5 Ways to protect yourself on Kik Messenger!

Understanding the Kik Messenger!

The Kik Messenger is just a little app that allows people to chat without the need to share you phone number.   It has several things that help make people want to use Kik, and I am going to share some of them with you and hope that it helps you protect yourself from scammers.  With any messaging app, you will always have bots and scammers who only purpose in life is to steal your money or your identity.   It seems that I found a few that times when I wondered how they figure out my username.   it really wasn’t hard to find me on Kik, I seem to keep Something the same and you could find me to if your really wanted to.  

Don’t give out your Phone Number — It seems it is the easiest thing to do but if you give out your phone number to a complete stranger, you are just asking for trouble from people who are going to stalk you or harass you.  
Don’t give out specifics — until you really start to be friends it is something that should be in your head at all times.   Don’t tell them your personal stuff like where you actually work, or the exact model of your car.   If you have to answer them, just generalize it to the point that it would make it really hard for them to find you after that.   I wouldn’t say Lie to them but don’t speak the whole truth, until you are sure they are trustworthy.
Quick Repliers — If you find yourself getting almost instant replies from the sender, you can bet that it isn’t truely a person because even I can’t type that fast.   It does not mean people who reply with yes or no answer are bots because most people are quick with those.  if it is long text in under a minute, you can bet it is a bot!
Don’t share Pictures or Videos —  If you don’t want your friends to see the picture or video, you really shouldn’t share it to some unknown bot or person on the messenger app.   You really do not know who or What they will do with that stuff.   It could cause your embarrassment in the future.
Don’t click links — Unsolicited links are just going to probably get your infected and thus you shouldn’t click on any links or go to sites that that the person says unless you know about that site personally.   Just be careful what you do online and you are far better off!

If you use these tips, you are better off than before.   Just remember that you do not really know the person unless you meet them in person.   HOpe this helps!

Why I don't click on links in text messages!

A strange text message!

VMFreeMsg: Your voicemail has been installed. For your personal security you must update your password and greeting. For details go to http://msg4u.us/vmve

You can do your own research but even I know this was going to happen sooner or later.   When i first got this message, I suspected it might of been an hack account over at Virgin Mobile.   It always seems like that is happening now a days.   I am always worried about security and they claim they are worried about security.   How is sending a link in text message good for security?  Who knows when or if a website or even a company could and will get hacked.   It is bound to happen, maybe not today but surely sometime in the near future someone will get a hold of an account at Virgin Mobile.  

Security and SMS Messages!

When I company claims they are keeping your safe and yet they do something like this.   It kind of makes me wonder who is actually worried the company or the person or sent out that text message.   I still am not sure if this is a legit SMS or not.  I have did a domain look for msg4u.us and it has very little information because it looks like it doesn’t belong to Sprint or Virgin Mobile.  The the tmce.biz is also where the redirect goes to after clicking the msg4u link!  

Where and who are these people?  Why does it not say Sprint or Virgin Mobile on the domains and what do I worry someone has played a cruel joke on me.  Oh and for those who are interested the Virgin Mobile Home page link is a vmobl.com which is a Virgin Mobile, I think!   This makes no sense to me but at least they didn’t worry to much about someone spoofing them if it was Virgin Mobile!   Keep up the hard work of security guys, at least you tried and failed!

Ask the Readers: How do you fight text spam?

Text spam is a constant problem!

Lately I've been getting a lot of text spam for the Walmart spam in my text message box!  I've really gotten mad at AT&T because it seems that I've had nothing but spam from AT&T numbers.  I even tried to explain that to a local AT&T store but they kept trying to tell me what the customer does is their own problem.  In other words, we aren't the problem type of deal.  I even suggested that they might have a Security Issue where as people have found my Number through their database and I got shot down at that one too.  I'm sure they think they are like Apple and nothing could ever happen to their network.  I'm sure that is far from the truth in their network but I will let the engineers figure that one out!

Nothing but the Truth!

