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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.
Dispute the charge. If the telcos get enough gripes, this problem with solve itself. Just answering the phone costs the telco at least $5.
Don't buy SMS equipment. If its going to suck why buy it?
Duh. Besides getting TXT messages on a 7x2 LCD display is not what I call fun anyways. In the same time you can enter a relatively useful message you could have called the dude and been done with.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Looks like it's time to start coding SpamAssassin for SMS!
I'm glad I don't have any of those devices...
Wyatt
Karma: Marginal (mostly due to the border around the website)
Oh no, candidates are going to aggravate and thus isolate the 12-16 year old female demographic! The elections will be in turmoil!!!
Oh waaaaiiiiiit. . . .
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I'm joking folks, but perhaps its time for some old fashioned usenet community policing?
Dear Senator Jacka$$,
Thank you for your recent communication to my cellphone. While I appreciate your message, "WNT2BYurVOTE", especially it's efforts at minimizing my time, I would like to refer you to the enclosed copy of my the bill I received from my wireless carrier.
Also enclosed you will find an invoice charging you the $.10 I was charged for the reception of this unsolicited message. While I understand [Insert Political Party Here]'s fundraising isn't what it used to be, I still think this is reprehensible behavior.
Lastly, you'll notice the bill includes a $30,000 handling fee for the disposal of your message.
Thank you for your time, and if you really need to buy votes, please try Florida.
Er... was there some spam that you did want?
Karma
I can hardy wait to start receiving spam from the penis enlargement party.
My phone had a nice easy e-mail option on it, but because the e-mail address was the phone number for all the subbscribers on the network it was easy for spammers to guess it. So I had the option turned off.. I am not paing XXcents per spam.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
In this case, it's obvious who is paying for the message. "This text message is paid for by you under your terms of services."
A hack is just an idiom waiting for wider use.
Certainly here in the UK, the calling party pays for calls and text messages and it costs nothing to receive either. As a result, mobile (cellphone) numbers are handed out freely to all and sundry, with mobile phones being used much more conspicuously by everyone aged eight upwards.
While it does not justify spamming, the idea that SMS spamming where the receiving party actually has to pay for the junk is one that wouldn't be tolerated here, and shouldn't be tolerated in the US or anywhere else.
If it was voted the other way the title would have been - "FEC votes to through SMS privacy out the window, by attaching your id to each message......"
as much as spam sucks.. people will still bitch either way...
Dear FEC:
FEC YOU!
Signed,
Poot Rootbeer
FROM: +614042511111
Did checking this SMS message while you were driving cause you to have an accident. We are offering 30% off autobody work at Spackle Kings Autobody. Plus you get some free DHEA and a university degree with every fender straightening.
I just reamed ATT Wireless's ass last week for sending me SMS spam, for features I already have no less.
I thought there was a law somewhere that made it illegal to advertise to a consumer when that consumer paid for the communication medium, ala fax spamming. You can bet your ass that any politician that spams me will receive a bill instead of a vote.
My cell phone is the one thing that I haven't had to deal with solicitations on (except for that little ATTWS incident). LISTEN TO ME - I DO NOT WANT TO BE MARKETED TO. I don't care that you think your product/service/political party/penis pills are better than the rest, I don't fucking want them, and if I did, I would contact you on my own.
Wouldn't it be nice to get the cell numbers of these people that decided this was a good idea? I've got some stuff they just have to know about right away to improve their sex lives, enlarge their breasts, and make money overnight by working from home.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
Political urban legends never die. They just move over to Slashdot and infest the minds of right wingers.
Al Gore never claimed he invented the Internet. Read and weep.
Me wonders who is in control of the government. The people or big business!
How on earth could you possibly wonder.
It has been obvious for years, and stated again and again on this forum and others, with solid evidence to back it up, that corporations have bought and paid for our government, and have been doing so in every election since the Supreme Court aborigated the constitution and ruled that corporate $$$ == Human Speech.
