Fact or Myth?

[TexasStooge]

A friend of mine in his late 30s who I like to call "Anxiety Boy" left his pager behind, because he told me that there's a virus in there. I told my mom, dad, and my other friends in Irving that story, they told me that there is no such thing as a virus in a pager. Tuesday, I told Anxiety Boy that there is no virus in the pager, he didn't buy one word of it.

Just earlier this week, I might've found the so-called virus in the pager, a cheap-o battery!

I believe my parents and friends response, I just wanted to her what you gotta say about this story.

[chadtm80]

No Virus

[alicia-w]

Question No. 1085 :
Do pagers get viruses like the computers?
Answer 1 :

It is highly unlikely for pagers to be infected by viruses. Viruses need a means that will introduce its program code into the device. The only way this can be done today is through manufacturer (very unlikely). The other data input is, of course, the call-back number, numeric code or message. In all this cases, there is a trusted middleman, that is the service provider like Sunpage, Singtel or Hutchinson Paging. This middleman is the one who transmitted the message to you with messages (numeric or character) which are quite well defined and structured.

Having said that, what are pagers vulnerable to? Besides rough handling by the owner-user, faults that might lie with the manufacturer are software bugs, and right, the millenium bug! If your pager has a two-number year format, it might present the date obscurely. None the less, it would be highly unlikely to affect the ability of your pager to receive messages.


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Answer 2 :

Presently we have not heard of any. But with more and more functionalities built into the handphone and pagers, someday you may just get the virus in them. What do hackers gain from doing this? Beats me. But it is conceivable that some may just send false messages or induces mass calls to sabotage the telephone company. The hackers may just gain by blackmailing the phone companies.


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Answer 3 :

So far NO.

http://www.science.edu.sg/ssc/detailed.jsp?artid=463&type=6&root=1&parent=1&cat=17

[TexasStooge]

Thanx for those who responded.

I spoke to him about it and I think he finally got the hint that there's no such thing as a virus in pager, however I'm not holding my tongue.

We'll see what happens in a few days.

[The Big Dog]

Get him a tin foil hat so the aliens can't read his thoughts.

[TexasStooge]

Get him a tin foil hat so the aliens can't read his thoughts.

LOL!!! Last year, when my weather radio was having some kind of interference, he thought it was Aliens in cloaking devices getting some info from earth. I told him so many times "Heavy equipment has jammed the frequencies on this weather radio, I don't know why they did it at the time of severe weather, but..." and he didn't get it.