RE: Risks of bogus e-mail addresses "FROM: ObL": Risks Digest 21.68
Actually, the press article describes the message as an "SMS", which is a GSM Short Message Service cell-phone text message, rather than an email. This implies that the Belgian police are either routinely eavesdropping on GSM text messages, or else some intelligence service is doing so and asked them to do the local legwork. -----Original Message----- From: David Farber [mailto:dave@farber.net] Sent: Monday, October 08, 2001 3:50 PM To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com Subject: IP: Risks of bogus e-mail addresses "FROM: ObL": Risks Digest 21.68
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 14:11:16 -0400 From: Peter Wayner <pcw@flyzone.com> Subject: Risks of bogus e-mail addresses "FROM: ObL"
Sincerely yours, *Not* Osama bin Laden?
A Filipino in Belgium ended up in jail after *receiving* a joke e-mail seemingly from Osama bin Laden (but apparently from one of his friends), asking to "stay with you for a couple of days." The man was freed only after a Catholic priest vouched for him as a regular attendee each Sunday. [http://www.vnunet.com/News/1125822]
Ah, there's nothing like putting faith in identity, keyword scanning surveillance, and data stored in computers.
At 22:05 2001-10-08 -0700, Bill Steward wrote:
Actually, the press article describes the message as an "SMS", which is a GSM Short Message Service cell-phone text message, rather than an email. This implies that the Belgian police are either routinely eavesdropping on GSM text messages, or else some intelligence service is doing so and asked them to do the local legwork.
I doubt that the story is true. Belgium couldn't be that different from Sweden. Since SMS-ing is cheap it's a major method of communicating especially for younger (poorer) persons but increasingly also for the middle aged. The "Hi, I feel lonely, everybody seems out to get me, can I stay at your place for a while, Grettings, Osama"-SMS joke chain letter - with several variants - have been around here for several weeks and in a very large scale. I've recieved several and everyone I've asked has got at least one, usually from a close friend. The joking community is unintentionally flooding Echelon. //Mob
participants (2)
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Bill Stewart
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Mats O. Bergstrom