______________ February 2002 / __________ \=---------------------------------------------- (**) (**) Cell Phone Spam - (A Wireless "Fuck You") / บบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบบ / / Written by Axion / / http://axion.0catch.com / / ________________________________________________________/ **************************************************** **************************************************** ** Legal Stuff: Umm, don't listen to me, m'kay? ** ** I'm one of those silly people your priest ** ** warned you about who believes in freedom of ** ** information. I break the law sometimes, and ** ** that means I'm gonna go to hell. But you don't ** ** have to! This text file is for "informational ** ** purposes ONLY", and I can't be held responsible** ** for your actions. Okay? Breaking the law is ** ** bad, so don't break the law. Please pray for ** ** my evil sinning soul. *sips coffee* ** **************************************************** **************************************************** Ahh, spam... We've all grown to love this stuff more and more over the years. What? You hate spam?!?! ...Well, I do too. Everyone does. That's the whole point of this article. Here, I'll teach you one method of using spam to your advantage, which will no doubt cause your enemies to ph33r j00r mad งkillz. Since the beginning of time (well, the world wide web, at least), spam has been probably one of the most loathed aspects of connectivity. I'm not just referring to "spam" in the advertising sense of the word, but in the "unwanted e-mail" tense. Man, do we ever hate going to our precious in-box and having to click all those little boxes every day, trying to keep up with all that shit e-mail we get. I swear to god, you sign up to have your website hosted at just one "free" server, and all of a sudden you're on 50 mailing lists. Of course, if you wanted to get revenge on someone, you could just get spammy on their ass & sign them up for tons of such spam. But so far, this has served no purpose. Sure, it's annoying having to manually delete 15 or 20 e-mails at a time, but it's no big deal. Likewise, anybody with half a brain (not actually too many people) would probably have some type of spam filter enabled on their account. (A popular option with large e-mail providers like Hotmail and Yahoo.) So you see, signing up an enemy for spam has never posed any real threat, and never caused any real damage... Until now. A few months ago, I decided to finally jump on the bandwagon and buy a shiny new GSM phone. (No, you can't have the number.) It was a brand new Mitsubishi G310, which although not the greatest shiniest new phone on the market, was capable of recieving text messages. (whoopie...) My provider was Fido, as I chose to remain anonymous and have a contract-free pre-paid mobile. ("Get to the freakin' point, Axion!") Well, when I signed up, I could also recieve brief e-mail messages on the phone. The address format on a Fido account in Canada is as follows: XXXYYY****@fido.ca The "XXX" is the area code, the "YYY" is the prefix, and "****" the suffix. Duh. Through Fido's shitty website, you can create an alias for this address for customization & anonymity purposes. (i.e. "magnumPIdork@fido.ca") Both addresses will work interchangeably. On a Fido handset, you are charged 10 cents for every e-mail or text message you recieve or send. (Here's where the fun starts.) All of a sudden, we can look at spam in an entirely new way! Rather than the simple annoyance it used to be, we can turn spam into an evil account-draining weapon!!! Simply go to a website where you can sign the victim up for multiple e-mails, and enter the address. *click!* There goes ten cents. *click!* Another ten cents. Whoop-dee-doo. Well, here's how we can make things more interresting: Go to and you'll see many wonderful discussion groups you can join. Click the first 30 of them, then go to the bottom of the page to fill in the test subject's email address. In case you were'nt following, that's (the area code & phone number)@fido.ca The reason you only click the first 30 is that debian.org have a "security" feature where you can only sign up for 30 groups at a time. (Remember this whilst getting j00r spam on. Most such pages have similar rules.) Big deal. You just cost someone $3.00. That was easy enough, right? In about two minutes, their phone will be beeping like crazy, and their account will be debitted 3 bucks. Now go to ...There you go: another $1.20 Or maybe , if your victim happens to love Ultimate Frisbee. (Who does'nt?) Well, you get the point. 1 unwanted e-mail sent to the handset = 10 cents wasted. This should also work with Rogers, Telus, ect, so long as the provider supports e-mail. The only downfall of this lame "exploit" (if you can even call it that): you need to know the person's telephone number. But on the plus side, they'll be beeping like crazy, and you're wasting their money. So there. I found a use for spam. Final Notes: I'm sure there are probably a few discussion groups out there that don't have the forethought to send out confirmation e-mails, so obviously subscribing the victim to one of these would instantly flood their phone with an unstoppable onslaught of annoying, expensive spam. If anyone finds such a discussion group, please let me know so I can compile a list. This file was created to educate, not to destroy. When I realised how succeptible most mobiles are to such an attack, I felt it neccessary to get the word out. I'm simply warning all of you not to hand out your wireless e-mail address. - Axion 02/14/02 -