Telus Puts A Stop To 'Modem Hijacking'

TheIonix writes "Telus, a major telco in Canada, decided to block long distance direct-dialed calls to four countries to help reduce dial-up 'modem hijacking'. The article explains: 'When the [dial-up] user downloads [certain malware programs], the downloaded file accesses software on their computer and causes the modem to dial phone numbers in foreign countries, resulting in long distance charges.' 4 countries were targeted: Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Nauru and Sao Tome. It is still possible to call to those countries with the operator assistance and the fees are waived. Now let's see if this nice idea will be followed by others."

Comments

Lesser of 2 evils I suppose

[tekiegreg]

Granted auto dialers to these countries will no longer function, but I suppose the loss of the one customer who regularly dials Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Nauru and/or Sao Tome in Canada vs. the gazillions of mad people for bum phone bills weighs itself out. However let's see them try this with a bigger country having auto dial issues as well (Thailand, Vietnam and former Russian republics come to mind). A step in the right direction, but not hardly a full solution.

Re:Lesser of 2 evils I suppose

[afidel]

My guess is that less than 1/1,000th of one percent of their long distance traffic targets the countries in question yet these malware programs result in more than one percent of their billing complaints. My personal solution would be to do exactly what they have implemented with the additional remedy of being able to remove the call block for those customers who so request. They can already do this with 900 blocking so the ability should either exist in their software or be easily added.

This is good

[bunburyist]

Telus needed to do something, I know from experience that this is a serious problem. 16 dollars for some call to africa i never placed, I had no idea about this stuff, fortunately Linux is immune to these things. Here's an idea: Don't hook up the phone line to the computer unless you plan on going online. That way if one of those stupid dialers fire up, its evil plan will get foiled.

so the malware writers will just...

[Anonymous Coward]

make the programs dial different countries. simple.

then the telcos will block those countries...
until we need operator assistance to dial anything!
(extreme)

How many people still use modems?

[Paul Slocum]

Seems like this problem may soon be eliminated by obsolescence.

Re:Nice Idea?

[lightspawn]

I thought that any act by government restricting our freedom, no matter how benevolent their intent, was a bad thing.

Telus is a telco, not the government.

How bout they focus on educating the public about malware instead?

Have you ever tried educating the public about anything?

Remember last week, when CERT recommended MSIE users consider switching browsers, and MSIE usage fell to under 10%? It didn't happen quite that way, now did it?

Remember, this is the same public that buys RIAA music, believes they'll go to hell if they "sin", and trust voting machines because they're convenient.

Internet credibility of a country

[gtrubetskoy]

I think we are seeing an interesting trend where some countries are earning a bad reputation on the Internet, which will ultimately affect their economies and ability to participate in international trade.

E.g. who in their right mind accepts credit card orders from Romania, Russia or Indonesia when it is well known that the vast majority of those card numbers are stolen?

But I think that what is right now simply a major annoyance to on-line vendors and users (spam, phishing, etc.), will eventually backfire at the countries that are unable (or more likely do not care to) to control Internet fraud of various kind sas they become more and more blacklisted and left out of the Internet economy. This will eventually force their governments to pay attention to the issue. I bet already it is pretty frustrating to be an Internet user in one of such countries and know that most vendors on the internet will not accept any payment from you simply because of your country of origin...

Better yet

[ad0gg]

Most of these international telecom LD companies use voip, and the gateway will negotiate to the right codec depending on whether its a data or voice call. Have the carrier detect whether its a voice call or data call and drop on the results.

Re:When phone monopolies go corrupt...

[Dogtanian]

To his credit, he doesn't write the dialers themselves. He just writes generalized billing systems

Yeah. For a second there, I thought your friend sounded like an unscrupulous piece of shit, but knowing that he doesn't actually write the diallers themselves has given me new respect for him.

What's your point exactly? This sounds like a lame excuse to absolve someone of responsibility for supporting behavior of dubious legality and even more dubious morality.

Guess what? A good case could be made that some people might *want* to pay premium phone rates to access some good quality porn via a dialler. If other people and their backup team (your 'friend') abuse this capability, whose responsibility is that then?

Protecting its own interests

[Anita Coney]

Telus is not doing this to protect its customers, it's doing it to protect is own bottom-line. I would imagine that the vast majority of people caught by the modem high jacking scam refuse to pay their bills. They call and complaint, Telus backs down, and it is stuck holding the bag.

This strategy ensures that Telus is never stuck again, plus, it gives them good PR because it appears that it is looking out for its customers. Yeah right.

Re:Protecting its own interests

[Idarubicin]

This strategy ensures that Telus is never stuck again, plus, it gives them good PR because it appears that it is looking out for its customers. Yeah right.

In this instance, a company can do something that

protects their bottom line and shareholders;

protects their customers; and

screws the malware writers;

and you're bashing them?

Hey, I'm thrilled that a company is making more money while doing something that's good--even if it is a telephone company. What's wrong with a little enlightened self-interest?

Go after the dialer producers??

[PetoskeyGuy]

That's very stupid. They should go after your friend and people who make money from others. You can bet some poor sucker got paid $50 or less to write the dialer if they even got paid. Once it's made, you have it, just change the number it dials.

It's the telco's and the porn companies that need to be held accountable since they are the ones distributing and profiting from this computer hijacking. They could possibly face jail time for that if they are in the US. Not sure, but it seems there are stricter laws all the time.

Writing a dialer is pathetically easy. Even from a simple DOS prompt, one liner
echo "atdt 1-123-456-7890" > com1:

This is once step BELOW spammers in my opinion, and your using the same pathetic excuses they do. People shouldn't make it so easy to do. Spam at least is only for idiots. Your taking control of computers and waiting until people won't notice.

It's not email software or dialer software that is the problem. It's the scum who take these useful tools and use them to try to rip people off.