Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam 214
Dejected @Work writes "If wireless technology ever kicks off you may be getting spam phone calls - "hot deals 10 feet away". If so you will have to use techniques like RMI, BrightMail, and latest e-mail filters to keep phone spam free. This article examines some of these tools and programming concepts."
Trouble ahead. (Score:3, Funny)
The difference?
I can throw my phone...
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Receive annoying SMS message on phone about the big sale a Joe's Electronics Emporium 1 block away.
2. Go to Joe's Electronics Emporium and ask for the manager.
3. You to Manager: "I received this message on my phone about your sale. Because of it, I will NEVER buy anything here EVER and will warn all of my friends not buy here as well."
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:1, Funny)
BZZZZ BZZZ BEEP BEEP
Me : "Sorry i have to answer, waiting for an important call...."
looking on the phone screen
ENLARGE YOUR PENIS, FREE MORTGAGE NOW!!!!!
Me : "Sorry familly stuff"....:-)
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:3, Interesting)
I think there hasn't been a big crackdown on email spam because most people see it as an annoyance - Joe Users perhaps 'do their email' in one sitting, and delete the spam there and then.
I find that people tend to stop what they are doing to check their messages, because they tend to be significant, from family or friends.
I can imagine a huge groundswell of anger about SMS spam, and it will only take one idiot causing a pile-up on the freeway whilst checking a spurious message for the media to pick up on this and label the spammers a new pariah.
(Of course it would be the fault of the driver - but it's the same principle as the media labelling the web evil, because it's 'all about pr0n and pipe bombs')
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:1)
Aahh, get a portable computer and throw it around all you want.
Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:2, Insightful)
In that way, everyone will be happy.
Making phones useless. (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, billing them for the service of evaluating their spam at the top of my lungs sounds like a nice idea.
It probablty will fit under telemarkeing laws, and may fit into the trend developing for people to be opted out of such a service as a default choice as a matter of law.
[ianal, etc]
I can even see going into the store, insisting to find out who is providing them this "service", and then suing the spamming service provider along with the spammer.
Or a retake on the old satire with the mob based spam prevention service.
Too expensive! (Score:3, Insightful)
Spam phone calls would not be. Not only would companies have to pay for the phone calls, but they would also have to pay someone to make them.
Also...what's new about this? Haven't you ever been called by a telemarketer?
-kwishot
Re:Too expensive! (Score:1)
-kwishot
Re:Too expensive! (Score:3, Insightful)
Even with a reasonably low spam rate of 3 per day, that pretty much takes care of all of my monthly messages. Seeing as I actually use SMS for my own needs, I could see spam costing me an extra 5-10$ month; at which point I'm gonna start sending out bills to spam senders.
Re:Too expensive! (Score:2, Insightful)
That would be a good way to get back at someone, though.... email bomb their SMS? =P
-kwishot
Re:Too expensive! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Too expensive! (Score:1)
It is said that automatic probable NTT-Docomo-phone-addresses generators
are sold.
Huge Cell Phone SPAM problem in Japan (Score:2, Informative)
Also, not sure if you have seen the new Sprint PCS phone from Sanyo, but it is getting close to the tech out here and I beleive will allow emails of any size to come through.
I know I've sent some sizeable ones (500 - 700 characters to provide directions) to my friends and they received them just fine. The also can receive pics in emails.
The flip side of this is the unbeleivable convenience it is to get written driving directions sent to you. Not to mention when the US finally catches up to Japan and releases $200 phones that also have a digital camera in them.
my two cents...
Re:Telemarketer calls (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You pay to receive calls??? (Score:2)
This is just the way most cellphones work. Like I said, there are a couple of companies that offer unlimited plans but they generally have other restricions (no long distance, no romaing).
Plus I'd also get pissed about unsolicited cellhpone calls because it is basically a bussiness line. I do use it for personal calls, but the reason I have it is for important things.
Re:You pay to receive calls??? (Score:2)
Re:You pay to receive calls??? (Score:3, Interesting)
For incoming calls, there's absolutely NO charge. Even more, some cell phone providers will "recharge" your account for every received call (which is a way to reduce the average bill with a more "sexy" slogan).
