SMS Text Message Spam - revisited

We got an update on I-connect a couple days ago saying that other cell
companies have been having a problem about it as well. It also said in the
memo that we and the other companies are tracking down the "3rd parties"
that are sending the SMSs.....

--
Customer Service Rep.
Nothern Call Center
1-800-639-6111

"Scott Stephenson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> David Little wrote:
>
> > After my last call to them on Wednesday morning of this week, it has
been
> > very good. As of this morning, my wife has only had one SMS message
since
> > mid afternoon Wednesday.
> >
> > She is still getting Voice Mail Notification, and everything else on the
> > account works fine.
> >
> > From what I am hearing from others, they may have done a "Soft Reset"
from
> > their end to reset the service.
> >
> > I don't know this to be true, but whatever was done seems to have an
> > effect.
> >
> > I just got home this afternoon from staying with my mother after some
> > out-patient surgery, and the wife is on her way home from Macon, where
she
> > has been all week with family due to a medical emergency. She did
comment
> > yesterday that the messages had stopped, and either late last night, or
> > early this morning, one slipped through.
> >
> > Things seem to be getting better. Having the bill adjusted to take off
> > the $32.10 charged for last month's messages plus $50.00 phone credit
also
> > makes things start to look a little brighter...
> >
> > All I did was to explain that my wife was out of town due to her father
> > having a stroke and a heart attack at the same time, and she is staying
at
> > the hospital - having to make and receive all calls from family, and
honor
> > hospital rules concerning cell phones by keeping hers off most of the
> > time. I simply gave them the choice to decide between changing the phone
> > number or
> > loosing voice mail. I explained that I was putting it entirely in their
> > hands, and that changing the number would cause the family to loose
> > contact with the medical situation (which was grave; and rapidly loosing
> > ground from there) and loosing voice mail would be cause for her to miss
> > all the voice mail messages left when she had the phone off (~~95% of
the
> > time, due to
> > hospital rules). I told them that I was sure that they would make the
> > right decision, and left it at that.....
> >
> > Believe it or not, they apparently saw the magnitude of the problem they
> > present when they give the customer this same choice - and apparently
> > found some solution that they weren't previously sharing.
> >
> > If not; it was just a miracle. We all need a few of them from time to
> > time.
> > Also in that department, my father-in-law is still hanging in there. He
> > is in-operable due to plaque build up and 75% loss of lung usage, but he
> > remains with us for a while longer. All in all, not a bad week; taken
in
> > context
> >
>
>
> I'm very sorry to hear about your father-in-law. My prayers are with you.
> And I'm glad that the phone problem seems to have been taken care of. I
> did a little digging, and it looks like the spam solution is being done in
> stages, along with some other assorted patches and fixes. I think they
> took the 'step-by-step' approach to find the minimum amount of fix needed
> to address the problem, and not do a total overkill that would have
> resulted in a more negative customer experience- like filtering out
> legitimate SMS. Score one for the good guys.
>

---

› See More: SMS Text Message Spam - revisited

We got an update on I-connect a couple days ago saying that other cell
companies have been having a problem about it as well. It also said in the
memo that we and the other companies are tracking down the "3rd parties"
that are sending the SMSs.....

