You don’t have to read the iMessage messages on your phone, and you can even report and block those small ads in vain. But as long as there is a 1% possibility, those gray products that send small advertising content and the sponsors behind them will not give up "hope."

You don’t need to read the iMessage messages on your phone. You can even report and block those small ads in vain. But as long as there is a 1% possibility, those gray products that send small advertising content and the sponsors behind them will not give up "hope."

Therefore, as long as Apple phone users exist, spam will not end.

In fact, iMessage, the instant messaging application built into Apple mobile phones, has gradually become "well-known" recently, not because it can send pictures, text, videos and other information to all Apple users for free through the Internet. But those domestic Apple users who have turned on the iMessage function are almost endlessly harassed by gambling, fake promotions, and advertising messages. So much so that some Apple users jokingly call iMessage: an “advertising transceiver” that never rests.

"I used to receive gambling information once or twice a week, but now I receive gambling information every day." Some readers complained to Understand Notes that many of the illegal gambling information received through iMessage showed overseas mobile phone numbers, and some showed that The Outlook mailbox is garbled.

With the increasing number of iMessage spam messages such as gambling and fake goods, the former "Mark Six Lottery" spam mobile phone text messages are gradually decreasing, which indicates that iMessage spam messages seem to be replaced by mobile phone text messages.

This situation annoys many Apple mobile phone users. Many users even question that iMessage can only send messages through the mobile phone number or Apple ID that has activated this function. Why can a gray product that sends gambling information get access to the user's mobile phone? Number or Apple ID? Why do they know that the user has signed up for iMessage? In addition to reporting false information, why can't Apple come up with more perfect blocking measures and allow spam to fly everywhere?

Perhaps this all starts with the widespread “interception” of bulk spam text messages.

has a high delivery rate, and iMessage has become the new favorite of small advertisements

"The delivery rate of bulk mobile text messages is too low now, so it is not recommended."

Through online small advertisements, Dongdong Notes contacted an agency that engages in bulk text messaging. Mr. Wu, the customer service manager, said that his organization has been operating bulk text messaging business for ten years. Although bulk text messaging is theoretically legal, the current delivery rate is getting lower and lower.

"We recommend you use iMessage to send group messages here. It looks the same as text messages and has better effects." Manager Wu said that if you use iMessage to send group messages, the delivery rate usually exceeds 60%. In addition to text, there are also You can send graphic and text links in a richer form.

Indeed, in recent years, many smartphones have built-in group text message interception functions. Operators are also launching "do not disturb" services. Many users are forced to install third-party mobile phone security applications with higher interception efficiency. This has also led to The delivery rate of bulk text messages is far less than 20%.

Group messaging for Apple devices seems to have gradually become the “best choice” for these organizations. "Apple users are generally middle-to-high-end consumer groups, which is very suitable for the promotion of insurance and financial information." Manager Wu boasted while showing the effect of customers sending iMessage group messages.

When asked whether the charge for sending iMessage messages through the Internet can be cheaper, Manager Wu smiled and said that the charge for sending iMessage messages in groups is slightly more expensive than sending traditional SMS messages. "The first is the high delivery rate, and the second is that mass sending iMessages is a technical job." He explained step by step that the charge for sending mass iMessages is 0.1-0.3 yuan per message, and the minimum order is 10,000 yuan.

Therefore, at this stage, most of the people sending iMessage group messages are high-end imitation, insurance, lending, online gambling and other institutions. Since iMessage messages do not need to be reviewed, even if they are reported by users, the Apple ID and device will only be blocked, so it will have little impact on the waste of sending messages. These organizations that undertake mass messaging do not have too many restrictions on the content of iMessages sent. Basically, as long as they pay, they will accept them.

“SMS messages are no longer available. In addition to being intercepted by users, operators are also increasing filtering."Manager Wu showed the content requested by some customers to be sent in bulk, emphasizing that if the content of the mass message involves a gray area, most of it can only be sent with a virtual mobile phone number, and the content is mostly in the form of homophones, otherwise it will not be able to escape the filtering mechanism.

Obviously, mass messaging iMessage messages have no such concerns, and can even send illegal pictures, video content, and "traps" with embedded links to induce users to click.

So, where did the target's mobile phone number and Apple ID come from? The answer is - provided by the organization.

"We ensure accurate delivery and will definitely not fool you. You don't have to worry about us cheating, but we really can't comment on the source of the account. "Manager Wu seemed a little impatient when Daedong Note repeatedly asked about the accuracy and validity of the mobile phone number and Apple ID, stressing that it was inconvenient to tell him, "These are business barriers, and you really can't disclose them casually. You can go find them." The same goes for other families. "

So, the iMessage group messages that claim to have a delivery rate of up to 60% and can send a large amount of bad and illegal content, are they really, as these organizations say, have certain technical thresholds? Are the target accounts of the group messages really delivered with high accuracy? How is this user information obtained?

mass messaging technology is pediatric. User numbers can be bought and "guessed"

. I searched for "iMessage mass messaging" on the search engine and found many related technical posts. In a certain IT technology community, many related contents even provide detailed mass sending codes and tutorials written by Apple.

"The technology of iMessage mass sending is not difficult, and this set of code is basically sufficient for mass sending." "After Dongdong Notes sent the group source code and tutorials disclosed by the community to relevant engineers engaged in Apple application development, the other party said that these source codes should all run perfectly.

even embedded random emoticons for official duplicate content detection. , to prevent the account from being blocked. It can be seen that the threshold for mass sending of iMessage is not high. “The difficulty of mass sending is obtaining the mobile phone number and Apple account. "Under the introduction of this engineer, Understand Notes contacted a technical veteran "Miou" who had worked in a mass messaging organization. He told Understand Notes that the method of obtaining users' mobile phone numbers is actually relatively simple and relatively traditional. .