The only occasion where I pay for incoming calls is when I am outside my country.
Re:You pay to receive calls??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but the arrangement has always been like that with European carriers (when not roaming), just as US carriers have always charged differently (AFAIK).
I think it's all down to what people are used to.
On a similar theme, I think it's significant that email spam has been a daily reality since most ordinary people got hold of email accounts. Where I live, SMS/text spam is still really quite rare. When people start being inconvenienced when using a service that was previously useful, I think they will make a big fuss.
I think it's largely to do with consumer expectation, and mobile phones are now a huge part of popular culture at least here in the UK.
Having said that, the younger end of the market might become desensitised to it because of stuff like this [orange.net]...
Different is not better/worse! (Score:2)
In North America cell phone plans are per minute, all calls. In Eurpoe all calls are caller pays. (simplification on both sides of the pond, but close enough)
This is different. It is not better it is not worse, it is different. There are advantages to each system. Just because your system is different doesn't mean that it is better. Do not pick on the downsides to our system that you don't have because your system has downsides too. In fact, the downsides are mutially exclusive, that is you can't have the best of both worlds! You pick one system or the other (there are more than two possibal systems), and live with the down sides as well as the good.
depends on whats for sale (Score:2, Funny)
Hmm.. except, this is the kind of thing I'd purchase "in real life"
Re:depends on whats for sale (Score:2, Funny)
No, Ms. Jenny, but what wouldn't I give to see you die?
Re:depends on whats for sale (Score:1)
Re:depends on whats for sale (Score:2)
Mobile Phone Spam (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand that spam by SMS is already becoming a problem, in the UK some of my friends have responded to competitions (SMS your answer to...), not realising that in the VERY fine print they were selling their soul (and mobile phone number) to the SMS spam merchants.
Spam by email is bad enough - but spam by mobile phone when you could be interrupted any time, any where without knowing if it's a critical SMS from work, or meaningless spam is an invasion of privacy.
I'd like to see this new form of spam stamped on hard, and stamped on fast, before it gains even more of a foothold as "acceptable practice". Anyone receiving spam by SMS should do everything possible to report it, and ensure that the companies making use of this form of advertising are made aware that it is totaly unacceptable.
We may have lost the fight againast mail spam - but if we fight now, and fight hard, we may just be able to keep our mobile phones free from this junk...maybe...
-- Pete.
Re:Mobile Phone Spam (Score:1)
> number) to the SMS spam merchants.
Even worse, come are premium rate, so repying to the spam sms could cost you a bucket-load if you aren't careful...
Re:Mobile Phone Spam (Score:3)
Persoonally, I don't mind bulk mail. It is often easily recognized and easily thrown out. It doesn't really cost me any money to recycle my bulk mail. But, in this case, I end up receiving the bill for them sending me spam. It's kind of like receiving bulk mail COD, without requesting it and not being able to return to sender or refuse package
Re:Mobile Phone Spam (Score:2)
Why hasn't it happened? (Score:3, Informative)
This is nice, and I use them.
But what's to stop some low-live scum sucker from using these to send "Enlarge your penis!" messages? I've wondered since there's no authentication at all. It would be (was) trivial to write a script that auto-submits information to a cell number.
(SPAMMERS - YOU HAVE BEEN INFECTED WITH A MIND RAY. YOU DO NOT REMEMBER ANYTHING YOU'VE READ FOR THE PAST 24 HOURS)
-Ben
Re:Why hasn't it happened? (Score:2)
I got my first piece of spam on my phone the other day, but it was the same piece I got in my unrelated email inbox. I was like "How'd they do that?" It took me a couple seconds to realize that I've included a mail link to my provider's SMTP->SMS gateway on my homepage (so anyone can send me a SMS message via normal email) and obviously it was scraped off by some idiot spammer...
It's only just beginning...
