Displaying items by tag: Text Messaging

In the picture above you can see the first mobile phone to receive a text message in history. The message was "Merry Christmas" sent by a computer on the 3rd of December 1992. Neil Papworth from the company Sema Group (now Mavenir Systems) was the sender, using the Vodafone network to transfer it to the mobile Orbitel 901 which was owned by Richard Jarvis, this well known telecommunications company employee. Therefore we can say that today we celebrate the 20th Birthday of SMS (Short Message Service).

It seems there is a flaw in the way that Apple implements the SMS protocol on their phones. As most know there is no such thing as secure communication when you are transmitting data back and forth over the internet. There are methods that are more secure than others, but nothing is “secure”. This holds true for the PDU protocol (Protocol Description Unit which covers SMS) which has multiple pieces, standards and even methods for transfer. Because of the complex nature of this standard it is in the hand of the phone developer and the carrier to make sure the implementation is done correctly.