Re: [telecom] Why your cell phone is ripe for spam texts in 2012

In <p0624080dcbef054eeb29@[10.0.1.2]> Monty Solomon <monty@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Why your cell phone is ripe for spam texts in 2012
[ snip]
But here we are, some two decades later, and voters across the
country are getting political text messages they never asked for.

...

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/06/01/why-your-cell-phone-is-ripe-for-spam-texts-2012/

Please permit me again to suggest a simple action by the cellcos
which would cut doen this, as well as other spam-text msgs,
by a hefty percentage.

The cellcos currently "offer" (in quotes because they don't
make it obvious...), for the most part, two options:

a: receive all texts/SMS
b: block everything.

What they could do, just about tomorrow... is add in
a few other choices:

a: recve all texts/SMS
b: receive _only_ those sent from a _cellular phone account_
in a recognized carrier [1]
c: only those from people on the same carrier you are
d: block everything.

[1] the trick here is that just about all spam text-sms is transmitted
via an e-mail -> cellphone gateway. Most carriers offer
this via something like sending to: phonenumber@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

and just like with all e-mail, it's trivial to kick out thousands
at a clip.

Blocking (at customer's request) msgs coming in through those
gateways, thus limiting spam to folk who actually punch in
through cellphone pads [2] would just about end this issue

[2] yes, there are ways to send a thousand msgs through a
cellphone account, but it would be trivial for any cellco
to block that process.


--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dannyb@xxxxxxxxx
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
.