-Russ
Use an old phone (Score:2)
I say don't buy a new phone. Both of mine work fine. 'Course I'm the sort that hates to be on the phone anyway, so having a phone around isn't a priority. After all, there are only a very small number of people who must be contacted any time, any place. I'm certainly not in that set. And I'm definitely not in that set when I'm at the movies. Maybe nobody else should be too...
-B
Won't happen (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Won't happen (Score:2)
Hard to report.... (Score:3, Insightful)
-kwishot
Re:Hard to report.... (Score:1)
i am not aware, however, of any bodies (whether in the uk or anywhere else) who you could report it to (DMA?) and i doubt that, at the moment anyway, my provider would care. of course, if enough people complained then they might take a different view.
i don't know much about the legal status of opt-ins in the uk (shame on me!) and whether the dma would be able to (try and) regulate this, i'd hope so though
Re:Hard to report.... (Score:1)
So the burden would be entirely on the provider. Provider has to track down spammers to keep its good reputation - "the competitor blocks spam", which raises costs, which raises prices. Bad deal...but there never really is anything good about spammers anyways, is there? =)
-kwishot
Re:Hard to report.... (Score:2)
Here in Australia there were privacy laws passed regarding the nature of SMS spam, with the goal of stopping unsolicited SMS spam. SMS spam is opt-in ONLY, you have to give the company permission to send you the SMS span. They are not allowed to compile lists and then on-sell the information to other spammers, or to send spam on behalf of other companies.
The emphasis here was that the consumer had to give explicit permission to the company to send them spam, and also giving us an avenue to report these companies to, the ACCC or whoever is responsible for policing privacy issues here in Oz.
Re:Hard to report.... (Score:2, Informative)
Why Would They Care? (Score:1)
I'm sure it's profitable for them to upgrade their SMS Gateways and other hardware to handle the bandwidth of bulkmail due to the profitable nature of demographic information.
beating people up (Score:2, Funny)
If someone sends me a message telling me that "HOT DEALS ARE 10 FEET AWAY!" then unless the deals are really hot, there is going to be a lot of yelling, screaming and physical activity going on.
Of course, if the message is along the lines of "MY GIRLFRIENDS WANT YOU NOW!!!", the yelling, screaming and 'physical activity' may be of a more pleasant nature.
Re:beating people up (Score:2)
You Know You've Been Fighting Spam Too Long When...
And your response is to roll your eyes and holler "Hey, barkeep, got another live-action-pr0n spammer, get the bouncers to throw 'er out, willya? How the hell am I s'posed to enjoy my beer with all the goddamn spammers in this bar?"
(I always wondered why I don't date much ;-)
Imagine having a spammer in front of you (Score:2, Funny)
-Peter
Re:Imagine having a spammer in front of you (Score:1)
I'm thinking more along the lines of a small tactical nuclear weapon....
Club Nokia sends SPAM SMSs (Score:1, Informative)
Just what I need (Score:1)
Maybe force companies who send cell phone spam to use cell phones for their business phones? I'd gladly call and listen to their sales pitch if I knew it was gonna cost them an arm and a leg to keep me on the line (evil grin)
Re:Just what I need (Score:2)
Interesting how... (Score:2, Interesting)
tcd004
We've redesigned. But we're still idiots.
PORN ADS CAUSE CELL PHONES TO BE BANNED! (Score:3, Funny)
hehe that would be amusing... first hold the backbones liable for the content.. then the cell phone providers.. well it would stop possible cell ads in the futre
An Ode to Spam (Score:2)
Geek Girl Chronicles [slashdot.org]
Talk about killing the market (Score:1)
However, if I would have to deal with spam phone calls and spam messages in my voice mail, forget it. I'm annoyed enough having to obfuscate my e-mail address just so I don't have to slog through crap I'll never look over, never mind reply to. It's bad enough that spammers manage to waste bandwidth by hitting some mailing lists I'm subscribed to. The last thing I want is to have the fucking telemarketers and spam gods following me everywhere, wasting my time and patience. I would either get an ancient cell phone, or just not get one at all.
Nice job, spammers - you just lost yourselves a potential victim by the sheer threat of your infecting another market. Fuck off and die somewhere.
