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1.  

   Huh?

   

   Euroman, Jun 30th, 2003 @ 4:30am

   
   

   How will turning off your mobile stop spam? When you turn it on all the messages will download and fill your SMS buffer space! SMS spam is horrendous, *but* sometimes the phone companies send out useful info to you by SMS (such as when you roam to a different country) and then its' OK (I suppose those are easy cases to allow for though)

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2.  

   sender pays

   

   Liudvikas Bukys, Jun 30th, 2003 @ 5:20am

   
   

   The best solution is for the carriers to
   charge the senders, not the recipients,
   of SMS messages. The horse is out of the
   barn for sender-pays email, but cellular
   carriers are perfectly capable of figuring
   out how to charge users and each other.

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3.  

   SMS spam will not happen

   

   Torsten Jacobi, Jun 30th, 2003 @ 9:42am

   
   

   Defintely phone numbers are easy to guess. But you are forgetting one point. Spam occurs because of the 0 transaction costs of emails. People with a broadband connection do actually have an incentive to use their lines. A SMS messages still costs you between 5 to 10 €-Cent. It's very unlikely that you spend this much as a spammer.

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4.  

   Re: SMS spam will not happen

   

   Mike (profile), Jun 30th, 2003 @ 10:09am

   
   

   But... there are now web-based interfaces for sending out SMS that don't cost a thing. It depends on the system, but for many - sending an SMS doesn't cost at all. Receiving it does.

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5.  

   text messaging spam

   

   James, Oct 7th, 2003 @ 9:53pm

   
   

   The idea of only permitting those in an address book to send messages is interesting, but will not work in many situations (someone calling from a payphone or sending the message via the web -- unless you made them enter their normal number during the course of sending the message). It certainly is an option that I think would be nice to offer, but there is a much simpler way to prevent any spam that was sent via the web: Use the same systems that people are using to prevent automated email spam through web interefaces (require the user to enter a code before the message is sent, and the code is displayed as an image that a computer cannot recognize).
   
   This isn't rocket science. I could program this myself, and I bet commerical systems exist. This is apathy on the part of the carriers. Maybe worse that apathy -- they are getting PAID for those spam messages since they charge the recipient in some cases. I would advise people to complain to the FTC/FCC if they are having a problem with this issue. The carriers should have some culpability here, instead of saying "Oh well, you have to pay for the messages" (which is what I know Nextel says).

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