Mobile Stew

A new SMS encryption service is now available.  The service has been developed by CircleTech, s.r.o., a Czech software corporation. The Java (J2ME) application, which can run on majority of current mobile phones, uses encryption standard AES and user-derived keys to securely encrypt the SMS communication between parties which use it.

SMS 007 has been available for Czech customers for almost 5 months, but only very recently has entered the international market. The main distributor for Europe is Nokia Softwaremarket.

Besides encryption of the messages, SMS 007 has also other security features like a hidden contact list, which cannot be seen from the outside without knowledge of the main password - therefore, if someone steals your phone or just gets it in their hands for a while, he/she still cannot ...

I received an email earlier today from Text4Price asking me to check out their new SMS Price Comparison Service, which sends  price comparison results to mobile phones by SMS.  To use the service shoppers simply send an SMS with the word “find” plus the product name to 84070 e.g. "find WPN824". If the service can find a match an SMS is sent back with the lowest price found  If no match is found there is no charge, if a match is found the SMS costs 25p.

I received an email earlier today from Text4Price asking me to check out their new SMS Price Comparison Service, which sends  price comparison results to mobile phones by SMS.  To use the service shoppers simply send an SMS with the word “find” plus the product name to 84070 e.g. "find WPN824". If the service can find a match an SMS is sent back with the lowest price found  If no match is found there is no charge, if a match is found the SMS costs 25p.

The self-destruct sms service launched by Staellium over the weekend is proving to be popular with thousands of people subscribing so far.  I find this very impressive considering that each message costs 50p and a user has to sign-up for a minimum of ten messages. 

To use the service a small application has to be downloaded to the phone.  Messages that are then sent via the service are destroyed 40 seconds after being read, although for legal reasons a log of the message is kept on a secure server.

Apparently the Ministry of Defence is interested in using the system.  Other potential uses could be for sending username and password reminders.  If the time before deletion could be extended then the system could also be used to send vouchers and ...