Latest SMS Message Missing? Call Stan Bubrouski

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the seriously? dept

It’s no secret that SMS text messages aren’t the most reliable. Over the years, we’ve seen all sorts of estimates on the number of undelivered messages. Some of those are faults with the system, but some of them are simply because the user forgot to put in the recipient. What happens to those messages? Ask Stan Bubrouski. It sounds like a story device from a comic novel (which first had me checking to make sure it wasn’t April 1st), but according to eWeek, a college kid named Stan Bubrouski got a Verizon phone in 2001, and (as a joke) signed up to have the username “null” for his text messages — meaning null@vtext.com supposedly go to his phone. That’s a nuisance when messages with no recipient go to null@vtext.com — and it gets much worse when plenty of big companies send messages to that address, including some who were told that was the proper “test” address for Verizon text messaging. Add to that the growing number of businesses that are using text messages as a way of sending confidential information, such as medical info and SAT test scores, and it seems problematic — especially given various new laws concerning data leaks.