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VoIP to Fuel Plague of 'Dialing for Dollars'/Spam

Posted by timothy on from the this-is-a-discourtesy-call dept.

Ant writes "Broadband Reports says Internet News is exploring how telemarketers world-wide are realizing they can dodge long-distance costs (and U.S. "Do Not Call" restraints) by voice spamming VoIP users. Different from SPIT (spam over internet telephony) because it's not automated, an analyst in the article predicts homes and businesses could see some 150 calls a day from overseas call centers."

6 of 396 comments (clear)

  1. Vroom! by greg_barton · · Score: 4, Funny

    Gentlemen, start up your whitelists!

  2. What? by bigtallmofo · · Score: 5, Funny

    You mean U.S. laws don't apply everywhere? We should get that law changed!

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
  3. They will throw themselves upon the firewalls... by FyRE666 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Russia, China, India... Who'd have thought these would be new sources of spam?! I routinely block these domains/net blocks from sending email into our networks (along with a few of the other well known spam sludge pits), so would it really be that difficult to firewall out all VOIP traffic from these places too? Maybe if enough people just cut them off they'd change their attitudes to providing havens for (mostly) American spam "companies".

    In fact, I'd imagine these call centres would be easier to firewall off the 'net than spammers, as it would be harder to switch net blocks once a blackhole service was set up to list the offending address ranges.

    --
    Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
  4. Re:Not automated. Hmm by GeckoX · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yeah, cause grandma jean has a whole trove of zombie machines out there just waiting to DDoS the first sucker that dares to spam her VOIP phone.

    Common knowledge tells us that Telemarketing in general should not be a viable business. And yet, it is isn't it?

    --
    No Comment.
  5. Voicemail voicemail voicemail by hoggoth · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Hi this is John. I am screening my calls. Please leave a voicemail and I will call you back."
    "Hi John, this is Pete. You just tried to call me, and left me voicemail about my attempted call a few minutes ago. Please call me back."

    --
    - For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat /dev/random (may take some time)
  6. Re:Not automated. Hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, I got a spam that I went through the same spiel with. Checked the headers, did some dns lookups, etc. etc. Finally I found the responsible ISP.

    Problem was, when I sent my subpoena to Novosibirsk all I got back was a legal notice saying, and I quote...

    "In Soviet Russia, jurisdiction limits YOU."