SRK sends Hoax Messages to Farah Khan!

Website lets people send SMS or Short Message Sevice for mobile to moblile text messaging and make phone calls to anyone using any number they wish!

Mid-Day Mumbai,a daily newspaper, sent SMSes from Shah Rukh’s number to his close friend Farah Khan.

Farah Khan was all excitement when Shah Rukh Khan sent her an SMS that read: "Let's plan a big Idd bash this year."

Imagine her shock when Mid-Day called her up and told her that it was Mumbai's favourite afternoon daily and not the filmstar who had sent her the SMS. Mid-Day did it using a website that allows Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP).

"This is so scary. I got two messages from Shah Rukh's number and he hadn't sent any of them. People can use the service easily to create misunderstandings," said Farah after.
Mid-Day told her how it had pulled this off.

Patanjal Vyas (20), from Ahmedabad, was eager to show the world the vulnerability of mobile networks.

"I realised sometime back that anyone's number could be used to make calls using VoIP. It's like creating a fake profile on the Internet. If this service is exploited, marriages could end up in divorces and a stock market crash could be triggered if a wrong message is sent from a leading brokerage firm CEO's number," said Patanjal.

The possibilities are endless and the consequences disastrous. Patanjal is not a hacker and he is not doing this for any publicity. All he wants to do is alert the cellular service providers. He has already sent warnings to all service providers in the country. "Except Airtel no one has bothered to respond,"said Patanjal. Mid-Day is deliberately not revealing the website's IP address.

Cellular firms deny internet threat:

He has also informed the telecom ministry about the loopholes but nothing has been done. Vyas is planning to file a PIL if no action is taken soon.

When Mid-Day crosschecked with the service providers, they dismissed the threat saying it plain speculation.

"I can't comment on such speculative things, I have got meetings and I have got things to do," said Harit Nagpal, Vodafone's director for marketing and new services.

Reliance, Airtel and BPL spokespersons said that they were unaware of such loopholes.
"I think this is a b****y con, I don't believe this, someone is trying to market his product," said T V Ramchandran, director-general of Cellular Operators Association of India, an organisation of GSM operators.

Union telecom secretary

D Mathur was livid when we quizzed him over the issue. "I will not comment on this. What do you want me to do?"

Anti-terrorist squad chief

K P S Raghuvanshi, however, was more forthcoming when he said that his department is aware of such technologies. "We are aware of this and we are confident of nabbing anyone who misuses this," said Raghuvanshi.


How SRK's SMS was sent to Farah:

Mid-Day used Voice-over Internet Protocol
l VoIP sends voice information in digital format in discrete packets instead of using the traditional circuit-committed protocols of the public switched telephone network.
- Upala (Mid-Day journalist) is trying to talk to me about walking the ramp. What to do?
- Let's plan a big Idd bash this year

Krishna Kumar,Mid-DayMumbai