Slashdot Mirror
Caller ID Spoofing Becomes Easy
objekt writes "According to an article in USA Today, Caller ID spoofing has become much easier in the last few years. Millions of people have Internet telephone equipment that can be set to make any number appear on a Caller ID system. And several websites have sprung up to provide Caller ID spoofing services, eliminating the need for any special hardware. For instance, Spoofcard.com sells a virtual 'calling card' for $10 that provides 60 minutes of talk time. The user dials a toll-free number, then keys in the destination number and the Caller ID number to display. The service also provides optional voice scrambling, to make the caller sound like someone of the opposite sex."
Caller ID Falsification Service
The original article is testing out the spoofing services.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What's the major concern over ID spoofing? That people are going to be calling their friends, pretending to be from the White House (The number, by the way, is 202.456.1414)? I think spoofing is cool, but I don't think it's gonna have major impact on anything. When was the last time someone used caller ID as a end-all form of identification?
Google: "All your data are belong to us."
What really annoys me is that you can subscribe to caller ID and some numbers still appear as "withheld". It's no surprise that you can pay more to upgrade your caller ID to see those numbers. In Canada anyway. False advertising much?
BTW there was an issue of 2600 with a great CID\ANI spoofing article. I think it was winter 2004.
It WAS news for nerds in 2004, when Slashdot first ran the story. Now it's news for non-nerds. You can tell because it's in USA frikkin TODAY, the most worthless newspaper in the world. I wouldn't even wipe my dog's ass with it.
"The service also provides optional voice scrambling, to make the caller sound like someone of the opposite sex."
I've been waiting years for Scream: Home Edition!
I don't get it.
I hope that this wont lead to more fraud and scams. I hope that the reason people don't commit crimes against other people is because of moral reasons (absolute or relative), and not because they fear getting caught.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Anyone that manages a VoIP setup can fool simple caller ID, I'll be impressed with something that can fool ANI.
More information about CLI @ http://www.ainslie.org.uk/callerid/cli_faq.htm
I thought you could already block your number from being readable by caller ID? *67 then dial the number of the person you wish to reach. Spoofing is something quite diferent, but if you don't want to give out your number, the option is already there. cheers.
For some reason this reminds me of the scene in Byclops Built For Two where Bender disguises himself as a naughty nurse and starts charging people $2.99 a minute.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Never answer calls from numbers you don't know.
Never answer calls from numbers you do know.
Get a machine or service to take messages.
Don't respond to any messages.
It's nice to finally not have to use a computer to do this. Although the "card" you get is just an email, being able to do spoofing via a cell phone from anywhere is incredibly handy.
Not just for IRC anymore.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
CNBC's "On the Money" is reporting on this right now. A Colorado congressman will be introducing a bill to make this illegal. Hopefull it do so. I canned my landline a year ago and I get no BS calls on my cell phone. My life has become more peaceful and this does not affect me right now. This may change, I am sure as more people do this. Hwever, for the time being I am ok.
Incidently, "On the Money" broke the story about the cell phone records for sale on the net. They did not drop the story until Congress took action. Kudos to them. Hopefully they do this on this topic as well.
The real question is : what happens to wire taps ? Does this invalidate the wire taps, or this just another hinderance that wire taps can look past ?
I don't have caller ID, but I have a friend who does and loves it -- it is even set to display on the TVs, so they know if they want to pause TV/Movie "X" and answer the phone. They also don't answer an unidentified caller very often, which nixes most calls from phone sales comapanies -- and I would be willing to wager a few $$ that these companies would be more than willing to use the technology to get you to answer the phone. Same goes for people attempting to defraud the elderly and disabled.
However, if you could get the caller ID to display dirty messages and lewd jokes w/ punchlines, that would rock!
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
-Gandhi
The service also provides optional voice scrambling, to make the caller sound like someone of the opposite sex.
And may I ask why this would be of interest to Slashdotters?
Oops, gotta go, my girlfriend's calling.
Is it just me, or do others also prefer to not answer the phone and opt instead to have the answering machine pick up in order to screen calls? I became so sick of getting multiple telemarketing calls between the hours of 5-10pm that I decided to just turn the ringer on its lowest volume setting, and let the machine answer.
I know it may seem a bit obnoxious, but I am the one paying the bill and it would seem to me that the phone is for my convience, not someone elses.
I have caller ID on both my TV and my phone. When the phone rings, each one displays a different number. Just because you pay extra for a service doesnt mean its secure or relyable. It's just an added convienience.
From TFA:
The Federal Communications Commission has never investigated the issue, spokeswoman Rosemary Kimball said.