Umm....? (Score:1)
I know that the one time I did receive a telemarketting call to my cell phone, the following conversation took place.
Me: "Let me talk to your supervisor."
Them: "Um..."
Me: "Me. Supervisor. Now."
(hold for a couple minutes)
Supervisor: "What can I do for you?"
Me: "Are you aware that I'm currently in Milan, and paying roughly $20/minute for international cell phone calls?"
Supervisor: "Uh..."
Me: "I expect you to reimburse me."
Haven't had a telemarketer call my cell phone since....
Re:Umm....? (Score:1)
The call bill always goes to who mades the call. So, if John Doe call me in my cell, John Doe will be billed for that call. If John Dow wastes one hour of cell rate to sell someone something (10 times the normal fee, at cheap times), John Doe will waste almost 20 bucks. Can you guess how many telemarketers had phone me since I brought my cell phone 10 years ago? 8-)
You wants to prevent SMS spam? Bill them! 8-)
Suggestion (Score:1)
Me: "Are you aware that I'm currently in Milan, and paying roughly $20/minute for international cell phone calls?"
Find another carrier!!!
You will save a lot of dosh. And those spam-swines won't gonna reimburse you in the first place.
not a big problem compared to e-mail (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:not a big problem compared to e-mail (Score:2)
Re:not a big problem compared to e-mail (Score:1)
Unless spammers tricked the gateway into sending unlimited messages, it would cost them £20000 per million phones, it's cheaper to advertise on a cable TV channel or radio station.
Another difference for spam SMS is that you can't do anything with a text message except save it or reply. No links to click on, there isn't really enough room for a snail mail address. Most SMS advertising is like "Win concert tickets 4 U n UR M8s: fone 0906 9999999" where the 0906 phone number costs £1 a minute to call. It is annoying to get something like this but e-mail is probably more effective for the Herbal Viagra merchants.
a real life story (Score:2, Interesting)
"If I give you 50 bucks, will you listen to me for half an hour?"
At first I thought he was joking, but apparently he was so desperate that he even offered to money to hear him out. 50 bucks for half an hour seemed like a good deal, and even if he didn't pay us it would make a good story to tell my grandchildren so I accepted.
The guy came to our house, asked for the number of my bank account, explained his products during half an hour (for which I obviously had no interest) and left. A few days later the 50 bucks had been deposited in my account.
What's the world coming to?
Re:a real life story (Score:2)
Re:a real life story (Score:2)
One of the things I love most is turning the tables of scammer.
A lot of scams depend on the scammer to give up a litle, then real you in for the big haul. well, when you walk away after they have given, they loose. hehe.
Re:a real life story (Score:2)
Re:a real life story (Score:1)
I don't mind being registered at all sorts of places. I do mind if the information is used without my consent.
I like doctors having my history on file. I don't like them handing out the information to insurance companies (fortunately, the aren't allowed to do that)
That headline.. (Score:3, Funny)
You can fight back (Score:4, Funny)
So, I decided to help the guy advertise. I went to Google, typed in 'XXX "free for all" link' and placed ads on about 30 sex related free-for-all pages reading "FREE PHONE SEX! - Try us out! 520-xxx-yyyy".
Interestingly, I haven't received any more spam from that place.
(Posting anonymously in case anybody who knows the spammer reads /.)
RIM: The art of interception (Score:1)
same time in finland (Score:2, Interesting)
sex lines have found the strenght of marketing directly to your mobile phone. not in the convential way though, they've been quite creative.
Method 1 (SMS). well there's been some amount of SPAM SMSs telling something like "hi, I'm Katja, I'm from Russia and I need a friend, I'm waiting for you, call me at *********"...
method 2 (call). Second method is quite simple, they call you, but won't let the phone ring long enough for you to answer it. Afterwards you see the number on the screen and call back.
The thing here is that the number they use is not the usual 0700-number, but a regular cellphone number. They either redirect their calls or use cellphones and bill later. This, of cource, is illegal and there's been some kind on police investigations. Luckily it ins't a big problem, I've had 1 SMS and few calls in 4 years. but just think of the worst scenario
Hold on just a minute... (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's see. There is a law against sending unsolicited ads to your fax machine. This came about because it cost the recipient to recieve this unwanted crap - in paper, toner, etc.
