Spammers Start Abusing Cell Phones 266
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."
Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't sms spam fall into the same category?
Re:Hmm. (Score:2, Funny)
I seem to recall that spammers don't exactly care about what's legal or not... or at the very least the ones that chose to page me and wake me up at 2AM with their important messages of where I can get a good mortgage and how to enlarge my penis.
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Hmm. (Score:2, Funny)
Obviously, this is not one of our more effective laws, eh? My cell phone company has Mr. Robot call me every month when my bill becomes past due.
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
I told them about my concerns for SMS spam, and they told me I could have this specific function disabled if I wanted.
I'm glad I don't use it...
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
And *how* does this differ from e-mail SPAM? Who is paying for that? The recipient!!!
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Informative)
T-Mobile has such an interface on their website so that the only SMSs I get are the ones I asked for in advance.
Re:Hmm. (Score:3)
allow users to set up a white list of requirements an SMS must have in order for it to be delivered.
This is slightly off-topic but very closely related and I'm hoping someone here can answer this.
In the UK, it used to be that mobile users paid to recieve calls. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure that this is now gone completely. However, I do still see some similar lack of control issues with SMS. One definite one is where you can be charged a high amount just by txting a particular number (e.g. txt 5 to $C
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
See this BBC new story [bbc.co.uk] for more details.
If they're persistant, forward the message to "VSPAM" [bbc.co.uk] if on Vodafone or "SPAM" [orange.co.uk] if on Orange and they'll investigate and pass on to ICSTIS [icstis.org.uk].
Finally, sign up to the Telephone Preference Service [tps-online.org.uk] to stop unsolicited marketing calls and SMS.
T
--
Not speaking for my employers in any way
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
Re:Hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd think it to go to the same category as fax spam.. spam that's possible to cut from happening by legislation/enforcing the current laws(sms does actually get used a lot in the real world by real people).
Re:Hmm. (Score:2)
I don't know how other providers handle text, but here in Canada Telus mobility charges you only for the message you read, not the ones you receive, something like 5cents/message. That is some benefit since I don't pay for the ones I don't want, but I still get 5+ junk sms messages/day, which on a cell phone is much more of a PITA do delete than email. In the time it takes to delete 1 email message off my cell, I can delete 30 from my inbox, so if sms spam becomes as n
This isn't new (Score:2, Informative)
the worst (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the worst (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the worst (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:the worst (Score:2)
FCC regulations (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:FCC regulations (Score:5, Interesting)
Not entirely true. It is illegal for a telemarketer to use an autodialer to initiate the phone call, but it is not illegal for a telemarketer to call your cell phone if they hand dialed the number. See this post [slashdot.org] earlier in the thread for the section of the TCPA that states this. I only know this because I was debating taking the Washington Times to small claims court for calling my cell phone to get me to subscribe (the person on the other end didn't know what my number was to remove it from their list because "the machine dials the numbers for us").
Re:FCC regulations.. Never stopped spammers before (Score:2)
What Next? (Score:2, Funny)
The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) It is not easy to filter out, given the majority of people here now only uses phone that cannot be programmed easily (at least, not as easy as using the OE plugins or the MacosX Mail.app)
(2) Usually they are more intrusive - nowadays people carry cell phones around and when you are bugged by SMS spam TOGETHER with important SMS.. it's friggin' bad...
(3) They know where you read it... the positioning system of the GPS/w-cdma networks allow them to track your place...
now what? right - do it with legislation.
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:4, Insightful)
Filters are NOT the answer to this problem. Spam is already taxing a lot of networks who have tons of bandwidth, imagine what a spam epedemic could do the cell phone networks...
Although this accompanied with cell phone virii could be great news for the Russian mafia, imagine threatening Verizon or Sprint with a DDOS attack.....
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe the best way to stop spam is to send an email to johnashcroft@doj.gov(I have no idea if this address is real, I just made it up) saying, "Spam funds terrorists, abortion doctors, welfare mothers, and drug addicts"
See how quickly the epedemic ends
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:2, Insightful)
thus you never get overseas telemarketers..
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:5, Informative)
"(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 [mobiledia.com] 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. [compukiss.com]
Re:The major problem with SMS spam... (Score:2)
I haven't recieved any spam email or SMS on my Sprint phone, but I've heard there's no way to turn off SMS on some phones. Not sure how to verify that.
