Archive for: sms
- November 7, 2011 11:07 am
For those of you that thought type that SMS or e-mail on your smartphone was hidden from the masses, you are wrong. Researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have developed screen spy software that can tell what you are typing from up to 200 feet away. Jan-Michael Frahm and Fabian Monrose are the geniuses behind this little gem. They wondered if modern computer vision technologies threatened mobile phone privacy, so they created a program to steal text remotely, using only known techniques.
The way iSpy works is that it takes the common bubble text effect that happens when typing a letter on Android devices as well as in the keyboard on your iPhone. If you recall the last message you typed, if you hold on a letter, it shows up in a bubble so you are aware of what you are typing. The program analyzes the footage of where those bubbles appear on your screen to determine what is being typed. For the letters that overlap, like E and R, the software assigns accuracy probability to each letter. The leet hack worked 90% of the time, so beware of those dirty little late night emails you like sending out!
Drop on in for a video.
Trouble could be brewing for T-Mobile UK after claims that the carrier is stiffing SMS service providers out of nearly £50,000 (£47,245 to be exact) in unpaid fees. According to Raptor SMS Ltd, T-Mobile has used, charged customers for, and already collected revenue from the use of various SMS shortcodes for services paid for by premium rate SMS. Even more insulting, however, is that when the unpaid services were reported to T-Mobile UK via Raptor SMS Ltd’s Richard Howard, the issue was literally brushed under the rug — T-Mobile opened an investigation and then closed it several weeks later, but not before notifying Richard that he wouldn’t be given any details of the investigation and claiming that it was a private matter between T-Mobile UK and Raptor’s supplier, Tanla Solutions (UK). T-Mobile UK then claimed the actual complaint for unpaid services laid with Tanla Solutions. Of course, Tanla can’t pay Raptor SMS until T-Mobile pays them.
The underlying theory cited by Raptor SMS is T-Mobile’s recent joint venture with competitor Orange UK dubbed “Everything Everywhere” whose goal is to save £3.5 billion by 2014. While ~ £50,000 may seem like a drop in the bucket when talking of multi-billion pound savings, every little bit counts.
Getting the story public has been somewhat difficult as one of the T-Mobile employees Richard has been dealing with — Billing & Settlement department employee Tracey Ebbitt — threatened the possibility of legal action against Richard and Raptor SMS if the story was made public.
We’ve reached out to T-Mobile UK for their say in the matter and will update you here with the latest information.
- December 14, 2010 6:29 am
In the never-ending assault on our wallets, taxes swoop in to pummel us when we’re done and spitting up blood. Though, given the current economic climate it’s certainly understandable governments are trying just about anything and everything they can to make a buck. With that said, one popular solution that has been proposed in several countries around the world before is a tax on SMS/Text messages. The latest person to call for such a thing — the UK Transport Union leader, Bob Crow.
His 1 cent per text proposal would generate upwards of £1 billion extra for the economy. However, it’s hardly a drop in the bucket when you look at the bigger picture — a staggering (and growing) 2010/11 budge deficit of £149 billion.
From a capitalists perspective, it makes sense to tax SMS messages like you would any other communication service. For consumers however, it’s just *insert local currency here* out of our wallets.
- November 15, 2010 1:26 pm
Think email is dead? Facebook does. There announcement today didn’t unveil a traditional email service. What they announced is far more “real-time” and engaging. Facebook calls it a “Social Messaging System”. “It’s not email”, says Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerburg. Instead, it’s a real-time, location and device agnostic service that aims to seamlessly integrate your life’s conversations. It ties together your SMS/text messages, emails, and IM’s into one place. In short: it’s awesome.
Hop inside to get the full rundown…
- September 17, 2010 8:31 am
Queue music: “Another one bites the dust…” Having ability to set individual SMS tones to contacts is not a hard thing to do. Apple could have done it all the way back in iPhone OS 1.0 days. Yet for some reason they decided that iOS 4.2 was “the one”. It’s kind of embarrassing to be even remotely excited over such a feature. Nevertheless, it’s nice to see Apple going back through the long list of complaints regarding missing features in iOS and finally delivering on some of those good ‘ol original ones, even if they are as minor as individual SMS tones.
Next up: Giving iPhone users the ability to create custom SMS tones. Because no, Apple. 6 different tones aren’t enough…
If you’re one of the handful of people who haven’t managed to snag a Google Voice invite yet, your wait and frustration are now over. Google has officially taken the “invite-only” status off of Google Voice. You know what that means? STOP paying extra for visual voicemail add-ons from whatever US carrier you currently have (assuming you have a smartphone that is), since Google Voice is ultimately leaps and bounds ahead of said options as well as pulling off that feat completely free! Add on the fact that SMS and email transcriptions are also available for Google Voice subscribers as well as the ability to have up to 10 separate numbers/devices ring/alerted when your GV number is called.
Ok, the transcriptions might be sketchy at best. But there’s no denying the usefulness that Google Voice offers. If you have the option to install Google Voice on your device, now is the time.
Oh yeah — US only for now. Sorry folks.
For as much as we rag on AT&T (and yeah, I kind of like it) it’s always nice to hear of something good coming from Ma Bell. Believe me, they need the good press more than anyone right now. On that note, AT&T released a network diagnostic app several weeks back that gave users the ability to send the diagnostic information back to AT&T. AT&T then in turn used said info to determine where to beef up their network. Some locations such as the heart of San Fran or Chi-town are a given — others not so much.
Either way, it does appear that AT&T is finally starting to get this whole company-customer relations thing, with reports indicating AT&T is sending out text messages to users, notifying them of upcoming network upgrades in their area. (See picture)
It really is nice to see AT&T reaching out and actually telling customers what they’re doing and where they’re doing it. Kind of makes that diagnostic app and submittal scenario worthwhile, huh? Any GS readers receiving text messages from Ma Bell such as the text above?
OhGizmo > Gizmodo
Regardless of carrier, phone model, or geographic location, we consumers are literally getting raped when it comes to text message prices. It doesn’t matter whether you pay per message or for one of those fancy unlimited bundles — text messages are grossly overpriced.
There have been plenty of apps for various mobile platforms that try to work around the pay-for-SMS hurdle while also remaining free themselves and actually being worth using.
While there are a few notable mentions here or there, so far the lot of them are just lacking. That was until now…
Have your own case of the “Berry Thumb” and happen to also fall under Uncle Sam’s umbrella of employment? Some bad news is headed your way — The Air Force is take large steps to increase cybersecurity starting with BlackBerry phones. Up until now, using the devices has been pretty much the same as civilian users. That’s all changing however under a new policy which will see Bluetooth disabled for all but special card readers for employees’ Common Access Cards and text/mms messages blocked indefinitely. It may not seem like those two things in themselves are that important. But to a BlackBerry/power user on the go, a crippled Bluetooth stack and no ability to send quick messages is a real sore point.
The bigger picture in this scheme isn’t merely “just because”. No, in this instance there is some actual common sense reasoning going into the move, with the goal of mobile devices being transitioned into ” Public Key Infrastructure” devices. These devices will then be secure enough to send and receive secret, encrypted information that before was too risky to send to a device with so many options to send it back out to unauthorized sources.
Generally the lock down of any gadget is a bad thing. But this is one of those few times I can see it being a necessity. God knows we don’t want some deep country secrets being leaked because some Berry toting government employee was a little loose with his text messages after bar crawling one night.
If it’s all really that much of a bother, government officials can always go and pay for their own phone. Novel concept.
Warranted?
Wired