Our legislators, in their wisdom, determined that we shouldn't have to be subject to crap we don't want, especially when we had to pay for it.
Ok, now to cut to the chase. Even if my Internet service is billed on a flat fee instead of by bandwith or connect time (in the US), it still costs me a cash outlay (some divided portion of my monthly ISP fee), to recieve spam. Not to mention the value of my time dealing with it. I know this has been mentioned many times before, but the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the lawmakers.
-- Rant On --
If this starts happening on my cell phone where I do pay by the minute or the message, I'm gonna become hell on wheels. Anyone up for a class action suit? Not against the spammers, but against our so-called representatives for not protecting our interests. Ok, well maybe against the spammers too. Considering the intent of the fax law, doesn't this cover this eventuality already?
If I have to go to law school myself, that's fine. My needs are minimal and I'm not averse to living like a pauper to give all my time to pro bono work.
If I recieve ads for some business 50 feet away. They're gonna hear from me. I'm gonna collect the cost of that spam message recieved on my phone. It might be only be a penny or a dime, but I'll tell them I want it in a check not cash. If they won't pay me, I'll whip out my sandwich board and picket the damn place, or make myself as annoying as possible. Or maybe I should do all of the above...
This crap has to stop. If it takes law or civil disobedience, I don't care. It has to stop.
-- Rant Off --
Of course the upside to this is that my old analog Motorola TAC II phones and my Audiovox bag phone will become very valuable.
Re:Hold on just a minute... (Score:2)
sheesh.
Hey, if all mail was sent in a fax format, would that make spam illegal? hmm. and would the increased bandwidth from the fax format be less then the spam?
Already a huge problem in Japan (Score:4, Interesting)
At least in my case my company is picking up the bill-- i-Mode users in Japan pay for all received packets, so you are billed for all of the spam that you receive.
Docomo has tried to stop the flow by allowing you to block email from specified domains, but of course that doesn't help things at all. I know several people who end up having to change their cell phone email address every few months because the email features of their phone become unusable due to the amount of spam they start to get. (The spammers get their email address when they register on i-Mode capable web sites, or if they have an easy-to-guess email address like tanaka@docomo.ne.jp)
Up until last year or so you could usually send email to [cell phone #]@[cell phone provider].ne.jp, but the cell phone companies all had to discontinue that service because of the amount of spam that would be sent to all of their customers.
Compared to what I'm getting to my work phone, the amount of spam I get to my email accounts is nothing...
Re:Already a huge problem in Japan (Score:2)
much like (Score:5, Informative)
Currently i know that if you recieve a spam fax you can send a copy to:
Consumer Information Bureau
Federal Communications Commision
445 Twelfth St. SW
Washington DC 20554
if you ask that appropriate legal action be taken, it works! Not only that, you can sue the people who send the faxes (not for a ton, but the maximum amt is well over the cost of printer cartridges and paper)
Since this seems like a fairly equivalent situation, i.e the cost of the spam will definitely have a fair sized impact on your own bill (unlike standard telephone telemarkating and junk mail)... i would be surprised if things didn't work out the same way once complaints start flowing
Re:much like (Score:2, Informative)
phone companies do this already! (Score:1)
my phone company has this premium channel which means that i get some calls cheaper, and they send me useless info about which calls and when(like i was looking at the watch when using the phone anyways..), and useless info on about that i should grab the newest pamphlet and get groovy.
Respected global players are getting into spam (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact its such a big thing that even respected global players such as Logica [logica.com] (their software [logica.com] runs over 50% of the SMS gateways in the world) are getting involved according to this [ft.com] article in the Financial Times.
In short getting people responding to SMS spam is unreliable because due to difficiencies in the GSM protocol you can only catch about one SMS reply to an advert every 5 seconds.
Because of this, take up of bulk SMS advertisements (where people respond) is slow. But thanks to the boffins at Logica, they now have software which can harvest 1,000 replies a second.
