#Text bomb how to how to
#Text bomb how to android

In this case, there are thousands of pairs of marker characters in sequence that say, вЂњfrom now on, write from left-to-right, as is usual in EnglishвЂќ, followed immediately by, вЂњchanged my mind, now go right-to-left, Hebrew styleвЂќ.ДЄnd so it goes, with the file telling any app that loads it to keep swapping direction, even though thereвЂ™s nothing to display between each direction switch.

#Text bomb how to how to

The latest WhatApp text bomb, for instance, is even publicly available so you can download it for your own, ahem, experiments, and it looks very simple at first sight:ДЄs weвЂ™ve highlighted in the image above, however, the message is actually well over 100 kilobytes, because itвЂ™s crammed with characters that are there to tell you how to display the text, rather than to tell you what text to display. вЂ¦now those are hard problems that need lots of processing power and RAM to perform complex computations on lots of data.Д«ut how hard can it be do display some text?

Playing live video streams performing Bitcoin transactions encrypting files rendering complex, interactive web pages recognising fingerprints and faces displaying ever-changing 3D maps for real-time satellite navigationвЂ¦

#Text bomb how to android

If you receive, your phone вЂ“ whether itвЂ™s an iPhone or Android вЂ“ could become unresponsive, forcing you to restart it.ДЄs far as we know, thatвЂ™s about as bad as it gets, and after restarting, you should be able to delete the offending message so it doesnвЂ™t disrupt you again.ДЄt this point, youвЂ™re probably wondering how something as simple as a text message can cause problems for modern software. Other articles have insisted that the damage is more than just theoretical вЂ“ the Birmingham Mail, for instance, headlined its article to state unequivocally that вЂњthis WhatsApp text bomb is destroying recipientsвЂ™ phonesвЂњ.ДЇortunately, the article itself is a bit more conciliatory, noting that: (After all, you could win the lottery tomorrow, but you wonвЂ™t.)

Some articles have been hedging their bets by urging you to watch out for вЂњthe text bomb that could destroy your phoneвЂњ, which is dramatic without actually being definitive. Just how alarmed you are depends on where youвЂ™ve looked. YouвЂ™ve probably seen the news already: thereвЂ™s a text message going around that can cause WhatsApp to freeze or crash (if those arenвЂ™t essentially the same thing).