I've been getting only AT&T numbers sending spam to me and I'm quite confused, if they don't have issues then why are spammers using their network.  So far every number, that I've looked up in my little app has said that it was Cingular Network, LLC and thus I've not seen any spam from any other network since I've started using my HTC Android Phone on the AT&T network!  The local customer support said, that I wasn't on their network but Straight Talk, but yet the APN's that I used are ATT and not Straight Talk.  Boy, the people should keep up with other cellular networks.  

Don't Text Stop!

When I went into the local AT&T store, the guy suggested that I reply with the word "STOP" but I'm telling you that is the worst idea possible.  I didn't sign up to get this spam so I don't know what the spammer will do when he realizes that I've read his message and also received it.   Will he tell other spammers my number and enroll me in even more spam without my permission.  I always encourage people not let the spammer know you read and received their spam message.  Your best bet is to report it and hopefully that will slow or stop the spam all together.  I can however forward the message to SPAM (7726) since I'm on the AT&T network and report the number  that way.  I found that out talking to the guy, so at least I found an easier way to report a number on the AT&T network!

So it's your turn!

I'm wondering if there is an easier way to fight spam or is this going to be a constant problem.  I will be doing a followup blog post with people's comments or if they have more questions than answers that they would like me to discuss in detail about.  If you've got a question that you can't seem to figure out.  I encourage you to ask it here and I'll be sure to discuss it in one of my following blog posts.  This post is all about you and what you want to discuss to me or others and maybe we can come up with some unique ways to fight spam or solve a problem that you have!  If you don't ask, I can't help.  So start typing and contact me directly or indirectly by leaving a comment. 

Paul Sylvester

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Walmart Text Spam and How to fight it!

Interesting text messages!

I've had a long weekend doing some stuff and I happen to get two different text from two different numbers, with the same text.   Now you if you've been an avid reader of this blog, you know I REALLY HATE SPAM!  I even talked about blog referrer spam and how it just looks bad on companies.  

Text Numbers So far:

310-435-9136

214-600-2674

You have been selected for a $1,000 Walmart GiftCard, Enter code "FREE" at http://www.walmart.com.xxx.biz/wm/ to claim your prize: 161 left!

Why spammers are using text messages now?

Most of the time, the reason spammers are going to text spamming now is that it is far easier to spam you on your text message then to use email.   Hey let's face it who is going to report the spam and who do you report it them too?  These are the reasons why spammers are going to go this route, it is much harder to block or report these spam messages and they know it.  So I figured if they are going to send messages my way, I'd send messages to the right provider and thus I went back to my old post about reporting text message spam.

I'm looking for Android Apps that do this!

I've been searching around for an app that does this, but most of them just block it and don't really report it! I'd really want to make it hard for the spammers to want to send text messages.   Right now the cost of sending text spam is low but if it starts to make it less profitable they will go somewhere else to spam.

Some of the Apps that I will try are:

• Handcent SMS -- Handcent SMS is a powerful free sms/mms tools for your android phone.  The most popular messaging app on the Android Market, Handcent SMS is a powerful, customizable, and free SMS/MMS app that fully unleashes the messaging potential of Android devices.
• Mr. Number Text, Call & Block -- Text and call the people you love. Block everyone else.  Mr. Number is a messenger, dialer, and contact manager with built-in call and text blocking (free application) and automatic reverse lookup for numbers you don’t know (Caller ID).
• Phone Spam Blocker --  NUMBERCOP blocks spam calls and text from 50.000 telemarketers & scam artists Getting SPAM CALLS or TEXT SMS SPAM ? NUMBERCOP is the easiest way to block them. NUMBERCOP knows 50.000 spamming phone numbers: Phone scams, phishing calls and annoying telemarketers.  NUMBERCOP blocks spam calls and text from 50.000 telemarketers & scam artistsGetting SPAM CALLS or TEXT SMS SPAM ? NUMBERCOP is the easiest way to block them. NUMBERCOP knows 50.000 spamming phone numbers: Phone scams, phishing calls and annoying telemarketers.

As you can tell some of these that I've found do check caller ID but I am hoping that it will be easier to find the carrier that is being used to spam but at least these do have some ways to block text spam SMS.   My only hope is that someone app developer will come up with a way to report text spam messages to the right company and thus making it extremely hard to send text messages and the cost would out way spamming people.

Paul Sylvester