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First Destructive Mobile Phone Virus In The Wild
gbjbaanb writes "eek! the BBC is reporting the first mobile phone virus that causes damage is out and about. The virus only works with the Symbian Series 60's OS (no, not the Smartphone) and spreads through an adapted copy of the legitimate Mosquitos game.
Once installed, a hidden program sends SMS texts to premium rate numbers.
That's not so bad, no doubt the premium rate numbers will be switched off soon but the worst is yet to come - "typically we see them in the wild then copycat ones come along soon after," said Sal Viveros, director of wireless security at McAfee."
"typically we see them in the wild then copycat ones come along soon after," said Sal Viveros, director of wireless security at McAfee."
he means after they are done writing and releasing the viruses, of course.
in 3... 2...
Yet another reason I'm glad I have my cell phone that ... OH YEA! Just makes calls. Who'd have thunk it?
Who doesn't like free music?
do i sue the phone manufacturer or my provider for flaws in their product that cause me financial loss ?
perhaps after getting bitchslapped in courts is the only way to teach manufacturers that quality counts and YOU WILL be held responsible if you products are faulty
"Once we are in the 3G world, we basically have a broadband connection, so phones will be closer to PCs in terms of functionality.
"Having that connectivity historically leads to the spread of viruses."
Once more and more devices run the same OS/software and more and more people are using that same OS/software more and more viruses will be written for it. Bandwith has little to do with it.
SMS' to "premium numbers" are annoying and don't require massive mobile bandwith to work.
According to The Register, the malware was built into Mosquitos to begin with as a copy protection mechanism. I don't know whether to believe it or not -- if it's true, it's a really clever way of recouping development costs, and puts a new twist on "software that calls home".
Of course, worm writers will still catch on quickly anyway, I'll bet.
Get the full shimmy here.
First, its not a virus since it cant spread on its own. Its a trojan if its anything. Second, since this only effects people who steal software, why should i care?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
The Register already dug into the details. The premium-rate calls were not added by a virus or by warez monkeys, but were in the original game as a way to monitor who copied it.
This is more a user intelligence program than a true threat to the symbian 60 series. If it propogated to all the numbers in a phone book (via SMS for example) then it would be something worth worrying about.
Ok the article that is linked to explicitly says that it does NOT send SMS to premium numbers, only regular SMS messages, and that it does no other damage. So explain to me how this is so very "Destructive"?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/11/mosquitos_ malware_myth/
Maybe it's the leading edge of a whole, new category of consumer devices! The single purpose device that only does one thing, but does it well!
Best Slashdot Co
From the article:
The company that made the original legitimate Mosquito game, Ojom, said it had installed the program itself in earlier versions of the game after concerns over piracy.
It was intended that the program secretly send a SMS message to alert them if an unlicensed copy was being used, according to Mr Hypponen.
Watch the Teaser Trailer for "The Lightning Thief" Her
This is not a virus. It doesn't spread itself. It's simply a trojan that you have to manually download and install by bypassing two security warnings after first having found it on an irreputable site or P2P network. Hardly a threat.
:)
I'm also not sure it deserves to to be called destructive either. It doesn't destruct anything or in any way modify any other services on your phone - it simply sends SMS messages. It would be better classed as "expensive"
... a phone needs to be just a bloody phone.
1. It was not a virus. A pirated version of a game included malware that SMS'd a phone number without the users permission.
2. The malware was not added by the people who pirated the game. Interestingly, it was an intended feature of the game, included by the company.
3. The original intent of the malware was to secretly "phone home" when a pirated version of the game was being played. Because of complaints, they removed this "feature" from later versions. The pirated version was old, and still includes the "feature".
What I find interesting is that they included such a "feature" to begin with.
See the reg:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/11/mosquit
Move along nothing to see here!
This virus causes 1-900 numbers to be dialed and connected for more than 1 minute (sometimes as long as 2 minutes).
Mosquitos smartphone 'Trojan' there by design By John Leyden Published Wednesday 11th August 2004 13:31GMT The Mosquitos Symbian dialler Trojan is not really a Trojan horse after all.
Many news outlets, including ourselves, reported that a trojanised version of Mosquitos game for Symbian Series 60 smartphones was circulating online and across P2P networks. Cracked versions of the game secretly sends SMS messages to premium rate numbers, according to reports on various online forums.
