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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?

#311

Post by solardev »

locallost wrote: post #68
mikesabat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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+…

Yes, can confirm about the Pixel. I occasionally check my spam folder and it's always just spam, which I otherwise never get. So either no or rarely false positives or negatives. Also on a side note, the scams are really horrific. Although obviously scams I can imagine especially the older people getting tricked with "hello grandad here's my new number". Makes me wonder what I'll be getting tricked with when I am old…

> Makes me wonder what I'll be getting tricked with when I am old

"Hey babe, want to see my beautiful TUI? I made it in assembly."

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

#312

Post by solardev »

danielhughes wrote: post #113
joecool1029 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twilio is sort of a dream for spammers, they'll just make new accounts on it and spam campaigns on those new accounts. Political organizations do it all the time, if you get on a list you're never getting off. Lookup the numbers sending to you (Twilio's own lookup tool works great for this) and it almost always comes back Twilio/Zipwhip. I only recommend responding STOP to short codes since there's more investment an…

I think Twilio requires its customers to go through the process of registering with the CTIA before allowing use of the SMS API. I abandoned a project because the process was too burdensome. Political campaigns are exempt though.

Is that new? I tried it out for fun once and it only took a few minutes and I don't recall any major hoops.

I think it's different if you're applying for a shortcode vs a regular or toll free number though. There are different regulations governing all of those.

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

#313

Post by solardev »

ZachSaucier wrote: post #168
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…

Unsubscribing from one Mailchimp subscription doesn't remove you from any other subscriptions...

STOP doesn't either.

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

#315

Post by aendruk »

mway wrote: post #167
MaxMatti wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that also apply if you blocked the number?

That only works if the marketing campaign exclusively uses the number you're blocking. In some cases - for example, political SMS in the US - it turns into whack-a-mole unless you unsubscribe properly.

Yep, US political spam is unblockable. I receive “wait, you’re a Republican, this can’t be right‽” style SMS messages from 10–20 unique phone numbers every day. The FCC’s spam complaint form only accepts one sender number per submission so I’m about 1,300 complaints in so far.

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

#316

Post by Onavo »

jpadkins wrote: post #287
hypeatei wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet another reason why SMS 2FA should not be used. Shameful.

What is a better 2FA channel?

Passkeys or WebAuthn, TOTP based 2FA (regardless of whether it's hardware or software based) is vulnerable to phishing. Protocols like WebAuthn are tied to the domain and is a lot trickier to compromise (at least not without significant effort).

A lot of people here are complacent when it comes to phishing because they believe "I am a big overpaid technical person on Hackers News, I am not dumb enough to fall for suspicious links unlike those dumb unwashed masses" but as most security people know, the sort of mass phishing attempts your grandma receives are relatively low effort compared to actual targeted spear phishing. A dedicated phishing attempt won't have broken English, CSS styling issues, weird punycode etc. It would be practically indistinguishable from the real thing unless you were specifically looking for it.

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

#318

Post by adastra22 »

jezzamon wrote: post #134
adastra22 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how there could be an argument for protected speech here. The constitution protects your ability to petition the government, not the government's ability to petition you.

If someone is campaigning to be in government, I guess they don't technically fall under the "government" category yet...

And neither do you. The constitution doesn’t protect your right to harass other citizens.

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

#319

Post by caseyohara »

lelandbatey wrote: post #292
jpadkins wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a better 2FA channel?

TOTP (thing that generates the 6 numbers every 30 seconds) whether that's a dedicated device (secure but very annoying) or a TOTP app on your phone (what most people use).

Password managers like 1Password also support TOTP, it doesn't have to be an app on your phone.

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

#320

Post by adastra22 »

maweaver wrote: post #270
adastra22 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that STOP is handled at the carrier level and isn't even returned to the sender. It's effectively a mandated block command.

For what it's worth, I've sent a "stop" before and gotten this: > NETWORK MSG: You replied with the word "stop" which blocks all texts sent from this number. Text back "unstop" or "start" to receive messages again. I assumed it was from my carrier (T-Mobile in the US), but now I'm wondering, as I have gotten different replies from other numbers. Maybe it came from the sender's provider? Or is just misleading.

Yes, this is T-mobile’s message.
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