--
Customer Service Rep.
Nothern Call Center
1-800-639-6111

"Scott Stephenson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> David Little wrote:
>
> > After my last call to them on Wednesday morning of this week, it has
been
> > very good. As of this morning, my wife has only had one SMS message
since
> > mid afternoon Wednesday.
> >
> > She is still getting Voice Mail Notification, and everything else on the
> > account works fine.
> >
> > From what I am hearing from others, they may have done a "Soft Reset"
from
> > their end to reset the service.
> >
> > I don't know this to be true, but whatever was done seems to have an
> > effect.
> >
> > I just got home this afternoon from staying with my mother after some
> > out-patient surgery, and the wife is on her way home from Macon, where
she
> > has been all week with family due to a medical emergency. She did
comment
> > yesterday that the messages had stopped, and either late last night, or
> > early this morning, one slipped through.
> >
> > Things seem to be getting better. Having the bill adjusted to take off
> > the $32.10 charged for last month's messages plus $50.00 phone credit
also
> > makes things start to look a little brighter...
> >
> > All I did was to explain that my wife was out of town due to her father
> > having a stroke and a heart attack at the same time, and she is staying
at
> > the hospital - having to make and receive all calls from family, and
honor
> > hospital rules concerning cell phones by keeping hers off most of the
> > time. I simply gave them the choice to decide between changing the phone
> > number or
> > loosing voice mail. I explained that I was putting it entirely in their
> > hands, and that changing the number would cause the family to loose
> > contact with the medical situation (which was grave; and rapidly loosing
> > ground from there) and loosing voice mail would be cause for her to miss
> > all the voice mail messages left when she had the phone off (~~95% of
the
> > time, due to
> > hospital rules). I told them that I was sure that they would make the
> > right decision, and left it at that.....
> >
> > Believe it or not, they apparently saw the magnitude of the problem they
> > present when they give the customer this same choice - and apparently
> > found some solution that they weren't previously sharing.
> >
> > If not; it was just a miracle. We all need a few of them from time to
> > time.
> > Also in that department, my father-in-law is still hanging in there. He
> > is in-operable due to plaque build up and 75% loss of lung usage, but he
> > remains with us for a while longer. All in all, not a bad week; taken
in
> > context
> >
>
>
> I'm very sorry to hear about your father-in-law. My prayers are with you.
> And I'm glad that the phone problem seems to have been taken care of. I
> did a little digging, and it looks like the spam solution is being done in
> stages, along with some other assorted patches and fixes. I think they
> took the 'step-by-step' approach to find the minimum amount of fix needed
> to address the problem, and not do a total overkill that would have
> resulted in a more negative customer experience- like filtering out
> legitimate SMS. Score one for the good guys.
>

Lines: 168
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Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10897

David Little wrote:

> Good Comments... Now the discussion is getting to the point it may
> benefit others.
>
> I have spoken to Customer Service and Wireless Web. Wireless Web has
> relayed info to Tech Support ( while I was on hold). I have had Customer
> Service say that they were Tech Support, but they didn't have a clue what
> I was talking about when I questioned the ability to separate SMS
> messaging from Voice Mail on the datastream, what a datastream is, NRZ
> encoding,, relationship between IMEI/ESN and customer phone number in
> uniquely
> identifying an individual phone on the network. I haven't had too much
> co-operation, and I feel like I have some very legitimate observations to
> share. If I felt like there was nothing to save, I wouldn't take the
> time;
> I would just go back to T-Mobile, try Sprint or Verizon. I will be back
> on the phone this morning to see if there is anything else to try from my
> end.


I was afraid of that- neither Customer Service or Wireless Web (which is
just a specialized Customer Service group) are going to have clue about the
actual workings of the technology or the network, and I don't think that
this is unusual in the industry- they are usually responsible to solving
front-end user phone and billing problems. Yours would technically qualify
as one of these, but would also represent an uncommon problem that their
training would cover. I can only imagine the blank expression on the other
end of the phone when you started talking about datastreams and encoding.
Until you actually talk to somebody that has the expertise and knowledge, I
wouldn't rely on the information-to-date to make decisions about network
structure, capacity or functionality.

And this is not a knock on Nextel Customer Care- they do a very good job in
most situations. This is just not one of those.


>
> I don't understand how they can be so far behind in technology with their
> computer systems and software. For a network that actively pursues Law
> Enforcement, Government, Public Service customers, they are taking a Large
> risk if they don't have the DP power to serve the demands already
> obligated
> to.

I don't think they're behind in technology- I think we're talking about
something here that has mushroomed greatly since the beginning of the year,
and they got caught with a problem before starting a solution. And the
network is working just fine- maybe a little too fine in your case.



