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Net Phone Customers Brace For 'VoIP Spam'

Posted by timothy on from the you-knew-it-was-on-the-way dept.

XaviorPenguin writes "If you think that Spam in your e-mail inbox is bad, wait until VoIP gets huge! According to a News.CNet.com story, your voice mail box on your Net Phones may be cluttered with ads for Viagra. '"The fear with VoIP spam is you will have an Internet address for your phone number, which means you can use the same tools you use for e-mail to generate traffic," said Tom Kershaw, a vice president at security specialist VeriSign. "That raises automation to scary degrees."' If you think that is scary, you know the Do-Not-Call list that is out by the FTC, yeah, um, people with Net Phones may not be affected by this list and spammers/telemarketers may take this advantage for themselves. "

12 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't sound all that bad... by Dominatus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does this mean I'll be getting calls from "barely legal" teens requesting my attendance in viewing them for the low price of $29.99 a month?

    1. Re:Doesn't sound all that bad... by AlexMidn1ght · · Score: 5, Funny

      For some reason I think your wife will disagree...

      "Who the hell is Samantha? She claims remembering you from some party the other night? And apparently she's hot for you!"

      "But honey I assure you I was at work!"

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Not a single sales call. by johankohler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well so far Vonage is great.

    Ive been a subscriber for 3 years and have not recived a single sales call.

    I belive I have recived about 10 calls that got the wrong number.

  4. sigh... by aftk2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If only CAN-SPAM were 1/10th as effective as the do-not-call list. It's strange: I didn't sign up for the do-not-call list, but the number of telemarkters calling has still declined rather sharply. On the other hand, spammers, in the face of legislation, have apparently decided it would be better to send more spam than ever before.

    --
    concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
    1. Re:sigh... by nmb3000 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Most phone telemarketers were operating legal businesses, so when laws made it imposible for them to operate they simply went out of business.

      It's just too durn bad too. I'm sure so many of us were heartbroken to see them go. Just because they were legitimate doesn't mean they weren't a pain in the ass.

      You make a very valid point, but whatever the reason, I'm glad to see them gone, even though they did occasionally provide some entertainment when I was in a particularily sadistic mood.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
  5. The FCC cannot regulate the world. by tpgp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you think that is scary, you know the Do-Not-Call list that is out by the FTC

    The FCC cannot regulate the entire world - just the US.

    Spammers can operate from other countries without worrying about FCC's do-not-call lists (or using compromised boxes for that matter).

    --
    My pics.
  6. You know... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    None of this would happen if everybody just went out and bought herbal viagra and penis enlargement kits. If we all bought some then they wouldn't need to spam us so much.

    So buy! Buy! Buy!!

  7. phone spam by mastergoon · · Score: 5, Funny

    I can't wait to find out how Nigerians pronounce "i HaVe A gReAt BuSiNeSs PrOpOsAl FoR U"

  8. What is this "wife" thing of which you speak? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    For some reason I think your wife will disagree...

    You must be new here.

  9. Re:anonymous calls? by jlleblanc · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Existing VoIP services are through proprietary protocols controlled by the host companies (Vonage, Skype, etc...). Although the connections are made IP-to-IP, these clients are typically only built to accept connections that have been verified through the host network first. Although there have been problems with, for instance, instant message spam in the past, it is quite rare now (in my experience). Forging a message on a private network is much harder than on a public one.

    -Joe

  10. Pay by the minute? EEK! by httpamphibio.us · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A lot of the cheaper plans offered by VoIP companies, like cell phones, have a certain number of minutes you have per month. Some of the companies, foolishly, make you listen to an entire voicemail message before deleting it (in the cell phone world Cingular does this too), now if you have even 5% or 10% the amount of voicemail spam that you do email spam and you're forced to listen to entire messages before deletion this is going to take up a pretty significant chunk of your minutes... that's bad bad news.

    --
    sig.