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Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam
Dejected @Work writes "If wireless technology ever kicks off you may be getting spam phone calls - "hot deals 10 feet away". If so you will have to use techniques like RMI, BrightMail, and latest e-mail filters to keep phone spam free. This article examines some of these tools and programming concepts."
Bulk email is (relatively) free.
Spam phone calls would not be. Not only would companies have to pay for the phone calls, but they would also have to pay someone to make them.
Also...what's new about this? Haven't you ever been called by a telemarketer?
-kwishot
I understand that spam by SMS is already becoming a problem, in the UK some of my friends have responded to competitions (SMS your answer to...), not realising that in the VERY fine print they were selling their soul (and mobile phone number) to the SMS spam merchants.
Spam by email is bad enough - but spam by mobile phone when you could be interrupted any time, any where without knowing if it's a critical SMS from work, or meaningless spam is an invasion of privacy.
I'd like to see this new form of spam stamped on hard, and stamped on fast, before it gains even more of a foothold as "acceptable practice". Anyone receiving spam by SMS should do everything possible to report it, and ensure that the companies making use of this form of advertising are made aware that it is totaly unacceptable.
We may have lost the fight againast mail spam - but if we fight now, and fight hard, we may just be able to keep our mobile phones free from this junk...maybe...
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
I would imagine that spam text messages would be hard to report because many of the headers are removed because of space/storage restrictions. I think that the burden would lie pretty heavily on the providers. How far is too far, though? If you're asking your provider to log and/or prosecute spammers, they inherently *have* to sort through your personal messages. As I understand it now, most services just send the information directly to your phone without having to actually store it on their servers at all.
-kwishot
It seems we have forgotten all about fax machines and the law that they prompted.
Let's see. There is a law against sending unsolicited ads to your fax machine. This came about because it cost the recipient to recieve this unwanted crap - in paper, toner, etc.
Our legislators, in their wisdom, determined that we shouldn't have to be subject to crap we don't want, especially when we had to pay for it.
Ok, now to cut to the chase. Even if my Internet service is billed on a flat fee instead of by bandwith or connect time (in the US), it still costs me a cash outlay (some divided portion of my monthly ISP fee), to recieve spam. Not to mention the value of my time dealing with it. I know this has been mentioned many times before, but the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the lawmakers.
-- Rant On --
If this starts happening on my cell phone where I do pay by the minute or the message, I'm gonna become hell on wheels. Anyone up for a class action suit? Not against the spammers, but against our so-called representatives for not protecting our interests. Ok, well maybe against the spammers too. Considering the intent of the fax law, doesn't this cover this eventuality already?
If I have to go to law school myself, that's fine. My needs are minimal and I'm not averse to living like a pauper to give all my time to pro bono work.
If I recieve ads for some business 50 feet away. They're gonna hear from me. I'm gonna collect the cost of that spam message recieved on my phone. It might be only be a penny or a dime, but I'll tell them I want it in a check not cash. If they won't pay me, I'll whip out my sandwich board and picket the damn place, or make myself as annoying as possible. Or maybe I should do all of the above...
This crap has to stop. If it takes law or civil disobedience, I don't care. It has to stop.
-- Rant Off --
Of course the upside to this is that my old analog Motorola TAC II phones and my Audiovox bag phone will become very valuable.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
Big difference: My home phone is a fixed rate for incomming calls. No matter where I get a call from in the world, it costs me nothing at all to accept it, unless it is collect in which case I have the option of refusing. Unlimited incomming calls are a part of the $15/month I shell out for the line. However with a cell hpone, I have to pay for airtime, even on incomming calls. You can be calling me from the same network, and it doesn't matter, the airtime used still comes out of my minutes. Therefore, unsolicited cellphone calls cost ME money, which makes me mad and shouldn't be legal.