Slashdot Mirror
Beep! Beep! You have Broken the Law.
medscaper writes "Authorities in China are using computers to spam mobile phones of law-breakers until they turn themselves in. Apparently, lots of illegal advertisements as stickers with mobile-phone numbers listed are placed around large cities and are becoming an eyesore. So, the authorities call the cell phones incessantly with recorded messages that demand the "businessmen" to turn themselves in."
How well does this actually work? Wouldn't they just get a new phone number?
So, if I don't like someone, all I have to do is make up a few ads with his number on and stick them up places, and the state will spam him for me?
This is perhaps the most creative way to enforce a law I've ever heard of. More power to 'em. It would be easy, however, to anonymously attack someone by putting their cell phone number on a sticker and posting it around town. I hope they don't prosecute people that have been attacked this way.
In the long run, we're all dead.
The numbers are also checked manually and require the approval of a senior official before the bombardment can begin, he told the People's Daily.
This is the bit I'd be worry about. You'd hate someone to target you and have you taken "for punishment" by pasting a few stickers in your name.
So how effective is the manual check?
However, there is a huge problem with it: If you hate someone all you do is make some fake ads with their phone numbers on and leave them for the Chinese authorities to find and then spam.
Result: an innocent person has a whole lotta shit to clean up.
If the authorities do take some time to investigate the ads (ie actually try phoning the numbers and try to buy the products would be a start) then I think it might be a good way to deal with the criminals who promote their wares.
Similar tactics have been done before against email spammers whereby people find out the spammer's home address and send them junk mail in the post. It pisses the spammers off, but unfortunately finding out the senders of such crap is much more difficult as they don't rely on an email address to take orders with.
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Ring Ring...
Hello, locksmith here.
We saw you bills advertising locksmith service, we can post bills for one half price of the competition. Can we send you a quote?
Yes.
Here it comes...
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
Given the number of people they're spamming, the police could potentially set up 1000 lines or more to call from.
I doubt someone would actually turn themself in from spamming, so they ought to call and say:
Hello. I have seen your advertisements and would like to learn more about your products/services since I think there is a high potential of purchasing at a large volume. Please meet me at (location) at (date/time).
Then the police nab them at the location.
What does this do to the cellular phone networks? If I ran the verizon network, I'd be really glad to have a bunch of pissed off chinese commie gestapo guys /.'ing me 24/7.
But there is another kind of evil that we must fear most... and that is the indifference of good men.
Those who prefer to change their "poisoned" number rather than face punishment incur the fees and inconvenience of switching, and also lose any business their ad might have generated.
This is an interesting statement to be made against spam in general. Those who get spammed incessently have to incur all of the costs, and either suffer through it (as most people do), or lose the revenue/contacts that have the old "poisoned" address.
I think from this point on, I am going to call my addresses that receive 20+ spams a day "poisoned" addresses. Because that is basically what they are.
~ kjrose
Obviously the phone networks won't be allowed to block these numbers, and they won't have caller ID on the DOS originator so local call blocking is useless. I doubt every phone network in China has caller ID, (hell, I can't think of anywhere with that), so blocking non-identifiable numbers is way out.
It's quite a good idea. Could we not implement a similar scheme on the net? Any links and reply-to addresses in tagged spam become DOS'ed by a volentary "zombie" that subscribers run. Putting the Slashdot effect to good use.
If you had the chance to get into their house and rewire their phone, why the hell wouldn't you just shoot them?
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Okay, so if its an individual, clearly things will be figured out early on.
However, what if its a competing business? If someone calls up XYZ company and says, "I saw your ad, I'd like to buy some of your things.." I'm sure the business in question will be more than happy to oblige them. Is there anything else that could be done to demonstrate that they didn't put the signs up in the first place?
I suppose its the same question in the US without a phone number. Say you print a bunch of stickers with your competition's name on them, then put them in places that are obviously vandalizing, like car windshields. Does the business get in trouble?
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
...if you ever dislike someone, report his phone stolen.