I have a 5 year old system, and manage to jump-start it every day to
> at least check mail. I also call on it to: do serial port tasks, usb
> port tasks, print, go online, do research, data acquisition, radio
> control, radio
> logging, data decoding, etc.

And you have the system resources to curtail problems on your end- resources
not available on a cell phone. This made me think about my own situation
with all of these damned Miscro**** update virus emails- nothing is being
blocked on the server- I'm responsible for catching the crap and getting
rid of it, and I have yet to see a spam blocker that didn't take a fair
amount of system resources to run. Now, my ISP does block spam from known
bulk mailers, but can't do anything to hit the new guys. THis is because
they try to let as much mail flow as possible (and don't make a penny off
of any of it) Are we running into the scenario with Nextel? And they
sound like they have been willing to credit you for the crap.




With the billed SMS Test Message charges
> that go unquestioned alone, the overcharges have been estimated to be
> around 1.4
> million dollars per day. This has gone on long enough to be documented
> (or
> speculated) to a dollar figure. If it is 1/10th that figure, that leaves
> a lot of additional capital to keep their gear in the tech requirements of
> the current millennium and century.

1.4 million a day would represent about 7 million messages a day (based on
average cost). I don't think I can swallow that figure. And this actually
ends up costing them money due to the rework to correct the error when
identified.


>
> If they continue to cling to the concept that the datastream makes no
> differentiation between Voice Mail notification and SMS notification
> (which has to be an absolute falsehood - or we're in bigger trouble than I
> ever imagined), it is a direct verification that they have absolutely no
> intention of curtailing the additional revenue that spam produces. I
> highly suspect that this is the ruling factor in their decision making
> process, and until there is a major lawsuit introduced by a client that
> has both traction and financial backing, nothing that risks being
> effective against SMS spam
> will be introduced by Nextel.

Forget the notification dependencies- I don't believe you've talked to
anyone who has any true knowledge about that. And I don't think the
revenue would outweight the black eye to their reputation if they stand
pat.


They may put some 4th string programmers on
> the project; anything to give the illusion of doing something about it.
> If they are using their first string, the current progression would
> indicate that we are in the final stages of enjoying wireless
> communications on a
> major scale. I just can't believe that competency of the industry has
> slid this fat, this fast.

I would tend to think that it may be more of a case of having a very full
plate at the moment. The government has mandated a November 24th
set-in-stone date for WNP, they have a couple of other federal mandates
that must be met by the end of the year (the names slip my mind at the
moment) and CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) protection has
cost all public corporations a ton of money in system development and
security. In addition, they have recently rolled out Nationwide Direct
Connect and are in the process of rolling out their 6:1 vocoder nationwide,
thereby doubling network capacity. And all of this comes a little more
than a year after their final conversion to a brand new billing system
(which to this day is still being tweaked). Finally, the "Summer of the
Worm" had to be contended with. And now we have the problem of spa
filtering- something that they have been actively working on, but may have
taken a temporary back seat to the last problem (worm). I know that they
put this first fiox in much sooner than they had planned, and they openly
admit that it is far from the solution, only a first step.



>
> I know that if contractors built houses like Microsoft wrote software than
> the first woodpecker that came along would ruin civilization as we know
> it... But, I didn't think that carried so far over into the everyday
> technology arena.

It doesn't- but an immediate reaction to a surfacing problem is not always
possible.

>
> I just don't give out awards for incompetence. In every business venture
> I have ever been involved with, you got your ducks in a row first; before
> you
> put out a product.

When Nextel SMS came out all those years ago, email spam was just starting
to become an issue. THere was no spam issue for Nextel for quite a while
after the product rolled.


If you find fault in your end of the deal, you correct
> it , or fall prey to market-based Darwinism. If the problem has become so
> bad as to attract the BBB and FCC in Reston, VA, and the "Spam Filter"
> project has been progressing for well over a month - on a fast track -
> then it is high time for Nextel to correct the problem or brave the tide
> of their customer base.