Illegal copies of the game display the following message on start-up: This version has been cracked by SODDOM BIN LOADER No rights reserved. Pirate copies are illegal and offenders will have lotz of phun!!!
Yesterday Symbian put out a statement which contributed to the impression that malign code was inserted into 'cracked' versions of the game by members of the computer underground. However it turns out that the hidden SMS functionality, along with a message written in the best vernacular VXer speak, was put in the game from the beginning by the original games publisher Ojom.
In an advisory, AV firm F-Secure explains: This functionality was intended to be a copy-protecting technique - it didn't work as planned and the whole functionality backfired.
The premium rate contracts for the phone numbers have been terminated, so although old versions of the game still send hidden SMS messages, it only costs the nominal fee of sending the message itself. Current versions of this game no longer have this hidden functionality, but 'cracked' versions of Mosquitos still float in P2P network - and they still send these messages, it adds.
So what appeared to be a Trojan is actually a rather sneaky and somewhat ineffective copy-protection technique. Proof that even if something looks like a duck, talks like a duck and walks like a duck it isn't necessarily Anas platyrhynchos.
Although the Mosquitos saga turns out to be an urban myth, the recent discovery of the first malware capable of infecting smartphones shatters the comforting belief the mobile phones are safe from viral infection. The threat is very low at present but shouldn't be completely discounted. ®
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
Nowhere in the article is that term used. And the description of the virus doesn't sound like it causes "damage" at all. The submitter's info leads one to believe the phones are made unusable.
:)
Editors, please edit before posting these stories.
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
cel phones are for communications, not for playing games.
As much of a technophile as I am, I'm starting to see a disturbing trend in technology...nifty new technology that's supposed to make your life more convenient (TiVO, VoIP, multi-function cell phones) almost always end up having problems, and end up creating a lot of stress and headache (although whether this negates the device's 'usefulness' is debatable, obviously). We've had telephones for quite a while now, same thing with cars, TV, etc, but all of a sudden there are troubleshooting prodecures for everything.
I don't want to live in a world where I have to download patches and updates for my phone, TV, cell phone, alarmclock, bathroom scale, toaster, fridge, etc, every other week, or worry about them charging me money or disclosing private information. Some things work just great already and don't need all sorts of crazy upgrading, networking, or convergence. If you had a portable game thingy (not connected to any network) to play 'Mosquitoes', you wouldn't have to worry about this!
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Honestly, after they release a news story detailing a virus and how it spread, how long did they expect it to take for someone to attach a damaging payload? *wry grin* It's that dual problem that if you report details of the threat, someone's bound to use them, but if you don't list details, people may not know how to protect themselves. Still, you'd think they'd give the phone companies some lead time to plug holes before releasing it in public back when it was still a fairly innocent payload. If I were more paranoid, I might wonder if they didn't announce it knowing that it would create more news that way.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Does allowing an application to send a text message strike people as being a pretty bad design decision?
Phone applications/games should not be able to access any function that might cost the user money. Or if they do, then the OS itself should intercept and ask the user if they wish to allow the application to send the SMS / phone call / data call. "PsychoSolitaire wishes to send a message to +XX.YYYYYYYYY. This will cost £x. Yes/No/Never"
That is just sensible and obvious design.
Slashdot:
"First Destructive Mobile Phone Virus In The Wild"
"...a hidden program sends SMS texts to premium rate numbers."
Article:
"...text messages will still be sent, although not at premium rates."
"Mosquito's Trojan does not do any other damage..."
Does anyone verify that the slashdot article actually represents the real article?
If the game development company included this "call home" function in order to catch people using pirated copies and only pirated copies are being infected does it not stand to reason that the game company is getting what they want ie. the decreased usage of pirated versions. It may just be their system in action.
A fairly important distinction.
The submitter DID NOT read the article AT ALL, and apparenty neither did the editors.
First of all, it specifically says that the phone DOES NOT text premium numbers. The problem is NOT a virus; it's not even really a trojan. It's a feature that "calls home" in case it's an unlicensed copy. Not only that, the feature was removed in later versions; the cracked version was older. They got what they deserved.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
I'm still using my telegraph.
