Text Spam Out of Control
imgur.com
imgur.com
I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's become clear this is out of hand.
Yes, agreed. In my opinion the entire SS7 signalling network would have to be deprecated by something and 100% decommissioned and / or wireless providers globally would all have be regulated into shutting down all SS7 to mapi gateways to stop texting over SS7 as there is zero security designed into it. Anyone with an SS7 link can spoof their source as anyone. Scammers are not forced to enter via RCS. This doesn't entirely solve the problem but it's a start.
Then all wireless providers would have to be regulated into proving the person with a SIM card is who they say they are and SIM jacking would have to be near 100% mitigated. The bureaucracy in wireless providers and caving to lobbying is massive, having worked for one so whilst technically possible I am not sure if this can realistically be done for all wireless providers. Then laws in every country would have to be enforced that induce serious pain for scamming people and provide serious profit motives to law enforcement to track down the scammers. Any country repeatedly not enforcing the laws would need to be isolated from both the SS7 network and the internet entirely.
I am not confident that any of this could ever realistically happen but I am grumpy, jaded and probably a little touched in the head. Probably inhaled too many radon daughters.
I'm old, I remember when usenet spam rolled in with Canter and Siegel. The original sociopathic usenet and email spammers wanted everyone to delete the spam posts and emails. Everyone except the spammers said that wouldn't work. Every piece of proposed legislation left the door open for at least 1 spam to get through, to which everyone was supposed to unsubscribe. That wouldn't work, obviously, it gave every sociopath one bite of the apple, and some time frame between when naives unsubscribed and the law required sociopaths to stop spamming.
Of course usenet crumpled under the weight of spam first. It took years for spammers to render the public phone system useless, and now they're coming for texting. This is entirely predictable. A very few people, probably less than 100, can make money from ruining texting, but a few of those 100 people will bribe the US Congress and pay a little extra to Verizon and other wireless providers to let it keep happening, just like when robocalls made voice calling useless, to great public outcry, and great official hand-wringing.