COMMENTARY-- How do you know when a technology has come of age? When people stop complaining about all those 'upper-class tech-heads' using it and start complaining about how the technology is being used to rip them off.

Mobile phones have tipped over the edge into established territory, and it is the short messaging service that has pushed the technology out of respectability and into ubiquitousness. This was to be expected -- after all, it was the 'communication channel' of SMS that did for mobile phones what e-mail did for the Internet. But the same problems that email faces are rearing their ugly heads for mobile phone users.

SMS chain messages have been around for a while, mostly using ascii graphics to create images that fall into either the 'cutesy' or 'pervy' category. In India the practice has been taken one step further by adding strict instructions to forward the message to keep bad luck at bay. It's suspected that the practice may have been started by the nations telcos.

Scams are also flying over the 2G ether, the latest one promising recipients US$30,000 from the Massachusetts State Lottery. This SMS directs them to a Web page where they are meant to input their personal details and pay a nominal fee. This style of scam has been doing the e-mail rounds for a while now, and was sent via snail mail before that. It won't be long before we're routinely contacted by Nigerians who received our mobile number from a close business partner.

What about spam? Rumours of spam SMS flooding our phones have been around for a while, although to date most have been the result of signing agreements in competitions and so forth. However, one reader has contacted ZDNet Australia   claiming to have received SMS spam from a real estate agent they had previously never dealt with. The main reason for the lack of annoying messages is that the cost of sending an SMS is with the sender instead of the receiver. Prospective spammers may also have to face stiff fines following legislation recently introduced by the federal government.

Mobile Phone viruses are also a core concern for mobile phone users. Companies are already looking to introduce anti-virus software to the higher-end mobiles. Most people would be far less inconvenienced by having the data on their mobile phone wiped out than by having their computer wiped, and the recovery process would be easier. Still, the prospect of someone creating a self-forwarding SMS virus is a terrifying one, as users could suddenly be faced with an unexpectedly large bill. Sending an SMS to 100 people in your address book will cost around AU$25, and if it's an MMS you're looking at AU$75, depending on your carrier. Suddenly there's very good reason to hope the mobile phone software is more secure that the computer software we've been given to date.

What do you think? Ever been the recipient of SMS in spam or scam format? Are you concerned by the concept of mobile phone viruses? Let us know at edit@zdnet.com.au.

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