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The government is stepping up its crackdown on SMS spammers by using a ¡°spam trap¡± for persistent offenders after earlier attempts to regulate the nuisance produced negligible results. The Ministry of Information and Communication said Monday it is setting up the spam trap system at a cost of some W300 million(about US$300,000).
To be ready in late December, the system is allocated a random pool of cell phone numbers from three telecom providers to ¡°trap¡± any unlawful calls and spam SMS. The MIC said it already secured some 1,000 dormant phone numbers -- 500 from SK Telecom, 350 from KTF and 150 from LG Telecom - and will use them to trace spammers. Spam includes text and voice messages, multimedia message services (MMS) and web call services.
Despite the ministry¡¯s recent efforts, spam advertising - often for premium phone sex numbers - is on the rise. According to figures revealed in a National Assembly audit of the ministry, the number of spam SMS sent via SK Telecom rose from 36,619 in June to 54,521 in August. Those through LG Telecom also more than tripled to about 15,000 in June from 4,747 in May. Chang Jae-young, a researcher of the ministry¡¯s Spam Response Center, said, ¡°We are developing more anti-spam technology to reduce spam, which is rising despite stringent prevention measures.¡±
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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