CallerID Spoofing to be Made Illegal

MadJo writes "US Congress has just approved a bill that will make it illegal to spoof CallerID. From the bill: 'The amount of the forfeiture penalty (...) shall not exceed $10,000 for each violation, or 3 times that amount for each day of a continuing violation, except that the amount assessed for any continuing violation shall not exceed a total of $1,000,000 for any single act or failure to act.'"

Comments

Interesting

[Travoltus]

That's a law that should be more proactive than reactive.

How about an additional law that makes telephone companies responsible for allowing caller ID spoofing to happen?

Or is that too difficult to prevent?

Re:Interesting

[pete-classic]

Allowing subscriber lines to set caller ID data is a feature, not a bug.

-Peter

Re:Interesting

[S.O.B.]

A feature that can be abused IS a bug.

Re:Interesting

[Ledsock]

It can be viewed as both, much like the Firefox memory leak feature/bug. It is a feature in that it allows people to use VOIP and have it display the name and phone number and allows businesses to change the name/number to be appropriately displayed (EG someone located outside of a department physically calling someone and having the correct department number/name show). It also can be abused by phone phishers posing as charities or legitimate businesses to steal credit card info. The fact that it can be done without the approval or consent of the phone company or the government is what should be at issue, not the technology itself. If the law passes some legitimate uses will be forfeit, such as the funny ad calls you can set up on some commercial websites (Snakes on a Plane and the Wii game Red Steel both had that feature), along with VOIP and other uses.

Re:Interesting

[smartr]

If slashdot's comments and moderation can be abused, how is that a bug? Some features are inherently prone to different forms of abuse, and there is no magical way to completely solve the problem without removing the feature. I do not have faith in the idea that features can always have a perfect solution. If there was not a mistake in how something should function, it is not a bug. One could make improvements to make abuses harder, but this would be an improvement on the system - not a bug fix.

Re:Interesting

[netcrusher88]

Probably too difficult to prevent - CID is an in-band squirt of data at 1200 baud.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Over here you can send your own caller id, but the phone company checks if you send one of the numbers they have assigned to you.
So, a PBX can send the extension number (or switchboard number if you want to), an ISDN user can send one of his multiple subscriber numbers, etc.
But when you try to send another number, the phone company just replaces it with the primary number of the line you send it on.

So, the feature to set your own ID is available, but the bug that you can send anything you like is not there.

Re:Interesting

[dotgain]

That's how it works in New Zealand, ever since someone abused CID to access voicemail they shouldn't have that authenticated based on incoming CID.

Re:Interesting

[shaitand]

'That's a law that should be more proactive than reactive.'

I fail to see a justification for the law at all, let alone taking additional measures! There are many legitimate reasons to spoof caller ID. For instance, if I configure a voip system in an office I usually configure the system to show the phone number of the main line on caller id, regardless of which line is actually being used to connect. I have now spoofed caller id and this would make that illegal.

How about we just have laws that make using callerid spoofing illegal if it used to commit fraud.... oh wait, we already have laws against using ANY deception to illicit unfair gain.

Re:Interesting

[bjoeg]

Linux has features that can be abused for illegal activities. So Linux' features must be bugs.

Re:Interesting

[Grendel70]

Feature: (n) - A bug with seniority.

Re:Interesting

[stiggle]

Spoofing of CallerID can be a feature though.
If you have a number of phonelines with different numbers, you would prefer it that people saw your 'public' central number that someone is going to answer rather than say the number that goes direct to the fax. So if a voice call goes out on the fax line, you spoof the CID to the central number instead.

If you use VoIP - do you want your VoIP number, the Gateway number or your 'central' number to be the CallerID. If you use a web gateway to send SMS messages - do you want the gateway to report their ID as who sent it or your own phones number?

Re:Interesting

[SwordsmanLuke]

...was a feature, now it's hacking. ;)

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

There is just too many small un-official phone companies now, we are one of them. http://www.oc9.com/. In VOIP, you can run your own PBX and deal directly with VOIP providers. Often, your incoming call provider will differ from your outgoing call provider. VoipJet http://www.voipjet.com/ is an outgoing call provider while Didww http://www.didww.us/ is an incoming call (DID) provider.

In such a setup the entity (small company,etc.) running the PBX is responsible to set the callerID on outgoing call. So the big Telcos have got nothong to do with it basically. In fact, it is near impossible to spoof callerID when a big telco is your provider.

Equaly, the outgoing provider (as in Voipjet) has got no responsibility if one spoofs callerID because they have no idea if the DID number you are sending as callerID really belongs to you. You don't even need a phone number (DID) to route outgoing calls to the provider.

So, it makes sense to have a law preventing small, hard to control entities to spoof callerID for whatever reason.

In practice, it will be hard to proove the intention although. Some calls show the wrong callerID due to misconfiguration and not due to evil-doing. Will they have to prove that the spoofing was intentional ?

Re:Interesting

[pete-classic]

Any feature can be abused. Should we have pulled the plug on humanity the first time an H. sapiens clubbed another H. sapiens instead of game?

-Peter

Re:Interesting

[ciscoguy01]

The telephone company should be expressly responsible for allowing any fake caller ID.
Just as they should be responsible for providing copper pairs to send junk faxes over. At least after they know.
If they were responsible for that misuse of the telephone system they would have a technicial out there with a pair of wire cutters, huh?

Re:Interesting

[gfxguy]

Wow, you're taking a lot of criticism for this; I'd agree more with you if you'd phrased it more like "A feature with no positive reason to exist that can be abused IS a bug."

In other words, is there really any good that can come out of having your phone lie about who you are when you make a call?

No?

Then it's a bug.

And before someone gets their undies in a bunch, "anonymous" calling is not affected... that's simply a LACK of caller information, not faked information. And yes, a lot of people block anonymous calls - that's their prerogative.

Re:Interesting

[Tracy Reed]

Allowing the user to set their own caller ID must be allowed. My company has a PRI and half a dozen phone numbers depending on the business unit. We all want to be able to use that one PRI and each company wants their units phone number to appear on the caller ID. We must be allowed to set the caller ID to do this and we do. If we could not set it ourselves we would have to get 3 different PRI's or have some of our channels hard coded to one number and other channels to another. Each group would then only have the use of that limited number of channels/lines. Very inefficient. Also I have a VOIP phone and I want to make it the same number as the outgoing landline which everyone knows me by because that is where I want calls to come back to (they then get routed by the PBX to my IP phone or wherever I want).

Re:Interesting

[urlgrey]

Indeed it is. I imagine quite a few companies legitimately change their CID information so that their remote offices, home office workers, and others are able to [bad analogy] essentially NAT [/bad analogy] their real phone numbers with the public ones the firms--and their employees--want shown.

While there may be need for a bill prohibiting it when used for nefarious purposes, this really *is* a feature IMHO.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

are you really arguing that the slashdot moderation system isn't a bug?

