"The ××× website invites you to share the Macau VIP room, lottery, slot machines and other online trials..."
Seeing such text messages, it is estimated that many Apple mobile phone users are in trouble. They don’t know when to start. Your mobile phone will frequently receive so-called "Macau gambling" spam text messages. The problem is that I have never been to Macau, and I have never browsed websites that I shouldn’t have browsed online. How could I be targeted by the “Macau Casino”?
Ms. Hu, a citizen from Wuhan, is one of the victims. Since the beginning of April, the "Family" APP that comes with her iPhone has received similar gambling invitation messages almost every day.
"Sometimes at 11 or 12 o'clock in the evening, a message will pop up, even in the middle of the night, it still rings, which seriously affects my personal life and work and rest."
For this reason, Ms. Hu tried many methods. solve. At first, she tried to block the sender's mobile phone number, but each of these spam text messages had a different ID. After blocking one, there were thousands of others. It seems that blocking and blocking is of no use. I simply clicked to reject the invitation, but the spam text messages were still received. In the end, Ms. Hu had no choice but to uninstall the "Home" APP, thinking that she would finally be clean for a while. However, her phone was still able to receive spam messages, and there were also special message reminders.
Ms. Hu’s experience is not an isolated case. From the reviews of the Apple store, we can see that there are thousands of Apple users who are troubled by the same problem. Mr. Wu is also one of them. He said:
"I have been using Apple phones since 2015. No matter how I change the phone or update the system, spam messages related to pornography and gambling can still be sent in. And basically all of them come from Apple phones. The App you bring can receive it. In addition to Imessage, the mobile photo album and calendar are all shared through the iCloud account. "
Why are spam text messages flooding on Apple phones?
Compared with Apple users, most spam text messages from Android users can be intercepted, so why are these spam text messages targeted at Apple users?
In fact, one of the main reasons is that these spam text messages are sent through the iMessage that comes with the Apple system. iMessage is an instant messaging software developed by Apple Inc. . Apple products can use it to send text, pictures and videos to each other for free. Note that it is free! This is essentially different from the SMS and MMS services between telecom operators.
Compared with text messages, iMessage is an independent and closed system . It is more like an email. This is a unique advantage that Apple is proud of, but the advantages of this system have been exploited by criminals. Some companies or individuals make money by sending advertisements through iMessage.
So, why do advertisers prefer to send spam text messages through iMessage?
First of all, once the iMessage message is sent, it will be sent to all devices registered by the user, such as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and other devices. is both convenient and fast. It can send spam text messages in a variety of ways, and the efficiency is ridiculously high.
and the content of iMessage messages is protected by end-to-end encryption technology, only the sender and receiver can access it, Apple cannot decrypt the data. This is undoubtedly too free for the senders of spam text messages.
Secondly, the messages sent by iMessage can escape the interception of most websites and systems.
Since the iMessage service is integrated and encrypted at the system level with iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and other devices, compared with traditional text messages and various instant messaging tools, the information content transmitted on iMessage will not be basically Telecommunications companies' SMS gateways will not intercept messages and will not be blocked by mobile phone security software, which indirectly causes the proliferation of spam messages on iMessage but is difficult to effectively control.
In addition, iMessage It is very cheap for spammers to create and spread spam messages. The sender of
spam text messages only needs to register an iMessage account with an email address to be qualified to send messages. Its spam text messages can be written through the Mac OS script. With only four lines of code, spam text messages can be sent to various Apple devices of the recipient at the fastest speed allowed by Apple.
It is precisely because spam text messages are sent through this system, is low-cost, high-efficiency, and not easily blocked by websites, that illegal advertisers have targeted this piece of "fat meat", and even their technology is constantly developing. Nowadays Spam text messages can also be sent through iCloud data sharing.
The dangers of accepting spam messages on Apple phones
Apple's iMessage service has been occupied by spam messages, and iMessage has accounted for more than 30% of all spam messages spread in the United States. According to a report released by telecommunications industry research company Heavy Reading, users around the world send approximately 328 million spam messages every day, and Apple accounts for nearly 100 million of them.
Spam text messages not only trouble our lives, but also pose the risk of personal privacy being violated.
According to industry insiders, although the Apple system is more closed than Android and has high security, customers may still leak their Apple ID during use.