In short, stop wondering. Corporations have usurped the will of the people and taken over our government. If that wasn't obvious to you in the 2000 election, what does it take. A visitation from God elucidating the fact?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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...
I can see why the FEC voted as it did. A standard disclosure statement like:
takes up 74 characters, nearly half the 160-character limit. That doesn't leave much room for a message. However, it raises a larger question: is SMS a useful medium for campaign messages to begin with?You can't fit much of a political message into 160 characters. Those that will fit, like "I Like Ike," are generally only effective if presented by a human being. Seeing a person wear an "I Like Ike" button is a much more powerful message than receiving an anonymous "I Like Ike" message on your phone.
And as the article points out, wireless devices are a personal and private medium for most consumers. They should not be turned into roaming, vibrating billboards, especially since the owners of the devices will be forced to read the advertisements.
They've just stunted the growth of another potential consumer market by virtue of their ignorance. Who the hell is gonna pay anything for SMS without relatively secure guarantees that it'll be spam-free? Email is free, and people are already pissed off enough about that.
I work for ATT Wireless, if you don't think it's right to pay for receiving spam text messages you should sign up. There is no fee for receiving sms or e-mail messages on your tdma or gsm phone like other carriers. I don't know how they expect to mass spam sms customers, we're sure as hell not going to let them use our network for it.
Notice how there are advertisements _everywhere_? I mean, there are advertisements in the toilets, now... Sometimes at dinner, I feel like blurting out to my family, "this dinner brought to you by [tech company A]; we make tomorrow's technology happen today!"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Erm... geeze, that's very darn harsh... In Australia at least, SMS only costs the SENDER money, it's free to receive them.
Although there are the cases where you request information from a service, and they cost (I assume), although they are things you've explicitely asked for... how can it be legal to charge someone to receive messages on their phone they don't want?
I have received a couple of pieces of spam SMS here... but they didn't cost me anything to read and delete them straight away...
This decision has nothing to do with anonymous SMS. It only waives the requirement that a political message tells who paid for it.
The first paragraph of the article:
"A decision by federal election regulators to exempt text-based wireless ads from campaign disclosure rules has critics warning that consumers could find their mobile phones subject to a flood of political spam as campaign 2002 kicks into high gear."
That's exactly my point. It's not like it's going to bring the world to an end if the advertisements extend to SMS.
I just hope it doesn't cost any money to switch SMS ID's, for the sake of the people who start getting more noise than signal. That's what I did with ICQ numbers and emails that were getting too many spams.
- flurffmeister [ kingsofchaos.com/recruit.php?uniqid=4r3zz9fs ]
In Australia (and I gather everywhere else where mobiles are popular except the US) SMS is regarded as an essential feature by just about anyone under 30.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
On March 9, 1999 during CNN's "Late Edition" show Al Gore said the following "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
It sure looks to me like he clamed to have created the Internet, or am I not understanding the last three words of his quote?
This certainly gets around the rescrictions of campaigning not allowed within 100 feet (or whatever it is) of the polls. Just wait until the SMS messages start flooding the phone system on election day. How will the FEC react when voters are bombarded with SMS spam in the ballot booth.
....."
"Vote for
Right.
From the article ... "The Federal Election Commission (FEC) today approved a New Jersey technology firm's petition to waive disclosure rules for political ads delivered via SMS.
... take note that tech firms don't usually lay out cashola to petition the FEC on obscure rules if they don't see a monetary benefit in the proposition. They want to make money. No doubt have garnered interest from politicians who will pay for their service in the coming election season.
So it's not a politician or "interest group" looking for the FEC ruling. It's a provate business.
