Every now and then, I will receive some really strange (and interesting) SMS on my mobile phone. I've been getting quite a few lately. There was a time I received a flurry of SMS from China concerning me 'winning' a jackpot of sorts. How stupid can one be to actually believe this is true?!?
Anyway, spam has finally found its way to mobile phones and SMS is not the only medium they are using. They are also making use of the push message service that most phones (if not all) are able to receive. This can actually be easily rectified by setting your phone to decline all push messages but I feel this is actually a very good service which for example the Government can use to inform the public of certain news such as tsunami alerts or something like that. I just wish there's an efficient spam filtering service like the one used in Gmail implemented for phones. Wouldn't that be cool?
During festivities, I will also receive some strange SMS in the form of unknown persons or those written with Chinese characters. Friends know I'm unable to read Chinese characters apart from my name and those easily distinguishable and common ones, but somehow they will still send me SMS greetings containing Chinese characters, probably hoping I've somehow automagically learnt the language overnight. I can speak (a fair bit) but I just can't read the language to save my life! How then does it help if I don't understand what is being written in the messages? All I can assume is it's some Mid-Autumn Festival greeting (for those I received a few days back) and hope they are not cursing me in Mandarin for not sending them mooncakes. :P
The SMS below however comes out tops, in my opinion.
OK, the number this 'Ms Liw' is offering is very close to my number (only one number off) but it's just amazing that people nowadays will resort to such tactics to make a quick buck. I can only imagine the number of SMS she sent out, spamming those of us who have numbers close to the one she is offering. I'm not about to take out my calculator and start punching some numbers to see the number of probabilities but one message alone is already IMHO one too many.
Do you have any recent weird SMS to share?
Anyway, spam has finally found its way to mobile phones and SMS is not the only medium they are using. They are also making use of the push message service that most phones (if not all) are able to receive. This can actually be easily rectified by setting your phone to decline all push messages but I feel this is actually a very good service which for example the Government can use to inform the public of certain news such as tsunami alerts or something like that. I just wish there's an efficient spam filtering service like the one used in Gmail implemented for phones. Wouldn't that be cool?
During festivities, I will also receive some strange SMS in the form of unknown persons or those written with Chinese characters. Friends know I'm unable to read Chinese characters apart from my name and those easily distinguishable and common ones, but somehow they will still send me SMS greetings containing Chinese characters, probably hoping I've somehow automagically learnt the language overnight. I can speak (a fair bit) but I just can't read the language to save my life! How then does it help if I don't understand what is being written in the messages? All I can assume is it's some Mid-Autumn Festival greeting (for those I received a few days back) and hope they are not cursing me in Mandarin for not sending them mooncakes. :P
The SMS below however comes out tops, in my opinion.
Maxis offering number - 01249702** if you're interested pls kindly contact for more information thx 01251146** ms liw.
** number blanked out for obvious privacy reasons.
OK, the number this 'Ms Liw' is offering is very close to my number (only one number off) but it's just amazing that people nowadays will resort to such tactics to make a quick buck. I can only imagine the number of SMS she sent out, spamming those of us who have numbers close to the one she is offering. I'm not about to take out my calculator and start punching some numbers to see the number of probabilities but one message alone is already IMHO one too many.
Do you have any recent weird SMS to share?
Keywords:
yes! oh my goodness!
ReplyDeletei was just grumbling today to ikanrerama...
"how come there are spam on my phone too??"
i've got a few of them chinese character sms as well...and a few more adverts for i dunno what, didn't bother to read...just hit DELETE... :)
but it's getting pretty annoying...!
indeed! spammers should burn in hell!
ReplyDeletetsk...tsk....
ReplyDeletefirewall for phones anyone??
i believe there are such initiatives (firewall/antivirus) in the works but the cause of the problem is still human...
ReplyDeletesad isn't it?