But Wired is reporting today that the FCC has begun investigating Caller ID spoofing services, and is demanding that providers turn over the identities of all the users.
The FCC is demanding business records from both companies, as well as the name of every customer that has used TeleSpoof, the date they used it and the number of phone calls they made.
Dated February 24th, the FCC letter gives TeleSpoof 20 calendar days to respond.
Banks and cell phone companies, in particular, will insist you call from the phone number 'known' to be associated with your address.
Banks... need I explain?
Cell phone companies... how much easier could it be to get someone's records?
While many companies don't use the phone number as an "end-all form of identification," unfortunately, too many of them use it as a first line of ID.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
its about people causing trouble for others, to hide their identiy. Such as a exspouse that has a restraining order, or scam artists " we are with the police, see even our caller ID says so".
People screwing with their friends isnt a reason to even care i agree.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
If you block your number in the UK the exchange sends it anyway along with a flag saying "don't display this". And you can buy phones that ignore the flag, so the recipient of the call can still see your number. (This was a couple of years ago; I don't know if it's been fixed yet.)
These sites are catering to more people who have nefarious intentions then benign ones. There are few legitimate uses for call spoofing (law enforcement sting ops being one that come to mind); and most of the people who would -need- this service (aforementioned law enforcement) have the tools to do it themselves.
With all the scams that use a veneer of authority to fool people into all sorts of financial, political, or other loss, this spoofing only gives those fraudsters another tool to use when defrauding people of money. Evn in your example, a less benevolent individual could have -easily- taken advantage of that situation should they have been crafty enough.
~ Wizardry Dragon
Ever since caller ID was introduced, I've been asking why they can't just deliver the ANI information. It's much more reliable. (Automatic Number Identification is used internally by the telco to figure out who to bill, it is the billing number which is not always the originating phone number. It is automatically delivered to people with 800 numbers.)
It shouldn't have any effect on wiretaps.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
To the best of my knowledge, *67 does not work when you call most toll-free numbers.
anyone with asterisk running can do this... the only reason its easier to do today is because asterisk is so easy to ./configure && make.
Dude, this has been available for years. Any ISDN PRI has this ability built in. In fact, most phone systems on the market include the ability to modify the calling partys number on a per extention basis, if connected to an ISDN PRI. The best part, is that you only have to spoof the number. If the receiver subscribes to callerid with name lookup, it will automatically lookup the name for the number I put in.
http://stayunknown.com/ Has been doing this for a while too... get with the ball
Gangbang gramma! Bananarama!
Caller ID is really little more than a "toy" service, designed for the convenience of consumers. All the real call identification-- such as for billing, or wiretaps, or traces-- is via the ANI (Automatic Number Identification) system. ANI is completely separate from the Caller ID system, and is linked directly to your circuit ID rather than being defined by the last digital channel bank on the circuit. ANI is totally and completely inaccessible to anyone outside the telco.
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
I just installed a PRI card in a PBX at work. The outbound caller ID was hosed at first and lots of stuff was broke because traditional phone systems ... whatever, you always mod me 0 anyway
Whitelisting. It had to happen. Not just to email, but to phones as well. When you get cheap and ubiqitious communication, keeping an unlisted phone number/email address isn't enough.
Of course, you don't have to be black and white -- you can have devices that trust things increasingly more (this person can leave a message, this person cause your phone to ring, etc), and the whitelists don't have to be manually created.
I expect that making this sort of functionality easily usable to the typical consumer is going to drive a lot of consumer electronics sales...
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
If you block your number in the UK the exchange sends it anyway along with a flag saying "don't display this". And you can buy phones that ignore the flag, so the recipient of the call can still see your number.
Why is it that the computer world understands the concept of not trusting a remote node, but phone people cannot understand this?
Hmm...of course, then again, there's the invisibility-inducing dollar sign at the end of Microsoft's administrative shares...sigh.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
See, the right way to deal with this would be to just ram everything through an encrypted and authenticated tunnel produced by the phone at each end.
Of course, that would piss the FBI off to no end, and be illegal, but it would solve the problem.
Of course, since this would require a digital connection, it'd probably be easier to just use VoIP than to run everything through a modem.
Something like this.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Well, thank you Open Sores. Thanks to your need to get all your software for free, and your absurd need to have the source code, we now have kits out there that any Tom, Dick or Harry can use to pretend to be someone else. This has GOT to be great for the Script Kiddies who want to prank call the cute English teacher they all have a crush on.
