Originally published at: Block SMS Text Spam with Nomorobo - TidBITS
SMS text spam was driving David Shayer crazy, and with the US election season heating up, the problem was only getting worse. After trying various strategies, he managed to rein in the problem with Nomorobo.
@das
I have the MalwareBytes which can also perform some filtering. Did you look at it or did it not come up on your radar.
I’m curious how it performs. I just restored my subscription and turned on SMS filtering. I’ll post an update after a few days. I have been receiving between 2 and 6 political spam texts each day, so I should know pretty quickly how well the filtering is performing.
Jonathan I didn’t know MalwareBytes could do SMS spam filtering, I’ll have to check it out and see how well it works. Their Mac malware scan is very good. As I mentioned in the article, this wasn’t a comprehensive look at every SMS spam filter in the app store.
One thing I noticed installing MalwareBytes is that the app forces you to buy one of the yearly subscription options. There is also a monthly subscription, which you can switch to later in Settings > Subscriptions, but the app doesn’t tell you that, or let you select it.
Is there the equivalent of Nomorobo in Australia?
Frankly this whole spam issue is mostly the fault of slack/greedy telephone service providers. It is deplorable that the system allows nuisance callers to spoof valid phone numbers.
The same for robocalls - how difficult is it to identify them? At the very least subscribers (victims) should be able to opt out of them.
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So far MalwareBytes spam filtering isn’t doing well. I’ve had it installed on my iPhone all day. I’ve received 8 spam texts so far, MalwareBytes caught none of them.
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All of your frustrations rang true to me as well, I have been getting so many messages from political beggars asking for donations, I could scream. They always start off calling me Kathryn. I am not Kathryn.
I was in the process of setting up Nomorobo, when I checked on the price after the free period. Seems I downloaded Nomorobo Max somehow. It has a yearly price of $79.99 single or $99.99 family.
I’m wondering now how effective Nomorobo will be compared to their premium product.
Did you happen upon Nomorobo Max during your research?
I’m going to hold off doing the sign up until I get more information. If anyone has compared Nomorobo and the Max editions, please share your results here.
It is not $20 per year it is $60 per year
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I am guessing we are all at a loss why you cannot block all calls & messages that are not in your contacts. I am guessing this has something to do with 2FA.
I keep on adding the scammer/spammer to the Apple blocked list and never respond to any of them.
The only other issue I have: Is not being able to set MacOS Messages.app to “Known Sender Only” ( As the default )
I tried NoMoRobo a couple of years ago. It worked great for spam calls but I never enabled the spam text blocking because I didn’t love the idea of letting them read all of my texts.
The app says:
“When you receive an SMS message, your iPhone will send the sender’s phone number and the contents of that SMS message to Nomorobo. This allows Nomorobo to analyze the contents of text messages and proactively block new spammers based on message content rather than simply blocking messages from a list of phone numbers. As time goes on, the Spam Text Blocker will get better and better. “
Anyone else have an issue with that?
WHY AM I BEING CHARGED FOR ACTIVE ARMOR AND YOU DO NOT PAY FOR IT?
$4.99 a month per phone is my charge
Check your plan. Some include it, while others don’t but you can add it as an extra charge. If your plan says it is included, then contact Billing and ask them to remove the $4.99 charge. They won’t refund prior charges though, I asked.
EDIT: I found this in an AT&T support article ( Get The AT&T ActiveArmor Mobile Security App - AT&T Wireless Customer Support ):
“AT&T ActiveArmorSM mobile security is free with your AT&T Wireless® or AT&T Prepaid® service.”
“Advanced mobile security is included at no extra charge with our AT&T Unlimited Premium®, Unlimited ExtraSM, and Unlimited Elite® (no longer sold) wireless plans. Don’t have one of these plans? You can purchase advanced mobile security for $3.99 per month.”
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Has Nomorobo dropped landline? I’m told it is only for wireless and VOIP lines.
@coopermj I tested the cheapest plan from Nomorobo which is $20/year. They do have more expansive plans which add other features, but I think the SMS spam filtering is the same.
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2 posts were split to a new topic: Protecting against voice capture
As I usually do, I went to the App Store to peruse Nomorobo reviews before I decide to download an app. . . I start with the “most recent” comments, since the info tends to be more relevant i.e. things can get better or worse over-time.
Based on the number of negative reviews, I am going to pass. . . I didn’t even bother to check the “most critical” reviews since there would be so many duplicates from the “most recent” category.
@das My experience is mirroring yours. I re-enabled the text filtering in MalwareBytes and it picked up none.
I installed and enabled Nomorobo and it has flagged all the spams that have arrived.
Now if my Mac would just recognize the categorizations that Nomorobo has done so I don’t have to see them there…
This is my issue as well. First, as noted above, an item marked by Nomorobo as “junk” on the iPhone remains on the Mac like every other text message.
Second (and this is bizarre), if I delete a Nomorobo-designated junk message from the iPhone, the same message remains on the Mac for several hours. Eventually the deleted message disappears from the Mac, but I have noticed that the delay can run 12+ hours.
Perhaps Nomorobo is temporarily hiding the message before permanently deleting it, or perhaps Nomorobo is somehow creating a delay in the syncing of deleted messages between iPhone and Mac.
I have the distinct feeling that the kind of spam messages I’m trying to block won’t be blocked by any service, which is a shame.
Mine start with a very innocuous greeting like “hi, how are you?”, but invariably if you answer them, you’ll be on the text with them for hours. I did that twice, but never again.
I can’t shut off unknown callers or texters, because a new customer might call or text me.
Nomorobo is however, less than half the cost of Verizon Call Filter Plus.
That’s good. I get those but I never answer a text from somebody I don’t know. (Just once I had someone follow up when I didn’t respond - it was a sales person from a home solar installation company.) I’d also never call back if somebody I didn’t know left me a voicemail, or email back if I received an email like that from an address I don’t know. (For email that just gets trained as spam as soon as I can.)
Circling back to that AI discussion in another thread, wouldn’t text message spam detection be a great feature for machine learning? It could go into a special section or tab that lets you look to make sure that the spam detection wasn’t a false positive. Here’s hoping that this is something that Apple is thinking about.
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Regarding US political parties text spam: My rule is to never give my mobile phone number to any politician. That means when I take part in writing letters to, or signing a petition to any politician, I never provide my mobile number. Why? As expected, these numbers are collected and either shared or sold. It’s the same old story, the same as email addresses. Since certain politicians demand a phone number, I originally used all 5s as the number. One of my politicians got wise to that, so I’ve had to become more creative. One thing not to do is type in a random number that could victimize a real person. I’ve had that happen to me, with junk sent using someone else’s name.
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