Nextel has admitted the problem, and is working on a solution. Its not
going to be a quick one, because they are having to do something on the
front end that is usually handled on the back end by the user in any other
network situation. This is not as simple as blocking spam on a consumer
email account, and that doesn't take any server corruption that may have
occurred into account.

Lines: 3
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X-Trace: news2.news.adelphia.net 1066703390 68.232.116.84 (Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:29:50 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:29:50 EDT
Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10911

Take a look over on the Sprint PCS group- just saw a post that would be on
topic here. Looks like this is going to be an industry-wide problem.

Lines: 168
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User-Agent: KNode/0.7.2
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
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Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 23:00:55 GMT
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X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
X-Trace: news2.news.adelphia.net 1066690855 68.232.116.84 (Mon, 20 Oct 2003 19:00:55 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 19:00:55 EDT
Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10897

David Little wrote:

> Good Comments... Now the discussion is getting to the point it may
> benefit others.
>
> I have spoken to Customer Service and Wireless Web. Wireless Web has
> relayed info to Tech Support ( while I was on hold). I have had Customer
> Service say that they were Tech Support, but they didn't have a clue what
> I was talking about when I questioned the ability to separate SMS
> messaging from Voice Mail on the datastream, what a datastream is, NRZ
> encoding,, relationship between IMEI/ESN and customer phone number in
> uniquely
> identifying an individual phone on the network. I haven't had too much
> co-operation, and I feel like I have some very legitimate observations to
> share. If I felt like there was nothing to save, I wouldn't take the
> time;
> I would just go back to T-Mobile, try Sprint or Verizon. I will be back
> on the phone this morning to see if there is anything else to try from my
> end.


I was afraid of that- neither Customer Service or Wireless Web (which is
just a specialized Customer Service group) are going to have clue about the
actual workings of the technology or the network, and I don't think that
this is unusual in the industry- they are usually responsible to solving
front-end user phone and billing problems. Yours would technically qualify
as one of these, but would also represent an uncommon problem that their
training would cover. I can only imagine the blank expression on the other
end of the phone when you started talking about datastreams and encoding.
Until you actually talk to somebody that has the expertise and knowledge, I
wouldn't rely on the information-to-date to make decisions about network
structure, capacity or functionality.

And this is not a knock on Nextel Customer Care- they do a very good job in
most situations. This is just not one of those.


>
> I don't understand how they can be so far behind in technology with their
> computer systems and software. For a network that actively pursues Law
> Enforcement, Government, Public Service customers, they are taking a Large
> risk if they don't have the DP power to serve the demands already
> obligated
> to.

I don't think they're behind in technology- I think we're talking about
something here that has mushroomed greatly since the beginning of the year,
and they got caught with a problem before starting a solution. And the
network is working just fine- maybe a little too fine in your case.



I have a 5 year old system, and manage to jump-start it every day to
> at least check mail. I also call on it to: do serial port tasks, usb
> port tasks, print, go online, do research, data acquisition, radio
> control, radio
> logging, data decoding, etc.

And you have the system resources to curtail problems on your end- resources
not available on a cell phone. This made me think about my own situation
with all of these damned Miscro**** update virus emails- nothing is being
blocked on the server- I'm responsible for catching the crap and getting
rid of it, and I have yet to see a spam blocker that didn't take a fair
amount of system resources to run. Now, my ISP does block spam from known
bulk mailers, but can't do anything to hit the new guys. THis is because
they try to let as much mail flow as possible (and don't make a penny off
of any of it) Are we running into the scenario with Nextel? And they
sound like they have been willing to credit you for the crap.




With the billed SMS Test Message charges
> that go unquestioned alone, the overcharges have been estimated to be
> around 1.4
> million dollars per day. This has gone on long enough to be documented
> (or
> speculated) to a dollar figure. If it is 1/10th that figure, that leaves
> a lot of additional capital to keep their gear in the tech requirements of
> the current millennium and century.

1.4 million a day would represent about 7 million messages a day (based on
average cost). I don't think I can swallow that figure. And this actually
ends up costing them money due to the rework to correct the error when
identified.