Re:Interesting

[smartr]

As far as I can tell, it programatically functions as it was designed. It's not a bug, this is not to say that there aren't flaws in the design... Get your terminology straight. For a broader example, e-mail is not a bug because spammers exist. A spam filter is not a bug fix, it is an improvement made for e-mail. Just because a spam filter does not filter all spam does not necessarily mean the filter has a bug. I'm probably misapplying math here, but I would argue that this feature creep runs parallel to Godel's incompleteness theorems in the idea that each feature applies new rules or axioms to a system. With this rule in place, there will always remain infinitely unknown (or arguably more infinite than infinite) many rules that remain true to the system. Some of these rules aren't ones that most users will like, and some might even be further considered abuse or spam. Furthermore, I would argue that there is no such thing as a perfect moderation system, much in the way that there is no such thing as a perfect government.

DEATH TO "UNKNOWN CALLER"

[Anonymous Coward]

And death to Verizon for not letting me block it.

Re:DEATH TO "UNKNOWN CALLER"

[Lumpy]

I block it just fine on verizon.

I have all phone lines and voip lines going into a asterisk server. if you dont have a real caller Id string and are not on my blacklist your call goes through.

It's quite easy to block UNKNOWN CALLER. and cheap too. a asterisc pots card is $29.00 on ebay and an asterisk server is pretty much free. (P-III 500 is more than enough horsepower) all you need is a voip phone handset or adapter to go to regular phone ($19.00 ebay sipura spa-2000)

Way better than any answering machine you can buy, I can block anything I want, I can force unknown callers to a special mailbox that states " I do not answer unknown calls" or better yet a 30 minute "hello? hello? I cant hear you. wait a second. can you hear me now? hello? can you speak louder? I can kind of hear you now, what was that?"

wasting a telemarketers time is a wonderful thing. when they get that you are honey potting them to waste their time they add your number to the do not call list on their own.

NannyState?

[Sneakernets]

This isn't "NannyState" at all, this is an attempt at stopping scammers and other slimeballs from taking advantage of people.

Re:NannyState?

[Brian Gordon]

NannyState is when the government overregulates something that's really none of its business. Like privately-owned telecommunications companies.

Re:NannyState?

[Rakishi]

Oh then what is a nanny state, let's see now by your logic none of these are bad as they perform a social good:
-Banning smoking is there to keep people from being subjected to a dangerous substance
-Same for banning junk food.
-Same for banning any violent media, for psychological reasons to prevent people from becoming murderers.
-Banning term such as master/slaveon hard drives is there to prevent social discrimination, unconsciously, of certain groups or causing said group to be subjected to mental anguish.
-Cutting down of mature chestnut trees as it keeps children from slipping on fallen nuts.

Re:NannyState?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is an attempt by ill-informed politicians to make it sound like they are "doing something".

I use Caller*ID Spoofing in two separate ways:

1. When I'm working at home and need to call from my cell phone, I have the caller*id setup to show it is coming from my desk phone. This is so that I don't get customers calling my cell phone.

2. When outbound calls are placed at "the office", the caller*id is set to the toll-free number.

Unless the bill has a provision for allowing you to set the caller*id to numbers that you "have control of", it is really dumb. However, even if it does, it is still dumb.. The only calls I ever get fall into three categories:

1. Normal caller*id with a legit callback number for the person calling

2. A private/restricted number

3. All 0's or 1's for the caller*id.

That is all.

Re:NannyState?

[MillionthMonkey]

What does any of this stuff have to do with maintenance of laws against wire fraud?

Re:NannyState?

[Rakishi]

If you justify something as not being a nanny state law or as being a good law even simply because it prevents something bad from happening (in some cases, when idiots are involved, when reality ceases to exist, in the words of the law proponents or in any such way) then all of those are either not nanny state laws or good laws.

Re:NannyState?

[AusIV]

NannyState is when the government overregulates something that's really none of its business. Like privately-owned telecommunications companies.

I'm no fan of over-regulation, but I was glad to see this one pass. Lot's of people are completely unaware that caller ID even can be spoofed. If they got a call that appeared to be from someone at their bank, they'd give their account number to get some issue straightened out.

Aside from prank phone calls, the only use for Caller ID spoofing is fraud, which is definitely a government issue.

Re:NannyState?

[MillionthMonkey]

Sorry I'm having trouble understanding your triple-and-a-half negative. You seem to be saying that laws against fraud (for example) are "nanny state laws" because they prevent fraud from happening and fraud is bad. OR you're arguing the exact opposite, that laws against fraud are NOT nanny state laws because they can be justified on the basis that they prevent fraud...?

This "nanny state" crap was never more than a propagandistic talking point based on a linguistic mind game anyway, so all this really boils down to the precise definition of a meaningless term.

Re:NannyState?

[MoxFulder]

I'm no fan of over-regulation, but I was glad to see this one pass. Lot's of people are completely unaware that caller ID even can be spoofed. If they got a call that appeared to be from someone at their bank, they'd give their account number to get some issue straightened out.

Aside from prank phone calls, the only use for Caller ID spoofing is fraud, which is definitely a government issue.

And the way to fix this is... to lull people into a false sense of security by convincing them that the government can effectively curb these abuses???

I think laws that supposedly provide security by making something illegal, without an effective mechanism for enforcement, are dangerous and waste well-meaning people's time. For example, take the crazy post-9/11 prohibitions on bringing various things on airplanes. Well... I can get my shampoo bottle in my carry-on through security 9 times out of 10, but then occasionally they catch it and I have to throw it out. It's obviously not protecting anyone from terrorists carrying liquids since (a) they usually don't catch them, and (b) there's no punishment for trying to carry on such items and getting caught, so there's no deterrent and no way to track people who repeatedly experiment with security. Basically, the whole thing just makes my mom worry less about terrorism, and needlessly hassles a lot of travelers.

Re:NannyState?

[DeepHurtn!]

Ho...ly...shit.

Re:NannyState?

[Rakishi]

No, I'm claiming nothing at all. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I specifically said nothing about what I think of this law or what category it falls into. I was commenting on the argument used by the original poster not on the validity of the argument's conclusion.

I replied to someone who claimed that this law is not a nanny state law because it may (or rather is designed/supposed to) prevent something bad from happening (fraud). I simply claimed that by that definition all my examples are also not nanny state laws since they too may (or rather are claimed to) prevent something bad from happening (and I listed exactly what each claims to prevent).

In other words I claim that if you like the original poster believe that X is true because it has property Z then imho logically you must also believe that Y is true as it also has property Z. Most people simply wouldn't find Y to be true thus the contradiction.

Re:NannyState?

[Antique Geekmeister]

It's not necessary for that. Seriously: with a warrant, and modern telco systems, it's usually straightforward to obtain the caller's location despite any Caller-ID.

Caller-ID is to ease warrant free tracking: it's useful to us at home to block stalkers, telephone salespeople, and childish prank calls, and puts tools formerly only available with a warrant in a somewhat limited form for us civilians. But it's also a nasty, nasty tool for tracking legitimate but appropriately anonymous speech. Child abuse hotlines, suicide hotlines, the ACLU, whistleblower support groups, and numerous others have reasons to not want that data in their hands, or to have it safely obscurable by the person reaching out to them.

That hints to me that this rule is about monitoring, not about crime prevention.

Re:NannyState?

[walt-sjc]

I don't agree with how the term "nanny state" is being applied here.

"Nanny State" to ME means laws to protect YOU from YOURSELF. Not laws to protect YOU from OTHERS.

