Here Comes Text Messaging Spam
from the just-what-we-need dept
This topic has been brought up a few times before, and while it isn't that bad in the US so far, it appears that it's only a matter of time until we're all dealing with SMS text messaging spam. In some ways it will be worse than the "dictionary attack" that email spammers use, since it's often easy to guess the phone numbers of mobile phone users (if you figure out one, you know an entire block of 10,000 numbers). The wireless carriers are getting worried - so hopefully they'll do something to stop this. They're afraid that people are going to start turning off their mobile phones to avoid getting bothered with constant SMS spam. It seems to me that there's a very simple solution to this: offer an option to only allow text messages from those in your address book. At least for me, I have no desire to ever receive an SMS text message from someone I don't know. To me, it's not like email, but much more directed. If the person (or company) doesn't know me, I don't want to hear from them via text message on my phone. Update: An organization in the UK is looking for examples of SMS spam in order to compile a database to show to people to convince them that there is a problem.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Huh?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
sender pays
charge the senders, not the recipients,
of SMS messages. The horse is out of the
barn for sender-pays email, but cellular
carriers are perfectly capable of figuring
out how to charge users and each other.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SMS spam will not happen
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: SMS spam will not happen
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
text messaging spam
This isn't rocket science. I could program this myself, and I bet commerical systems exist. This is apathy on the part of the carriers. Maybe worse that apathy -- they are getting PAID for those spam messages since they charge the recipient in some cases. I would advise people to complain to the FTC/FCC if they are having a problem with this issue. The carriers should have some culpability here, instead of saying "Oh well, you have to pay for the messages" (which is what I know Nextel says).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]