Clickity-click-click!
How droll. As a former AV employee, I wonder just how the hell you are supposed to run AV on something meant for phone calls? This stupidity will never end. Next,, you will need that really cool 3D screen and a better graphics card, and then a patch for that virus, and then a controller, and a patch for that virus....
Just yesterday I saw an article that said Open Source wasn't ready for Antivirus software. Well - duh! It isn't all that necessary - yet. Most viruses are ineffective on Linux/Unix/BSD/OS/X because of FHS standards, rights and permissions.
Cell phones that play games are about as useful as the teats on a boar hog (and that is a colloquialism). It's the same old game - sell them a useless but "neat" feature that violates sensible security and then sell them a patch to correct that stupidity that they have to buy and buy and buy.
If you spend your money that way - it's your choice really, now isn't it?
All Ad hominem replies happily ignored as the sender shall be deemed to lack the faculties to comprehend the equation.
i know i (you) have heard it many times: network it and it'll never be 100% secure.
:(
/. post about this, but i felt the need to bitch a little (it is /. you know! ;-)
This on the tail of the viop spam-fest looming; yeah, fun times ahead for phones. i can't wait for the convoluted, mostly-useless, loophole-for-biz laws that will follow all of this once lawmaker's underlings get wind of it.(you don't really believe most lawmakers have a clue about the tech-laws they pass do you?)
bah! i need a firewall for my phone now as well!!?? heh, i'm sure there'll be plenty of money made for lots of parties that aren't me and my phone(s)
And yes, it's alread been pointed out, the massive errors in the
Well, either the original article was changed or the article poster didn't really read the article to being with. :( In either case, that's kinda sad.
Though I'd thought that the crackers would have spotted their cracked software doing something unintended...
Interesteding historical tidbit... the Pakistani Brain virus was written with a similar anti-piracy intent in mind. Though that was a virus and spread destructively. This is just a trojan which is annoying.
If a writer really wanted to be destructive, they would have overwritten the Symbian OS boot code and firmware loading codes and executed a phone reboot. (nevermind the sim card and access to other data cards inserted into the phone)
Kinda makes me reconsider getting a more powerful phone... :(
Winged Power Photography
Maybe it will convince someone that there is a market for cell phones that actually let you send and receive calls.
heh, yeah, that's new to me too...make that voip ;-) i need my coffee dammit!
...which i just got up and made durring mah 2 min repost wait! heh.
I advise you to turn off automatic MMS download if you have not already done so.
Orange sends crap to your phone such as trailers for Catwoman.
The "do not download if bigger than x kb" defaults to 100k but Orange will send 99.9Kb files to bypass this.
Once again the best thing is to deactivate automatic downloads of messages.
...how many of your "Anytime Minutes" (or whatever) are lost because your color screen, camera, MP3 player, DVD player, and electric can opener drained your battery?
and a computer should only be an unsigned integer adding machine god damn it!
The Reg has the correct story. In short, it was deliberately done by the developers of Mosquito as a crappy kind of copy protection: copy our software and we'll send SMS messages to premium rate numbers. Now someone tell me this isn't illegal...
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I had an old nokia 8620. Solid phone, had a snake game. It died, and although I had insurance I needed a new phone right away (I was trying to get a job -- which didn't happen). so I ended up signing a new 2 year agreement just to get a free phone immediately.
The thing I have now is loaded with features, but the basic interface is shit. The most annoying thing -- The ringer is to quiet, and I can't set it to ring and vibrate at the same time. I miss calls when I'm listening to loud music, now, that I would have at least felt otherwise. and I miss calls simply from the phone being to quiet. The thing seems to last about a third the time of the nokia on a full charge, and takes 3 times as long to get there.
On the old nokia I could hit the power button to turn on the backlight without popping up the 'the keys are locked' dialog. On this phone, you can't see the display at all without turning on the backlight, day or night, and the keylock warning show up no matter what.
Its like they didn't even have people using this phone for a while before they just tossed it out there. The amount of thought that nokia obviously put into their handset is clear.
OTOH, nokia's design esthetic has just gone way overboard lately.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The crack Slashdot editors are smoking is "destructive" to their brains.
Did any of you morons actually read this before posting the headline?