I'm all for laws that are designed to protect me from abusive behavior of others. I am against laws like seatbelts, helmets, smoking pot, etc. that apply to adults (children is OK since they don't have the experience to make the right judgment calls.)

I'm also fine with limiting liability of insurance companies or public assistance to those who hurt themselves because they weren't wearing a seatbelt for example. As long as you don't impact others physically, financially, etc., feel free to do whatever the hell you want. Just don't come crying to me when you fuck yourself up, lose your job, etc.

Re:NannyState?

[walt-sjc]

Read the damn bill. The meat is all of about 3 sentences. It allows you to do exactly what you want to do, and forbids deceptive practices.

Re:NannyState?

[walt-sjc]

Why is everyone refusing to read the damn bill? It allows you to legitimately set the callerID to any number that refers to you or your business, which allows ALL of the legitimate usage of spoofing. It also allows you to choose to be anonymous which handles all your privacy concerns. It simply prevents you from fraudulently pretending that you are someone else.

Re:NannyState?

[AVee]

This isn't "NannyState" at all, this is an attempt at stopping scammers and other slimeballs from taking advantage of people.
--
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson

I guess you have to be an american to see the logic in the combination of those two opinions?

How can you defend the right to have 'tools' used to kill people but also say the tools used to scam people should be taken away? Either both are a part of your freedom no one is allowed to interfere with or both are tools with largely undesireable uses and should be forbidden. I can see a point in both, but I cannot see how you can mix both.

Re:NannyState?

[Brian Gordon]

This is different- it's still easy to get your shampoo on the plane but if you're caught it's a $10,000 fine. So you're right, it's more of a preventative measure than actually providing security against it.. and I agree with you, that's by far the least preferable option. It goes against common-sense software design principles :)

Re:NannyState?

[AusIV]

I agree with respect to travel, but there are practical reasons to carry shampoo on a plane, there aren't many reasons to misrepresent yourself on the phone aside from illegal acts (they phrased the law to allow

I think laws that supposedly provide security by making something illegal, without an effective mechanism for enforcement, are dangerous and waste well-meaning people's time.

Laws against murder don't keep it from happening, nor do laws against theft or rape. What they do is make it so if you get caught, there's a significant punishment, and consequently people are often deterred from doing it in the first place. If someone gets caught using the bank's caller ID to defraud people, that's an additional charge, so it may be an additional deterrent.

Lastly, lots of people have heard about this issue because of the passage of this law. My mother (prime example of the techno-illiterate) got a chain e-mail warning her not to trust caller ID. My girlfriend's mother (slightly more technically literate) heard about it from someone at work, and has been telling everyone she knows. Granted, this last part could have happened without the law if the conditions had been right, but it's still helped get the word out.

Re:NannyState?

[Mr. Slippery]

let's see now by your logic none of these are bad as they perform a social good

Odd. The parent poster said not a word about "social good", but about stopping "slimeballs from taking advantage of people".

Keeping slimeballs from taking advantage of people may be a subset of "social good" (social good actually means something rather different, but we'll skip that for now), but that does not mean that an argument in favor of the state stopping slimeballs is an argument for the state doing anything it want to promote "social good".

You might legitimately argue that this law does not in fact keep slimeballs from taking advantage of people; or that it has additional consequences that make it undesirable. You might even make some Social Darwinist argument that it is not the function of the government to keep slimeballs from taking advantage of people.

But your misreading or miscomprehension of the parent post is simply wrong.

Re:NannyState?

[jedidiah]

No, a law like this just lowers the bar for probable cause.

Caught spoofing CID's? Expect a visit from the FBI.

That's not an unnacceptable situation for identity fraud.

Re:NannyState?

[jedidiah]

Let's see...

You started with something that creates a toxic cloud that not only harms the person with the vice but ANYONE around then. From there you move on to things that only direclty harm the person indulging in the given activity.

I can justify this new law in terms of libertarian rhetoric. I can justify your first example in terms of libertarian rhetoric. The rest fail because you gloss over important details of the things being compared.

Identity fraud is something that could get you challenged to a duel back when laws were far more simple.

Re:NannyState?

[jedidiah]

The tool isn't being banned, just deceptive use of it.

The law can always be abused but that's an entirely different argument.

Re:NannyState?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, technically, an obese person eating tons and tons of junk food can cause harm to the rest of society if they're using the State's medical system vs their own health insurance. In that case, banning junk and fast food is good for society at large.

Note that I don't actually believe that banning junk and fast food is a good idea. I'm just pointing out that it could be justified as being good for society.

Re:NannyState?

[Antique Geekmeister]

When I looked, the article seemed to be slashdotted and was difficult to read.

Does this mean...

[Ub3rT3Rr0R1St]

Does this mean I won't be able to call my ex girlfriend up at 3am with a phone number she doesn't recognize, and proceed to breathe heavily into the phone?

But seriously, I think it's a good idea. They've closed the door to many a tele-scammer. Hopefully now all those geriatrics who get their social security card stolen will have a little more security.

Re:Does this mean...

[timmarhy]

so how does this make anyone any safer? all it does is up the penalty not prevent the crime. people always delude themselfs that high penalties will prevent crimes, even though the truth slaps them in the face everyday - people commit crimes thinking they won't get caught, hence the penalty doesn't matter.

Re:Does this mean...

[Harmonious Botch]

Does this mean I won't be able to call my ex girlfriend up at 3am with a phone number she doesn't recognize, and proceed to breathe heavily into the phone? We gotcha covered. Post her number and the friendly folks here at slashdot will do it for you.

Re:Does this mean...

[Actually, I do RTFA]

212-555-1212. Thanks guys

To those not aware, it's New York City's information number. Before tons of people wrack up toll charges and yell at me because they thought they might hear a woman's voice and got all excited. Actually, this is slashdot, so maybe the robotic woman's voice at the other end does something for people out there.

Re:Does this mean...

[kypper]

I expected 212-867-5309

Granted, that chick has got to be really old by now....

Re:Does this mean...

[Spacezilla]

I just heard that song this morning, good old Jenny. :)

Re:Does this mean...

[dmsuperman]

Not really, I notice that most of the telemarketer calls I get are from blocked caller. I usually proceed to ask them a billion personal questions until they hangup, that really is the best anti-spam method.

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I won't be able to call my ex girlfriend up at 3am with a phone number she doesn't recognize, and proceed to breathe heavily into the phone?

We gotcha covered. Post her number and the friendly folks here at slashdot will do it for you.

Hell yeah! GP can post his own number too if he likes.

"Do you use Linux too? Oh yeah! What distro do you like? Are you at the command line right now? Unnnhhhh!"

Re:Does this mean...

[prockcore]

Nah, the real number is 202-456-1414 her name is Laura.

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

867-5309 :)

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

You want 6060-842 (I'm waiting for you...)

Re:Does this mean...

[Antique Geekmeister]

It could help a bit: tracking a fraudulent or stalking call back to the original number demonstrates their crime, without having to establish that they were in fact stalking or committing other fraud. Like nailing Al Capone on tax evasion, it should be easier to prove. And your average script kiddie with a friend's warez helping him run a war dialer becomes more easy to prosecute, without having to establish the level of damage they've actually done.

It's still troubling for other reasons.

