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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?
I would be sitting behind one of those people in a movie theater. If they are stupid enough to get into that situation you know they are one of those people who leave their cell phones on during movies. :) Excellent idea though..
"I believe in everything in moderation. Including moderation." -Dean DeLeo, Stone Temple Pilots
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?
with the current fee of US $200 Thank you for committing this crime. Your local Police Department.
"UShdTrnURslfIn,Lwbrkr"
and no one can figure out what it means. ;)
-T
I was having a conversion, on the cell phone. And it was like, beep beep beep beep! And then, like, I had broken the law. And I was like... hunh?
I browse Slashdot at +3, Funny
Upon answering the call, the wrongdoer hears the pre-recorded message--
"You have broken the law by posting illegal ads. You must immediately stop this activity and go to the Hangzhou Urban Administrative Bureau for punishment. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200."
So basically, rather than taking the time to track these folks down, they're just going to annoy the culprits into submission...?
At first, I was going to say "why not just turn the phone off?"
But phone being off -> no incoming business calls either. Turn the phone on -> be spammed by police and have your minutes wasted. Turn yourself in -> no more spam + you getting a fine + you no longer hanging stickers.
But couldn't you just block whatever number the cops are calling from?
Ack!
Authorities in China are turning to technology to nab vandals--they use a computer program that spams the wrongdoers' mobile phones until they turn themselves in.
Officials in Hangzhou, the capital of China's Zhejiang province, have developed a system which bombards mobile phones with pre-recorded voice messages, according to the official newspaper, the People's Daily.
Businessmen who put up illegal advertisements which contain mobile numbers have become the target of the computerized phone-spammer.
According to the report, illegal stickers have become an eyesore in recent years, with China's coastal and urbanized areas blighted with a blizzard of advertisements.
This is because the postcard-sized stickers, which promote everything from fake identity cards to counterfeit academic certifications, are cheap to produce and offer some anonymity.
The new system rings the mobile phone numbers of illegal advertisers at 20-second intervals, said the People's Daily.
Upon answering the call, the wrongdoer hears the pre-recorded message--"You have broken the law by posting illegal ads. You must immediately stop this activity and go to the Hangzhou Urban Administrative Bureau for punishment."
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.
The system also dents the advertisers' bottom line as ad respondents are unlikely to get through, thanks to the mobile barrage. As the anti-sticker scheme is newly launched, results have yet to come in, said the report.
Ordinary folks need not worry about being spammed by mistake as the phone numbers are taken from photos of illegal advertisements, said Wei Yunxiang, an official with the Hangzhou Urban Administrative Bureau.
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.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I thought Ellen Feiss had become a cop.
Wait, wait, wait... Couldn't you just get a 900 number associated to your phone, and post that all over town? Every time the cops call you, if they wanted to talk to you, they'd have to agree to the charge (or can they just bill you without asking - even better) ... Pure profit, at the expense of the government.
Ack!
I'm sure the answer exists somewhere in the middle ... it just seems I was lead to believe in a different future by Adam-12 and Dragnet.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Isn't it obvious? Spammers annoy everybody because they can do so without cost. The police have found a way to cost them money, which may actually result in less (sticker) SPAM.
The logical extension is to apply the concepts of open source collaboration for email SPAM. Today a shady business can pay $5000 to a spammer to send 10,000,000 emails, and they get a profit because of the 0.01% response rate. Wouldn't it be a lot more fun if they got 10,000,000 emails and 10,000,000 web hits? Then let them try to sort the wheat from the chaff.
Stop filtering, and just hit REPLY
No! "Now Go Away Or I Shall Taunt You A Second Time".
They won't have to turn themselves in
They did this about a year ago here in the Netherlands. Phones listed as stolen were sent a barrage of SMS messages, basically every couple minutes, making the phone nearly unusable (incessant beeping of arriving messages, full inbox, etc)
In the GSM system, there is a SIM card which is linked to your phone number, subscription, etc. You put this card into your phone and use it. The phone itself has a unique identifyer as well, the IMEI number. It was these serial numbers which were used to identify stolen phones. So putting in a new SIM card won't work, because the phone will still identify itself to the network with its IMEI number.
I never saw any report on how sucessfull this was, however. I can imagine that in a lot of cases the owner didn't even know it was stolen (if they bought it second hand)...
Anyways, seems like a good way to harass people who use stolen phones.
Cheers,
Costyn.
The Official Steve Ballmer Webpage
In future generations, this approach will be termed as "UN Action".
----- LoboSoft specializes in Digital Language Lab
Back in the good ol days officers of the law had discression when it came to interpretation of the law. When I was a youngin and was caught blowing up the neighbors mailbox I wasn't made a posterchild for federal anti-blowing-up-stuff ads like today. I was repermanded by a 7 foot tall ogre with a gun and a badge. I stopped blowing up mailboxes reeeeal fast.
China's police figured out that jail and fines arent the way to stop most crime. It's all about the psychological punishment of having your phone ring untill your brain explodes. Hopefully more law enforcement agencies will catch on to the use of psycho-enforcement. (yey I coined another buzzword)
-bb
PRINT "Signature line broken."
GOTO 1
While this policy didn't seem to be having a discernable effect in HCMC, we didn't see the advertisements (at least not to the same degree) in other large cities (specifically Da Nang, Hue and Hanoi).