Oh! I can't wait until I download McCafee for my mobile phone. Maybe soon they will offer an antivirus for my MSN DIRECT SPOT Watch!
that no one on /. has figured out a way to blame this on Microsoft.
They should never allow user software to access the dialing functions. Maybe there needs to be a user/OS partition in the phone so that untrusted software has to run in a small sandbox. The last thing we need is some malware disguised as a cute toy DOSing 911 numbers on a specific day.
It would be simple to have a popup dialog that would ask the user if they want to allow the app to dial a number.
Guru Meditation #6d416769.21610a21
as if it didnt already suck to own an ngage :-p
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Weren't some functions in NT 4.0 accesible only after a hard ctrl-alt-del ? Maybe it's time to build some hard coded, hardware only goodness into mobile OSs. The only way to say ok would be to push an actual, real, clickity-click button.
Just ignorant speculation here
Why do I have this? I don't smoke.
Ah... to see the day when phones get security patches...
An increasingly always-on fully connected array of ever more critical technologies can't help but make one glad that people making machines never make mistakes.
policy analysis and political satire
You see, it doesn't matter that your cell phone just makes calls. It's that all these other phones are on the same network as yours.
Think of it as being the only Linux box on a Windows network. How much use is that Linux box when all those Windows computers start going crazy?
/. editors READ the articles??
MWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
We all know getting your article posted depends on who on the editorial staff you're sleeping with / friends with / cybering with / sucking up to.
You make it sound like articles should be posted based on merit or relevance!
You've got a great sense of humor!
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
Second, since this only effects people who steal software, why should i care?
1985: "AIDS? Why do I care? Only homosexuals and junkies get it."
Your attitude is remarkably self-centered. There are a lot of problems in the world that are aggravated by shortsighted people such as yourself.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
It ain't a bloody virus. It ain't even a trojan. It is just piece of malware. It doesn't alter the OS, it doesn't install itself and run always. It just dials phone numbers while you are playing the game. A pirated hacked game.
Geez when I was young we had real virusses. They infected your machine and the simple act of sharing a floppy would make you catch it. Removing it was hell as any program installed would be infected as well if it could even do something about the boot sector.
Kids nowadays eh. Got no discipline.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A good feature for Symbian OS would be a sort of "mobile firewall" for user-installed applications, that notifies you before allowing random programs to do things like place calls, send messages or connect to the net (things that cost you money). If the program you're using is legitimate and you're aware of this, a simple OK would authorize the program to do that particular action (say, send an SMS). If the user said no, then the program's request would fail at the API level, no harm done.
It would prevent this sort of unfortunate situation from happening, because, who knows, the next piece of malware like this might install itsself to run all the time and pump out calls or messages, disable uninstallation or wreak any other sort of havoc.
Of course, in the end it all boils down to the end user's stupidity in installing and running untrusted programs, but a safety measure like this would be a good "last chance" before any actual monetary damage is done.
How history repeats. The Pakistani Brain is said to be the first virus 'in the wild' and it is a true virus. Another form of illegal copy protection was tried by a rather respected engineering software company. If you forgot the dongle, the whole LAN (except for the Unix machines) slowed down to a snail's pace. The solution was to re-install Windows95. Even for a small company this was very expensive. The vendor offered a non-protected version to make up for this. They hopefully removed what was probably the first true Windows virus. (True viruses are _extremely_ rare.)
Is there any question who to sue? Any use of malware for copy protection is unjustified and clearly in violation of the law in most places. This kind of crap has been tried before and it never benefits anyone.
Really?
... otoh if you do this and one of the apps is trojaned, then you deserve to get owned.
Mobile phones are coming out now that store your credit card details, and you can use them to pay for goods at suitably equipped terminals. There was a story about it recently.
So you are happy for an application to access your credit card details, then send them in an SMS to a bad person? All without your knowledge? And you get charged for the text message?
I want my details secure. I want a secure device. To be honest, I'd rather the OS provider / phone maker / service provider checked all apps and signed them digitally, and the phone only ran apps signed by these entities. It would be a lot harder to get a malicious application onto a phone then. of course that would mean I couldn't download a hacked set of applications and run them for free
If its the first of its kind, I'd say its pretty damn newsworthy. The first nuclear bomb was pretty damned crappy by today's standards but anyone who thinks they're a WWII buff knows its name, the bomber that carried it, and the name of the bomber.