Re:Does this mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure the guy that is screwing her is already breathing heavily in to her ear already :)

Re:Does this mean...

[cerberusss]

Don't call this number, everyone! It's not his ex-girlfriend, it's his mother!

Re:Does this mean...

[AikonMGB]

Lets see if we can start the first instance of slashdotting the telephone system.. Our power is spreading!!

Aikon-

Re:Does this mean...

[WK2]

But seriously, I think it's a good idea. They've closed the door to many a tele-scammer.

Yes. Because, as everyone knows, scammers will never break the law.

Problem?

[VariableGHz]

I didn't know that CallerID spoofing was a big issue.

Re:Problem?

[ScottyMcScott]

well now you do.

Re:Problem?

[Evilest Doer]

I didn't know that CallerID spoofing was a big issue.

well now you do.

And knowing is half the battle!

Re:Problem?

[jorghis]

Unscrupulous debt collectors, private investigers, etc. use it more often than you think. If you have any reason not to want to pick up the phone there is a good chance the organization that wants to talk to you will try this trick.

Re:Problem?

[rfunches]

The only time I've ever seen it spoofed (and known about it) was when the caller changed the number to 000-000-0000.

Needless to say, I answered the phone and hung up on them. Changing your CID to an obviously invalid number isn't cute, it gives me a good reason to not pick up the phone.

Simple question

[TubeSteak]

When the police/people see the incoming phone records, will it show the spoofed number or the real number?

Re:Simple question

[userlame]

This had some simple answers:

http://www.rootsecure.net/?p=reports/callerid_spoo fing

I'm sure there's many similar pages out there. Short answer: the real one.

Re:Simple question

[Dun Malg]

When the police/people see the incoming phone records, will it show the spoofed number or the real number? Police and the phone company use the ANI system (Automatic Number Identification). This is the system that tracks your billing. You do not have any say in what this system records as far as Name, Number, etc. Caller ID is a separate and unrelated system. Caller ID information is usually set by the originating switch--- essentially the point where the call turns from analog to digital. If you get all your lines piped into your office via a T1, then you are in control of the device that sets the Caller ID name and number and can set it whatever you like.

Re:Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

My VoIP provider set the same ANI information for ALL outgoing calls. CPN and CallerID data may be user-specified. This makes tracing calls a major problem....

Re:Simple question

[Rob T Firefly]

Police and the phone company use the ANI system (Automatic Number Identification). This is the system that tracks your billing. You do not have any say in what this system records as far as Name, Number, etc. Unless, of course, you spoof that as well.

Re:Simple question

[walt-sjc]

If you get all your lines piped into your office via a T1, then you are in control of the device that sets the Caller ID name and number and can set it whatever you like.

Yes and no. Depending on the provider, you may be limited to only setting your callerid to a number in your DID block.

3 times a day

[sxeraverx]

So...If they get caught 3 times in one day, they can do it as much as they want that day? And...If they get caught 100 times, they can do it all they want forever? Fun.

How will they enforce this?

[mark-t]

If the ID has been spoofed, they might be able to know after the fact that it was spoofed, but how do they find out what it really was if it was spoofed in the first place?

Re:How will they enforce this?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several services out there that will do this real-time before you even answer the call. Like PDXUSA, they compare the ANI with the ID of the carrier originating the call, and the CID to see if they are consistent, then the CID display on your phone will indicate the CID, the ANI, and indicate if the CID is legit or not.

Hope I don't misconfigure my VOIP settings...

[Anonymous Coward]

Man... that's harsh... VOIP let's you reconfigure your CallerID... hope I never get that setting wrong.

By the way, did anyoen see the supreme court rulings today? Is American getting shittier?

Re:Hope I don't misconfigure my VOIP settings...

[Anonymous Coward]

To answer your final question: Just the spelling and the grammar.

Details?

[detain]

Ok so I had recently adjusted my packet8 account to show my name as 'Harry Potter' instead of my real name, would this fall under that law? For the mean time to be safe I reverted it back to showing a proper name, however I much prefer to have it something silly. Do we have anyone that can translate this new law to let us know wether or not this is targeting everyone or just people using it to scam people out of money or use it for social engineering purposes.

Re:Details?

[detain]

Also, is this now current law or something still in the works?

Re:Details?

[profplump]

CNAM data is not passed across the PSTN -- only the number is passed, and the destination telco must do a CNAM lookup. That's why out-of-area CNAM data is spoty at best. Hence your "spoofed" name is only visible inside the packet8 network.

Re:Details?

[number11]

TFA shows it to be "in the works", and not, as the blurb says, passed into law. It may well end up being passed, but it doesn't look like it has been yet.

S.704
Title: A bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit manipulation of caller identification information.
Sponsor: Sen Nelson, Bill [FL] (introduced 2/28/2007) Cosponsors (4)
Latest Major Action: 6/27/2007 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.ALL ACTIONS:

2/28/2007:
        Sponsor introductory remarks on measure. (CR S2360-2361)
2/28/2007:
        Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. (text of measure as introduced: CR S2361-2362)

        6/21/2007:
                Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Hearings held.
        6/27/2007:
                Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably.

Its companion bill did pass in the House:
H.R.251
Title: To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit manipulation of caller identification information, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Engel, Eliot L. [NY-17] (introduced 1/5/2007) Cosponsors (31)
Latest Major Action: 6/13/2007 Referred to Senate committee. Status: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
House Reports: 110-188MAJOR ACTIONS:

1/5/2007 Introduced in House
6/11/2007 Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Energy and Commerce. H. Rept. 110-188.
6/12/2007 Passed/agreed to in House: On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended Agreed to by voice vote.
6/13/2007 Referred to Senate committee: Received in the Senate and Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Re:Details?

[dizzy8578]

Key information is...
Ted Stevens is for it. A co sponsor.
The Dem co sponsors are blue dogs owned by one corporation or another.

This means Ted can make a profit off it in some way.

Following a proven rule of thumb, this means it is going to be very bad for anyone who does not own either an oil company or a telco.

A campaign

[ringokamens]

There's a campaign going on at Binary Freedom right now that some of you may be interested in.
http://binaryfreedom.info/node/163
Basically, there are several arguments against this law

1. It doesn't do anything
Criminals will still make calls and spoof, so it won't stop fraud. Police can already track down spoofers with the same amount of non-spoofers who are using their phones for illegal purposes.

2. It costs money
We're gonna have to spend money to catch spoofers.

3. Jurisdiction
If the phone companies want to stop spoofing, they should design a secure system instead of relying on the congressional police

4. Privacy
It strips privacy that is gained by spoofing.

5. Legitimate use
It has legitimate uses such as for telecommuters who want the name when they make business calls to be the company's. Or how about a business that has several people using one phone line? They might want the sales associate's name to appear, which would be done through spoofing.

Fact of the matter is, this gains us nothing. If I can write a fake name on a letter and mail it, why can't I do the same with my phone?

Re:A campaign

[timmarhy]

actually genius you cant, it's called mail fraud, and carries heavy pentalies similar to this.

Re:A campaign

[metamatic]

Argument #4 is really weak. You can always not send caller ID if you want privacy.

Re:A campaign

[ringokamens]

No, mail fraud occurs when you use a fake name on a package to do something illegal. Unless you do something illegal (like mail a pipe bomb to somebody) then it's perfectly legal.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for Congress, but not on this issue. But I can correct some misinformation.

