More SPAM?

.....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting voucher".
Terminated, immediately.

A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
to specific geographic areas?
I can't imagine why, though.

Just curious.

------------------------------------------------


Death is Nature's way of telling you you aren't
needed, any more.

---

› See More: More SPAM?

On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:10:26 GMT, brian w edginton
<[email protected]> wrote:

>....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
>I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
>Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
>Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting voucher".
>Terminated, immediately.
>
>A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
>to specific geographic areas?
>I can't imagine why, though.
>
>Just curious.
>


Just had a thought.....one reason could be that it was a local club
running a promotion.
Lismore Workers' Club is a biggy.

Feasible?


-----------------------------------


Death is Nature's way of telling you you aren't
needed, any more.

I have just received a few from 19711200

won ringtones - call and collect the prize

they do not seem to want to stop - I thought that there was legislation put
in place to stop this type of unsolicited spam?


"brian w edginton" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:10:26 GMT, brian w edginton
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
>>I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
>>Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
>>Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting voucher".
>>Terminated, immediately.
>>
>>A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
>>to specific geographic areas?
>>I can't imagine why, though.
>>
>>Just curious.
>>
>
>
> Just had a thought.....one reason could be that it was a local club
> running a promotion.
> Lismore Workers' Club is a biggy.
>
> Feasible?
>
>
> -----------------------------------
>
>
> Death is Nature's way of telling you you aren't
> needed, any more.

Geoff <[email protected]> wrote:

> I have just received a few from 19711200

> won ringtones - call and collect the prize

> they do not seem to want to stop - I thought that there was
> legislation put in place to stop this type of unsolicited spam?

Nope, just a mechanism to opt out of it if you dont want to get it.


> brian w edginton <[email protected]> wrote
>> brian w edginton <[email protected]> wrote

>>> ....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
>>> I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
>>> Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
>>> Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting
>>> voucher". Terminated, immediately.
>>>
>>> A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
>>> to specific geographic areas?
>>> I can't imagine why, though.
>>>
>>> Just curious.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Just had a thought.....one reason could be that it was a local club
>> running a promotion.
>> Lismore Workers' Club is a biggy.
>>
>> Feasible?

On Jun 14, 8:10*am, brian w edginton <[email protected]> wrote:
> ....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
> I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
> Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
> Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting voucher".
> Terminated, immediately.
>
> A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
> to specific geographic areas?
> I can't imagine why, though.
>
> Just curious.
Short answer is "yes".

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:40:04 -0700 (PDT), mrripcurl
<[email protected]> wrote:

>On Jun 14, 8:10*am, brian w edginton <[email protected]> wrote:
>> ....have had a GSM service from Optus for years.
>> I live in a rural area and had never had spam calls or messages.
>> Recently, I was in town (Lismore NSW) on a rare visit.
>> Had a voice call telling me I "might have won a $60 betting voucher".
>> Terminated, immediately.
>>
>> A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
>> to specific geographic areas?
>> I can't imagine why, though.
>>
>> Just curious.
>Short answer is "yes".


Thanks!!!


BTW, my landlord received the same call in Grafton on the same
day....or close to it.
Guessing its a group thing. Funded by the clubs' association or
similar. Maybe.


-----------------------------------


Death is Nature's way of telling you you aren't
needed, any more.

brian w edginton wrote...

> A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam can be directed
> to specific geographic areas?

You, like me, have had your number plucked out of possibly a random number
thingy. I haven't receive any such calls until last week when I received two in
as many weeks, both from different mobs. One was a betting mob, the other, a
trivia competition mob. Both of which were "giving" me $60 credits.

Rod Speed wrote...

> > they do not seem to want to stop - I thought that there was
> > legislation put in place to stop this type of unsolicited spam?
>
> Nope, just a mechanism to opt out of it if you dont want to get it.

Does it work, though?

Snapper <[email protected]> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote...
>> Geoff <[email protected]> wrote

>>> they do not seem to want to stop - I thought that there was
>>> legislation put in place to stop this type of unsolicited spam?

>> Nope, just a mechanism to opt out of it if you dont want to get it.

> Does it work, though?

Depends on what you call work.

It mostly does with local operations except for the inevitable risk of
a ****up where you list the number in the do no call register and that
does eliminate most calls except where you do have a commercial
relationship with the caller, because you have chosen to deal with
that operation and where someone manages to ****up and call you
when they arent supposed to and they didnt intend to flout the law.

BUT the very fundamental problem with the whole approach is that
there is nothing that can be done about operations outside the country
that choose to ignore you listing your number on the do not call register,
where there isnt any direct association with a local operation that can
be shafted if they choose to ignore our law. Most obviously with the
operations that are entirely overseas based and so arguably dont have
any legal obligation to comply with our law and no way thats practical
to take any action against them even if the authoritys decide to bother.

