Where to stop spam messages?

Yesterday evening, in an operator's group of friends, heard a "joke".

The joke said that there are operators of employees, in Beijing Jinrongjie headquarters building in the telephone, suddenly the phone broke, and then the cell phone for several seconds to find no signal, and then received two real estate spam text messages ads.

"Kill to the operator door, this is the reverse attack of spam message!" Operator's friend so summed up.

The reverse attack of pseudo-base station

This is the typical symptom of being hijacked by "pseudo base station".

Simple Popular Science, "pseudo-base station" is to forcibly shield the base station signal nearby, so that users have to find a mobile phone signal, and then disguised himself as a base station, the opportunity to send spam messages to users.

If, many with the operator in the ghost cooperation, or through other technical means to send spam messages, such as fear of being found "thieves", then "pseudo-base station" is like bandits, simple, direct, violent, bypassing all supervision, directly to the content into the victim's mobile phone.

Moreover, the pseudo base station is easy to get started, a van, a computer, a pseudo base station, is a mobile spam message station.

However, such means, the same may be monitored by technology, so, "pseudo-base station" in the past only dare to flee the crime, sitting in the car run, around the public Security Bureau, operators and other "yamen mouth", hair for a while, stop for a while, hit a gun for another place.

And now, even the operator headquarters are "pseudo base station" attack, in the operator's view, is definitely a red fruits provocation.

This joke, let me think again, a few years ago a scene.

At that time, it was a meeting of the Ministry of Information Industry (which had not yet been established) to discuss the purification of market environment, one of the key issues is the management of spam messages. As a result, when a vice president of a carrier was on the stage to speak, his first words were: "Before I took the stage, I received 1 more spam messages." ”

Why governance fails

In fact, over the years, I have seen countless rounds of spam message management action. Among them, there is the ministry-led, operator-led, and even the Ministry of Public Security ministries and departments to jointly "strike a crackdown."

But the results of these actions are no exception: the market has been purified for a short time and then revived and even intensified.

Why?

Many people attribute the reason to the operator's failure to act, or even to participate in evil deeds.

This is one of the main reasons, but it is not the root of evil.

Until now, the SMS in the operator's total income, still only occupy a very small proportion, the public opinion of the spam message influence, but let the operator extremely passive. So, from the stakes alone, all of the operators I know are in the business of attacking spam messages, not protecting them.

At the level of operators, the perpetrators are seen in the lower and middle levels, on the one hand, KPI performance assessment, on the other hand, the temptation to personal interests, Shing, infringement of user rights and interests of the Act.

In this respect, operators have not stopped the rectification. But because of the existing management system and assessment mechanism, this kind of renovation floats in the face, or stops in some areas, part of the period. At the same time, in a few people are still unable to xiaomin from the system to participate in the evil of the space.

Helpless, the operator even had to take a one-size-fits-all approach, found that a business was used, often directly to the entire business stopped. For example, recently, even a lot of normal verification code information has been blocked.

Even some operators have recently been able to break through internal resistance by using outside public opinion, which is heavily criticized for spam messages, to embark on a larger and tougher clean-up audit.

But it can be expected that the clean-up will be effective, but still can only be a symptom, can not cure.

Source of Interest

The reason lies in the high asymmetry of interest and risk.

Until now, spam message is still the highest arrival rate in China, the highest conversion rate, the fastest, and the lowest cost of advertising, one of the most cost-effective than television, newspapers, and even a variety of telephone poles, corridor mouth of small ads.

Recently, the ministry has cut short messages and MMS net settlement charges. This policy helps people get cheaper tariffs, but without effective regulation, it will further boost the prosperity of junk text messages because the cost of junk advertising is lower.

Of course, for "pseudo-base station" senders, they do not even need any late-stage costs in addition to rising petrol costs.

At the same time, junk SMS senders have little risk.

Until now, the main responsibility for the management of spam messages remains with operators. But in fact, as a business, operators do not have the right to law enforcement, in addition to fines, most of the major cases transferred to the public security organs, but such a process is difficult to universalize.

And the law enforcement agencies are equally embarrassed. Spam messages, like other cyber crimes, are generally characterized by the involving minima of single cases, and criminals often take a different way of crime (such as the number of Guangdong, in Sichuan spam message fraud, the bank card with Shandong office to receive the money, and then transfer to the Shanxi associates, by a Shaanxi people in Yunnan's bank to take the present), Because of the complexity of handling cases and the high cost of handling cases, it is often difficult to file a case.

Even the relevant legislation on spam messages is still lagging behind.

As such, there is little risk of profiteering business, who does not want to do?

Today's crackdown, tomorrow to do, caught Zhang, Li Shilai do, as long as the interests of space still exist, the interests of the chain has not been cut off, and then strict governance can only be returned without work.

The plan of the root-cutting

So, what should be done to really let the spam message root-cutting?

I thought there were three possibilities:

The first possibility is that there is another, lower cost, higher arrival rate, faster, higher return on the advertising approach, the final demand migration. But this possibility is too slim, and even if it does, it will only be diversion, not a radical replacement.

The second possibility is that the operator or third party, through the way of large data, accurate user analysis and advertising matching, so that more than 90% of the spam message, are sent to just need this kind of information users, so that will not let users feel harassed, but also can create higher advertising efficiency and value.

This method of technology is not impossible, but because it may face the violation of user privacy risks, coupled with the public pressure of spam ads, so operators have been afraid to lightly covered.

The third possibility is to start with the relevant party of the sending, to directly fight the beneficiaries of the spam advertisement, cut off the benefit chain and compress the interest space.

This is the relatively most operational possibility at present. I had a very interesting discussion in the article, "Go, go to New Zealand, send a spam message!" You can pay attention to the micro-public number technology (Keji_zatan), and reply to the number 153 view.

Of course, for now, if a third possibility is to be implemented, we still do not have a complete foundation, such as the legislation is still blank, the law enforcement process still needs to be refined, and so on.

But it can be determined that only from the legislation, law enforcement and other levels are combined with exerting force, it is possible to really eradicate spam messages.

If only a few operators want to do this, it can only be nonsense.

Finally, attach 2013 of December 24, Ministry of Information, Minister of Wei to the public comments on the garbage message.

"We decided to launch a new round of deployment to strengthen the spam message management." First of all, we interviewed three basic telecommunications operators of the main responsible for the port type of spam message centralized rectification, and the next step we will improve the long-term mechanism of garbage message governance, to promote fundamentally solve the problem of spam messages. ”

"There are a number of considerations: first, resolutely implement the National People's Congress on strengthening the network Information protection decision, and further improve the SMS service supervision system and standard system." Second, strengthen industry supervision and accountability, refine management requirements, and urge operators to further implement their social responsibilities. Third, strengthen with the public security, industry and commerce and other departments of the linkage of cooperation, and severely combat pseudo-base station hair spam message behavior. Finally, give full play to the role of industry self-discipline and social supervision, and comprehensively promote the management of spam messages. ”