It'll be like this as long as the media is around. 'The first man to orbit the Earth from outer space.' 'The first man on the moon.' 'The first time a U.S. President choked on a pretzel.' 'The first time man lands on Mars.' '... Pluto' '... Alpha Centauri' etc etc etc.
According to the Register, the number dialing out of the game Mosquitos isn't a trojan using the game, it is the game. Some brilliant developer thought this was a good way to punish people who pirate the game, and they built it in as a feature.
Law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained. -- Aaron Burr
I am a microbiology PhD student working on mosquito borne viruses.
I think it's pretty awesome that the first destructive mobilephone virus is an "Arbovirus" (arthropod-borne virus) since it's attached to a game called "Mosquitos"
Let's just hope nobody works on digital viruses like Dengue, JE, or the current media darling West Nile.
Of course all fingers will be pointing at the authors, and even though they are assholes, the real problem is not in this 'virus' its in the the phone or the OS - it simply should not be letting add-on software have access to the sms functions! its just like the whole outlook crap. Lets say you give your plane passengers a network they can plug their laptops into to use the net, you dont then connect that network to the planes' own bloody computers and let anyone have access to the "flying the plane" functionaliy, its just stupid and if you did that and someone plugged in their laptop and said "hey look at this, i think ill fly this plane and crash it" as much of an asshole as they are it would still be your fault. This sort of stupidity has to stop - sue the people responsible.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
John: Garfield, you can be very destructive...
Garfield: I can?
John: I wasn't giving you permission!
Garfield: too late, I already broke something...
reason defies logic
Is the game any good?
gg
I understand the attraction of the term because it helps describe an environemnt over which anti-virus folks have no control, but maybe we should all take some time and go outside once in a while.
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
1) Series 60 is Nokia's "version" of Symbian's OS, so not really the same thing.
2) All Nokia Series 60 phones are "Smartphones".
3) The "virus" is actually trojan, it doesn't distribute itself, the user has to download and install it themselves.
4) When the message is sent, the user is prompted each and every time for permission to access the network.
BUFFER OVERFLOW.
Yes. The plain text SMTP mail client in your phone may be infected by a virus-type code injection via a buffer overflow. The Bluetooth stack (if existing) can be infected this way too, and security flaws can be exploited from 50m (150ft) away, using a properly shaped antenna.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
"Can you hax me now?" - Verizon
**passes tinfoil hat***
Don't go without! Build your own!
http://www.stopabductions.com/
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Something like that actually happened in Japan recently:
The rest of the article talks about many of the different cell phone malwares out there.
Give me a normal phone any day of the week. I'm not CorporateTechMonkey who needs a PDA/Phone/Entertainment Unit/Music Player all in one. Manufacture that crap for those who need all their eggs in one basket.
The iPod is so successful because it does ONE thing, and does it really well, with little technical experience needed for normal operation.
Isn't that why we became so dependant on technology? To make things easier? I seem to be fighting more with tech than using it to simplify my life. Between bugs/malware/features/viruses, I struggle against tech more than the overinflated promises of being able "to do more, more easily".
Wrongo! I can personally attest to the fact that viruses were rampant in the old Amiga days where our all our data was being moved around on diskettes. So there.
HAND.
OMFG that bug report of yours is simply surreal. How can a developer act "there is no bug" like that? it is obviously a (ridiculous) bug.
I tried to post this there, but apparently I need a 'valid bugzilla account', so, maybe you can do that for me:
"Guys, this is insane. How can a package installer not check the results of the write() operations it does and abort on errors before making changes to its database it is beyond me. And this developer blaming the users for the problems and closing the bug report is pure nonsense.
You may flame me, but my advice is to do what I did some time ago. Switch to gentoo and never look back at this mess.
peace.
"
``If a program can't rewrite its own code, what good is it?'' - Mel
I run a developer program for a US carrier. We make it fairly difficult for everyday users to install applications on their phones that have not been blessed/sanctified, particularly to avoid widespread dissemination of things like this.
We're frequently lambasted on public forums and through nastygrams from folks (mostly developer types) who keep on insisting that these restrictions are unconscionable, that information wants to be free and that they bought the phone and they should be able to do whatever they want to it.