An Uncomfortable Truth
Now with these services I can keep calling from various numbers and try to reach the busterds (or at least try to annoy them).
I'd say this is a legitimate use.
I hope the publicity doesn't curtial legitimate uses.
For instance, more than a few doctor's offices use caller ID spoofing to have call centers call patients to confirm / remind appointments.
These calls are legitmate, authorized in writing by patients, and spoofing is an integral part of doing the service. Patients tend to answer West Main Clinic (who is responsible for hiring the contractor), rather than ABC Call Services. Also, calling ABC Call Services to reschedule is usless as they can't make/change appointments.
the simple signal that determines if *67 has been used is a single bit, so if one uses software to log his/her telephone calls, or if a simple modification to a commercial caller-id box is made, the person called can see the number anyway.
I have access to a VoIP setup terminating local calls to an ISDN PRI. I can spoof anyone's caller ID when calling local numbers, and spoof local caller ID anywhere, but not spoof outside CID on long distance calls. Specifically, I can't call an area code halfway across the country with caller ID that looks like it's halfway across the country rather than local. There is some kind of filtering going on, which makes me wonder what kind of termination setup the spoofing services have.
Wow, it really works well. But don't bother with the voice changing thing. I sounded like that psychic from Poltergeist. Totally fake, man.
I once got a call from caller id 911-999-9999 or something beginning with 911(obviously bogus). It was a prerecorded messsage alerting me of a snow emergency. Not even sure how they got my number, but it was unprofessional to leave that bogus #.
They could have just left the snow plow hotline.
I was under the impression Telcos can check that the CID being reported is actually allocated to that line or at least within the range of numbers that belong to that trunk (say, on an ISDN PRI).
I thought that here in Australia (with Telstra at least), a badly configured CID would not get passed onto the called party...
and you thought phreaking was dead...
However, more than once I've turned up phone installs that had incorrect ANI. Either wrong numbers, which often list wrong company names, or at least wrong addresses. It's not as if you can "order" messed up ANI or change it, but if you had one of these circuits, I don't know how easily, or even if, the telco could back track it.
Oh ! So that was a spoof ???
:)
I thought Sharon Stone really called me
In Soviet Russia, 911 calls you!
What's worse, ignorance or apathy? Who knows, and who cares.
I don't pick up calls that are blocked, and I don't pick up any calls from people that I know annoy the fuck out of me (spouse and boss included.)
Pretty soon, I'm going to have to toss out my lying cell too?
Ya know, just because you CAN do something doesn't mean its a good idea.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
But you might be "interested" in hiding your identity AND appearing under another. For example, some online services that you can pay with a Credit Card ask for your information (including phone number). And just when you're done they tell you all you need to do is call them to confirm that you are the owner of the CC. All you need is to spoof your ID and call them, appearing as the number you gave them before...
This ability has existed forever. Give me a break. It's just now coming to light. Anyone would with the greatest ease spoof a phone call, pretending to be someone else. The same thing can be done with any kind of communication, instant message, whatever. It will be interesting to see exactly how we handle this issue. My guess is: laws, laws, laws. Is there no other way?
So, you think a man should be allowed to cry "fire" in a crowded theater, and he's not responsible for the deaths that will ensue? Is that your definition of "freedom"?
Because this is exactly what your sig's post brings: a man that was arrested for inciting racial hatred -- causing a lot of deaths in the process, because every time the neo-nazis come out of the closet they bring with them their personal "final solution", and you know it.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Things that I know about CallerID:
1) It is very easy to spoof (Anyone with a PBX system and PRI/T1 lines can do it). We use it to display our Toll-Free callback number rather than our regular number.
2) You cannot block your number when calling a Toll-Free number. (You'd be surprised at how many people don't know this)
Yeah, I've seen that too. Thing is, the whole thing is keyed to the circuit ID, which is usually a physical port at the CO. The rest is just database links. If dialing the number rings that circuit, they can find it. It's just a matter of matching the number/circuit ID to the correct billing record. Usually that's just a matter of getting a low-paid data entry clerk to do a database search. Mis-linked billing data causes big problems with things like 911, though, because generally the caller doesn't have 7-10 days for the telco to put in and complete a fix order...
Conclusion: the Empire squashes the Federation like a bug. Accept it.
This service will also change your voice and record calls for you.
GEE. This sounds like it's a trap from the Feds if you use this calling card stuff.
Some dummy stalker uses this card for a callerID spoof and voice change, calls his victim... 3 hours later the cops show up. Nice.
Only old people call 911 - but they spoof the caller ID so that its your number that shows up.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?