March 08, 2008

WTF... SMS SPAM FROM BN???

March 8th has finally come... Happy International Women's Day... and also, Selamat Mengundi 2008 (Happy Polling 2008)...

I woke up this morning feeling rather excited about participating in Malaysia's 12th General Election as it will be my second time voting. I wasn't eligible back in 1999 because my name wasn't in the SPR registration despite registering back late in 1998, about 6 months before the 10th General Election. So, when 2004 came about, I was excited as well to vote for the first time.

Anyway, this time round, I knew where to go and felt like an "old hand" at this. (^___^)

It's so easy. You just go to the SPR Kerani who is sitting at the table, hand her your MyKad to check for your registration and she'll give you the room number to go and vote.

Once you get in there, they'll check your registration number and name, before handing you the slips to vote.

After that, casting your vote into the ballot boxes (transparent plastic box, this time around) and you're done!

However, just before I left for the polling centre, I checked my mobile for any messages and found that I received one....

I thought it was just one of the usual SPAM SMSes one gets about some promotion or something... Certainly, this is a promotion of sorts - TO VOTE FOR BN (BARISAN NASIONAL) today!!

Here's a closer look at the message they sent to me...

I'm not going to black-out the phone number as I want to show that this number is not from any local SMS shortcode or local SIM. The number seems to come from some SMS-gateway or something.

I'm not sure how they got my mobile but I'm not surprised at how they may have gotten it.. They probably bought it from some company who keeps a database of numbers - much like how insurance/credit card companies get hold of your number from the bank or some financial institution.

I wanted to see what time this message was sent out, i.e. in technical terms - "what time did their spam batch job started"...

It seems that the SMS-C (SMS Centre) has received it at 4:28am. The job probably ran around the clock since they have to spam notify millions of subscribers of the 3 mobile providers in Malaysia.

Well, I have to say that I don't check my mobile at 4:28am and since I had my mobile turned off, I didn't see it until much later in the day.

Did this message persuade me to vote for BN? Well.... I can't say... My vote is private.. For me only to know and NOT FOR YOU TO FIND OUT!!

Happy Voting folks. You've still got about 2 hours more to go!!!

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