This is a big problem in Japan (Score:5, Interesting)
The cell phone structure in Japan though makes it a bit easier to spam(the carrier I had, KDDI uses your cell # to do SMS). Unlike the US where your cell # area code is based on location, in Japan all cell phones have either 090, 080(and 081 I think) so the spammers just used an SMS equivalent of an autodialer I do believe. Though I never got any SMTP spam while I had the phone...
SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
For one thing - SMS are limited to 160 characters, and secondly - SMS cost money to send. Granted - even email costs money, but you could send probably several thousand emails of a few kb each for less than US$1. With SMS you're paying a few cents for each individual SMS of max 160chars. Therefore for SMS spam to become a real phenomenon, you would need way higher returns for the messages you send.
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:2)
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:2)
Of course, there really only need to be a couple and spammers are happy.
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:4, Insightful)
For example: 5555551212@provider.net
So what happens is the spammers use the same techniques of spamming regular email addresses but it's too easy to guess an email address with a number that is in a fixed format, a number that doesn't bounce usually incremented by 1 is a good place to goto next.
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a LOT easier for a spammer to figure out SMS addresses (almost always the phone number) than email addresses. A simple random number generator and a a script can send potentially thousands of messages a minute
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:2)
Spammers sending SMSs usually buy them in bulk from operators, directly or through a third party. The second option is simply to use stacks of GSM modems, but it is costly.
Regards,
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:3, Interesting)
This was normal POTS and many years ago, I am afraid this trick is also being used.
Add up modern day WiFi and you have autodialers picking up instructions through WiFi channels.
BTW same can be said for RFID, we will have some very disruptive times with "WiFi~Other tech" connections coming years...
The means to interconnect everything will also bring that some people are able to make dozens if not hundreds of connections throu
Re:SMS is somewhat protected anyway, isn't it? (Score:2)
DRM...
DRM will kill the various networks very soon.
I predicted in my journal of last februari already that soon we will see DRM enabled virusses that cannot be removed again from a DRM'ed system untill the whole DRM is taken out.
http://slashdot.org/~Yaa%20101/journal/60385
Now imagine a DRM'ed G3 platform with several DRM'ed virusses on it?
How much do you think a network like that is worth?
Indeed, nothing, only fools will get 1 time a subscription and after the experience
110 characters (Score:2, Informative)
Not according to the standard. (Score:2)
You were unlucky --- perhaps you weren't using a standard network? The GSM Standard [gsmworld.com] specifies 160 characters if using a Latin alphabet, or 70 if you use non-Latin alphabets like Arabic or Chinese.
Furthermore, many places and phones (e.g. pretty much everyone in the UK) now support multipart SMS, where the sender splits up a long message (320 chars or more) into multiple parts, and the receiver puts it back together at the receiving end.
Sorry.
Global spam solution? (Score:2, Interesting)
I think its time that we come up with a more global view of things. A single list similar to the do-not-call list but that will allow you to get blacklisted for every kind of communications. I know many people have reservations like that spammers will use these lists as a source of valid email addresses, but you can get around that by allowing the user to select which one of their cont
Re:Global spam solution? (Score:2)
What's that, Mr Marketer? Nobody will sign up and you won't have an audience? I believe the phrase is "my heart pumps piss"...
Companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Wherever there's money, there's abuse of power.
In the UK... (Score:5, Informative)
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
Re:In the UK... (Score:2, Informative)
ICSTIS [icstis.org.uk]
Preference service [icstis.org.uk]
Stop yer whinging and sign up if you are so worried.
Re:In the UK... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In the UK... (Score:2, Funny)
I also get ones from "Lust" saying that someone has a secret crush on me and to call a premium rate number to find out who...hmm, not bloody likely
this is way WAY out of line (Score:2)
Re:this is way WAY out of line (Score:3, Insightful)
Because a handful of people with a lot of money like the fact that it exists.
UK sms spam (Score:3, Interesting)
there has also been chainmail too.
Re:UK sms spam (Score:2)
its getting worse? (Score:2)
You know what this means! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You know what this means! (Score:2, Funny)
And the top dummy number will be "8675309@jenny.com"
Sausages! (Score:4, Funny)
And this happended just when I thought my wursts couldn't get any more spam...
Better blocking on phones (Score:2, Insightful)
So why can't they implement a similar function for SMS? If the number's not in my phone book, I don't want to hear a tone, and I don't want the message sitting on my phone - just flush it straight away.
