No - You DON'T Have Pictures!

This afternoon, a friend asked for my help. He'd got an SMS text message telling him there was a picture waiting for him at what appeared to be the website of a well-known mobile phone provider, and he needed someone with a PC and some access to the Internet to get it for him. He assumed that it would be a family photo – jokingly, I said I hoped it wouldn't be obscene.

It was... and that was far from all.

My friend decided to complain to the police, so he asked me to download the picture to print out as evidence – apparently texted pictures don't remain online once they've been viewed, so downloading it appeared to be the only way he could report it, and I did.

Next time I tried to go online, my browser crashed. I got a message asking me to switch off the computer, leave it for one minute, then switch on again. I've only ever had that message once before – when I'd unwittingly downloaded a program with a rogue dialer embedded in it.

In case you're not familiar with these menaces, they're bits of coding that change your access number for the Internet without your knowledge, and route you through a seriously expensive premium line, instead.

My online access is protected against those, and the protection works by crashing the browser and asking me to switch the computer off (not just restart it). When I switch it on again, it reinstalls the proper access numbers.

If you have a cell-phone that doesn't accept pictures, you might like to treat any messages that tell you there's a picture waiting for you just the way you'd treat that kind of message in your e-mail from someone that you can't identify – delete it, without following the link.

If your ISP's not giving you rogue dialer protection, the alternative could be a very nasty phone bill.