Mobile service providers in Pakistan have been inundated by calls from subscribers worried by a prank message that they could die of a deadly virus being transmitted via their phones.
The rumor was so effective that some mosques in the country’s biggest city, Karachi, made announcements that people were being killed by a mobile virus and they should be aware of God’s wrath.
The prankster warned users that a deadly virus transmitted through phones had killed 20 people.
Cellular operators moved to calm down subscribers and said in a joint statement: “These rumors are completely baseless. They do not make any sense in technological terms.”
Unless your phone runs Windows CE.
LOL
I’d like to say that people over there are morons (and I bet a lot of them are) – but I cant say that without saying that there are a lot of idiots hre in good ol usa that would fall for the same ruse.
People are morons. Especially in Pakistan.. rofl!
The threat is greatly exaggerated. I heard that the virus is easily disabled by pressing the “any” key 😉
Do most people think technology works by using magic? Good grief!
The killing of healthy brain cells by organized religion continues unabated…
Anyone else recognize this as the plot for Stephen King’s book, Cell?
All those that called in to inquire about the “virus” are hereby ordered to report to the sterilization facilities.
If you have already given birth, your children will be removed from your care so that they do not inherit the stupidity that has infected your family.
Oh yeah, you don’t get to use a cell phone either.
Prank just might work at a NASCAR race. A friend in Georgia claims the IQ in Arkansas actually goes up when NASCAR races near Atlanta. 🙂
(Now donning Nomex and ducking from flames to come from racing fans, that’s OK, I actually like Formula 1) http://www.f1technical.net/articles/30
#6, prophet, thanks!
My grandmother believed electricity was a mysterious force of some sort and was uncomfortable unless unused outlets had covers on them. People who did not grow up with a lot of technology can be pretty naive about how it works.
That said, people can be morons too. I’m headed to Pakistan to float a rumor about my uncle’s boss from Nigeria who died with four burpillion rupees in a hidden account and if you send 500 rupees to this P.O. box you can get…. wait, what currency do they use in Pakistan?
Yesterday after office hours we had to shut down all telephone communications in one of the buildings at work to test a new provider…
As a few people were still around at the time, I walked all over the building warning everyone that we would be doing this in the next 20 minutes and one of the end-users aked me: “Will you also be shutting down the CrapBerries?”
And I replied “Yeah, everything; including the cell phones!”.
End-user: “Oh… Will my cell phone start working again when I leave the building?”
As I still had 1 more floor to warn I just replied “Yes” and moved on…
So an SMS warning of a deadly virus infecting people resulting in a minority believing such crap isn’t too far-fetched…
🙂
F.
http://www.sacbee.com/129/v-print/story/135538.html
– A good, fairly neutral review of the phenomenon
oops – wrong thread, sorry