Re:Better blocking on phones (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I have a cell phone for emergencies (and general communication). If my Son gets run over and his Mom is calling me from a hospital, your idea means I'd never know about when she tried calling. There's no way to type in all the possible numbers of someone / ANYone that *could* possibly call - and have them be VERY important calls at that.
Don't look to companies to solve this problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn info harvesters (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Damn info harvesters (Score:2)
Sender paying for spamming? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wrong (Score:2)
Limited domain for guessing (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only does that mean that there's only 10 billion possible combinations that can go in that 10-digit-number slot, since all those numbers come in the form [area code]-[exchange]-[4 digits] they can start focusing on the exchanges that have been allocated to wireless providers to get a very high success rate. If you know that 508-335-xxxx belongs to Cingular, you can take a pretty good shot at aiming 10,000 messages at all the combinations of that number on Cingular's SMS domain, and a majority of them will most likely hit devices.
Of course, number portablity now introduces the possiblity that a number is now no longer with the original provider who owned the exchange allocation, but that'd be only a dent in a pretty high success rate to begin with. Remember that spammers need only a
I remember the old Prodigy service had the limited domain of addresses in the form of [four letters][two digits][letter from a-f]@prodigy.com and spammers had a field day of being able to discover such addresses from them being posted on the service and just deducing others.
Consent is bogus (Score:2)
Anyone who has bought anything from a web site (or God forbid, simply asked a question by e-mail) knows what I'm talking about. Why would SMS legislation in the USA be an
Re:Consent is bogus (Score:3, Insightful)
Opt-in consent is the best system we have... if you really want to opt-out you should have the blocks set up on the systems you control because clearly an opt-out-by-law system is never going to function.
The Phone companies spam as well (Score:3, Interesting)
My own 'provider' (Vodaphone) broadcasts the occasional multimedia message so I can see how unspeakably wonderful they are, but that is a relatively minor irritant.
Whenever I leave the country - Germany - the local providers all send me messages in German welcoming me to their networks and suggesting ways I can enhance my experience there by dialing certain numbers. You get one of these messages each week (Sunday to Saturday) so a weekend somewhere will generate one message when I get there and another one on Sunday for each network my phone happens to roam into. This is annoying enough when I am not at the wheel, but goes way beyond that when I am driving and expecting a serious message. No, I do not want to pull over and check my mobile every time some cretinous phone company wants me to check out their 'recipe of the week'.
Anything that allows me to whack them with a big stick is welcome by me.
shocked and confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, the shocked part:
I recently started receiving SMS spam on my Nextel phone. I've has SMS and standard email on the phone for at least 5 years and just recently started receiving junk messages on it. At least once a day I'd get some garbled text telling me to call some number in Seattle, WA to purchase a college degree.
The thing that shocked me was that Nextel does not indicate the source of the message on the phone that received it, You just get the text and the date/time stamp it was received.
I called customer service and technical support, both informed me that Nextel there is no way to track the source of such a message (this is blatantly false, they just don't bother to track it), and that there was no way to block such messages by sender. If I didn't want the messages I'd just have to turn off the service all together.
That simply isn't an option as SMS is one of the ways I monitor my systems; ie: all root logins from anyplace other than approved machines get sent to my phone; important client messages get through on SMS when I have my ringer off at night, etc.
In the end all they did was refund my monthly messaging fee.
I finally gave up, called the number that was listed in the messages and threatened criminal and/or civil action if I received any more messages on my cell phone from them.
I haven't received any more junk in the week since that call. In the end I guess I'm out the nickel it cost to call long distance for a minute.
I just can't understand how a company can charge you for incoming messages when they have no way for you to filter them or even know the source of the message. How could they not see anonymous on-way communication as a potential (likely) source of abuse?
Re:shocked and confused (Score:2)
Whitelist (Score:3, Interesting)
Texting is not free. (Score:3, Insightful)
The scam that has been turned up recently over here in the UK has been targetting schoolchildren. You get an SMS saying that someone fancies you, or something like that. You reply, and get hit for a 1.50 ($3) charge. However, the regulations were recently changed to prevent this kind of thing - IIRC, you're not allowed to send an SMS that doesn't explicitly state if the reply is going to cost more than normal.
Re:Texting is not free. (Score:2)
Your phone rings. Once. No way can you be fast enough to pick it up on time. No problem, you have the caller's number and can ring back.
Now, most people in Germany know that a number which starts with 019 is the equivalent of an 900 number in the US - it can cost serious money. Not many adults fall for that one and ring back.