No doubt the NJ tech firm is seeing dollar signs in being a conduit for delivery of political messages via SMS. For all the naysayers who contend that SMS political spamming will never happen
lets just say his penis is 3 1/2 feet long...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Remember it was arpanet, then some committee on govenment opened it up to the public, where it became internet. Would you like to guess who was in charge of the comittee?
here is a hint his initials are A.G.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The United States. If you don't pay X dollars a month for Internet Service or $Y for an SMS message pack (like $5 for 100 msgs), you pay for SMS, sent or received. Trust me - one time our server monitor program went nuts and sent me hundreds of messages - jacked my bill up like $20 Needless to say I fixed that quick. I never get SMS messages unless our servers go down, which thanks to Linux, is almost never. So it is cheapest for me to pay per use - until this crap starts - then it gets turned off.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
This is the FEC that is otherwise called the Federal Election Commission. They're talking about unsolicited SMS messages from election candidates, and bodies associated with supporting candidates. It would presumably be the FTC that would regulate unwelcome SMS messages from corporations.
So the messages you get will be of the form:
Sen.Smith sys likes fair cmpgns. But lied abt oppnt. Chts on wife w/ntrn 2. Vote Doe 4 lo taxS.
Not:
$$FREE MOBILE PHONE$$$Just call 9004561234 4 yor prize!
I hope that clears this up.
Incidentally, I don't pay anything for incoming SMS messages on my AT&T GSM account. Lucky me...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
As per the article: SMS=Short Messaging Service. As per cellphones, an SMS message is simple a message between cellphones or other wireless/cellular-type communication devices. Some companies also use DSM (Digital Short Message) same idea, but it is tied to an email address which can be used to send a short message to a cellular device.
Now I can be reminded on my phone that there are thousands of horny bitches just waiting for me!
According to the article, the SMS spams wouldbe limited to political messages only.
Yeah, sure, I can see it now..
Dear registered Democrat voter,
Your support in the upcoming election is crucial. You can't let Jesse Helmes get reelected *again*, can you? Help us get rid of him! Our plan is to send him a kit comprising our patented Herbal Viagra, our Miracle Penis Enlargement pill and our Female Attractor Pheromone After-Shave. Pretty soon the old geezer will be too busy to leave home, and then he'll die of sheer exhaustion.
But we need to test the kit first. That's why we're offering it to you for only $199.99. We figured that as it is, you probably don't get much. Why else would you be a registered Democrat voter?
Don't delay, act now, call 1-800-SMS-SPAM.
See why I have my doubts about the political message only exemption?
P.S. I could have picked Hillary and the Republicans. Nothing personal.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
AT & T Wireless doesn't charge you to receive text messages. What are you going to bill for?
Being a current ATT Wireless employee myself, I know how this is. It's very easy to SPAM cell phones. That's why it's a good thing AWS doesn't charge people to get text messages. Cingular charges $0.10 for each message, sent or received. That can really add up if you're getting quite a lot of SPAM.
That's why I can let my network monitoring utilities go ahead and send me SMS messages.. I don't get charged for them. :-) Other carriers might charge $0.10, but at least one doesn't...
AFAICT, most of the slowdown is doing net lookups of spam listings.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"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
I don't have a problem with them leaving out "paid for by" stuff as long as the SMS headers say who sent it, just like email (well, presuming it can't be forged like email). If you can't tell who sent it, then that's a problem with SMS itself that needs to be remedied, irrespective of who's sending them.
Or is it 100ft? No campaigning within x feet of a polling place? Will this mean that they can't send the ads on voting day?
Well, at least Clinton had a better grip then resident Bush...
"The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
--Pella, Iowa, as quoted in the San Antonio Express News, Jan. 30, 2000"
And at least Clinton didn't toss the Constitution out the window...
"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
--Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
If some asshole starts spamming my phone I'll sue my provider for allowing it to happen! Junk mail in my physical mailbox is bad enough.. but, at least they pay for that (and it keeps the postal service in business). But, if I'm paying for it I'm going to nip that shit in the butt real quick!
I can't believe it costs you money to receive an SMS or a mobile phone call. You guys (North Americans) have such a weird mobile phone system! It seems really unfair that the recipient has to pay when the recipient cannot control the actions of the people calling or sending SMS messages. Especially since marketers are starting to send SMS advertising messages - clearly the marketers should have to pay for that! North America is truly unique in this regard - everywhere else in the world (Europe, Australia, Asia etc) the person making the phone call is the one who pays - just like it is for fixed-line calls.