1. You're right. We shouldn't make murder illegal either.

2. See number 1. The question is whether the money spent on this law is worth the societal good of making it easier to prosecute scammers.

3. The phone companies don't have an incentive to stop scamming. Congress does (they're occasionally responsible to voters.)

4. It doesn't stop you from not allowing the number to show up at all. It just stops you from faking it.

5. It was specifically written to exempt these uses, since Congressional offices, for example, have the public number show up when people call out from them, rather than individual extensions.

Re:A campaign

[ringokamens]

True, but you get even more privacy with a pseudonym

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong.

- Commuters and business can still use a different BUT VALID CallerID string such as an inbound customer service number).
- You can still falsify your own callerID for fun... the law required an indent to commit fraud.
- There is no loss in privacy. You can still BLOCK your callerID. There is a right to TRUTHFUL speech, but no right to speak falsely with an intent to commit fraud.
- With telemarketers that spoof callerID, it removes that activity from the "grey area" of legality and makes it easier to prosecute them.
- I bust illegal telemarketers falsifying their callerID all the time. Its simple and easy... get a call detail report from the phone company via subpoena. I do it at least once a month.
- The phone companies have a "foolproof" system... ANI.
- Services like PDXUSA are coming out that will give you the ANI and callerID, and verify the callerID is valid or faked.
- False information sent through the mail, with the intent to defraud, is mail fraud.... and if signed into law, false information sent via callerID with the intent to defraud will also be illegal.

Re:A campaign

[Elemenope]

Fraud generally requires either a pecuniary motive, or commission of the act in furtherance of some other crime. Simply putting some name that is not my own on a letter is neither of these things. I could sign my letters "Harry Potter" and the name as such wouldn't even be impersonation because the "victim" doesn't exist. Is this Mail Fraud? I don't think so...unless I was attempting to somehow profit from putting "Harry Potter" as my name.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't make any sense. What's next, it is illegal to breathe while you're committing a murder?

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

I'm not so much worried about criminals, but I don't think this bill addresses what I want it to:

I'm sick of companies calling and their damn name not showing up, for whatever reason. "Tollfree number" (well no shit, other than collect, when do I get charged for receiving calls?) or "Unknown Caller"

Some of them are bill collectors. Who want someone that isn't here, and don't seem to want to believe that no, that person isn't here, and isn't going to be, so stop calling me. But either way, if they can't identify themselves, they shouldn't be calling my damn number. Which is why I disagree with #4 on your list.

If you're calling my house, I have every right to know who you are. Can you seriously come up with a legitimate situation where you should be able to call me and me not be able to see who you are before I answer the phone?

I barely answer unless I recognize the number anyway, because of a massive amount of wrong numbers. And some of the numbers these idiots are trying to dial aren't even close.

I agree with #3, however, in regards to #2, the cost of it will just be passed on to you one way or another. #5 I can see, but I've never had a business call me and use a sales associate's name.

#1 is a silly argument. Making rape illegal hasn't stopped it, either. You can make the case that no law is ever going to stop any crime. However, it makes it so that if you do it and get caught, you can be punished.

Re:A campaign

[ktappe]

1. It doesn't do anything Criminals will still make calls and spoof, so it won't stop fraud. Police can already track down spoofers

This will give the police $10,000 teeth they did not have before.

2. It costs money We're gonna have to spend money to catch spoofers.

Freedom is not free.

3. Jurisdiction If the phone companies want to stop spoofing, they should design a secure system instead of relying on the congressional police

Who says the phone companies want to stop spoofing? What they want is for customers to pay their bills.

This is a consumer protection bill and protecting the citizenry is raison d'etre of the government.

4. Privacy It strips privacy that is gained by spoofing.

"Privacy" does not equate to "lying to get people to answer a sales call they would otherwise have exercised their right to ignore".

5. Legitimate use It has legitimate uses

No, no it really doesn't. Being a deceptive cheat is not "legitimate use" in a civilized society.

Re:A campaign

[gujo-odori]

WRT point 5, what the bill outlaws is "to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller ID information." If a company has its PBX configured so that it sends a salesperson's name rather than the company's name when she makes a call, I think a lawyer would have no problem deflecting an attempt to prosecute. After all, the name displayed *was* the name of the person making the call, so none of the information was false or misleading.

For the person who wondered if having his caller ID say "Harry Potter" could get him in trouble, it sounds like it could, although in practical terms I think someone would have to actually complain about that for him to get in trouble. I think how this law will be used in practice is for "piling on" charges when arresting scammers on other charges. The more you can charge them with, the more expensive it is for them to defend it and the more jail time and fines you can get on them.

Still, as others have suggested, I believe congress is approaching this from the wrong angle. It is certainly possible for the Telcos to solve this problem by preventing spoofing in the first place, but they don't because they have no incentive to do so. They also have some disincentive to do so: there are people who want to spoof, for good reasons or bad, and these people are telco customers. If the major telcos all blocked spoofing, they'd take their business to someone who didn't. However, congress can give telcos incentive to block spoofing by requiring them to do so and levying hefty fines if they don't.

They'll whine, sure. Companies that don't want to do something always whine. Look at the auto industry. Going back to the first legislation requiring emission controls, and later, CAFE imposing mileage standards, there was much lobbying, whining, wringing of hands, wailing, gnashing of teeth, and protestations that it was too difficult, to expensive, or both. Yet, lo and behold, they've done a pretty fine job of meeting these requirements. In doing so, they illustrated very well the difference between "can't' and "don't want to." The telcos would be no different. They'd gripe about it, but they'd get it done.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

False, a pseudonym provides no additional privacy over sending no ID.

What spoofing does give you is the ability to deceptively make anonymous calls where the intent of the receiving party to block calls with no ID.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

4. It doesn't stop you from not allowing the number to show up at all. It just stops you from faking it.

It doesn't stop me from doing anything. The POTS network is still broken.

Re:A campaign

[rek2]

I agree with Ringo on this arguments...

Re:A campaign

[phliar]

I agree with you that these kinds of laws are crap since somehow businesses always get away with all kinds of shit while college kids and regular people are fined and thrown in jail for nothing. Every law diminishes us; there's a real cost to every law, which must be carefully weighed against the claimed benefit.

However:

If I can write a fake name on a letter and mail it, why can't I do the same with my phone?

Do you feel the same way about email?

I feel very strongly that in any interaction, you can either be truthful about your identity or you can be anonymous. There is no middle ground; you are not allowed to lie about who you are.

(Proxy relations, where person X is authorised to speak for person Y, aren't the same: if I get a letter from a lawyer, I know very clearly it's not X, but Y speaking for X. But the CLID field is not the place for that.)

Re:A campaign

[LearnToSpell]

Some of them are bill collectors. Who want someone that isn't here, and don't seem to want to believe that no, that person isn't here, and isn't going to be, so stop calling me. But either way, if they can't identify themselves, they shouldn't be calling my damn number. Which is why I disagree with #4 on your list.

This is what I'm running into now. I just got my first cellphone (I know, I know), and apparently the person who had this number before is skipping out on some bills. Problem is, I got one of the Virgin 18c/min deals, so it costs me every time I answer. They're just happy to keep calling back over and over, but it's pissing me off.