That is why people pulling this scam started faking (?) 013 numbers. 013 numbers can also cost you far more than the price of a cal
START???? oh no, i am getting spam 3 years... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is bad enough, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
But with many SMS providers do they not have a certain fee for a certain number of messages? In effect these spam messages would then be eating in to the allotted # of SMS use you paid for. I don't like that.
I don't know the laws, and I don't care to really because if they don't protect you from this (jus
UK, sender pays... 2 spam txts (Score:2)
Re:UK, sender pays... 2 spam txts (Score:3, Insightful)
it makes so little sense its invention must have been motivated purely by desire for profit, bypassing all consideration of anything else.
Re:UK, sender pays... 2 spam txts (Score:2)
Back before the invention of cellular networks, it was standard practice for the user of a mobile telephone to pay airtime charges for all calls that originated or terminated on the user's mobile telephone. A person who called a mobile telephone only paid the standard rates for a wireline telephone call to the mobile operator.
What I do (Score:5, Interesting)
My GSM/GPRS provider included it in their service, so I made use of it.
Been there before with Verizon... (Score:5, Interesting)
The Verizon droid told me that she would 'enhance' my service to a $2.99 per month charge where I would be able to receive 'unlimited' SMS messages!
To make a long story short, I got those charges removed but decided to remove the SMS option from the cellphone because there is no winning when the cellphone company colludes with the spammers.
Not going to last.... (Score:2, Insightful)
glad (Score:2, Informative)
Re:glad (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I'm glad my cel-phone company does charge for receiving. That means I've got a line on my bill documenting financial damage from the unsolicited message. That's very helpful when filing a small-claims action against the originating company when they won't knock it off. It's also helpful when dealing with the FCC since the cel-phone company and the commissioners can't fob it off as "Oh, but you're not paying for that message." and if they suggest buying an unlimited plan I can respond "Oh, so I shou
This problem has a trivial solution (Score:2)
Mike
That's not a trivial solution for users... (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, does the average teen using SMS want to remember a password for every single person they send SMS messages to?
Thirdly unless you made it a "proper" "secure" password (which would be a bitch to enter with predictive text) it is vulnerable to a simple dictionary based attack.
Now all we need is a huge list for "why your SMS spam prevention technique will not work" (a la smtp one that's alway
Plug the open relays (Score:2)
My Provider is the Spammer (Score:2)
Just last week I received an automat
Re:My Provider is the Spammer (Score:2)
Are there still the open gateways? (Score:3, Interesting)
I used it to send myself automated reminders and data via my computer - I also used it to harass my friends via e-mail.
Do these things still exist? - I forget the servers that were used, but it was something along the lines of "messaging.sprintpcs.com" or something, and then the phone number before the @.
If they do still exist, then it is just a matter of sending out your spam to every number in that range. Since you know fixed area codes of sorts (not entirely valid on cell phones, but there is still the concept that not every number is used), it limits the number space that you would have to move through.
For instance you know that "0000000000@whatever) is not valid, but "617###0045@whatever" is much more likely to be valid, assuming "###" is a proper series used by the provider in question.
(I can't used fixed examples since I am not as familiar with them now as I once was)
Even if they turned off the open side of it (meaning any e-mail sent to that), there is still the web access side - there was a web interface that would let subscribers send data via a web page to any enabled phone number - even on other platforms.
If you do a search, there are Perl modules and such out there to automate this as well.
You can even do it via AIM/iChat.
I have talked about it to some extent on my spam blog [spamblogging.com] in the past - but I don't want to talk too in depth about it and then make it that much easier for someone that may have not had that idea before.
Who in their right mind? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Who in their right mind? (Score:3, Interesting)
"If I can see who is messaging me I can choose to be charged or not." -uh? It's the sender who pays.
"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." -Why wouldn't you want SMS? It's really great. I use it for everything. One of my servers go down. *bip* I get an SMS telling me which server has problems. My GF needs to tell me something but I can't get to
spam about cellphone spam! (Score:4, Funny)
Simple solution.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Off? (Score:3, Insightful)
The big problem with just turning off SMS is that most people use SMS (Or at least, us teenagers do), and there is no reason for the option.
Re:Different Approach to Spam (Score:2)
Re:Bluetooth spam (Score:2)
I don't need Bluetooth normally so I just turned it off.
Re:Bluetooth spam (Score:2)
This appears to be what I was thinking of [pcauthority.com.au] although it is not my original source. Sorry, can't find it now, it was probably in German anyhow.