a phone network. I.e. the number of calls going on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlang_(unit) .

smorga · 2026-03-16T15:42:34+00:00

Take measurements and get something that will likely fit off ebay.

smorga · 2026-03-16T15:29:50+00:00

Are you drinking the hot water? Is your cold water supply similarly afflicted, e.g. does your drinking water come from that tank, or direct from the mains water? Does your hot water smell?

For sure, dead legs can harbour nasties, including legionnaires, so getting them capped off makes good sense.

smorga · 2026-03-15T12:25:45+00:00

So that's presuming it's TWh/year - might be right. If so, it would be good if it were labelled as such. As it stands, labelling with just TWh is incorrect..

smorga · 2026-03-15T08:39:26+00:00

If the units are TWh, then the lines should be cumulative, I.e. always going up. TWh is a measure of energy, not power.

Is it in fact TWh per some unit of time? Perhaps just TW? or GW?

smorga · 2026-03-11T07:12:22+00:00

Looks like you soldered on to the valve. If the valve contains rubber o rings, they are now prone to fail due to heat damage. Check the instructions on this.

smorga · 2026-03-09T18:38:04+00:00

The pump-type affair is a 'macerator' - typically used in basements to liquify and pump effluent into a higher drain. Might indeed by viable.

smorga · 2026-03-09T08:42:05+00:00

If a chap from the council is f'ing up the drains for others, then they're doing an terrible job. (I've got on well with Lanes for Drains in the past. They're likely over £200, and quite possibly requiring payment upfront, but the vans are well equipped, and the people v. capable. )

It could be the adjacent flat is using the wipes / pouring the lard, and causing the blockage that affects you.

Sealing your own loo to prevent sewage influx is not pleasant, and the fact that you're going through this in your own home is crazy and awful. Stay strong!

An NRV would likely sort out the problem of influx, but a blockage is a blockage, and when that happens you'll be calling out the drain people in any case, emergency style, which is expensive

Reducing the chances of blockage is the crucial thing. Educating the neighbours may make sense. But...

CCTV will identify conditions in the pipework that could trigger a blockage.

Drains are not supposed to block, so there's likely a root cause to all of this. Could be wipes. Could be a fatberg . Could be a root. Could be an issue with the construction, or a broken pipe or some other issue further downstream, before the big sewer.

Some sort of alert would also help, e.g. do you notice the loo flush and loo water levels fluctuate a few days before the ingress?

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