Re:A campaign

[Achromatic1978]

Yup, and don't forget all those volunteers who reply to mail sent to "Santa Claus" on behalf of the post office.

Re:A campaign

[XorNand]

Actually, only a caller ID number can be spoofed. The number -> name correlation is a database lookup done at the phone company; customers have no control of that on a call-by-call basis.

Re:A campaign

[Achromatic1978]

"Can I have your mailing address?"

Certified mail:

In reference to your repeated attempts to find Person X on phone number X, consider yourself formally informed that this person has no connection with this number, and further, that this number is a cellular service for which an uninvolved third party is billed for each call from your business. Accordingly, you are instructed to cease and desist calling this number in relation to this matter, or I reserve the right to take action on the grounds that these calls are civil harassment, and to seek redress through appropriate channels for costs and damages incurred in dealing with this matter."

Re:A campaign

[Short Circuit]

Nope. Once a pseudonym can be associated with you, all records associated with that pseudonym can, as well. The only way a pseudonym can give you privacy is if you use a different one every time.

Want true privacy? Achieve anonymity.

Re:A campaign

[BrokenHalo]

You can always not send caller ID if you want privacy.

Sure you can, so long as you don't mind if the person you are calling assumes you are a telemarketer and refuses to pick up the call.

Re:A campaign

[dufachi]

Wouldn't it be nice if it were illegal for these collection agencies to call and refuse to give you their REAL business name? I get so tired of hearing "it's a personal matter" and them refusing to believe that the person in question either

1. Hasn't had this phone # for years.
2. Doesn't actually live here, but gave out my #.

I have started demanding they give me their business name before I'll even agree to take a message. I also do not settle for something cryptic like "CSC" and "It's a personal matter." No. You tell me exactly who you are and what it's concerning or I contact the FCC and file a complaint through the Do Not Call list. Simple as that.

Re:A campaign

[Short Circuit]

As others mentioned, you can get the *actual* phone numbers from your phone company. Get those, find out the names of the companies calling you, and have a lawyer draft a cease-and-desist. Or, if the cost of the lawyer is too much, write one yourself.

Re:A campaign

[Short Circuit]

This will give the police $10,000 teeth they did not have before. How does it in any way aid an investigation into, say, fraud? Both state and federal police have access to telco ANI records that show true phone numbers, not just what's on the caller-ID.

Freedom is not free. Sorry, "Freedom" doesn't entail expanding the number of laws on the books.

"Privacy" does not equate to "lying to get people to answer a sales call they would otherwise have exercised their right to ignore". Not everyone who spoofs caller-ID is "lying to get people to answer a sales call that they would otherwise have exercised their right to ignore." Take, for example, any business with a PBX and more internal extensions than incoming phone lines. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Kodak, Xerox, Herman-Miller...the list would exceed Slashdot's max comment size limit.

No, no it really doesn't. Being a deceptive cheat is not "legitimate use" in a civilized society. Again, you're refactoring the argument. Not everyone who uses caller-ID spoofing is a "deceptive cheat." See the above list...

Re:A campaign

[itsme1234]

"If you're calling my house, I have every right to know who you are. Can you seriously come up with a legitimate situation where you should be able to call me and me not be able to see who you are before I answer the phone?"

Well you obviously DON'T have "every right" to know who's calling you before you pick up the phone but you WOULD LIKE to have it.

First of all you can at most identify what's the phone calling you from the other side not WHO is on the other side. Let alone the fact that there are plenty of legitimate situations where people would prefer to call anonymously (whistle blowers, people seeking counseling, etc) there are even more situations where people who aren't anonymous would prefer you don't see the number they're calling from. These include all your business contacts who would prefer you to call them on the company number but sometimes work from home and would like to call you, your boos who might not want you to know he's calling from his mistress (who might be somebody you know) and so on. There are plenty of situations when I'm calling somebody and I don't want to be called back on that number (and even people who know me well are too lazy to look in their address books and just call me back on the number I called from which is not what I usually want)

Actually you're a bit hypocritical: if you don't believe there are legitimate situations where people are hiding their callerids why do you even bother? It's trivial (technically) to filter them out! Or you might be worried that you're missing important (legitimate) calls? Well, if you are then there you go, those are the legitimate calls performed with callerID blocked!

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

Well you obviously DON'T have "every right" to know who's calling you before you pick up the phone but you WOULD LIKE to have it.

Sorry, no, I don't think someone has the right to basically lie about who they are on my caller ID. It's my phone and my time, and if their legitimate name and number aren't something I'll pick up for, sorry, I don't want them wasting it.

Let alone the fact that there are plenty of legitimate situations where people would prefer to call anonymously (whistle blowers, people seeking counseling, etc)

No one is going to be calling my home phone to blow the whistle on anything, or seeking counseling. I don't think oversight agencies or counseling places should keep records of who calls them in the first place -- this is unrelated to caller ID.

there are even more situations where people who aren't anonymous would prefer you don't see the number they're calling from. These include all your business contacts who would prefer you to call them on the company number but sometimes work from home and would like to call you, your boos who might not want you to know he's calling from his mistress (who might be somebody you know) and so on.

Another poster already pointed out that the first is exempted, in part because Congress does things. As for the latter -- why the hell would someone call me from their mistress's? What kind of idiot do you work for?

And blocking is considered different from spoofing, to answer your last part. But I don't answer those calls, either. I cited examples of what irritates me about not having honest on the caller ID. If you want to call from home and have your work number? Fine, whatever. That's exempted in the bill. What ticks me off are companies using a call center that spoof not the number, but the name. I mentioned this (I used the stupid names in my post -- "Tollfree number"), and another poster replied mentioning that these same places often give you a run around about who they are.

Re:A campaign

[unlametheweak]

If you aren't using spoofing for some rather serious illegal purposes like death threats, massive spamming or scamming then this law is unlikely to be enforced.

In my experiences with businesses using auto-dialers and pre-recorded phone calls to advertise, the police will just refer you to the phone company, and the phone company will just refer you to the police. The same with obscene and persistent phone calls. So I doubt if a law like this would be enforced for the average person just wanting to impress there friends.

Re:A campaign

[supervillainsf]

This is not a dig, but a real question.

How far do you feelings of total truthfulness or anonymity extend? I know this is a strange concept for most /. readers, but what if you wanted to RTFA on the NYT site or somewhere else you need to register to access content. Are you always truthful about who you are and give your real name and a real email address, by which I mean one that you check on a regular enough basis that they could be reasonably sure that they will get in contact with you in a reasonable amount of time, or do you do what I assume most of us do and put in a garbage name and a check once a month hotmail account just for the confirmation that you'll never check again until you sign up for something else with a confirm email?

How about some drunk clown on the bus? Do you give him your real name or some "John" name when he asks, or do you tell him to bugger off and hope he stays pleasant and doesn't decide he suddenly wants to punch you?

I find that while I am usually a truthful person, there are plenty of times where I am inclined to give people or entities a psudonym rather than argue with them about why they really don't need my name and I find that there is no given rule about when thats going to happen. What about the use of screennames on places like slashdot? Nobody knows who you really are, but posting here is obvoiusly interaction between you and the community at large.

