Slashdot Mirror
Spammers Start Abusing Cell Phones
slimyrubber writes "Just when you thought that spam couldnt get any worst, Cell phones are becoming the latest target of electronic junk mail, with a growing number of marketers using text messages to target subscribers. Is cell-phone spam likely to evolve into something that big, something approaching the scale of e-mail spam? Not if you help to kill SMS spam where it starts. Hopefully."
This isn't new at all. I remember clearly getting phone spam back in 2001, and it wasn't for things I'd subscribed to via text messaging (I rarely used the phone, and certainly not for any of these fucking "TXT 4 KEWL LOGOS" services).
At least the messages are limited to 110 characters on my old Nokia / attwireless setup.
In the UK I've been recieving text message spam for a while, and recently there has been a massive surge in the number of text message "Scams" being sent out.
;)
Generally of the type "You have a new voicemail, call XXX to listen to it", where XXX is a premium rate number.
Highly, highly irritating - now all we need is a baysian text message filter
In China, Hong Kong and many places, SMS advertising is available at a flat rate...
We at hong Kong often receive messages from the cellphone providers and are very pissed off by them.. but then for some reasons they disappeared in these few months.
YOu can send text messages to a cell phone from an e-mail. Usually you have younumber@vtext.com (Verizon) or soemthign like that. So it is really cheap to send them out, just another e-amil address for the spammers to add to their list.
30% Troll, 50% Underrated, 10% Interesting
Score:5, Troll
I've been pestered ocassionally with SMS spam, but I had no idea how and where those foghats got my number from. Then recently, maybe two days ago, I discovered a site that could do reverse lookup on numbers in my country, It found me from my number, in a goddamn public list, I checked a few more similiar sites and about half of them knew about me. It appears that my WSP sold the numbers of anyone they had connected with a name, out there on the internet they're defenseless against them evil info harvesters. Sellouts... Death to Vodafone!
T-Mobile has a rather simple web-based application via which a customer can establish rule-based settings for which SMS messages they would like to get or world like trapped out. Therefore, the configuration doesn't have to be done at the phone itself, it's done via a web browser at a full-featured PC.
What'd be better is for the provider to allow users to set up a white list of requirements an SMS must have in order for it to be delivered. Therefore, random guessing Spam usually won't make it past the checks.
T-Mobile has such an interface on their website so that the only SMSs I get are the ones I asked for in advance.
Ketamine-bp wrote...
"(3) They know where you read it... the positioning system of the GPS/w-cdma networks allow them to track your place..."
Not true in all cases, nor at all times. All the GPS-enabled phones I've seen to date do not automatically broadcast one's position. They do so only when you're making or receiving an actual call. Also, the network itself has to be able to interpret and pass on the GPS data received. If you're hitched into a 'legacy' analog network, or a digital one that has not been updated to handle the e-911 feature set, your phone can spew its position data all it wants to no avail.
I'm not sure how it is for phones other than Motorola and Nokia, but the ones I've seen let you configure the GPS function to transmit position only for 911 calls or for all calls.
Here's the problem: The phones I've played with all come with the locator feature set to "Transmit on all calls" by default, and it takes some digging in the menu tree to find the feature and change it. Hardly anyone actually reads the manual for electronic equipment, let alone digs into the deep menus to play with low-level functions.
Even worse, you can't turn the GPS functionality off altogether because the FCC made its presence mandatory for the new E-911 systems.
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Source - Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991
From Subpart L - Restrictions on Telephone Solicitation
L. No person may
a. Initiate any telephone call (other than a call made for emergency purposes or made with the prior express consent of the called party) using an automatic telephone dialing system or an artificial or prerecorded voice,
i. To any emergency telephone line, including any 911 line and any emergency line of a hospital, medical physician or service office, health care facility, poison control center, or fire protection or law enforcement agency;
ii. To the telephone line of any guest room or patient room of a hospital, health care facility, elderly home, or similar establishment; or
iii. To any telephone number assigned to a paging service, cellular telephone service, specialized mobile radio service, or other radio common carrier service, or any service for which the called party is charged for the call;
(Emphasis mine) This appears to be the law that made calling cell phones illegal, but it seems it is specific to "telephone calls". I would think a good lawyer could argue that they're essentially the same thing though.
im glad that at&t wireless dosent charge for incoming just outgoing
After reading this thread I see a lot of people saying how annoying SMS spam is beacuse you get charged for them even if you don't want them. To everyone that has such a service I have to say are you out of your mind?
A service, setup such that as long as your cell phone is on and has service, that can bill you at will seems like the biggest wet dream a phone company could have since they forced leased phones! What incentive at all would they have not to sell the lists of their subscribers to anyone and everyone who wanted them?
I'm sorry, SMS may be neat but when I first got the sales pitch about including it in my service I laughed right in that poor salespersons face. I said if they ever come up with a way that I can deny any SMS message based on who the sender is then I might consider it but until then thanks but no thanks. (She then made a valent pitch about the unlimited service but I think she even knew that it was allready a lost cause.)
Vote with your dollars people. Don't use SMS at all until they make it more intelligent. If I can see who is messaging me I can choose to be charged or not. And if someone fools me and I accept one that I really didn't want, well thems the breaks but it was still my option.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!