Friday, 12 March 2010
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| Happy Birthday, spam? |
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| Thursday, 01 May 2008 | |
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It was thirty years ago today...
On 01 May 1978, nearly 400 Arpanet employees received an unsolicited message from DEC, the erstwhile computer manufacturer. Thus ‘spam’ (the online version, rather than the tinned one) was born. Hats off to Dublin-based mobile security specialists, AdaptiveMobile, for highlighting what it describes as the “10,950 days of misery” that have followed. They point out that while spam can be tackled (although not eradicated, by any means) in the PC environment, it’s on the rise in the mobile world. "While mobile spam has thus far not received much attention, two thirds of UK mobile users have been affected and in places like China, the average mobile user receives six to ten spam messages per day”, says Lorcan Burke, CEO of AdaptiveMobile. “The difference is that a mobile is a very personal device, and users are still very trusting when receiving messages and phone calls, given that numbers are not publicly listed and every user believes he has control over who has got his number." He adds: “the industry should do everything possible to protect users from spam, and to prevent it escalating in the same way as its PC equivalent. Users are concerned about mobile security and the responsibility lies with the mobile operators to protect their customers as they have the capability to monitor and control data traffic on their network". AdapativeMobile points out that there will likely be 4bn mobile users by 2010, as against 1.3bn PC users. Frightening, on so many fronts. Jim Chalmers |
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