"Some of the information was purchased from Huishan at a low price, only a few cents per number. "Miou said that there is actually no threshold for purchasing a user's mobile phone number, and sometimes you can even "guess" the number. After all, after you select a mobile phone number, you cannot immediately use it for iMessage group sending. You also need to use tools to screen whether the mobile phone number has been associated with Apple. id.

This filtering method is very simple. Just open the Mac iMessage (message) client and automatically paste all the purchased and randomly sorted mobile phone numbers into the recipient column.

"If it is displayed in blue, it means there is an existing iMessage." , showing red is an ordinary number. "Miou" told Understand Notes that as long as you sort out all the mobile phone numbers displayed in blue, you will have a list of accounts that can send iMessages in groups.

If you want to make group messages more targeted and save time and energy in screening, you need to The Apple ID used as the iMessage account is used - that is, the user's email address. "There are two sources of email, but both are invisible. "

Miou pointed out that although the Apple system is more closed and highly secure compared to Android, users will still leak their Apple ID during use, especially when sending their phones for repairs, which can easily be "roadblocked" "Repair agencies steal IDs.

" Sometimes when users browse some web pages, they will suddenly receive a message prompting them to re-verify their Apple ID. This situation is most likely an action taken by gray products to steal user accounts. "He said that if users do not pay attention to enter their account number and password, they will be immediately taken away by the gray production organization. In addition to being used as a group message,

Apple ID can also easily lead to payment theft. Miou reminded that if you frequently receive Users of iMessage spam should always change the login password of their Apple account to avoid being stolen or logged in. "This proves that many mass messaging organizations have obtained your account information, which is very dangerous."

Although the source of iMessage mass sending accounts is the biggest difficulty, iMessage spam can also be sent to a large number of users by purchasing, randomizing, and verifying user mobile phone numbers. Some users' Apple IDs are even unknown to have been resold by gray organizations. How many times.

So here comes the question: Faced with a large amount of spam and illegal messages, Apple users can only endure it silently?

shuts down iMessage and sacrifices functions for "clean" messages

"Who receives the most harassing spam messages? Explain who is the richest, hehe, just kidding. ”

Xu Changwei, who works at an application research and development company in Kexing Science and Technology Park, Nanshan District, receives more than five iMessages every day about gambling, invoices, high imitation goods, etc. There is even a “spam message competition” among colleagues. , competing to see who receives the most spam messages.

As a technician, he adopted the method of blocking and rejecting iMessage spam two years ago. However, whether it is the IT community or social platforms, professionals mentioned it. The most effective way is to turn off the iMessage function.

“There are many relatives and friends around me who don’t know how to turn off the iMessage function to prevent harassing messages. " He told Notes that although there are many strategies on the Internet to prevent the proliferation of iMessage spam messages, many Apple users still post asking how to block spam messages. Almost none of them know where the switch of the iMessage function is.

Xu Changwei feels that directly Turning off this feature can indeed avoid the nuisance of spam messages. “But it’s a bit simplistic. Many of my colleagues still communicate through iMessage. "Due to certain business confidentiality reasons, his company has been advocating communicating through iMessage for work. Therefore, under the premise that the iMessage function of Apple phones can no longer be turned off, he and his colleagues are using various methods to resist spam attacks." ". In addition to turning off the function of

, some technical staff suggested that blocking all unfamiliar number information in the SMS settings can effectively reduce spam messages. However, this method can also easily block some normal SMS messages as unfamiliar messages," This method is not very reasonable either. It is putting the cart before the horse by shutting down or sacrificing a function as the price of avoiding harassment. "

In Xu Changwei's view, in the face of the increasing number of spam messages such as gambling and invoices, Apple should take responsibility and actively filter out bad information like telecom operators do with spam messages. "After all, iMessage is your function. Developed by Apple technicians, you can't pretend to be deaf, right? ”

However, when I understand and collect information about Apple’s attitude towards iMessage spam, I was surprised to find that there are not many effective methods officially announced. Apart from reporting the account, there seems to be no better solution.

“Reporting will either ban the account or ban the device, which really has no deterrent effect at all. "Some netizens complained that Apple did not filter harassing content in iMessage messages on the grounds of protecting user privacy, and was shirking its own responsibilities.

The most important thing is that iMessage can send messages to Apple users without real-name control, resulting in messages It is difficult to find the source, which also allows a large number of illegal and unscrupulous organizations to take advantage of it. In this state, it is difficult for even the network supervision department to trace the source of the message.

is the same as harassing text messages. Since its entry into China, iMessage has been exploited as a "mass sender" of spam messages. As the telecommunications department has become increasingly strict on the content of mobile phone text messages, more and more illegal messages have been transferred to iMessage, and this space has become a spam machine. It has also become their last resort for fraud.

All Apple phone users have become the "target" of spam, which has also made some users doubt the true security of Apple's system and create a sense of distrust. It’s Apple. Who doesn’t know how much Apple respects its users?

Public opinion has been calling for Apple officials to come up with it as soon as possible in the face of a large number of gambling, shoddy, copycat, and pornographic junk information faced by domestic Apple mobile phone users. Corresponding solution.Rather than simply and rudely saying "there is currently no good solution", leaving the majority of consumers to bear the inconvenience and distress.

We feel that if Apple can change it, it will no longer be Apple.

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