Thanks to the rise of application stores on mobile phones scammers are having a ball at digging out exploits that can yield them extra pocket money. This latest application however, called Cancerblock, just screams disingenuous and frankly makes me a little disgusted after having to watch my father lose his battle with colon cancer. Cancerblock claims that it’ll shut off all the radios inside your mobile phone, essentially putting it in airplane mode, for a set amount of time before turning them back on again. It’ll do this over and over again, flipping the radios on and off, to save you from the evil antennas that lurk under the shiny black plastic of your device. They’re charging you $3 to give you spotty reception in other words, and they claim that 10% of the money they make from this application will be donated to cancer research.
Are you kidding me? First of all, the research on mobile phone use and cancer tells a different tale year after year. Some say it’s good, some say it’s bad, personally I just don’t care since the benefits of having a constantly connected screen on me at all times far outweigh the cons of a potential tumor. Eating right, staying in shape, these are the things that can improve your health and overall chances of surviving cancer. Turning your phone off? Not really. It’s important for children, since their skulls are thinner, but parents who stupidly give their 11 year old an iPhone deserve all the consequences of their actions.
Of course attracting attention this application may be a foolish idea, but we’re only going to see things like this turn up at a much higher rate since smartphone penetration is experiencing a tremendous amount of growth. Some will fall victim to this, and that’s just … painful.
[Via: Textually]