Mobile Computing: June 2006 Archives
A new technique for luring people to maliscious sites has been going around—via SMS. Cnet reports that the scam is reasonably sophisticated: robots send out an SMS (using the email/SMS gateway) to the effect of "you will be charged $2/message through your phone bill unless you go to this website and cancel the service."
Well, it was only a matter of time before things like this started popping up. I fear for the Email/SMS gateway, on which many innovative developers are forced to rely. Yes, this method of reaching users is a hack, but one developers are forced to use, as there are no reasonable alternatives—short codes are extremely difficult to obtain, and incredibly expensive, especially for start-ups without exhorbitant financial backing.
Hopefully this won't piss off the carriers enough to lock down the gateways. Hopefully the repurcussions won't inadvertantly filter out all the interesting SMS- and MMS-based applications out there—Gumspots, Radar... But really, I've developed a pretty strong cynicism with all things related to the mobile telcos.
SmartMobs had it first.
Read about GSM Location on 7.5th Floor, one of my 'dailies'. The project looks interesting, as a new viral location-aware tech. One of these days I'll build that Python app...
Lots of cool stuff in the mix over at GumSpots.com. Check it out - the PicPass and 2cents services are super cool, and GSPS (GumSpots positioning system) is well on its way. Big ups to Kaufman for presenting at the Where Conference next week.
