#unknown sender

By: Gabe Kaminsky

Published: Aug 4, 2025

I have a McGift for you! It’s President Trump. Want to take a look?”

“We’ve asked NINE TIMES if you support Kamala Harris. . . but you never completed the poll.”

Those were just two examples of text messages blasted out by political operatives to voters in the final days of the 2024 presidential campaign—as Democrats and Republicans scrambled for last-minute donations. The frantic calls for action are all too familiar to Americans: a steady stream of outreach to voters that often feels a lot like hyperbolic spam has proliferated ever since the 2008 election. 

“Peer-to-peer is a really easy way to quickly reach people in a cheap manner,” Mike Nellis, a former senior adviser to Harris, told The Free Press. “But it’s actually at the expense of spamming people who don’t sign up for anything and aren’t necessarily interested in hearing from you.”

There might be an alternative—and it is already sending shock waves through political operative circles in Washington. In early June, Apple announced a new feature through its forthcoming iOS 26 software that will allow iPhone users to screen messages from “unknown senders.” That will automatically place texts from such senders, starting in mid-September, in a separate folder without notifying the recipients.

Could the new iPhone feature finally be the death knell for those unexpected texts you receive from an assortment of politicians clamoring for your wallet? That appears to be the contention of at least one influential Republican group, according to a leaked memo dated July 24.

“That change has profound implications for our ability to fundraise, mobilize voters, and run digital campaigns,” the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), which spends tens of millions of dollars each election cycle to elect Republican candidates, wrote in the memo. The memo estimated that the group will take a revenue hit of more than $25 million from the change, and that there could be a $500 million revenue loss for all Republican campaigns.

And the NRSC isn’t thrilled, to put it mildly. “Unilaterally blocking campaigns and political parties from being able to contact voters with get-out-the-vote or persuasive messaging is voter disenfranchisement, and it’s critical Apple delay their rollout of this feature until these concerns have been addressed,” Joanna Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the NRSC, told The Free Press.

Nellis, the former Harris adviser, called the NRSC’s reaction “sensational,” though he acknowledged that “everybody will take a hit from this.”

“But I don’t believe it will be that dramatic because for good-faith actors—like my clients—we actually know what we’re doing, and we’re taking the right steps to reach people who want to get our messages,” said Nellis. He’s a veteran Democratic strategist who has raised more than $1 billion in donations for Democrats and nonprofit groups. 

At the heart of the issue are questions that D.C. insiders on both sides of the aisle are grappling with ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. How big an impact will the “unknown senders” change by Apple really have on fundraising and other campaign outreach, like get-out-the-vote advocacy? Who will be most affected: Democrats, Republicans, incumbents, political newcomers, or everyone equally?

And is this all just the inevitable result of years of torrential political messages that have many voters sick and tired—or an attack on free speech and a form of voter suppression?

“I honestly believe the parties brought this on themselves,” Erick Erickson, a popular conservative talk radio host, told The Free Press. “They show no discipline in protecting people from spam.”

* * *

During the 2024 election, voters were bombarded like never before with a conveyor belt of political texts. It’s a cost-effective way for candidates and their allies to try to engage with supporters or potential supporters.

The senders of those texts often get their Rolodexes from data brokers who pull public information on voters from myriad sources—like surveys and polls, donation filings, and other websites that a person has done business with or interacted with in the past.

The First Amendment protects political texts, though under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act—a law overseen by the Federal Communications Commission—campaigns are supposed to honor “opt-out” requests from users if they message “STOP” in response. Still, there was a flurry of misleading political messages to voters in 2024 from third parties, and voters have long expressed dismay at the difficulty in stopping unwanted messages, despite asking to be removed from sender lists.

That reality of modern-day politics in the digital age has people like Erickson not losing sleep over Apple’s move. “People have been complaining about text messaging for fundraising for years now, and it’s only gotten worse,” Erickson said. 

“Campaigns brought this on themselves by not taking the time to invest in the long run and establish a brand, versus trying to put gasoline on a fire and see how quickly they can grow,” Ken Mika, a Republican digital fundraiser, told The Free Press. 

To Jon Reinish, a Democratic political strategist, the iOS feature will push campaigns “to improve their messaging in blast texts—to have smarter, more persuasive messages.”