>
> If they continue to cling to the concept that the datastream makes no
> differentiation between Voice Mail notification and SMS notification
> (which has to be an absolute falsehood - or we're in bigger trouble than I
> ever imagined), it is a direct verification that they have absolutely no
> intention of curtailing the additional revenue that spam produces. I
> highly suspect that this is the ruling factor in their decision making
> process, and until there is a major lawsuit introduced by a client that
> has both traction and financial backing, nothing that risks being
> effective against SMS spam
> will be introduced by Nextel.

Forget the notification dependencies- I don't believe you've talked to
anyone who has any true knowledge about that. And I don't think the
revenue would outweight the black eye to their reputation if they stand
pat.


They may put some 4th string programmers on
> the project; anything to give the illusion of doing something about it.
> If they are using their first string, the current progression would
> indicate that we are in the final stages of enjoying wireless
> communications on a
> major scale. I just can't believe that competency of the industry has
> slid this fat, this fast.

I would tend to think that it may be more of a case of having a very full
plate at the moment. The government has mandated a November 24th
set-in-stone date for WNP, they have a couple of other federal mandates
that must be met by the end of the year (the names slip my mind at the
moment) and CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) protection has
cost all public corporations a ton of money in system development and
security. In addition, they have recently rolled out Nationwide Direct
Connect and are in the process of rolling out their 6:1 vocoder nationwide,
thereby doubling network capacity. And all of this comes a little more
than a year after their final conversion to a brand new billing system
(which to this day is still being tweaked). Finally, the "Summer of the
Worm" had to be contended with. And now we have the problem of spa
filtering- something that they have been actively working on, but may have
taken a temporary back seat to the last problem (worm). I know that they
put this first fiox in much sooner than they had planned, and they openly
admit that it is far from the solution, only a first step.



>
> I know that if contractors built houses like Microsoft wrote software than
> the first woodpecker that came along would ruin civilization as we know
> it... But, I didn't think that carried so far over into the everyday
> technology arena.

It doesn't- but an immediate reaction to a surfacing problem is not always
possible.

>
> I just don't give out awards for incompetence. In every business venture
> I have ever been involved with, you got your ducks in a row first; before
> you
> put out a product.

When Nextel SMS came out all those years ago, email spam was just starting
to become an issue. THere was no spam issue for Nextel for quite a while
after the product rolled.


If you find fault in your end of the deal, you correct
> it , or fall prey to market-based Darwinism. If the problem has become so
> bad as to attract the BBB and FCC in Reston, VA, and the "Spam Filter"
> project has been progressing for well over a month - on a fast track -
> then it is high time for Nextel to correct the problem or brave the tide
> of their customer base.

Nextel has admitted the problem, and is working on a solution. Its not
going to be a quick one, because they are having to do something on the
front end that is usually handled on the back end by the user in any other
network situation. This is not as simple as blocking spam on a consumer
email account, and that doesn't take any server corruption that may have
occurred into account.

Lines: 3
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
Message-ID: <Wb%[email protected]>
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X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
X-Trace: news2.news.adelphia.net 1066958710 68.232.116.84 (Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:25:10 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:25:10 EDT
Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10990

Hey David,

What's it been like this week?

Lines: 3
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User-Agent: KNode/0.7.2
MIME-Version: 1.0
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X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
X-Trace: news2.news.adelphia.net 1066703390 68.232.116.84 (Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:29:50 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 22:29:50 EDT
Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10911

Take a look over on the Sprint PCS group- just saw a post that would be on
topic here. Looks like this is going to be an industry-wide problem.

Lines: 3
Organization: Gnu-Linux
User-Agent: KNode/0.7.2
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit
Message-ID: <Wb%[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 01:25:10 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.232.116.84
X-Complaints-To: [email protected]
X-Trace: news2.news.adelphia.net 1066958710 68.232.116.84 (Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:25:10 EDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 21:25:10 EDT
Xref: news.newshosting.com alt.cellular.nextel:10990

Hey David,

What's it been like this week?