What is this WAP request that is showing up in my Google Voice app?

October 30, 2015 10:01 AM

I have a weird (what appears to be) link attempting to get my phone to follow a URL that is a WAP request. What the?

I'm linking to a pic of the request so that if it is something truly horrible no one will click on it:

screen shot

Any ideas what is going on exactly? I was not using my phone at all when the message came in.

posted by mzurer to Technology (3 answers total)

Best answer: What kind of phone and who is your provider? I did find this Google Voice thread that seems to suggest it's a bug with Sprint.
posted by yerfatma at 11:11 AM on October 30, 2015

Best answer: This thread at XDA has a few other people that has gotten the same message. It's a OMA DM push message, which can be used to configure a phone with for example correct settings for your current network. It was more common with old feature phones I think, and should normally not be shown if the device understands the protocol correctly.

I don't think it's something to worry about, but OMA DM is an interesting attack vector...
posted by rpn at 11:25 AM on October 30, 2015

Response by poster: It's a few gen's back LG phone on Sprint. I note I neglected to mention it only shows up in Google Voice, not in the messaging app. I suspect it is a behind the scenes thing that my phone knows to hide, but is showing up in Google Voice because it didn't get that memo.
posted by mzurer at 12:26 PM on October 30, 2015