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Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam 214

Posted by Hemos from the must-protect-phone dept.
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."
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Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam More

Protect Your Cell Phone From Spam

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  • Trouble ahead. (Score:3, Funny)

    by MWoody ( 222806 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:04AM (#3076366)
    Uh, oh. I get lots of spam on my computer, and it sucks. And now I'm going to get lots of spam on my phone.

    The difference?

    I can throw my phone...
    • Or better yet, you can walk the extra block to the place that was advertized and throw a mad hissy fit complete with top-of-the-lungs yelling and screaming (don't forget sailor cursing!) about how much you hate spam and how angry and pissed off you get when you get it sent to your phone. Make a habit out of it. They can't really expect to keep you out with tresspass laws since they are *specifically* targeting you with an invitation to come to thier store. (IANAL, but I don't see how you could invite somone over to you house and then arrest him for trespassing when he steps through the door. Correct me if I'm wrong.) If you, and all your friends, do this loud enough and long enough, perhaps within earshot of a news reporter on a slow news day, pretty soon there will be a huge stigma against spamming passersby.
      • "Or better yet, you can walk the extra block to the place that was advertized and throw a mad hissy fit complete with top-of-the-lungs yelling and screaming (don't forget sailor cursing!) about how much you hate spam and how angry and pissed off you get when you get it sent to your phone. Make a habit out of it."

        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."

    • In the midlle of a work meeting :
      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)

        by tcr ( 39109 )
        Amusing point (:-), but I think you have the key point.

        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')

    • I can throw my phone...


      Aahh, get a portable computer and throw it around all you want.

    • Re:Trouble ahead. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Dufffader ( 164439 )
      Lets hope some operator managed to see it in a different way. They could create a premium service where you pay and get no spam, and a free service plan where you get loads of junk but get to save some money.

      In that way, everyone will be happy.

    • Making phones useless. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alien54 ( 180860 )
      If I get to many spams on my phone, then they have made my phone useless.

      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)

    by kwishot ( 453761 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:06AM (#3076370)
    Bulk email is (relatively) free.
    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
    • Sorry to reply to myself here, but it appears as if the article is referring to spam text messages, as opposed to the submitted who was referring to actual spam phone calls. On that note, the article actually has some merit, although how easy is it to fit a profitable spam message inside 150 characters? =) I guess it can be done!

      -kwishot

      • Re:Too expensive! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by digitalunity ( 19107 )
        The big deal is that some of us pay for SMS on a 'per-message' basis. I'm a VoiceStream Wireless(major US Wireless provider) and I only receive 100 free messages per month. After that, it could start costing me lots of money to receive shit that I don't need.

        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)

          by kwishot ( 453761 )
          Spammers dun care, it's still free for *them*! =P
          That would be a good way to get back at someone, though.... email bomb their SMS? =P
          -kwishot

          • Re:Too expensive! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by digitalunity ( 19107 )
            Yeah, get this. To top off my SMS spam, one *feature* of my VoiceStream account is an email address consisting of my phonenumber bound to SMS. All of the email on that account is automatically sent to my phone. I've been extremely careful to keep that email address off the internet. All it takes is one spam harvester and no amount of laws or lawsuits could keep my phone bill low!!!!!!
    • NTT Docomo's phone users have to pay for each received mail.

      It is said that automatic probable NTT-Docomo-phone-addresses generators
      are sold.
      • I'm currently stationed in Okinawa and all my Japanese friends are currently frustrated by the ammount of spam they receive.

        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...
    • Big difference: My home phone is a fixed rate for incomming calls. No matter where I get a call from in the world, it costs me nothing at all to accept it, unless it is collect in which case I have the option of refusing. Unlimited incomming calls are a part of the $15/month I shell out for the line. However with a cell hpone, I have to pay for airtime, even on incomming calls. You can be calling me from the same network, and it doesn't matter, the airtime used still comes out of my minutes. Therefore, unsolicited cellphone calls cost ME money, which makes me mad and shouldn't be legal.

  • depends on whats for sale (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hi, my name is Jenny im 18 and me and my girlfriend were wondering if you wanted to see us live ...

    Hmm.. except, this is the kind of thing I'd purchase "in real life" ;)

  • Mobile Phone Spam (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pete (big-pete) ( 253496 ) <peter_endean@hotmail.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:08AM (#3076372)

    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.

