
The Valentine’s Day Text Message Mystery - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/08/style/text-message-valentines.html
======
Frondo
Oddly enough, I just saw this pop up on Reddit, as an awkward consequence of
the vanishing/reappearing text messages:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/dsyzo1...](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/dsyzo1/29f_i_received_a_text_from_my_boyfriend_29m_that/)

tl;dr: someone thought her boyfriend was cheating because a message he'd
likely sent months ago appeared in the middle of the night

~~~
lostlogin
There could be some very pretty big consequences to this screw up. It would
seem the a prompt message of explanation might be a good idea. But it’s a
teleco, so that would seem unlikely.

~~~
thephyber
> to this screw up

While it's likely explained by other commenters as a possible replay of
previously sent messages, AFAIK there is no SLA for the guaranteed windows of
SMS delivery.

Also, "pretty big consequences" rarely apply when you enter into a "binding
arbitration" clause with your cell phone provider.

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arminiusreturns
Third party doctrine is a known loophole to the surveillance state for getting
around pesky privacy laws, and my gut instinct tells me this third party sms
gateway is a goldmine for whatever prism has become these days. TOS/EULAs
probably say they can do whatever they want with your data including sharing
with third parties so they have a legal out because it's not just the
corporations influencing congress via K-street, but because the military
industrial congressional complex has a vested interest in providers not
protecting our privacy, and will railroad any provider that tries to stand up
to them (see: Quest).

Congress on both sides is utterly corrupt and unrepresentative and until
America wakes up to that fact and stops playing the two-party game nothing
will change. (duvergers law has many weaknesses)

~~~
Spooky23
The carriers keep everything anyway.

~~~
arminiusreturns
This is true but slightly different regulations will apply to the data.

~~~
twothamendment
Regulations? Those rules the government makes? I bet they look the other way
when they are the ones asking for data.

------
seba_dos1
Worth noting that SMS does not guarantee delivery in any way and can take
unspecified amount of time to deliver. I've often seen messages delivered days
or weeks after being sent.

~~~
mike_hock
We need TCP over SMS!

~~~
jolmg
But then you can't send texts if the other person's phone is off, out of
range, or otherwise without service...

and I think you mean backwards, SMS over TCP.

~~~
mike_hock
Well, you typically layer TCP over an unreliable lower-level transport to get
reliable transmission, so that works, too.

Also, SMS over TCP sounds somewhat reasonable, so I didn't wanna go with that.

~~~
_bxg1
SMS over TCP over SMS

------
degenerate
Non-paywall link: [http://archive.is/0v5YA](http://archive.is/0v5YA)

~~~
dsamarin
Connection refused ?

~~~
ckrailo
Your DNS (lots of threads/comments on HN, such as
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19828317)).

tl;dr: Don't use 1.1.1.1

------
Analemma_
There was an amusing story on the most recent episode of the Verge's podcast,
where they mentioned that when they assigned a reporter to cover this story,
the bulk of the time he spent on it was just making sure it wasn't some kind
of viral marketing scheme for an upcoming romcom film or something.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
This is one of the reason why the Apple iOS messaging app is so popular. IIUC,
when sending messages among users who have iPhones, SMS is not used.

~~~
maest
Or WhatsApp, if you want to message people who aren't on ios.

~~~
rthomas6
Or signal, which has similar functionality but is always end to end encrypted
and open source.

~~~
seba_dos1
...or Matrix, or XMPP, which are decentralized and where attaching your phone
number to account is optional.

------
xwdv
It’s crushing when these phantom texts come back from people who had died or
had long been missing.

------
basch
some previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474961](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21474961)

~~~
danso
Apparently the NYT since then was able to coax a possible explanation from
Verizon, and from the company that Verizon et al uses:

> _On Thursday afternoon, after many unreciprocated emails were sent to
> carriers, a spokesman for Verizon suggested that the answer might lie with a
> third-party text message service provider called Syniverse Technologies, in
> Tampa, Fla._

> _Was Syniverse the vendor responsible?_

> _“You really need to ask them that,” the Verizon spokesman said._

> ... _Late in the afternoon on Thursday, a spokesman for the company, Kevin
> Petschow, said in an email: “During an internal maintenance cycle last
> night, 168,149 previously undelivered text messages were inadvertently sent
> to multiple mobile operators’ subscribers.”_

~~~
basch
Looks like that was speculated here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21478218](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21478218)

~~~
prawn
That reads like someone with specific inside knowledge IMO.

~~~
blotter_paper
Note that it's currently the only comment from that user, and the username
looks like a random throwaway (unless vb6sp6 is a big fan of Visual Basic 6.0,
Service Pack 6).

But maybe it's an obvious guess to a wide number of people with knowledge of
that general ecosystem of companies.

~~~
prawn
I'm guessing it was someone within Verizon up-stream, given they were thrown
under the bus. They'd know who was to blame, would potentially resent their
employer being linked, and could pass off their comment as a guess if
pressured.

