SMS spam from +856207349489
I recently got my first foreign SMS spam to my mobile. It said:
“You won $123,000 USD,send your email address by sms text message to(+856207349489)so we shall send you an email with more information on how to claim your money”
Obviously this is some sort of scam, and a quick web search reveals quite a few people have received exactly the same message. Usually these sort of scams are sent via email because it cost the sender practically nothing and is very difficult to trace back to the individual responsible. SMS on the other hand almost always costs has a financial cost to the sender and is far easier to trace. The sender in this case has likely hacked or socially engineered they way into another party’s phone account in order to send out these messages. There is probably a fairly small window of time in which you could reply to the message before the SMS service is cut off by the telco who provides it.
I don’t think we’ll be seeing much SMS spam in the future.
Edit: The Age have published an article on this type of activity which they are calling Smishing (SMS phishing).
Tags: sms spam
Spam from wonk.org
Nov 28, 2005 Spam
Over the last couple of days some joker has been sending out spam using my domain name, wonk.org. Please be assured the spam is not from me and I do not recommend you buy any fake r0lex watches or anything of the sort.
If you are a mail server administrator please consider using SPF. It is not the silver bullet solution to spam, but it will stop forgeries such as the one currently in progress against wonk.org.
Howard continues to spam, Labor promises not to.
Oct 6, 2004 Australia, Current Events, Internet, Spam
Fed: Labor vows not to employ Libs ‘arrogant’ phone spam. (ZDNet Australia / AAP)
Our spam loving friends at the Liberal party are at it again, but this time using the phone instead of email. They’re using automated technology to dial numbers within marginal seats and play a recorded message from John Howard or Peter Costello such as:
“Hello, this is John Howard. I’ve taken the unusual step of contacting you with this recorded message to support your local Liberal candidate in Bowman.” quoted from SBS News.
In response to this Mark Arbib of the NSW Labor party said:
“It is arrogant and insensitive to use computers to make thousands of calls delivering recorded messages. Voters who are upset by this use of American-style political campaigning techniques will have the opportunity on Saturday to leave their own message at polling booths for John Howard. Labor’s approach is not to spam voters or to use recorded messages to try and get their votes. People deserve a greater level of respect than that.”
Indeed. Nobody likes like telemarketing calls, especially when they’re a recorded message from John Howard, or even John Howard calling personally.