Mobile companies fight back

http://www.unlisted-etcetera.com

Cell phone companies say they're determined to nip spam in the bud. They don't want cell phone spam to become the aggravating problem Internet e-mail spam has become. (AHAHAHA! Like it isn't already?)

"We notified the people who were sending it to stop, and if they didn't we'd take legal action," says Ritch Blasi of AT&T Wireless. "Text messages can cause the network to slow down if you did enough of them. We're checking our internal processes to see if we can adjust our filters to detect something like this."

Jeffrey Nelson at Verizon Wireless says they, too, are constantly monitoring their network to catch any potential spammers trying to deliver large numbers of e-mail to Verizon Wireless accounts.

Nick Nicholas, the chief privacy officer for Return Path Inc., an e-mail change-of-address company, says it's easy for spammers to send text messages quickly to thousands of cell phones.
Cell phone numbers are assigned in blocks of 10,000. Each block will have the same area code and exchange.

When a company identifies the last four digits of a phone number as belonging to a cell phone, there's a good chance all the numbers in that block are cell phone numbers. If the spammer can then determine the phone company code that follows the phone number, such as 415-555-1515sprint.pcs.com, he or she can spit out a text message to 10,000 phones just as easily as you can send an e-mail to 50 friends or butter your toast.

Spammers don't care if 99 percent of the messages reach people who aren't interested in the product because spammers aren't footing the bill. YOU ARE!!!!

But other people get hot under the collar just thinking about it.

Personally, I get infuriated enough with spam on my computer. If I get it on my cell phone I'll go ballistic. It's MY money!

cellmagic