Mymessages.wireless.att.com


  • Considered Harmful

    OK, I'm receiving harassing SMS messages, and looking for ways to block this person without paying a $5/mo service charge. After a bit of Googling, someone notes that I can manage how incoming messages are handled at mymessages.wireless.att.com. Which is not integrated with any of the rest of their systems apparently, and not really linked to from anywhere you'd find it. OK, so I go there, it says enter my wireless number and password (in plaintext over the wire).

    Hm, I know, I have an AT&T account, let me try that password. Didn't work, let me try again. Nope. Maybe I used that other password? No. Oh, I guess I don't actually have an account (even though I already have a few with AT&T). Let me create one.

    OK, wireless number, password, verification number gets texted to me, that's all fine. Let me log in. Nope. Your account has been locked for too many invalid log in attempts. The account that didn't exist until 2 seconds ago.

    OK, I wait out the waiting period, and try again. The fuck? The password I just created doesn't work. I'm 110% positive I didn't typo it either time. What's that? My password was TOO LONG? And instead of a validator informing me of such IT JUST CHOPPED OFF ALL THE EXTRA CHARACTERS? Yes. myPassword.Substring( 0, 8 ) worked just fine. (I actually found this out with a bit of Googling because I never would have thought to try it.)

    I finally get in their damn portal and find out I can only block "email" SMS messages and not regular SMS messages, so it was a waste of time.

    So, to recap...
    1. Obscure, hard-to-find little self-service portal separate from the rest of the account management stuff.
    2. Plaintext authentication.
    3. Had to make a separate account when I already had an AT&T account.
    4. My account was created locked because I tried to log in to it when it didn't exist.
    5. It silently truncated any characters after the 8th from my password.


  • Or you could just use Google voice.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    OK, I'm receiving harassing SMS messages, and looking for ways to block this person...

    Don't water the garden if you don't want to end up pulling weeds.


  • Considered Harmful

    @mikeTheLiar said:

    Or you could just use Google voice.

    You got my hopes up. I started to port my number, then it told me it would cancel my service plan with AT&T and I'd be charged an early termination fee (which is substantial). I could get a new number, but since the harrasser has my old number it wouldn't do me much good.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    Or you could just use Google voice.

    You got my hopes up. I started to port my number, then it told me it would cancel my service plan with AT&T and I'd be charged an early termination fee (which is substantial). I could get a new number, but since the harrasser has my old number it wouldn't do me much good.

    Can't you just have AT&T give you a new number, then run that behind GV and only give out your new GV #?



  • Are telecommunications companies shit in all countries or just most of them? They are a case worth studying IMO.



  • @spamcourt said:

    Are telecommunications companies shit in all countries or just most of them? They are a case worth studying IMO.

    I've had VZW for something like 7 years now and the only complaint I have is it's bloody expensive.



  • @joe.edwards said:

    OK, I'm receiving harassing SMS messages, and looking for ways to block this person without paying a $5/mo service charge.

    Telephones have been around longer than the internet. We can figure out how to filter spam email, but you have to spend money or jump through hoops to filter out spam phone numbers. I do not understand this.

    I have a home phone. Unless it rings, cuts off, then rings again, I assume it's a spam caller, because unless my housemate is expecting a call, it's a robot or somebody looking for someone I've never heard of.

    This doesn't happen often enough to be a problem, but if I was getting a call from a robot every 5 minutes, I would have to disconnect my phone, thus losing half the use of my phone.

    Are you at least able to make the handset text tone silent when the harasser's number texts your phone?



  • @Shoreline said:

    Telephones have been around longer than the internet. We can figure out how to filter spam email, but you have to spend money or jump through hoops to filter out spam phone numbers. I do not understand this.

    I think you answered your own question. Telephones have fewer options than email because it's an older technology--it's not so simple to just re-route your phone number through some kind of filter service. Then there's the fact that most spam email filtering isn't really "free". Sure, Google doesn't charge to filter your spam, but they do show you ads.

    Finally, the cost of spamming via telephone is a lot higher than via email. That meant that email spam got seriously out-of-control pretty rapidly, so people had to develop technologies to cope with it. Even now, I get very few "spam" calls or texts, but I get tons of email spam.


  • Trolleybus Mechanic

     The only thing I needed to read to know this would be a complete clusterfuck of clusterfuckery was the first two characters of the OP's subject line.



  • The only reason I bought phone service in my new apartment was so I could get ADSL. If anybody wants to call me they have my cellphone number, and my city doesn't have cable internet (let alone fibre). And wireless internet is too complicated and expensive at my place.



  • @Shinhan7 said:

    The only reason I bought phone service in my new apartment was so I could get ADSL.

    They don't offer naked DSL where you live?



  • @joe.edwards said:

    @mikeTheLiar said:
    Or you could just use Google voice.

    You got my hopes up. I started to port my number, then it told me it would cancel my service plan with AT&T and I'd be charged an early termination fee (which is substantial). I could get a new number, but since the harrasser has my old number it wouldn't do me much good.

    AT&T blows goats. GV is integrated into my sprint phone.


  • Fake News

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @Shinhan7 said:
    The only reason I bought phone service in my new apartment was so I could get ADSL.

    They don't offer naked DSL where you live?

    Yeah, uh, either Horrizon or the Death Star (whichever crap LEC you have) should be able to give you a dry loop for DSL (aka naked DSL), which is DSL sans phone service.



  • Telephone service is shit vs email because there's no such thing as a monopoly on email.



  • @MiffTheFox said:

    Telephone service is shit vs email because there's no such thing as a monopoly on email.

    There's no monopoly on cellphones, but people still complain about them all the time. I dunno, maybe people just like complaining.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Shinhan7 said:
    The only reason I bought phone service in my new apartment was so I could get ADSL.

    They don't offer naked DSL where you live?

    I've seen naked housekeeping, naked carwash employees, naked hair stylers, naked waitresses and naked news. But naked DSL is something else; if they have attractive female engineers I'd definitely let them ping my nodes.



  • @Shinhan7 said:

    The only reason I bought phone service in my new apartment was so I could get ADSL. If anybody wants to call me they have my cellphone number, and my city doesn't have cable internet (let alone fibre). And wireless internet is too complicated and expensive at my place.

    Call the provider up and see if they set up a "dry loop". Basically a phone line with no voice capabilities on it.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Finally, the cost of spamming via telephone is a lot higher than via email.
    The amount of voice spam seems to have increased a lot recently, and it comes from loads of different numbers. Fortunately, I can deal with it by just not answering any incoming calls at all unless the number is in the phone already — most people I know will use a different technique to get in contact — but it must be really annoying for others.

    I'm guessing that it's a combination of robodiallers, ill-advised "taster" accounts for phone service around the world, and scumbag spammers who should be taken out into the middle of a field and buried face down in fire ant nest.



  • @dkf said:

    The amount of voice spam seems to have increased a lot recently, and it comes from loads of different numbers.

    Yeah, it's definitely increasing as the telephone networks open up and the cost of telephone spamming comes down. Of course, we'll probably see responses to it, just like we did when email spam became a problem.


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