    • > they were selling their soul (and mobile phone
      > 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...
    • We may have lost the fight againast mail spam

      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 :(
      • I like turning bulk snail mail companies in for things like copyright violation. For example, if you do a big mailout that includes a photocopy of a street directory the company that owns the copyright on the map would very much like to sue your arse. I will thell them about you. Another example, I followed one bit of spam once, it was for sci-fi (ish) fonts. Turned out they'd just ripped commercial fonts from wherever. I recognised the Magic: the Gathering font and notified Wizards of the Coast. These days though I don't even read the spam, I just report it using Spamcop...

  • Why hasn't it happened? (Score:3, Informative)

    by mcrbids ( 148650 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:10AM (#3076381) Journal
    Most of the major Cell providers have a web->SMS gateway, so that you can send a cell messaage via your browser.

    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

    • 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

  • I have a Qualcomm Q-phone. I seriously doubt I'll be getting anything but dropped calls on it. Recently switched to Qualcomm Thinphone for walking around tasks, though. That won't get any SMS/WAP/HDML crud on it either.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If I know the spammer is ten feet away chances are I might go there and "#@£% his @#"! :-)
    • This would work with the new phones that have the enhanced location system for the 911 service. When shopping for a phone, be sure to ask if the GPS location feature can be turned off by the user. Explain you do not wish to by spammed by SMS messages when approaching a shopping center. If enough people ask, they may rethink selling location specific advertisement space. Explain you want to be able to turn it off for everything except 911 calls.

  • Hard to report.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kwishot ( 453761 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:14AM (#3076393)
    I would imagine that spam text messages would be hard to report because many of the headers are removed because of space/storage restrictions. I think that the burden would lie pretty heavily on the providers. How far is too far, though? If you're asking your provider to log and/or prosecute spammers, they inherently *have* to sort through your personal messages. As I understand it now, most services just send the information directly to your phone without having to actually store it on their servers at all.
    -kwishot
    • i would have thought that the provider would have a record of the number of the person/company who sent a text message to my phone at a given time. therefore it should be fairly easy to trace the spam and report it to someone.

      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
      • The big thing, I think, is that many providers allow you to receive messages from the internet -- not necessarily from other people with phones. That way someone from *.jp could send a message to 5559876543@nextel.com or something and you'd be effectively anonymously spammed.

        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
      • My understanding and I may well be wrong about this so feel free to correct me ...

        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)

          by Novus ( 182265 )
          Here in Finland, SMS spam was also made opt-in. Nowadays, advertisers send you SMS messages asking whether you want to receive advertising material for [insert product name here], which is just as bad.
    • Don't kid yourself that the mobile providers will be the first to sell your name... the numbers you call... where you frequent [remember, "we're" putting GPS in the phones for your safety!]... the times of day you use your phone [best time to spam]

      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.

  • The majority of spam messages are from anonymous or overseas accounts where it is extremely hard to track down the physical location for the seller.

    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.
    • > 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.

      You Know You've Been Fighting Spam Too Long When...

      ...you're at the local bar and a woman comes nuzzles up to you and says "My sister thinks you're cute, but she's too shy, so she asked me to say hello for her, wanna chat for a bit?"

      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 ;-)

  • I'd consider carrying mace if that "Deal 10 ft away" scenario came into being.

    -Peter
  • I'm already getting SPAM SMSs from Nokia for example. They are advertising by sending me SMS messages once in a while. Can't say I like that.
  • As if I don't get enough wrong numbers on my cell phone already, coupled with the large volume of spam I already recieve via e-mail, this would drive me CrAzY!

    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)

  • Interesting how... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tcd004 ( 134130 )
    We look at someting differently when we call it spam. If spam is an unsolicited advertisment that I receive on my cell phone or computer, then I also get about 3 spams per day on my land-line phone.

    tcd004
    We've redesigned. But we're still idiots.

  • PORN ADS CAUSE CELL PHONES TO BE BANNED! (Score:3, Funny)

    by phunhippy ( 86447 ) <zavoid&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:19AM (#3076408) Journal
    hehe I can see the headlines now! US district court has declared that cell phones are a transmission device that carry morally offensive advertising and will be banned in all areas to protect children..

