Shooting the messenger

Mobile phones have become one of the essential tools of modern life but SMS spam - those annoying messages and offers that arrive unasked, unwanted, often in the middle of the night - is for many a growing problem.

According to Qihoo 360 Technology Co, China's third largest Internet company, some 10 billion SMS spam messages were blocked with anti-junk SMS software installed on 70 million cellphones in 2011.

Qihoo estimated that there could be trillions of unwanted SMS spam messages received every year by the 1 billion cellphone users in the country.

Experts say as many as 76 percent of the SMS spam messages involve advertising for shops, real estate, emmigration agencies and financial services. The rest of the messages involve illegal activities or spreading slander.

A spam message usually reads along these lines: "We have been selling car plates/fake diplomas/Viagra for a long time. Contact us on this number;" or "We are pleased to inform you that you are the lucky winner of our lottery. Please call us for further information."

"They come from nowhere and annoy me at all hours. I really hate them. Because of them nowadays I pay little attention to SMS messages but then sometimes I miss truly important information," complained Zheng Zhihui, a Shanghai office worker.

His feelings reflect the feelings of anyone with a cellphone who has been harassed by SMS spam.

Low cost

SMS spam came about after telecommunications companies began offering group message services which allows a sender to send a low cost message to many recipients at once. Government departments use this to offer information about emergencies, weather details, official notifications and banking transactions. But as cellphone use multiplied, some realized this was also a chance to make money.

Most SMS spam messages are either group messages from a service provider or peer-to-peer messages delivered through an illegal transmitter.

Most providers are licensed to send messages within certain areas. The sender is identified in the message with special numbers like 10086 or numbers starting with 106 or 125. Service providers have their software and hardware rigorously inspected by the telecommunications companies to ensure they meet the standards required.

According to the Workers' Daily, a Beijing-based newspaper, while some spammers use lists of phone numbers stolen from other companies, most spam SMS were found to have been sent from illegal transmitters using several SIM cards. These spam messages show a cellphone number but this is usually a non-local number and cannot be called.

These illegal transmitters are not difficult to find. At a major electronics mall on Qiujiang Road, a Global Times reporter posed as an interested buyer and found it was comparatively easy to purchase a transmitter. Members of the public or companies can buy them for as little as 200 yuan ($32).

"They are very easy to use. As long as you have a computer, you link it with your computer, click the mouse a few times and there you are. Anyone can do this," a salesman surnamed Pan said.

Pan was enthusiastic about the device. He said about 200 SMS messages could be sent through each SIM card every 30 minutes. After 30 minutes users have to switch to a different SIM card.

But the smooth-talking Pan became tongue-tied when he was asked about the legality of the devices.

Some spam SMS companies advertise and contact clients through online forums and instant messaging platforms like QQ. Clients will contact them, sign contracts and have thousands of messages delivered.

The average cost of each spam SMS message is just 0.02 yuan. The target cellphone numbers are usually selected by random variations of the last four digits of cellphone numbers. But a more specific audience can be also delivered although the cost for this is considerably higher.

"We can provide any type of target receivers you want. For example, people who own cars in certain areas, people who have children, people who have had holidays abroad in the past year," one salesman who worked for a spam company in Beijing told the Workers' Daily.

"People have to take a look at spam SMS message anyway when they receive them whether they believe the message or not. Many businessmen believe this is good for advertising and promotion anyway so they are keen on this," the manager of a Shanghai real estate company said. He declined to give his name.

Setting limits

In 2009 China's three main mobile network operators, China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom signed an agreement to deal with inter-network spam messages, according to a report by the Xinhua News Agency.

The agreement limited any mobile number to sending up to 200 messages per hour or 1,000 per day on weekdays. On holidays, 500 messages per hour and 2,000 per day can come from one number.

For years as well China Mobile and China Unicom have run a spam hotline. People who received spam messages could go straight to the 12321 hotline and report them. Despite these efforts the number of spam messages has increased, not decreased.

The chairman of China Unicom, Chang Xiaobing, made a public apology last week at the annual Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing. When asked about the situation with spam messages, Chang apologized for the less than effective controls that were in place.

"This is a problem each telecommunications operator is struggling to solve. But if spam SMS messages are transmitted through peer-to-peer operators, it is difficult to distinguish them from normal SMS messages and to take action. We want phone users to understand," Chang said.

But experts like Xie Jinghui, the deputy director of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, believes telecommunications operators have an indisputable responsibility for spam SMS messages.

"They definitely have the technology to intercept these spam messages if they want to use it. But they won't because it would affect their incomes," Xie said.

"Even if they earn just 0.02 yuan for a message, how much can they make from billions of spam messages every day?" he asked.

According to a survey released last year by the Anti-Spam Center of the Internet Society of China, 68.30 percent of all cellphone users believed that the proliferation of spam messages was caused by the ineffectiveness of the telecommunication operators.

Two-fold solution

According to Xie Jinghui, the problem must be approached in two ways. On the one hand, China could introduce international practices including using more anti-spam technology, increasing SMS fees and passing anti-spam SMS laws and regulations like the US and Japan.

On the other hand, the government and telecommunications operators should make more of an effort to crack down and punish illegal advertising and unsolicited spam messages to curb the sources of the spam. "Some serious financial punishment should be given to these operators to make them take this issue seriously," Xie said.

"Controlling SMS spam can only be effective through the combined efforts of government, the telecommunications operators and users who together can help create a better communications environment," he said.

The top 10 topics in spam text messages for 2011

1 36 percent - sales and specials

2 15 percent - fake friends or relatives

3 13 percent - fake receipts

4 10 percent - real estate

5 8 percent - healthcare, cosmetic surgery

6 7 percent - fake lotteries

7 4 percent - pornography

8 4 percent - emigration and education abroad

9 2 percent - fake charity donations

10 1 percent - fake financial services

Source: Qihoo 360 Technology Co