# Can text messages get their wires crossed? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 20, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030 "2015-06-20T21:32:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/1 "2015-06-20T21:32:54Z")
I was just texting with my girlfriend, when suddenly, out of context, I get a text from her that says, "No way José ". I asked her who is José, and she has no idea what I am talking about. We determine that she didn’t send that text, as it didn’t appear on her phone. I made a screen capture, but neither of us can figure out where it came from. Is there a ghost in my machine? ---
**Author:** ![excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@excavating\_for\_a\_mind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/excavating_for_a_mind)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/2 "2015-06-21T13:04:32Z")
My phone did a similar thing the other day. Out of the blue, it created a text that started with “out of the loop sometimes of donuts”. I thought it was a text I had forgotten to send, but when I wrote it, it said nothing about donuts (or loops for that matter). Does your girlfriend use voice to text? Maybe the phone got confused. ---
**Author:** ![andrewm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c57346/32.png) [@andrewm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andrewm)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/3 "2015-06-21T17:32:24Z")
DNS requests get changed in transit sometimes (due to cosmic rays, overheated ICs, etc. leading to flipped bits in memory) - see [dinaburg.org](http://dinaburg.org/bitsquatting.html) There’s no reason the same thing couldn’t happen in the systems handling text messages, causing the occasional message to get mis-delivered. ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/4 "2015-06-21T21:13:21Z")
She was texting some other dude and mixed her conversations. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/5 "2015-06-21T22:34:17Z")
It’s an “unconfirmed service” aka “unreliable service”. What that means is, the sender sends it, and it may or may not get to the destination, and if it doesn’t reach the destination, you aren’t necessarily notified. Lots of things can go wrong and not be detected. Above, someone mentioned DNS problems. In addition, perhaps it’s possible for your IP address to change (due to crossing some boundary) and for you to get a message that was in flight to whoever had it moments earlier. I know that IP addresses can change on-the-fly (when reassociating) with GPRS but there are a lot of different mobile technologies and I know very little about most of them. It’s also possible your GF got a nasty request from someone she was texting and replied in the wrong window, but she’d rather gloss over it than explain. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2015, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/6 "2015-06-21T22:49:02Z")
My wife got a text the other day that was an abbreviated half from her friend and half some WTF unrelated message from an unknown person. Looking at her friend’s phone, we could see the entire original message. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/7 "2015-06-22T00:37:10Z")
> [@Inna\_Minnit](#): > > She was texting some other dude and mixed her conversations. Oops. “No way José” is a old colloquialism for “hell, no.” ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/8 "2015-06-22T00:46:45Z")
> [@cwthree](#): > > “No way José” is a old colloquialism for “hell, no.” Yes, I did get that. I too was struck by why someone would ask “Who is José?” I mean, really? But it is more likely than not that she crossed her conversations. That is the biggest reason I assign photos to all my contacts. It can get hugely embarrasssing if I sent my best bud a text meant for my fella :smack:. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/9 "2015-06-22T01:22:29Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > It’s an “unconfirmed service” aka “unreliable service”. What that means is, the sender sends it, and it may or may not get to the destination, and if it doesn’t reach the destination, you aren’t necessarily notified. Lots of things can go wrong and not be detected. > > Above, someone mentioned DNS problems. In addition, perhaps it’s possible for your IP address to change (due to crossing some boundary) and for you to get a message that was in flight to whoever had it moments earlier. I know that IP addresses can change on-the-fly (when reassociating) with GPRS but there are a lot of different mobile technologies and I know very little about most of them. > > It’s also possible your GF got a nasty request from someone she was texting and replied in the wrong window, but she’d rather gloss over it than explain. If we’re talking about phone text messaging, actual SMS as opposed to some sort of smartphone chat app, IP addresses would have nothing too do with it, it’s phone number to phone number, neither of which will change (underlying transport might be IP, but that won’t matter). The problem here is that we have both from and to addresses that are wrong–she says she didn’t send it, and you have no reason to expect it from any other contact. That’s very strange. Possible? Sure, anything is possible. That’s when they were installing the next-gen NSA tap and things got scrambled or whatever. If it happens more than once, then something else is going on. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2015, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-text-messages-get-their-wires-crossed/723030/10 "2015-06-22T16:11:00Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > If we’re talking about phone text messaging, actual SMS as opposed to some sort of smartphone chat app, IP addresses would have nothing too do with it, it’s phone number to phone number, neither of which will change (underlying transport might be IP, but that won’t matter). Good point; thanks for the correction.