Which suddenly makes pumping out SMS spam look a lot more worthwhile.
Coming soon to a phone near you ...?
A simple solution (Score:1)
Each cellular user will have a preferences page at the cellular provider web page. In that page she can choose if she want to receive all sms messages, or require that a certain key will appear in incoming SMS message.
She can manage a set of keys (a string of characters, or a number), and if someone tries to send her a message without a key in the SMS body, the SMS message will be rejected (and the sender will possibly get an error message).
She can also create a list of origins which can freely send her messages even if they don't have a key, and even set that people who specify the correct key automatically gets added to the list, so they don't have to type the key again.
Solution: don't buy a wireless-web phone (Score:2)
I will stick with my non-wireless-web cell phone until I see a good reason to upgrade (or until I'm forced to, b/c it breaks or b/c they change the protocol and force me to do so).
I wonder...we've seen a lot on
few ways to do this (Score:1)
1. The spammer uses cell phone email. This would be like the current email spam, in which the cell phone user would just receive tons of spam mail to their phone's email box. I'm not sure but this might already be available.
2. Text messaging spam. In some phones that I know of users can receive text messages. I think there were a bunch of verizon commercials about this a while back. But companies would send tons of messages to the phone, much like spam email but in the text message form. If this happens I can see lots of people just turning this feature on their phone off.
3. Telemarketing Spam, this is where the spammer makes a voice call to your phone, or a computer calls you. Both would be equally annoying if you get them the same volume that email spam is received right now. The thing is this is already available. I'm sure if you start listing your cell phone number on a bunch of forms you'll start to get telemarketing calls around 5pm each day on your cell phone. I'm guessing most people would treat these calls the say way that they treat telemarketers right now, just hang out on them.
well hopefully this doesn't catch on, it seems as if it wouldn't be as free to do this sort of spam...
cell spam and chinese food (Score:1)
Furthermore, there's a fundamental flaw in the idea. How the hell are they to get your phone number when you approach? If they could do that, than anyone could find out your number just by getting close to you, and certainly that would cause worse problems! (Hey babe,you don't know me, but you just walked by me a minute ago, and damn you're lookin' leet! Wanna see my firewire?)
How spammers SMS for free (Score:2, Informative)
Well, there are a bunch of networks across Europe which all allow SMS to travel between them for free - they have mutual exchange agreements. There are a lot of these networks: all the operators and a lot of small players which provide email2sms and commercial SMS type services. The spammers pay once-off to use these commercial services and then pump out millions of SMSs.
So what happens is that Vodaphone for example then cancels its contract with that little commercial SMS company and the company changes it's services/rates/business. Meanwhile the spammer moves on to another small commercial SMS provider.
It's just the same cycle as regularly switching ISPs, spamming successfully before getting blocked.
SMS worms (Score:1)
Re:SMS worms (Score:2)
I forsee this as a good thing. (Score:1)
But now take Cell-Phones, which you have to pay for every time you make a connection.
Suiddenly people are outraged at charges for things they didnt wish to recieve. It's brought up with the BBB, Cell Phone companies demand protection, and the end results are laws passed making it illegal to drain resources of a network with intent of making a profit without compensating the network or having the network's consent. Spam is declared larceny, Spam is made illegal as the costs of it are made more public.
Re:I forsee this as a good thing. (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Stuff the user wants - $30 per megabyte.
2. Stuff the mobile operator wants you to have - free
3. Stuff 3rd party advertisers people want you to have - $5 per megabyte to the advertiser.
4. Stuff 3rd party advertisers are desperate for you to have - $5 given to the user?
(don't forget that SMS is of the order $1000 per megabyte!)
The operators are going to want to use the new capabilities of the phones to advertise and pay to use the real estate on your screen. They want to advertise their services...because they can and it'll make them money! So they will be happy to spend unused network capacity on this at no charge to the user.
Re:I forsee this as a good thing. (Score:2, Interesting)
There was a fuss here in the UK [bbc.co.uk] where what was essentially a change in the agreement appeared as a footnote on the monthly bill.