Snapper <[email protected]> wrote
> brian w edginton wrote

>> A query for the techies.....is it possible that spam
>> can be directed to specific geographic areas?

> You, like me, have had your number plucked
> out of possibly a random number thingy.

It looks more likely he was targetted geographically.

Its certainly technically feasible for the system to work out
which mobiles are working thru particular mobile bases.

> I haven't receive any such calls until last week when
> I received two in as many weeks, both from different mobs.
> One was a betting mob, the other, a trivia competition mob.
> Both of which were "giving" me $60 credits.

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 03:57:59 +1000, Rod Speed wrote:

> Snapper <[email protected]> wrote
>> Rod Speed wrote...
>>> Geoff <[email protected]> wrote
>
>>>> they do not seem to want to stop - I thought that there was
>>>> legislation put in place to stop this type of unsolicited spam?
>
>>> Nope, just a mechanism to opt out of it if you dont want to get it.
>
>> Does it work, though?
>
> Depends on what you call work.
>
> It mostly does with local operations except for the inevitable risk of a
> ****up where you list the number in the do no call register and that does
> eliminate most calls except where you do have a commercial relationship
> with the caller, because you have chosen to deal with that operation and
> where someone manages to ****up and call you when they arent supposed to
> and they didnt intend to flout the law.
>
> BUT the very fundamental problem with the whole approach is that there is
> nothing that can be done about operations outside the country that choose
> to ignore you listing your number on the do not call register, where there
> isnt any direct association with a local operation that can be shafted if
> they choose to ignore our law. Most obviously with the operations that are
> entirely overseas based and so arguably dont have any legal obligation to
> comply with our law and no way thats practical to take any action against
> them even if the authoritys decide to bother.

Replied, so Snapper can see.

Rod Speed wrote:

> It looks more likely he was targetted geographically.
>
> Its certainly technically feasible for the system to work out
> which mobiles are working thru particular mobile bases.

That suggests Optus is selling the info (about who is where)
based on its internal location registers. There are some
legitimate privacy issues in doing this.

The only other method I can think of for sniffing out who's in
the neighbourhood is Bluetooth. This is very short range
(could be hundreds of metres with the right antenna), only
finds phones with "discoverable" turned on, and doesn't give
away the phone number. So while a BT "message" can be
transferred, a voice call is out of the question without a
BT-ID to phone number lookup (which not even Optus has).

John

John Henderson <[email protected]> wrote
> Rod Speed wrote

>> It looks more likely he was targetted geographically.

>> Its certainly technically feasible for the system to work out
>> which mobiles are working thru particular mobile bases.

> That suggests Optus is selling the info (about who is where)
> based on its internal location registers.

Not necessarily. They could be just delivering the spam SMS
to the mobiles that their system knows are in a particular area.

> There are some legitimate privacy issues in doing this.

Nope, not if they just deliver the spam SMS and dont
tell the source of the SMS anything about which mobiles
they sent the SMS to, just the total of SMSs sent etc.

> The only other method I can think of for sniffing out who's in
> the neighbourhood is Bluetooth. This is very short range
> (could be hundreds of metres with the right antenna), only
> finds phones with "discoverable" turned on, and doesn't give
> away the phone number. So while a BT "message" can be
> transferred, a voice call is out of the question without a
> BT-ID to phone number lookup (which not even Optus has).

But its completely trivial to deliver a spam SMS to mobiles
that have logged into particular mobile bases and dont tell the
originator of the SMS which numbers the SMS was sent to.

Rod Speed wrote:

> John Henderson <[email protected]> wrote
>> Rod Speed wrote
>
>>> It looks more likely he was targetted geographically.
>
>>> Its certainly technically feasible for the system to work
>>> out which mobiles are working thru particular mobile bases.
>
>> That suggests Optus is selling the info (about who is where)
>> based on its internal location registers.
>
> Not necessarily. They could be just delivering the spam SMS
> to the mobiles that their system knows are in a particular
> area.

The OP talks about getting a spam voice call based on location.
I agree that could have come from Optus directly rather than
compromising whereabouts info by passing it to a third party.

John

Rod Speed wrote...

> be shafted if they choose to ignore our law. Most obviously with the
> operations that are entirely overseas based and so arguably dont have
> any legal obligation to comply with our law and no way thats practical
> to take any action against them even if the authoritys decide to bother.

What about the companies that they're selling products for here in Australia?

We get calls all the time regarding mobile phones. These originate from OS,
usually India or whereever. But the products that they're selling have to be
from here. So why not go those pricks? They are just using the call centre as
their agents.

Sort of like when you pay some dude to commit a crime, eg, murder, rob a store
or sell drugs. You can go to jail for that, like Mokbel is on trial for, or will
be on trial for the murder of Lewis Moran even though he didn't pull the
trigger.