    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 :|

  • This poem [userfriendly.org] expresses my feelings about spam perfectly.

    Geek Girl Chronicles [slashdot.org]
  • At the moment, I don't own a cell phone. Shocking, I know. I've been on the fence about breaking down and picking one up for emergency and urgent use.

    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.
  • I'm pretty sure it's illegal for them to telemarket to unlisted phone numbers. (Bear in mind, I'm Canadian, so it might make a difference.)

    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....

    • Here at Brazil this things doesn't happen.

      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-)

    • Uhhmmm, KillerBob:

      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.

  • SPAM via SMS would be a problem for spammers compared to email. Why you ask? In most parts of the worl, SMS is not free. In in those areas wherein SMS is not free, most of time, they charge you per message instead of a fixed monthly rate for unlimited SMS sending. So in other words, SMS costs would be a burden on part of the spammer. In this part of the world where I live, an SMS costs almost 2 cents (USD), while the other neighboring countries costs at least 4 cents per message you send. (I live somewhere in SE Asia.)

    • I like the per message charge for SMS. That means it may be an option and may be a service you can choose to drop from you plan. Service providers may take action to can the spam if it means less revenue. I don't have a cell phone. I have a pager and 2 way company radio. I don't miss the cell phone at all.
    • SMS in the UK, sent from a phone costs 10 pence on average (10 - 20 cents). SMS sent through a web gateway costs the gateway provider 2 pence (about 4 cents) per message. Because of this you are normally limited to something like 10 free messages a day from any user name.
      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)

    by knulleke ( 557202 )
    Last year I was called by a someone from one of these financial expert firms. So he asks me if I'm interested in one of their products, and I say "NO". Then he asks me if he may pay us a visit to explain their products. "No" is my reply. Then he goes on to say that their products are the best and can't be beaten etc. Tired of the conversation I tell him that I want to hang up.

    "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?
    • Warning, never give them your bank account! I have seen that ploy as a scam. Look up the bank transfer e-mail scam on the internet. It works by someone asking for a bank account to transfer money to avoid customs (usualy a Central America country) and promising a hansome profit for your time and trouble. Once a small deposit is transferred, the account is emptied including your money. If someone wants to give me money, a check, cash, or money order works for me. A bad check will only bounce, not empty the account.
      • hhmm, I think I'm going to opena bank accout for 10 dollar, and star taking thes people up, if the deposty the initial money i it, tranfer it out immediatly.
        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.
        • They check your balance to see if you are "Financialy Trustworthy" first. They can't trust anyone without a responiibly sized account showing good money management.(sucker!)

  • That headline.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stonehead ( 87327 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:47AM (#3076463)
    would be a typical SMS message to expect.. :L

  • You can fight back (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @04:58AM (#3076485)
    I've already received SMS spam. The message, repeated 3 times over the course of a month, read "Refinance for 4% - Call Ed - 520-xxx-yyyy" (I don't remember the actual number).

    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 /.)

  • I think RIM is a very unfortunate name for any technology. It only invites South Park jokes.

  • same time in finland (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jasupehmo ( 318742 )

    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)

    by r2ravens ( 22773 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:03AM (#3076490)
    It seems we have forgotten all about fax machines and the law that they prompted.

    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.

    • oddly enough, I have seen Fax spam increasing in the last 6 months, really odd. Its like people see email spam and say hey I'll use the fax, its the same thing! Never bothering to see if its legal.
      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)

    by mizukami ( 141102 ) <tonygonzNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:04AM (#3076493) Homepage
    The email address for the Docomo cell phone that my company issued me was apparently in use before, and got in the hands of spammers and was included in an email database. I have gotten 46 (!!) spam emails to that phone in the past 5 hours and 20 minutes, all for i-Mode sex sites and such.

    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... :-P

  • much like (Score:5, Informative)

    by martissimo ( 515886 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @05:08AM (#3076502)
    much like spam faxes, unsolicited calls to cell phones will cost the end user a *lot* of money. Its something that the consumers will never stand for.

    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)

      by 636guy ( 122471 )
      If you mean SMS, it does not cost anything to recieve them (well, maybe if you travel abroad with your mobile) here in Europe.

  • though they tend to get your permission for this.. some other companies too send some adds, mainly companies who's services are mainly used with sms messages, effective adds since you just have to press reply and maybe type your name to take part in some goofy competition or something else.

