The first SMS was apparently sent in the UK in 1992 and we're now texting each other to the tune of trillions of messages each year. Photo / Thinkstock
The first SMS was apparently sent in the UK in 1992 and we're now texting each other to the tune of trillions of messages each year. Photo / Thinkstock
As the inventor of texting passes away, Juha Saarinen looks back at the humble beginnings of SMS and its capabilities.
Matti Makkonen, the Finnish engineer who over a pizza devised texting, or short message service - SMS - for mobile phones, died last week. He never earnt much money from his invention, which was simple yet fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another.
SMS missives only fit 160 characters but they're mobile, easy and fast to compose, available everywhere and took the world by storm because they are so versatile and besides, who doesn't have a cellphone these days?
You don't have to be that old to remember just how badly New Zealand telcos used to gouge their users for voice minutes - so people texted each other instead. I still recall people texting their landline numbers to each other to avoid high voice charges. More annoyingly, I remember some rascals texting their mobile phone numbers to call from my landline with ensuing ruinously high bills.
You could argue SMS was the first mobile social network and Twitter was founded on texting.
Text messages are used for to authenticate users by for instance banks and social media. In fact, you could argue SMS was the first mobile social network and Twitter was founded on texting.
Less developed countries that don't have banking networks like we do use SMS for payments: M-Pesa used in Africa and South Asia is an elegant, lightweight payments service via texts that's helped countries in the region move away from cumbersome cash-based economies.
That's just some examples of what texting can do. The societal impact of texting's been huge as well; look at the moral panic over sexting, the despair around kids bullying each other with nasty SMS messages, and concern around txt spk ruining the English language.
For telcos, SMS has been a goldmine with huge margins. SMS costs very little for telcos to transmit, just a fraction of a cent per message. Telco margins for SMS are infamously high, in other words, when texts are charged at 10-20c per message.
So much so that it used to be popular even just a few years back to work out that it cost more per gigabyte to send SMS on Earth than it did to transmit data to Mars.
The first SMS was apparently sent in the UK in 1992 and we're now texting each other to the tune of trillions of messages each year. Makkonen invented something amazing that the world had never seen the like of before and by rights should've died a multi-billionaire.
A quiet achiever rather than a businessman, Makkonen instead preferred to see his invention take off and be developed further by other engineers. Read this 2012 BBC interview - done over SMS of course - with Makkonen to remember the great man.
Hacking Team hacked
Yesterday, news broke that an Italian company that I can guarantee most people have never heard of was hacked.
The company is the ludicrously named Hacking Team in Milan. Whoever did them over copied almost 400 gigabytes of Hacking Team's corporate data and posted it on the internet.
Why is this hack different from any of the others in recent times and why should you care?
Well, Hacking Team does exactly what its company name implies.
Screenshot from Hacking Team website
They take hacks, or exploits, and create intrusion programs and snoopware, like its remote control systems such as its flagship Da Vinci.
RCS can be planted on computers and smartphones, and used to access users' private data and to spy on them without their knowledge. Operators can turn on webcams, listen in on phone calls, grab screenshots and more.
It's the kind of nasty, intrusive, privacy-violating malware that earnt a Swedish hacker almost five years in US prison recently, plus a huge fine.
Spyware like Da Vinci are desirable not just for criminals but to the police for conducting secret surveillance of ... criminals. Across the ditch, the Australian Federal Police is listed as a customer of Hacking Team. In the past, Hacking Team has insisted that it only sells to reputable businesses and governments.
However, the leak yesterday points to Hacking Team having sold its spyware to some pretty nasty regimes like Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia where it's used to hunt down dissidents and journalists - in such countries, being targeted by oppressive regimes can mean torture and death, not just for the persons hunted but for their families and associates.
Screenshot from Hacking Team website
The hackers who hacked Hacking Team went further than copying over business data, emails and documents. They also snagged the source code for the spyware, which was also released by the hackers. This should in theory help above-board security vendors develop better protection against spyware, but could also be used to enhance existing malware.
Currently, there are legal moves in the West to regulate the trade in hacking tools and exploits which is understandable given that they can be used to devastating effect.
Many security experts disagree with regulating hacking tools however, saying this will only make it harder for legitimate companies to learn from the exploits and protect against them. Besides, if exploits are regulated, those wanting to buy them will simply go to Russian, Chinese, Iranian and other malware merchants instead.
Both sides make good points, but it is still uncomfortable to see police forces around the world use malware as a matter of course, with little or no oversight. It's expensive malware too, costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands per license.
