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Ever-diligent in searching for new markets to expand into, the cell phone industry is now targeting the “tweens” market, with a wireless phone targeted just for pre teens.

Don Deubler has friends who have kids. He noticed that these kids have a lot going on in their lives. They could really use a phone – and it would be great for parents to be able to get through to their kids anytime, anywhere.

Call me… old fashioned. But I really just don’t see the age of the cell phone being any younger than, oh, 15, 16 at most. Now this company wants to put them in the hands of 10 to 12 year olds? What is going on the in the life of someone that young that they absolutely must have a wireless phone? If a kid truly needs a phone of their own at that age, then they probably have a little too much stress in their lives.

Seems text messaging just wasn’t enough to get the message across at a Verizon Wireless regional headquarters, where an unrequited office romance got a little too violent:

Tuesday night, her name was on his lips as he tried to deliver her a letter at the Verizon Wireless regional headquarters where they both worked. He was turned away by security guards, then returned and crashed his truck into the Chandler facility, an attempt to force his way back in and deliver a floppy disk filled with poetry.

Nice mug shot at the above link, too. 🙂

In Florida, a sentence has been handed down to a spammer who hacked into legitimate Bellsouth internet accounts to send out his junk. After pleading guilty, the man isn’t allowed to own, lease or use a computer for six years:

Frye was sentenced to one year in prison and an additional three years suspended sentence, with probation for a total of six years. The judge banned him from owning, leasing or using a computer or accessing the Internet for the entire six-year probationary period. The court also ordered Frye to pay restitution to BellSouth upon his release.

Will this serve as an example to other spammers? Probably not, as it’s usually very hard to track down who is sending what. But it is nice to see a proliific spammer get his comeuppance.

Posted today in a bulletin on the Sprint PCS website:

Sprint has recently discovered that certain websites may provide a means for unauthorized access to your wireless phone voicemail account. These websites use technology that makes it appear as if a call, that is in fact placed from the website into a wireless voicemail account, is coming from the wireless phone. Sprint does not believe this security risk exists if access to your voicemail account is protected with a passcode.

In effect, Sprint has been using Caller ID information to authenticate a voicemail customer as having called from their wireless phone, skipping the need to enter a password (referred to as the “Skip Password” feature. While there have been no such security breaches reported yet, in theory a hacker can spoof their Caller ID data (or non-hackers could use a “legitimate” spoofing service) and appear to be calling from an authorized Sprint PCS phone, bypassing security features and gaining access to the spoofed identity’s voicemail inbox.

But this voicemail situation goes beyond just who has access to your messages. Continue reading →