    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)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @06:00AM (#3076577)
    Mobile spam is going to take off in a massive way because its more direct than email since the majority of people carry their phone everywhere and respond as soon as it bleeps.

    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 ...?

  • I hope the cell companies would adopt that. It doesn't require Java-enabled phones or email redirection.

    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.
  • This problem seems analogous to the one posed by Jack Valenti's plan to build copy protection into home entertainment systems. The next generation of various devices will be fatally compromised by 1) content restriction protocoals and 2) back doors for corporate and government watchdogs, and spammers.

    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 /. about building your own PVRs, wireless networks, customized computers, etc. Maybe some enterprising geek will someday soon post about building your own cell phone. (One that runs Linux, perhaps?) :)
  • There are a few ways I can see this being played out...
    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 when you enter the vacinity isn't much different than walking by the chinese restaurant in the food court and getting a piece of chicken on a toothpick waved in front of your face. Personally, I don't think the vacinity cell spam will work. A sign is probably more effective.

    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?)
  • Unlike email, sending an SMS costs money, so how do the spammers do it?

    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.
  • Imagine cellphones with scripting abilities... You could send an SMS which would forward itself to every number in your phonebook. It would probably bounce back and forth between a large number of people owning phones with wounerable scripting abilities and effectively flood entire GSM networks. Let's just hope M$ never makes a cellphone...
  • Cell phone spam could be the best thing to happen to us yet. People can ignore E-Mail spam becuase they dont see the actual effects, they're just a client, all they have to do is delete them or filter them or whatever. People are annoyed by telemarketers on the phone, but other than the annoyance, there isnt any real loss....
    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.
    • I can see a whole new charging mechanism which will solve this. Different sorts of data demand different prices (for example):

      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.
  • I am sure that phone spam will be less of a problem.
    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)

    by mlknowle ( 175506 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @07:52AM (#3076776) Homepage Journal
    I just realized that I spend more time reading about spam on /. then I do deleting it from my inbox.
  • I get the spam as text messages on my phone. So far every message that comes in is from @yahoo.com. I've contacted yahoo and they say they have nothing to do with the problem. Luckily I don't have to pay for each text message but if I did I bet I could easily win a lawsuit against them.

  • Is to turn the phone off.

  • ...travelling in Europe, once or twice as my phone logged onto the local network when I get off the plane, the telco has spammed me with an SMS. Ho hum.

  • Technicality (Score:2, Insightful)

    by nochops ( 522181 )
    "...you may be getting spam phone calls"
    "...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.
  • I could just see it. My cell phone recieving the message.

    "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.
  • Cell phone spam has one big advantage over regular spam - it will piss off people who can do something about it (in the US at least). Every Congressman/women/senator I've seen at the airport has a cell phone - and therefore is a potential target for the latest Viagra/MAKE*MONEY*FAST/Surefire stock tip spam. While they probably don't even see the spam in their email, phone spam will be hard to ignore, especially if it starts to interfere with normal business. While I am generally not a big fan of government soultions to commercial problems, this one may call for one.

    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.

  • 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 ...(hoping against all hope perhaps) ... a law against SPAM in all forms!

    OK ... I admit that I'm counting on logic here, which tends to be a mistake when the government is involved, but ... just maybe ...
  • Why not? Because the receiver doesn't pay the cost of SPAM, the sender does. If you want to send me a SMS you must pay the cost (about 5 cents or a little less in volume in my country). So it won't be the same threat level as email spam.

    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...
  • Mike,

    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)

    by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Wednesday February 27, 2002 @01:33PM (#3078441) Homepage Journal

    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.

  • I thought telemarketing to cell phones was already illegal. Would anyone care to enlighten us on the details? I searched on google and found a number of references to this ban, but no actual spec of the law.

    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.
  • Have you ever wondered why you don't get calls from telephone solicitors on your cell phone? People in Europe certainly do. Why are Americans exempt?

    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 is that the end user doesn't actually pay for it. If you are charged $0.05 for each incomming message, then not only will you have legal grounds to sue, (e.g. $1.00+legal fees!) but people spending $5.00/day for spam will REALLY be motivated to start suing. It's the perceved lack of value of e-mail which has allowed spam to prosper.

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