"Pretexting": new?

[Baker, John]

        If you'll look in the ADS-L archives, you'll see discussions
from 2002 and 2006.  Ben Zimmer took "pretexting" back to a 1992 article
in Computerworld,
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0609B&L=ADS-L&P=R7078&
I=-3.  "Pretexted entry" is older, and I found a 1973 use from
Watergate,
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0609B&L=ADS-L&P=R7350&
I=-3.   I also found that "pretext call" goes back at least to 1988,
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0212E&L=ADS-L&P=R613&I
=-3.

        Pretext calling was once a common technique of private
investigators.  Pretexting financial institutions was outlawed in 1999.
The legality of pretexting to obtain telephone records may violate state
law, depending on the state.  Its popularity has likely dropped since
the high-profile criminal prosecutions last year of several individuals
in a Hewlett-Packard investigation that used pretext calls.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Wilson Gray
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 11:52 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: "Pretexting": new?

According to Slashdot,

"Pretexting" [main stress on the first syllable?] is the practice of
pretending to be someone else in order to obtain personal information on
a person, such as telephone or banking records.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                                      -Sam'l Clemens

"Experience" is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it,
again.

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