"Thank you for calling Bigfat Telco's customer service line. Due to an overwhelming number of calls, we now require that you send in your customer service request via SMS message from your SMS-capable cellular phone. You may be charged 10 cents per message, plus 10 cents per autoresponse from our customer service software with lame suggestions that don't apply to you. Bigfat Telco provides this service in lieu of human beings, which is a whole lot cheaper than answering the phone."
Voila! On-paper cost reduction == inflated on-paper stock price. With recent events and all, you don't have to be a sleepy SEC chairman to figure out what comes next.
Better would be to retain the requirement that the originator be readily identifiable but allow more flexibility in the form that this takes: "Sent from http://www........org/", for example, would still leave enough room in the message to be usable. (The originator phone number shown with the message isn't adequate identification, IMHO, because it puts too much onus on the receiver expend time and money to track the originator down, though it should be a requirement that the number is a genuine toll-free one operated by the message originator and manned at the time the messages are sent...)
Quite why any candidate or organisation would want to use this medium in a country where many of the recipients will have to pay to receive the message is left as an exercise for the reader.
My biggest concern regarding SMS/text paging is how wireless carriers like Nexel make it trivial to send a massive payload of messages, just by knowing the area code/exchange and creating a program to hit every possible number combination.
Especially with a high propability rate of success, being that wireless providers can fill up exchanges pretty fast with subscribers. A more logical approach would be for each cellular subscriber to create a unique alias and/or number combination for sending messages, making brute force attacks much less propable (assuming you don't post your address on the web, only to be harvested by email-harvesting spam-spiders).
Or, disabling the option altogether. As a Nextel subscriber, there's nothing I could do to stop someone from costing me 10 cents a text message - it comes with every plan i've seen, so theoretically it would be easy to hit almost every subscriber within an NPA/exchange.
Americans have to PAY to RECIEVE an SMS???
No wonder it never took of over there...
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
There's a key difference between e-mail spam and anonymous SMS. Where anon SMS can be used for, say, flirting or a number of social events, it cannot be used in bulk without putting a plentitude of nickels on the cashier's desk.
Spam costs relatively nothing, SMS still costs a nickel or two to send. Do you really think a spammer will shell out $100k to reach a million mobile subs with his "Enlarge your penis now!!" message?
I don't see the danger of misuse for spam as that high - I see the pros outweighing that risk.
(However, I still think Europe has a better charging model where the initiating party always pays in full for the telecom transaction - you never pay to receive in Europe, except in a few special circumstances which you are always aware of when they occur and have to deliberately initiate. But that's another story altogether.)
...add three inches to my cellphone!
Kind of reminds me of the joke about the two political parties that had meetings in the same restaurant.
The Republicans ate a whole bunch, laid out lavish tips, and said, "Don't forget to vote for us Republicans".
The Deomocrats ate a whole bunch, didn't tip a lousy dime, and said, "Don't forget to vote for us Republicans".
I dunno about you and your friends, but for my friends it's a major way we make sure we meet up on a Friday night.
:BTW, where's the astronomy department?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
What he said is what he said. I am getting tired of all this (alone != alone, is != is) talk. What every happend to saying what you mean and sticking to it???
It is a free standing sentence. Please tell me how I am misunderstanding what he said.
It's like when the Democrats and Republicans where fighting over school lunches and the Democrats where saying that a reducation in the projected rate of increase was a cut when it was not a cut.
br?
The problem is roaming. When I receive a call or SMS while roaming I have to pay from my country to the country I am roaming. Result? I have to pay for SPAM. And that is not funny. My provider is in Canada and I roam in Europe.
In Europe the caller pays for everything, even when the other is roaming.
BTW I would read the fine print on who pays while you are roaming in another country.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"