Others involved in politics see things differently. “This is a massive issue for a variety of reasons,” said one veteran Republican operative who runs a public affairs firm in Washington. “This is going to be an attack on democracy and free speech if Apple does this without ensuring voters are able to access information.”

In the leaked memo, first reported by Punchbowl News, the NRSC said Apple has not engaged in discussing the Republican group’s concerns about the feature limiting get-out-the-vote messaging, Election Day reminders, and other communications that the NRSC referred to as “critical communications.” 

iPhones make up around 60 percent of all mobile devices in the United States, and the NRSC said 70 percent of small-dollar donations come via text.

Ryan Girdusky, a Republican political consultant, referred to the feature as a “nuclear bomb” that will make it harder for both parties to raise money. “For a lot of small campaigns, small-dollar fundraising is a huge part of how they can be competitive—unless you have a billionaire donor,” he said. 

Girdusky, who founded a GOP-aligned political action committee called 1776 Project, said that the feature will “disempower anybody who doesn’t have billionaire money,” like newer and less-established candidates.

That kind of populist appeal falls flat to Mika, who believes the problem is money-hungry PACs that send a flurry of messages to voters that they wouldn’t need to send at all if they had better established their identity. “You don’t see the nonprofit world doing this, or colleges and other groups that need to fundraise,” Mika said. “They don’t do this practice because they take the time to establish who they are and to get a base of people who want to invest in their brand. The same should be done for politicians.”

Girdusky said that argument is “full of shit.” 

“Sometimes people write stupid copy. But that’s not why this was done,” he said. “This doesn’t just impact campaigns—it’s anyone. If I get a haircut and a text message from them, it could show up in my spam box.”

* * *

So far, Democratic national groups have been quiet about the change. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic counterpart of the NRSC, did not respond to requests for comment from The Free Press. Apple also did not respond.

Data shows that texting has been a boost for political campaigns during election season. In a message to The Free Press, the spokesperson for the NRSC cited a study from 2020 that found texting increased voter turnout in the election by 0.7 percentage points across party lines. Perhaps most notably, Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency in 2008 was helped along by many of his allies sharing campaign text messages to communicate—and voters receiving them from the Democrat’s campaign.

Dan Backer, a Republican campaign finance attorney, agreed with Erickson and Mika that campaigns brought this on themselves. “I hate getting these text messages,” Backer said. “Everybody hates them. We’ve got to figure out a way for solutions to protect recipients from getting them.”

Is the Apple change that solution? Nellis thinks so. “Apple is only doing this because they are getting a ton of customer complaints about the number of unsolicited text messages,” the former Harris adviser said. “It’s in the best interests of its consumers.”

Nellis added, “We have ourselves to blame as an industry. We bombard people with messages, and both [Democrats and Republicans] have a ton of candidates who never say or do anything interesting, who don’t have any original thoughts, who aren’t trying to bring people together.”

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For my

Detroit: Become Human Prompt Challenge "Ghosts in the Machine"

Day 1, Prompt: unknown sender

(click for better quality)

Μου ήρθε κατευθείαν απάντηση. Δεν προβλέπεται η παράδοση τέτοιων προϊόντων στη διεύθυνσή σας για τον παρόντα αιώνα.

Τσαντίστηκα και του ξανάστειλα, χάρισέ μου λίγες ώρες από τον επόμενο αιώνα.

Μου επέστρεψαν το γράμμα με την ένδειξη "Άγνωστος Αποστολέας, Αδύνατη Εξυπηρέτηση".

I came home from work today, and knowing that I had something coming in the mail today, I gathered the mail and separated it. 

Amongst it was one of those pink/orange slips that said that they tried to deliver my package (which was a parcel), but failed. The only problem is, my actual item showed up. In a bubble mailer, and in the actual mail slot. 

The person who sent it--Francis Kelley--is someone unknown to me. I’ve never heard of this person. I’ve never met them or disclosed my address to them. The article ID/tracking number on the package isn’t showing up in the USPS database. 

I haven’t ordered anything--I did all my Christmas shopping weeks ago. 

So now, my mystery package is at the post office--not sure what’s in it, but it’s there. And every curious bone in my body (that’s 206, mind you) is telling me that I have to go get it and see what it is. 

thats your girl? howd you manage to pull a girl like that