Skip to main content
  1. Dispatches/

Egypt tries to hang up on killer SMS rumours - Yahoo! News UK

·140 words·1 min
Articles Media News Sms Weird
Daniel Andrlik
Author
Daniel Andrlik lives in the suburbs of Philadelphia. By day he manages product teams. The rest of the time he is a podcast host and producer, writer of speculative fiction, a rabid reader, and a programmer.

Found via Warren Ellis:

The AFP is reporting a story in which the Egyptian government is struggling to dispel a widespread rumor of an SMS "from unknown foreign quarters" that kills. The rumor was picked up and reported (apparently as fact, unless I am reading this incorrectly) by the Egyptian Gazette. From the article:

"He died vomiting blood,followed by stroke, shortly after he received a message from an unknownphone [sic] number," the Egyptian Gazette reported on Wednesday.

"The number begins with the symbol (+) and ends with (111)," it said.

People always seem to buy into audacity, even when it contradicts reason. The bigger the lie, the more effective it seems to be. This is a classic example of that.

I am, of course, assuming that SMS has not actually become a carrier to an information package of death. :-)

Related

Someone’s Been Distributing My Baby Photos Online…
·119 words·1 min
Articles News Weird
Via Warren Ellis: I am disturbed. Charikot, Dolakha, March 29 - The birth of a bizarre-looking baby in Charikot, the headquarters of Dolakha district, on Wednesday, drew a huge number of onlookers to witness the astonishing sight.
All Your Ticks Are Named John Conner
·116 words·1 min
Articles News Tech Weird
I just read an article in Wired about a robot designed by the Virginia Military Institute that can troll around your yard recognize and collect ticks. The ticks are then placed inside the robots denim skirt, which ticks cling to naturally.
Miss Scarlet In The Library With An iPod
·78 words·1 min
Articles Funny News Weird
Well, it has finally happened, someone has used their iPod to kill someone else in a domestic dispute. Apparently, the woman in question killed her boyfriend after he deleted the contents of her MP3 player.