Chinese Authorities Annoying Poster Spammers With Automated Phone Calls
from the poetic-justice dept
It appears that authorities in Shanghai are picking up on one anti-spam method: spamming back the spammers to knock them out of commission. The BBC is reporting that a system has been set up to automatically call phone numbers found posted in posters and fliers around the city once an hour, telling people to take down the illegal posters (and to pay a fine). After a couple days of hourly annoyance, the system will increase the rate of calls to the point where phone numbers found in such posters should expect to receive one such automated call every eight minutes. The only way to stop the calls? Pay a fine or disconnect the phone number.
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
Automated DDOS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Automated DDOS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Automated DDOS
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Useful annoyance tool?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]