Re:No: Banning SPAM (Score:2)
The ban should not be on the content, but on the method of delivery. Thus, you're not banning the "speech", you're banning the act of spamming -- deliberately sending unsolicited mass messages at the recipients'expense.
Naturally the penalty for violating such a ban should be death.
Phone spam will be less of a problem (Score:1)
The spammers main advantage today is that they can hide in anonymity.
If someone spams me when I am nearby I will certainly let them know how I fell about it.
Spam, Spam Spam... (Score:3, Funny)
I'm already getting SPAM on my cell phone. (Score:2)
one solution (Score:1)
Is to turn the phone off.
I've gotten Spam on my phone before now... (Score:2)
Technicality (Score:2, Insightful)
"...you will have to use...e-mail filters to keep phone spam free..."
How is an email filter going to keep a phone call from coming in?
I get the point, but it would really help credibility if the text made sense logically.
What is the world coming to? (Score:2)
"Computer Consultant 4 Hire -- Call 773-yyy-zzzz 4 more info."
I'll know right away to tell the cellular service to discontinue service to Bernard Shifman. If he threatens legal action. I'll just respond with my legal team at Yourassis, Grass & I.M. DeLawnmower.
The inherent beauty of Spam (Score:2)
A sender pays format might also drive phone servcie providers to develop verification of sender technologies so they can be assured of getting their pennies per message,as well as install spam detection technology and phone filtering capabilities similar to those used for email today.
Same concept ... entirely different scale ... (Score:2)
This may turn out to be quite advantageous to us all - unless your a SPAMming scumbag !
Why? While it is true that - in some cases -one must pay additional money for bandwidth when downloading SPAM over the net, it is rare and the total cost is at most a few pennies a month, making it hard to convince the well to do politicians that it's even a valid issue to explore. Things change drastically however when cell phones are involved.
Calling someone on a pre-pay cell phone, or during peak hours when peak minutes aren't bundled in a package, can cost about $0.30/call. 10 calls a day, 300 days per year (for ease of math, and owing to the idea that weekends and holidays will be less active), is $900.00 per year of burden pushed on the consumer! Even a fat cat in Washington has to recognize that this is unacceptable. This should pave the way for discussion, at which point it will be hard to argue that their is a fundamental difference between the two other than scale. End result
OK
In some countries SMS SPAM is no problem (Score:2, Interesting)
In the same vein, you don't really have telephone/cellphone SPAM at the same level you have email SPAM, since it costs the sender, not the receiver, to make a call in most "sane" countries.
The real threat is the "SPAMadvertiser" that thinks it can make money and not bear the risks/costs. If s/he must bear the costs, I don't believe the same "genious" will be doing much of it...
Thanks for lunch Mike (Score:2)
Thanks again for lunch it was great!
Best regards,
Steve
Anyone know what this SPAM means? I seem to get it everyday now
Spamming mobile phones is illegal in the USA (Score:5, Informative)
Ummm... This can't happen in the United States of America. The junk fax law [evilpigeon.net] prohibits sending unsolicited advertisements to mobile phones: "It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States ... to make any call [other than emergency or opt-in] using any automatic telephone dialing system ... 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" (47 USC 227 [cornell.edu]).
The same section of law prohibits sending spam to a fax machine, which is defined so as to include any computer that has a modem.
Isn't this already illegal? (Score:2)
I rather doubt you'd have any problem convincing a judge that SMS spam to a cell phone is legally the same as calling it to try to sell you stuff.
Why YOU Don't Get Cell Phone Spam (Score:2, Informative)
The answer is a simple but important legal decision: it's illegal for solicitors to bother you if YOU must pay for the call. In Europe, incoming cell calls are free, but in the U.S. you pay a per-minute charge for the privilege of answering calls.
Text messaging spam will be illegal only if it costs the victim money. Unfortunately, providers are moving to flat monthly rates for text messaging services. I expect this will become a burgeoning spam market.
Sincerely,
Brock Arnason
The problem with email (Score:2)