Re:A campaign

[Loconut1389]

My dad is a physician and often makes calls from home- he does not want patients calling him directly at 3AM- there is a paging system in place through the office that pages the correct (and on call) doctor for the night.

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

I'm not the OP, but I have a response to offer.

What you're talking about sounds like attempts to remain anonymous.

In the case of the NYT, you just don't want them to have your e-mail. Possibly in an attempt to avoid junk e-mail (not all junk is spam). You aren't contacting a person at the NYT in this case and lying about who you are.

A good comparison to spoofing caller ID is forging e-mail headers. Like with spoofing caller ID, there may be legitimate reasons you may want to do this, but in many cases, people who forge e-mail headers are an annoyance.

For all you know, my name may or may not be Khaed (it isn't, not even close), however, I am not presenting myself as though it is, nor am I presenting myself as if my AIM screen name is my real name. On slashdot and many other forums, there's a reasonable assumption people aren't really called by their username -- unless your parents really, really love comic books, I doubt your name is supervillainsf. My primary e-mail is my real name, however, because I use it for personal correspondence and don't want to have to explain who the hell I am or why my handle is "khaed" to my former teachers or coworkers that I stay in contact with.

However, my e-mail is fairly private, only given to people I know, and my slashdot ID is not -- a slashdot link is in the top ten google searches for it. My e-mail address returns no results (whew). This is how I want it -- a measure of privacy.

However, anyone I call, or e-mail, gets my name, and in the former case, my telephone number. Well, if they have caller ID. If I send them regular mail, they also get my name (and PO Box, unless I send them something via UPS/Fed-Ex). This is a public forum, with massive traffic, hundreds of thousands of users, and it gets cached by Google. My telephone line is just between me and another person (rarely, personS). It's also either in my home, or my pocket, and isn't freely given out to just anyone. I want to know who is on the other end.

As for the drunk, there's a safety issue there. If there were a reasonable safety issue that required spoofing caller ID or forging e-mail headers... then no sensible person is objecting. But these cases are few and far between. I'd probably give the drunk a fake name and tell him a joke. But that's just me. and I'd say Bob, not John, Bob sounds more friendly, like the guy from those commercials who smiles a lot.

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

This sort of thing is excepted in the bill. He's also not lying about who he is when he calls, if it returns the number of the hospital/practice where he works and where an on-call doctor can be reached. He's calling as an agent of the hospital.

I don't expect the home phone number of my banker showing up, either. Perhaps I should have explained better, and I'll use your example to illustrate what I meant:

When your father calls people, the number is a legitimate number that will get them directly in contact with someone relevant to the reason he called in the first place. I would bet it says "So and So Hospital" or "So and So Doctors" on the caller ID. It doesn't say "Big Bubba's Truck Emporium" and "876-5309" for the number. He's not trying to hide that he's a doctor calling. My problem is with people trying to hide who they are, or what company they work for, when they call me.

Re:A campaign

[gkhan1]

But there are legitimate uses for completely spoofing CallerID and misdirecting the numbers! I'm talking about the press. Many newspapers that talks to informers on a regular basis have lines that show up as nonsense numbers, so that a person can talk without being afraid of others knowing who they're talking to. It would be really bad if someone sneaked into a whistleblower's home and dialled *69 and "The New York Times information desk, how can I help you?" came up. Unless this law has a specific allowance for this, it shouldn't be passed.

Re:A campaign

[Loconut1389]

his home number is just plain blocked. He doesnt have time to decide whether each call is business (especially at 3A) or personal and figure out how to make the phone company change the ID. He just has analog telephone service (no VOIP) - so he doesnt have much of a choice. If the phone company had a *something option that toggled between the two- maybe he'd use it, but if his beeper goes off he's on the phone in seconds- i'm not sure he'd want to muck with it.

I understand where you're coming from. I hate blocked calls too- but there are legitimate reasons is all I'm saying.

Re:A campaign

[Dachannien]

If you don't want the number you're calling from to show up on my caller ID, then don't call me. Problem solved.

Re:A campaign

[DarkIye]

http://www.usps.com/websites/depart/inspect/statut es.htm

Mail fraud is a criminal scheme where the postal system is used to obtain money or anything of value from a victim by offering a product, service, or investment opportunity that does not live up to its claims.

I'm afraid he's right.

Re:A campaign

[Antique Geekmeister]

Ahh. I see you've been noticing how HP illegally obtained phone records of reporters, hoping to plug an internal leak?

Re:A campaign

[CodeBuster]

you should use the * + 2-4 digit codes to set your number to "unblock Caller ID or I will not take your call". That way the caller must unblock their Caller ID, which they can do on a per call basis with another star code, or the call will never be routed through the phone network to your phone. They can still spoof the ID if they want to, but if you don't recognize them or you were not expecting the call then you can choose not to answer it

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

No one has to prove to you that they have a legitimate reason to hide their caller ID. Nobody has to prove they have a legitimate reason to hide their phone number from the yellow pages. If I walk up to you door, I do not have to prove I have a legitimate reason not to give my own personal address.

You have no right to know anything about me just because I want to talk to you. Prove that you do, that's the burden of proof.

Re:A campaign

[supervillainsf]

I think that you and I see things in a similar way. What I was specifically responding to was the statement:

I feel very strongly that in any interaction, you can either be truthful about your identity or you can be anonymous. There is no middle ground; you are not allowed to lie about who you are

I think that 100 years ago living that way would have been the norm and probably the only people who had to disguise their identity were up to something suspect. 50 years ago, well, I don't know about the 50's, but even 20 years ago, I don't see that there was much need to use psudonyms except maybe if you were some girl at a bar and didn't want to give some dumbass your name or phone number. Now I think most people (the slashdot type of people) have become accustomed to giving out bogus data to some extent or another. As for the NYT example, it's easy, all you have to do is make sure that either the email address looks valid or is a throwaway account depending on whats needed. But, at the same time, I do have a mostly-ficticous set of data that I use when I know that I will want to access whatever account I just set up again, or maybe if they have reason to contact me for some reason, but i don't want to have to deal with potential marketers outside of the occasional flyer.

I know this is inherently dishonest, but we seem to have reached a point where companies are compensating for the impersonal nature of the interweb by collecting more personal data than needed so that they can market to you any time 24 hours a day.
I am just really interested to know if the parent really lives up to this or has a point where it's ok to tell a little white lie and maybe give a fake email to the midwestern po-dunk daily website in order to read one article that was linked to from slashdot or if he/she feels it is ok for a girl to give some drunk guy at a bar a fake name because she thinks he's creepy and doesn't really want them to know who she is.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

I work for Congress,...

No offense, but that doesn't give you any credibility as of late.

Re:A campaign

[crypticgeek]

Hi, I'm crypticgeek. Wait no, that's not my real name...that was a LIE. You better have Congress write up a law for that too. Internets Impersonation Act of 2007! Because obviously I have NO RIGHT to lie to you about who I am. Wait...who are you? What's your name? What's your number? Where do you live? You better tell me. Stop lying. I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!111one I'm sure you're also in favor of Real ID and a national ID card? Because obviously the government has a right to know who you are before talking to you. Long live President Bush! What a fine country we live in. Yes, my papers are in order sir! Sieg heil! Sieg heil Amerika! I feel much safer now that I have to show my papers before I can travel anywhere. Now we are safe on planes, trains, automobiles, and everywhere! And no dirty illegal immigrants! What a country! Your convenience in knowing who is calling is just that...a convenience and not a right. Get over it.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should anyone have to go to this much trouble over frickin' *phone calls*? You're probably the kind of person who believes that individually opting out of every piece of junk mail is also a good idea.

