Spammer's Tricks Spread to Phone `Spam'

Identity hiding tricks that have worked so well to hide the real senders of junk email have started spreading to cell phone text messaging spam.

A service called Star38.com became available in early September - it allows the user to send messages via the web to cell phones. Instead of the actual sender's phone number being included - it lists whatever the sender wants as the originating phone.

The company of course says it's a legal service and has legitimate purposes.

This trick is very similar to the address-spoofing / header related tricks that senders of email spam use to great effect. The CAN-SPAM act in theory makes hiding your address illegal - but this has so far not been enforced. One way or another - CAN-SPAM doesn't apply to cell phone text messaging.

The SpamButcher email spam blocker software can eliminate spam mail for mobile users who check their POP3 email accounts via their phones. It however does not work for text messaging.

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