Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21574283-29677,00.html

Article:
* April 17, 2007

WORRIED Afghans switched off their mobile phones yesterday as rumors spread that a deadly virus could be contracted by answering calls from "strange numbers".

An official with Afghan Wireless Communication Company, Abdullah, said hundreds of calls were received from worried customers who had heard the rumor.

“There's a strange rumor that if you get a phone call from a strange number, if you hit 'OK' (to answer the phone), blood will come from your nose and ears, and you will die,” said Mar, a taxi driver, who said he was just about to turn off his phone.

A similar rumor prompted a rash of panic calls to cellular service providers in neighboring Pakistan last week.

Afghan officials scrambled to calm alarmed cell phone users.

“We have no reports of anyone answering their telephone and then bleeding from their noses,” said Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the Health Ministry. “Not today, not yesterday, and not before then - we have no such reports.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary accused “the enemy” of creating propaganda to spread anxiety among the public.

“It has no rational basis,” Bashary said. “It is not possible that through the wireless phone, a virus is transmitted to a person. The enemy wants the people to be under psychological pressure.”

If found, those responsible for spreading the rumor will be arrested and prosecuted, Bashary said.

AP

LOL thats funny...but like the Y2K virus.

Yeah, when i first read the headline i thought of like, a java game that automatically spams itself out via Blue Tooth or something, or a company spamming SMS messages giving you a "free game"

and then it doing some malicious to your phone, i did not think it was something as daft as what the article describes, some serious conspiracy theorists out there.

More to the point, once i understood what it was, i thought it would have been a sound or frequency played.. yet they say:



... its not a virus that would transmit, if it was within the realms of possibility it would be done via sounds... last time i checked, thats what phone was designed to transmit

the sound waves from a jet engine are supposed to be capable of inducing nose bleeds, more likley from proximity to the source of the pressure waves though - some how I don't htink the peizzos/diaphram speakers in mobiles are quite that powerful.

No, not that powerful, but i can see how a high enough pitched frequency could cause some discomfort for the person answering the phone.

still, my point was that the "interior ministry" (whatever they do) figured it would be a "wirelessly transferred virus" yet no mention of the only plausible way of attempting such a thing was made.

oh god, maybe down the track something like this will be possible, but now days, blah, first people need to learn how to answer a mobile phone.

"Afghan officials scrambled to calm alarmed cell phone users" - Are they a bunch of teachers? (inside joke)

Somehow, i doubt it, i never got the email in big bold caps sent to me...