Fake Obama VP texts: It's Hillary! Michael Phelps! Dick Cheney!

Pranksters are having a little fun with the Obama's plan to announce his VP pick via text message. Of course, Obama's camp is not amused.

As the L.A. Times Technology blog reports, a growing number of SMS messages (could be hundreds, could be thousands) have started flying around the country, all "announcing" Barack Obama's vice-presidential pick.

And some of the suggestions have been pretty … well, inspired. Hillary Clinton! Arnold Schwarzenegger! Justin Timberlake! Socks the cat! McCain himself!

No, don't worry—Obama hasn't picked Hillary's kitty to be his running mate. (He's expected to announce for real any time now, so the whole hoax thing may soon be moot.)  But what's going on here? Has someone figured out how to spoof Obama's SMS code?

Well, yes and no. The L.A. Times notes that political blog Wonkette posted a set of instructions (painfully easy) on how to send official-looking Obama VP text messages to Verizon Wireless subscribers, including the Obama campaign's actual SMS code in the "From" field (although, your own call-back number will also appear in the message).

Of course, plenty of goofballs are also sending fake VP messages over "Free SMS!" Web sites that work for any cell subscriber—and while they won't let you customize the "From" number to match Obama's SMS code, your pranked pal probably wouldn't notice anyway.

Naturally, Obama's camp (which has been harvesting all the SMS sign-ups for future use in the campaign) is none too thrilled. Here's a statement from campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro (as printed by the L.A. Times):

There is incredible enthusiasm for Senator Obama’s vice presidential announcement and unfortunately some people have used that enthusiasm and sent out hoaxes. We can assure supporters these texts are not coming from the campaign and their data is secure.

Unfortunate? Yes (well, mostly). Unexpected? No. Kinda funny? Yeah.

Related:
OMG! Beware of fake Obama VP text messages [L.A. Times tech blog]