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Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

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Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#251

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

jghn wrote: post #245
joshstrange wrote: post #216

I often use the “Report junk” button on iOS but after spending years being bombarded with political SMS messages that I didn’t sign up for (always addressed me by the wrong name, and I’ve had my number for well over 20 years) I finally got relief. I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of…

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Honestly it's terrifying that there are so many real-life questions of self-governance and some citizens are just out there casting votes for something like this.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#252

Post by EasyMark »

jghn wrote: post #245
joshstrange wrote: post #216

I often use the “Report junk” button on iOS but after spending years being bombarded with political SMS messages that I didn’t sign up for (always addressed me by the wrong name, and I’ve had my number for well over 20 years) I finally got relief. I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of…

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Even for president or senator? I usually get texts for both main party candidates at some point in the election cycle, seems a bit drastic not to note vote for President or vote or write-in someone whom you share no values but refrains from spamming SMS

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#253

Post by cyberlurker »

jghn wrote: post #245
joshstrange wrote: post #216

I often use the “Report junk” button on iOS but after spending years being bombarded with political SMS messages that I didn’t sign up for (always addressed me by the wrong name, and I’ve had my number for well over 20 years) I finally got relief. I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of…

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

If everyone did that, the opponent would set up a SPAC that would text in support of the candidate knowing it would cost votes.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#255

Post by kjkjadksj »

jghn wrote: post #245
joshstrange wrote: post #216

I often use the “Report junk” button on iOS but after spending years being bombarded with political SMS messages that I didn’t sign up for (always addressed me by the wrong name, and I’ve had my number for well over 20 years) I finally got relief. I found out which provider was sending the SMS and contact their abuse line (I would reply STOP but they would just send from a different phone number) and got the name of…

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Who does that philosophy leave you with for your potus vote? Some write in guy with a shoe on his head?

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#256

Post by jghn »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #255
jghn wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Who does that philosophy leave you with for your potus vote? Some write in guy with a shoe on his head?

I already refuse to vote for someone I don't actually support. So yes, I often will write in candidates.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#257

Post by skrtskrt »

toast0 wrote: post #239
no_op wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has a 'Do Not Call' registry for unsolicited phone calls, but technically doesn't need one for texts because it's illegal to send marketing texts without prior consent in the first place. Thing is, 'consent' often just means failing to notice a checkbox during a signup flow or something, so people end up getting junk anyway. Even more annoyingly, politicians wrote in an exception for themselves. In combination…

> this means that if you've ever give your number to any political campaign This is campaign finance reform in action. Giving money is not worth it, because you'll be hassled. Gets the peoples' money out of politics. QED.

I still get 5-10 texts a day from trumpy candidates because someone used my number like 5 years ago when they were spamming signups for trump rallies so the rally would be empty

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#258

Post by toast0 »

fy20 wrote: post #171
danesparza wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside from Pig Butchering (see other comments) this also verifies a number is real or in-use when somebody replies.

You can verify a phone number is real and active without needing them to reply, or without someone even receiving a notification. 1) SMS supports receipt functionality, which means the sender can be notified when a message is delivered to a handset. This happens at the carrier level, so you can't turn it off. 2) SMS supports 'silent' messages which are a different message class that is not shown to users.

Receipts are unreliable. Carriers and aggregators regularly filter or fake them.

Receiving a receipt is not a real indication of delivery, and absence of receipt is not a real indication of absence of delivery.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#259

Post by jghn »

EasyMark wrote: post #252
jghn wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For political spam I have a rule that I refuse to vote for any candidate who directly or indirectly sends me a text asking for their vote. If everyone did that, perhaps fewer politicians would go this route.

Even for president or senator? I usually get texts for both main party candidates at some point in the election cycle, seems a bit drastic not to note vote for President or vote or write-in someone whom you share no values but refrains from spamming SMS

I already fall back to write-ins a lot as I have other rules that will disqualify candidates in my book.

Re: Ask HN: Should you reply STOP to unwanted texts?

#260

Post by gwbas1c »

mikesabat wrote: post #17
solardev wrote: post #3

It kinda depends on which platform handles their bulk messages. For example, if they are messaging you through Twilio, replying with "STOP" will cause Twilio itself to opt you out of messages ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/223134027-Twilio-support-fo... ), and the sender can't disable that ( https://help.twilio.com/articles/360034798533-Getting-Starte... ). It's kinda like how Mailchimp handles unsubscriptions fo…

Speaking mostly for the US here. The STOP keyword is mandated as unsubscribe at the carrier level (Verizon, ATT, TMo) not just the vendor level. So if you reply STOP, it's very likely that you will not receive another message from that number. This will be true for any programmatic SMS vendor. There could be smaller scale & more manual approaches, but that would be rare. There has been a big effort in the last year+…

> FWIW, somewhat surprisingly, my google pixel has an amazing spam filter for SMS and I rarely get SMS that I don't want.

I still get notifications for these on my Pixel. I just don't want them.

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