Wicked sms-content: Not all yogurts are created equal

On various aspects of mobile content, we have already written more than once, the last material on this subject can be found here. Subject content is broad and multifaceted that a "cover" you can at least every day, but try not to abuse it. Today the reason for the return to the topic was a rapid increase in the incidence of sms-fraud.

Statistics relatively legitimate withdrawal of money by sms is already alarming, but in the very near future the problem of "blossom and zakolositsya. There are several reasons, but the key: the ease of technical implementation of such "projects", with minimum financial investment, the willingness of users to part with money, non-obviousness sms-traps and the lack of necessary controls. It all together a really provokes unfair "business", why not raise the money that is literally lying under their feet?

In most cases, the problem reduces to the defrauding of the user's SMS-messages to pay number, issue price "may be up to 130 rubles per SMS. Up to half (usually 30-40%) in cash reserves itself the operator, content provider gets the rest and share their income with sub-provider (partner). Solid content providers do not cheat and honestly warn of cost of goods or services, but to keep track of its many partners and "partners" do not have time. And the number of partners will only grow because "We have offered a large content providers to become aggregator. We create an internal rating and the more revenue provider, the more he gets attention from us. With big companies it is easier to work and we invite them to take their wing of those whom we now disable "(Pavel Roitberg, director of product development and services MTS).

On the recent "updates" in the area warns Kaspersky Lab, in this case, the phenomenon is widespread due to spam technology delivery. Referring to come into force on 1 July an updated law "On Advertising" spammer claims to be a white, fluffy and law-abiding. Want to remove your email address from spam databases? Easy: send SMS-message to a special number and in return you get a link to a web-site where supposedly you can remove your address from mailing lists. Of course, such a site do not exist, and SMS is charged at special rates. Really new spam technologies: their income gets a spammer is not from the customer list, but from the beneficiaries themselves, "chain letters. A quote from the newsletter at Kaspersky Lab:

"In RuNet a new kind of fraudulent emails that spammers under one pretext or another trigger recipients supposedly free to send an SMS a particular type (containing a specified code word and / or number) on the number of paid service. Prepositions come in many shapes, but the goal of a spammer - completion of their personal accounts at the expense of users. <...> The spammer claims that SMS-message is completely free, all conservation laws, "and he supposedly wants" to be law-abiding citizen. "<...> The only thing in this report is true - it provision of the law "On Advertising", which is really an amendment to take effect July 1. But everything else - deceit. Trusting users will not be unsubscribed from the spam.But they will lose some amount on their mobile accounts, and resourceful spammer, who played on the reluctance of users to receive spam-mail can be a good idea to "earn".



In the free lunch today few people believe, but why not promise the "goods" at a reasonable cost? A good example has been published on the website Cforum: www.cforum.ru some enterprising collector sms-income serves as a nice girl, selling access to their "candid pics" for a modest $ 0.08 in exchange for a password to enter the desired section of the site. The process goes on is a familiar pattern: SMS sender will pay $ 2.99 (not $ 0.08) for the link to java-games on the solid content provider, and the "nice girl" is likely to receive from the content provider's own "affiliate" commission. Of course, no passwords to candid pictures, I doubt whether these same pictures exist at all.



Not necessarily blatantly lie and ruin the subscriber once in a hundred rubles. In some cases it is advantageous not to advertise a relatively small margin on a real service and harvest grain by grain. For example, in the latest version of the popular add-ins "Mail.ru Agent" provides an opportunity to send free SMS on mobile phones contact list recipients and the service really works. Charity? Not at all: for the answer to such a message to the owner of the phone will write off $ 0.25, which he probably never guess. Weight loss of balance on the extra 18 cents will notice only the most meticulous, and even seeing hardly understand where these pennies disappear. The mention of the $ 0.25 found at the end describing the new service, but why should this description will read that the subscriber who "Agent" never used and is not going to do?



SMS-payments are becoming increasingly common means of instant calculations, not only for the usual picture-tunes, but for the most diverse web-content. That significantly expands the audience of potential contributors. A popular scheme - charging for the viewing of selected materials and publications. The principle of full access in exchange for imposing the monthly fee is still running, but parallel to a wholesale trade are increasingly found service retail sales. As we have mentioned, to get their piece of the pie in this market is not necessarily apply to the operator directly, most major content providers willing to work with multiple partners. There are also special projects focused on the collection and redistribution of SMS-income from the sale of any virtual goods and services. For example, the so-called "SMS-lock" allows you to quickly and easily organize online access to any section of a web or wap-site, resource owner receives from 35 to 45 percent of the money paid by visitors for the acquisition of SMS-key.

Different types of SMS-fraud occur and will occur, the temptation is great. In all such cases, it is important to not be too lazy to tell your agent. That is sure to give the claim content providers, and already he tackles dishonorable "partner." How not to get caught on a hook and do not pay $ 3 instead of the declared 8 cents - it's hard to say, there is no universal recipe. The perfidy of these trapping wells in the instantaneous and invisible withdrawals from the account, and details later this month bought a few.It remains to recommend to carefully monitor the balance and use common sense when using such services. Today, most unpleasant surprises can occur due to the relatively low prevalence of SMS-payments, but the situation is slowly changing. Large content providers cherished reputation and a direct connection to the operators, they are interested in the operational block of abuse.