Looking back through 2002 it may well become
referred to as the year that SMS grew up. At the start of the year
there was much hype surrounding the UK Governments decision to
test electronic voting via SMS. The announcement was made on the 5
February 2002, with the Government saying that it would test
electronic voting in local elections in May 2002. The tests cost
approximately £3.5 million and included voting by text messages
from mobile phones using SMS.
Gartner raised a number of issues with SMS voting including
usability problems, and summarised that "Whether SMS can
become sufficiently secure, usable and anonymous for critical
applications such as political elections remains uncertain".
Among the key reasons was usability with Gartner explaining
that making mistakes with SMS is easy and that users may be unsure
whether they have voted correctly. Given the problems and the
publicity over voting in Florida for the US elections it may be
that error rates and usability issues ultimately make the problem
of SMS too large to overcome. There are also issues over anonymity
and one solution of adding ID numbers could in fact increase the
risk of usability issues.
Despite the apparent usability issues SMS text messages are
sent in their millions. In March 2002 approximately 1.3 billion
person to person SMS messages were sent according to figures
captured by The Mobile Data Association. And not only is SMS
popular with users it is also hugely popular with marketers. A
recent survey by Enpocket published October 2002 identified that
permission based mobile media is on average 50% more successful at
building brand awareness than TV and 130% more successful than
radio. Enpocket conclude that the success is attributable to the
mobile phone being "such a personal and
direct medium - the strength of an individual's relationship with
their mobile phone is unique. It is an uncluttered medium in which
the marketer's message can be tightly targeted by time of
day/week, location and demographics to optimise relevance."
The summer brought with it a huge advertising campaign by
Vodafone that suggested users get their flirting done before they
arrive home. Maybe this campaign understood better than most the
reason SMS is so popular with users in that it is perceived as a
quick, personal, silent and ultimately private form of
communication.
But maybe the bubble is about to burst. Massive security issues
were raised late in the year by a court case surrounding Philip
Nourse, a university student in England, who was sentenced to five
months in prison for obtaining personal data, performing
unauthorized modification of a computer program and harassment.
Among other activities, he posted highly personal information
to his ex-girlfriend's Web space on the "Friends
Reunited" site, and persuaded two friends at the mobile phone
operator mmO2 to send him copies of her SMS communications. mmO2
dismissed the two employees but the issue of access to personal
messages has now been clarified.
Although it has long been considered highly complicated for
potential hackers to get into personal SMS messages it would seem
that pressurising individuals into providing the relevant
information is no longer beyond the bounds of reason. Gartner is
suggesting that companies put out an immediate mandate that
business users no longer transmit potentially confidential
information via SMS. Maybe private users will also think twice
before pressing the send button.
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