Mobile Spam – How about Security?
I've been receiving SMS spam on my mobile phone ever since "trialing" an SMS clubs service about a week ago. I can't be 100 percent sure that this has triggered the SPAM, but the only other entity that has my number is my carrier, and I don't think they are the culprits. The founder was boasting to me about the size of his audience – an audience that he hopes to leverage as part of an advertising network.
I wonder how long will it be before phone numbers are being randomly generated like email addresses? Sort of ticks me off overall since I pay two cents for each message I receive.
As I was driving to work today, I thought of a new application for SMS. There was a one of those signs on the highway alerting motorists to the abduction of a child. There was a description of the child. There was a description of the car. I think all of that information could fit into just over 100 text characters.
Why not? Nearly everyone has a phone. Nearly all phones are SMS-capable. Our wireless carriers just about know our location. There are some technical difficulties with list management, broadcast of text messages to so many people, someone has to pay for these messages, etc. – all in all, quite a few barriers, but I think it's an interesting idea. It's the most ubiquitous device. Might not be a bad way to collect information either. The spammers have figured it out.