The term is a combination of voice and phishing. Vishing exploits the public's trust in landline telephone services, which have traditionally terminated in physical locations which are known to the telephone company, and associated with a bill-payer. The victim is often unaware that VoIP allows for caller ID spoofing, inexpensive, complex automated systems and anonymity for the bill-payer. Vishing is typically used to steal credit card numbers or other information used in identity theft schemes from individuals.
It will start with a fake email sent from bank authority which will strongly discourage the customer to click on the hyperlink instead it will ask to call a specific telephone no & talk to the customer care executive. When a customer calls at that no. he will be connected with Interactive Voice Response system (IVR) which will request the customer to key in the debit/credit card no along with the pin no. to verify. At no point of time customer can guess that it’s a fake telephone number with complete fake IVR system where he has just given his original bank/card details. Now depending upon the mode of operation the con will rob the innocent victim by using his debit/credit card details on any online financial transaction.
It was technically possible to build a Channel Tunnel for well over a century before it was finally built. Why the delay?
Albert Mathieu presented Napoleon with a scheme for a tunnel during the brief Peace of Amiens in 1802
First impractical suggestions in the Napoleonic Wars
Two centuries ago, the idea of a road tunnel was suggested to Napoleon during a brief peace between France and England in 1802. But war soon broke out again: the cartoon left is a joke, showing invading French troops walking under the sea in a road tunnel and flying over in balloons (the channel was first crossed by hot-air balloon in 1785).
Both schemes existed only on paper. They lacked the technology to overcome the problems, and did not have the necessary geological knowledge. They guessed that the chalk of Cap Blanc Nez ran under the sea all the way to the white cliffs of Dover - no-one really knew. They imagined horse-drawn carriages driving down a wood-propped tunnel like mines of the day, lit by candles.
A railway tunnel - a cure for seasickness!
The first steam locomotives hauled passenger trains in the 1820's. By 1850, steam railways were running most of the way from Paris to Calais and from London to Dover. Crossing the stormy channel in the small ferries of the day was the part of the journey that most travelers dreaded.
The problems tunnellers faced:
•Geology - they had to check, and hoped to find that a suitable rock for tunneling stretched in an unbroken bed across the channel;
•Ventilation - how to stop smoke from the steam trains choking the passengers in such a long tunnel?
•Defense - the English were worried about creating an easy route for invaders to cross the Channel.
In 1857 his scheme was widely accepted in England and France. After making many hazardous solo dives to check the sea-bed, he proposed a rail tunnel, bored through the chalk which he believed ran below the sea-bed.
His plan - see left - had an international port built mid-way on an artificial island on the Varne sandbank. Steam trains would run from the Paris-Amiens-Boulogne line on a double track through a single gas-lit tunnel. Ventilation was provided by the mid-way opening at the Varne.
Cars just drive on the double-deck shuttle train: freight lorries have their own trains.
Folkestone shuttle terminal next to the M20 motorway - 35 minutes from France.
How the Tunnel operates
There are two single-track rail tunnels, and a third smaller service tunnel as an emergency exit (with frequent cross passages). These were bored through the chalk from either side, and met in the middle. They are lined with concrete panels (on the French side, made from the Marquise quarries).
The tunnel copies some of the Alpine mountain tunnels in carrying cars and Lorries on drive-on/drive-off shuttle trains. Operated by Eurotunnel "le Shuttle", these share the tracks with high speed long-distance passenger trains run by Eurostar. All trains are electric, and the twin tunnel while the vehicle shuttle competes head-on with the ferries, Eurostar trains regard their main competitor as the airlines. They charge fares to match airline business tickets, and soon seized 80% of the London-Paris market.
High speed rail links
In 1993 a high-speed rail link opened from the French-side Tunnel portal to Lille and from there to Paris and (more recently) Brussels. Eurostar trains had to "crawl" through Kent at 70 miles an hour on normal suburban lines, speeding up once they reached the Tunnel and racing through the French countryside.
On the English side, the first stage of a purpose-built line from the Tunnel to London is planned to be open in 2003
A second tunnel?
As part of the conditions under which the Tunnel Company were granted a monopoly for 25 years, they had to produce a feasibility study for a second tunnel.
Although cross-channel traffic is increasing steadily, and the first tunnel covers its running costs, it has made slow progress in paying off its enormous debt from the construction. No-one is likely to be keen to build a second tunnel in the near future - so this feasibility study will probably go no further.
A road or rail tunnel?
Technology has improved so much that it would now be possible to consider a larger bore drive-through tunnel for cars (lorries emit too much fumes) as an alternative to one carrying extra train tracks.
Future schemes: a drive-through tunnel for cars? ...or a second rail tunnel for Eurostar passenger trains and the vehicle-carrying shuttle
