Anyone getting FiveStars text message spam?

[Guest]

Yes, Victor, I posted the message on XDA, and also posted it here, where I am one of the administrators. For the benefit of our members, I'll include the same reply here.

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While I may be willing to accept that FiveStars has no knowlege of my presence, I'm unwilling to accept -- for the moment -- that my experience was purely a coincidence. I am not a customer of the pizza shop in question, so I'm unsure how they would have obtained my phone number. Furthermore, as a rule I don't join loyalty programs because the value they provide is not worth the information I must trade.

I will admit that I recently flashed a new build of JB on my G2, and when I was passing the pizza shop, I had not yet gone through my usual procedures of removing or otherwise blocking the various anti-privacy mechanisms that plague Android. See my post from a few months ago for some examples.

Hey Steve,

No worries. If you reply "stop", you won't receive text messages anymore. I can promise you this, because I wrote the code myself (on a ubuntu system no less). Stacia's has a huge database of 15,000 customers, and I believe they sign up everyone who orders a pizza from them. Perhaps it could even be someone who had the mobile number before you.

Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Vic

[GreyGeek]

I don't have a smartphone and I have not activated text messaging on my flip phone, so every time I get an unsolicited text message it costs me 40 cents. :mad:

I am also on the Federal No call list. Despite that I get the occasional robot marketer, and the text message saying I have won <insert scam here>.

As far as having a text msg coordinated to your geographic location that is entirely possible, especially for smartphones with 3D. My flip phone has two levels of GPS location on it: one for emergency service only and one which essentially is tracking you. So, when you drive within the geolocation of a business they may have paid the ISP to send you their text msg about their services or products. What will really STINK is if many business subscribe to this kind of marketing, and you drive down a major thorough fair and get 20 text messages in a five mile stretch on your way to work.

[SteveRiley]

At the time the car passed the pizza place, SoundHound was running on my phone (got the paid version on sale for 99 cents). Among others, SoundHound has these permissions:

* Location: coarse (network-based), fine (GPS)
* Network: full access
* Phone: read status and identity

I hardly use it; I forgot that I had accidentally started it several hours prior.

According to the imminently useful Logging Test App, SoundHound includes adware and logging blobs from:

* Google AdMob/AdSense
* Millennial
* Mobclix

Yes, even the paid version appears to spy on you.

<conjecture>
Given the permissions SoundHound has, it could report my phone number and location to these ad services. I would have to run a network sniffer to be sure. The pizza place could be purchasing such data from these services, which might include real-time location reports. The pizza place could randomly choose a nearby phone and push an ad for a loyalty program.
</conjecture>

I will admit I have no visibility into whether the above actually happened. I will, though, stop by the pizza place to ensure that they have no record of my phone number, to rule out that possibility. I've had the number for 12 years, and before then it was unassigned according to T-Mobile.

[tek_heretik]

I've had the number for 12 years, and before then it was unassigned according to T-Mobile.

This is exactly why I hate having to post my resume online, complete with BOTH phone numbers, or any site that asks for a cell number, fahgeddabouddit, Google, Yahoo and Youtube, to name a few, bugged me for my cell number for a while, they finally gave up.

[woodsmoke]

When I was in Navy bootcamp at Great Lakes the intake for our time frame was, as I remember 240 people. I bunked above the RPOC whose name started with a C and my name started with a T, I was the educational petty officer.

We were initially taken in alphabetically to receive our gear and initial look see. That means that our combination locks, for the very small personal part of our lockers, was issued with about 200 people between us.

One day we went for cokey smokey break and threw our locks on the lower bunk and then picked them up to lock the lockers, left and later when we came back could not open our locks.

without knowing we had switched locks and the combinations of his and mine were off by one digit on the last number.

So 200 spaces compressed to one space(the bunk beds) and that compressed to one digit out of what 30 ^ 3 ?

woodsmoke