Allow me, if you will, to stray from my usual posts about computers, Internet technology, and mathematics.

In the mid-1980s I saw a musical on Broadway called The Tap Dance Kid. I enjoyed it a lot — I liked the story, the characters, the songs, and the dancing. It’s not a very well known musical, it got a poor review in the New York Times (Frank Rich liked it much less than I), and it ran for less than two years.

A few weeks ago, I got a text message on my mobile. It said it was from my credit card company (and it had the right one). It said they had to talk with me urgently about my account, and I should call a given phone number as soon as possible.

In other words, it sure looked like someone was phishing for something... except that they did have the credit card brand correct. Chance, perhaps?

About a month ago, we had another instance in a series of discredited scientific studies, that latest one in the medical field. The short version here is that Dr Timothy Kuklo, who worked for the U.S. Army, wrote a paper about a bone-growth product called “Infuse”, claiming that it was very effective for treating the traumatic bone injuries that many soldiers have been coming home with. He had some co-authors on the paper, including Dr Romney Andersen. Except the co-authors had nothing to do with the paper, and didn’t know it existed until Dr Andersen heard about it and started an investigation.

New Scientist reports on a study that shows how bad “secret questions” are at protecting your accounts:

What’s your secret question? Your mother’s maiden name? Your first pet?