Slashdot Mirror
FEC Permits Anonymous SMS Spam
crm114 writes "The Washington Post is running a story about the Federal Election Commission's decision today to waive the requirement that SMS broadcast messages indicate their origin..." And it'll only cost you ten cents to read each one. For what it's worth, you can read the agenda item which describes the issue before the FEC. It's rather interesting because it includes drafts of two possible responses by the FEC, depending on which way the commissioners actually voted at today's meeting. Although the company seeking the opinion suggested alternatives like providing a toll-free phone number in the message (preserving the spirit of the campaign finance disclosure rules), the FEC doesn't appear to have taken them up on it.
How do you bill back someone sending SMS messages from, say, ICQ?
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
Boy, it sure would be a shame of thousands of /.'ers happened to come across the cell phone numbers of the people involved in this, and they were flooded with calls that were billed at their expense...yep, sure would be a shame...
Whatever SMS provider ICQ uses will most likely charge ICQ for sending messages. They probably dont charge per message though, but amount of time connected to the SMS server. Anyone in the UK can dialup to a public SMSC with a normal modem (which supports 9.6Kbps) and send as many messages as they want and only pay for the time connected to the SMSC. The actual time connected is charged at something like 35pence/minute ($0.50 ish) and the number of 160byte messages that can be sent in one minute is much more than 3.5 (it costs 10p / SMS here in the UK for 'normal' users).
Not that any message you ever send via ICQ ever gets delivered - none that I have tried anyway, so maybe ICQ are actually having problems with their SMS charging.
"Good news! You can now use your AT&T Wireless phone to make international calls to over 220 countries. Visit [censored] for rates & info"
Sender: 9263
Sent: August 22, 2002 16:32 PT
It COMPLETELY freaked me out!!! Since I ONLY used the pager/sms as an emergency contact and I rarely get paged (unlike the sysadmin days), my first reaction was anexity and concern for my family. I had to stop being productive today due to At&t insisting on forcing their advertising through a service plan I pay for. Which, by the way, it is something I get charged for, and there is a line item on my bill. But that's not the point - we pay for it even if there is no line for it on the bill. Just because it's "included" doesn't mean I am not paying for the service. I find it deeply insulting that I should pay for a service that does not act as it should and actively seeks to dimish the quality of it's service through captive audience techniques.
I am very upset and harmed by At&t's actions and as such, I wouldn't mind hearing from civil litigation and personal injury rats^H^H^H^H^H laywers on how I may persue this matter and seek restitiution for the harm they have caused me:
- personal trauma
- loss of work
- theft of service
- telecom fruad
- bait & switch
Since government action has removed any hope of my ever being able to obtain lawyers, guns or money, I might suggest the slashdot effect be directed at the above sender. :)
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
What are you going to bill for?
Being woke up at 4am when they sent me the message, and a message disposal charge. And if they don't pay, I'll just take them to small claims court for the $30 registration fee. If nothing else, it will be hassle for them, and they'll have to pay someone to show up or they lose by default.
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