For example, when customers browse some web pages, they will receive a message reminding them that they need to verify their Apple ID. This situation is likely to be a trap set by the gray industry, specifically used to obtain the customer’s Apple ID. If the user enters a password, the entire All accounts will be taken away.
The personal information of most Apple phone users who receive spam text messages is very likely to have been sold on the market, and even unscrupulous advertisers have purchased the personal information of target users.
Personal privacy leakage is a very serious and scary problem. Just imagine that the photos in your mobile phone are in the hands of outsiders and used as bargaining chips in transactions. It is difficult for anyone to accept.
In this regard, Apple said that it can solve this problem by reporting spam text messages, but in fact it treats the symptoms rather than the root cause. Not to mention that the reporting process is very troublesome, and after a successful report, the other party's ID will only be blocked. , and cannot play a substantial role. How profitable are
’s industrialized Apple spam messages?
Since no party can effectively stop the proliferation of spam text messages, it has also contributed to the industrialization of spam text messaging.
At present, iMessage spam has become more professional and large-scale, forming a complete chain of interests. Mass messaging tools such as mass senders and pseudo base stations have appeared in the mobile phone spam SMS industry. Many professional mass messaging tools specifically for iMessage, including "Apple Push", have also begun to appear widely.
Some data show that some agents even claim that they have more than 18 million valid Apple mobile phone users nationwide; Beijing has more than 4 million valid users; each spam sending device sells for about 30,000 yuan. The charge for spam text messages is about 0.035 yuan. Each device can send 60,000 spam text messages a day, and each device can earn about 2,100 yuan per day.
Agent demonstrates sending spam advertisements, the red box is a special device
According to reports, "A certain 4S store even purchased a 500,000 spam advertisement push service. Each item was charged 0.035 yuan, and the total cost was 17,500 yuan, attracting 50 customers.Finally, a car was sold and the profit was 50,000 yuan. Excluding the investment in junk advertising, the 4S store actually made a profit of 32,500 yuan. "Such data is not only embarrassing, but also scary.
Because they have their own needs and interests, Apple's recommendation agents and cooperative companies make a lot of money, but it brings endless trouble to the majority of Apple users. This The actions of the two have deeply violated the rights and interests of Apple users. However, since a single user cannot know who the advertisement sender is and cannot provide conclusive evidence of infringement by the cooperative enterprise, it can only be cracked down by government departments, especially the public security organs. This It also makes it very difficult for Apple users to protect their rights.
How to effectively block spam messages?
Faced with this situation, are Apple users willing to be "trash cans"? What methods can be used to block spam messages?
The most permanent way is to turn off the iMessage function. can use " Settings Bar" - "Information" - turn off "iMessage". can reject all iMessage messages after turning off iMessage, but most people cannot choose this method because It is a "one-size-fits-all" method. Once iMessage is turned off, it will not only eliminate spam messages, but also block other important messages. Therefore, this method is not suitable for users who rely on iMessage and cannot completely turn off the iMessage function. Users can use to filter unknown senders to reduce the situation of receiving spam messages. After setting
, the messages sent through iMessage will be divided into two categories. ", and there will be no SMS notification sound. The specific operation method is to use " Settings Bar" - "Information" - "Filter Unknown Senders".
Of course, you can also cancel the sending address of the email .
Because most of Spam text messages are sent through email addresses, so canceling the sending address of the email can block a large number of spam text messages. The specific method is to use " Settings Bar" - "Information" - "Send and Receive" - "Delete Email Contact information".
In addition, you can also download the third-party interception software through to filter spam text messages sent by Imessage.
As more and more Apple users are troubled by spam text messages, developers have discovered business opportunities and begun to develop interception applications that can block them, such as a certain Panda APP that is currently popular on the market. However, we should note that when the application software intercepts spam text messages, it will also read our own iMessage messages.
In addition to the above-mentioned conventional methods, we can also search the public account "2321" (Spam SMS Report Acceptance Center) through WeChat to complain about the spam SMS we receive.
At present, the above-mentioned methods are the better choice for blocking spam text messages for Apple users, but these methods are based on the premise of turning off or sacrificing certain unique functions, so these methods are not perfect.
Regarding this , Apple, as the platform party, has an unshirkable responsibility . Apple has the responsibility to proactively prevent users' private information from being leaked and illegally used, while also strengthening the filtering of spam information, protecting users' legitimate rights and interests, and reducing the harassment of users by illegal gambling information.