You can imagine the reception I get whenever I explain that the restrictions are there, in great part, to protect customers from unwittingly loading malware on their phones that would cause them to get ridiculously huge phone bills.
Mild pleasure to be taken from vindication, I guess.
***Foucault is watching you..***
You can't sue anybody.
You must not be from America.
The Register and others linked to a Geekzone thread where the program was first reported. One of our users wrote a report that was later posted on Informit with complete analysis including debug information and posted a reference on Geekzone too.
I wonder why they did not disclose the source.
I'm well aware of the needed synergy between subscriber equipment and network infrastructure. As another poster mentioned, features like cameras and SMS drive up the traffic to the $$$ benefit of the carriers, so that much makes perfect sense as to why such features are developed.
What makes no sense is that if the network coverage is suffering from what it could be, I can't take full advantage of these premium services. I can't send you a picture of my--uh, me if I get a weak or non-existent signal.
Has anyone noticed that newer phones are shaped as pure rectangles? Remember the phones like my ancient, antiquated Nokia 6160 that had a little stub of an antenna sticking out the top? It has better range because of it, but it's not "kewl" so the marketers don't want it. (This came direct from a marketing VP at a major U.S. carrier.) So you drop calls more often so that your phone can look cool. Gee, thanks for that feature!
This same major carrier even ordered the manufacturer to develop a much more cumbersome keypad layout because they didn't want their phone to look too much like a competitor's model, even though the guts are identical. So now you have to contort your fingers to dial rather than dialing by feel because--ta da--a marketing geek decided what you need, rather than asking you. Back to square one, above.
There are other issues impacting the basic handling of calls, such as layoffs and cutbacks in the performance departments of some of the major carriers, as well as some clueless upper managers, that prevent them from ensuring better network performance. That much is beyond the reach of equipment vendors, but both sides suffer when either does not maximize its potential performance.
These computer-like features that will ultimately be used for malware unbeknownst to the user do not improve the phone's performance for me, the forgotten user.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
The user of the phone was not placed in the loop in order to allow or deny the transmission of the text message. For the purposes of the game's author, this would not make sense to notify the user because they thought they were being really clever detecting "piracy" this way, but no application should ever have the ability to do this without the consent of the user.
I can envision a rare case where someone borrows this guy's phone to make a call, loads the pirated game on it, and the phone's owner has no idea that his phone has now labeled him a pirate, and runs up his phone bill with SMS charges!
The fact that the phone can perform automated functions without the express consent of the user is the root trouble here, that allows both malware and stupid-ware to do this in the first place.
Keep the user in the loop, if you know what's good for ya.
slashdot: A failed experiment.
It's not a virus. It's a cracked version of a game that sounds out SMS messages you don't know about.
If you don't install cracked games, you are safe. I was nervous for a bit.
plus-good, double-plus-good
Speaking from the point of view of someone who has played with the Symbian SDKs - it's not possible to send SMS's without the user knowing using the standard documented API's. Of course, there are undocumented ways of doing this, which is what the game developers have obviously done, but the average script kiddle will not be able to duplicate this. As far as I know, the next version of the OS will completely sandbox third-party applications from the telephony functions unless the user gives permission.
Great where can I download my copy? ;)
My mobile phone is about 5-6 years old. It makes and receives calls!
I discovered recently that it CAN receive SMS messages, too, when I received a message meant for another number. It was my first SMS, and it said... nothing! (I've never sent an SMS message.)
Its button area is HUGH -- great for fat fingers. It's battery is HUGE -- bigger itself than most new phones -- but so is its on- and talk-time. The B&W two-line screen is easily read. In short, it's a PHONE!
Thanks, Nokia, but do you still make phones?
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
The rest of the world has a commonsense system where those who elect to make a phone call pay all the costs associated with the call. Americans have to do something different & charge the reciever too, WTF?
Don't mobile phone numbers in the US have prefixes that informer the caller that he/she's dialing a mobile number, so he/she can make a informed decision about whether to dial a mobile number & absorb all hte costs involved?
If not may I dare ask why the US has some silly system where mobile phone networks don't have indicating prefixes for phone numbers on their networks?