You can waste three-quarters of your life sending out these letters and doing all the record-keeping and lawyer-hiring that goes along with them if you want to. I'll take the no-spoofing law.

Re:A campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine purchased this technology 2-3 years ago, and started a business off of it(he did no advertising other than putting up a webpage and letting google index it). Within the first week, he had already been contacted by the DEA (i think it was them... some FED agency) for a possible contract. Not sure if he took it, but the first time he called me using it, it came up identifed as

White House
900-555-5555

He could make ANY text, and ANY number appear for the call. Cool tech, IMO. The reason he bought it in the first place? He got shorted off of an EBAY sale. Couple hundred bucks, if I remember correctlhy.

So, he called up the guy who stiffed him, cleverly socially engineering the guy, without breaking any telephone/imposter LAWS, and within a few days, had recieved a check for the amount it had sold for.

Not sure as to why Congress thinks it should be illegal, or what good it will do. Afterall, you don't HAVE to answer the phone.

Re:A campaign

[metamatic]

Right, which is exactly the point.

Telemarketers wanted "privacy". They got it, by having the option to not send any caller ID. Result: nobody picks up the phone if there's no caller ID. So telemarketers started spoofing caller ID.

Re:A campaign

[jjhall]

3. Jurisdiction If the phone companies want to stop spoofing, they should design a secure system instead of relying on the congressional police

Who says the phone companies want to stop spoofing? What they want is for customers to pay their bills.
This is a consumer protection bill and protecting the citizenry is raison d'etre of the government.

The government shouldn't be protecting me from myself. Laws are meant to protect me from what I can't protect myself from. For example, I can't stop someone from breaking into my house when I'm not home and stealing my valuables. I can do what I can (good locks, alarm, etc.) to help, but in the end if someone wants in they will get in. I also cannot prevent somebody without insurance running a red light and totaling my car. There are laws in place to help keep people from driving without insurance in the first place.

As for spoofed CallerID, who in their right mind would give any caller any personal information just based on what the CallerID said? Before CID, did people just give out any information to anyone who called saying they were the bank without verifying somehow that they were indeed who they said they were? Nope. The need to do that hasn't changed. I have to actively choose to make myself a victim by giving out that information, so protecting me at a government level is unnecessary.

It has already been mentioned by numerous other posters that the true ID information, ANI, is already available to the telcos and to investigating officers. Due to this fact anyone who does commit a crime using the telephone is going to leave a paper trail anyway. If they have the ability to get around the ANI tracking, asking them not to screw with CID is not going to do anything but make them chuckle. The fraudsters who commit crimes using CID spoofing are already breaking existing laws, there is absolutely no need to add another useless law to the already over-complicated lawbooks.

People need to stand up for themselves and force the phone companies to change. The telcos have already recovered the cost for the CID infrastructure many times over and is purely a profit item for them now. Rather than having Congress enact yet another law, why not tell the phone companies you don't like how the existing system works by canceling your CID service? You are exactly right in that the telcos want people to pay their bills, and if people stop subscribing to CID, do you think they'd just turn it off and accept the loss of $6.95/month per line? Nope, they'd sit down and realize they just lost a 100% margin product and redesign it to meet what people will pay for again. Do you keep subscribing to a magazine when you decide it doesn't provide the content you want but ask Congress to enact a law to change the format of the magazine? I certainly hope not.

I've read articles that say a large percentage (between 80 and 100 percent depending on where they live) of Americans go about their daily lives unknowingly breaking at least one law on a daily basis. As an example, in many states it is against the law for any kind of "reproductive attempt" that is not the plain old missionary style. How does it hurt society if my wife and I (yes, a married Slashdotter, try not to stare please) want to try a different position? Nope, I can't think of any reason either. Why is it even on the books?

I'm sick and tired of having more and more laws on the books, and spending more and more money (taxes) to enforce them. The founding fathers of our country threw a big party that had something to do with tea when their government was unfairly taxing them and pushing unnecessary and unfair laws on them. Each and every one of them are probably turning over in their respective graves when they see what this country has become.

Despite what Oprah may tell you, YOU are responsible for YOUR own actions. If you don't like it move to China or some other police-controlled nation and let the rest of us enjoy our freedom.

Re:A campaign

[AK Marc]

For the person who wondered if having his caller ID say "Harry Potter" could get him in trouble, it sounds like it could, although in practical terms I think someone would have to actually complain about that for him to get in trouble.

Well, I would say that "Harry Potter" calling me wouldn't be misleading. No matter who was making the call, a reasonable person could not believe that a fictional character was calling. As for whether it is inaccurate, I think that an articulate lawyer could put in a reasonable argument that a Harry Potter fan setting his name as such is an accurate description of the caller, even though it isn't explicitly his name. Thus, though not a unique identifier, it is both accurate and not misleading, making it a legal tag. Or so someone could easily argue. The courts would have to be the ones to settle this. Just don't be Mickey Mouse or Walt will come from his grave to sue you for trademark violations, after killing your dog.

Re:A campaign

[deacon]

http://www.privacycorps.com/products/?id=20

Get one of these
Your problems and high blood pressure will be over
No more bozos on your phone
Cheapest $100 I ever spent
Now every phone call I get is one I want.
Regards,
Deacon

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

Hey, dumb ass.

See my post further on where I explain the difference between a public forum like slashdot and my private home phone number or cell number.

Also, fuck you, douche bag. :)

Re:A campaign

[VisceralLogic]

Same thing happened to me (Virgin Mobile, too). But they only called occasionally (once every couple months, or so). So after a couple years I finally called them back and told them they had the wrong number, and I haven't heard from them since.

Re:A campaign

[crypticgeek]

Dumb ass? Douche bag? Hey now, let's not get rough! I just took your arguments to their logical extreme. :)

You don't have some right to know who anyone is. Privacy is everyone's right. So I know that can't be your argument, as you're in favor of called id blocking correct? You seem sick of "unknown caller", so I'm not so sure how you stand there.

I can tell you I'm Daffy Duck (ignoring copyright issues) and present myself to you as such. Whether or not you have some expectation that this should be true or untrue based on the medium of this communication has no bearing. What's WRONG with saying I'm someone I'm not with the full intention of having you believe this to be true if I'm not trying to commit a crime against you? Nothing, and that's how it has always been. I can send you emails or postal mail with completely legal non-fraudulent content posing as someone I am not or posing as no one at all because I choose to do so anonymously. This is my personal freedom to do.

It may be your "private phone", but it's my private phone too. We both have a similar private connection to the internet, should I have to reveal my identity to you when I email you? Arguing that this is different seems illogical to me. You can easily jump from phone calls to emails in the same fashion. Both are simply communications sent over private networks neither of us own but pay a fee to connect to. You simply have come to expect or desire no anonymity from phones while expecting that this exists on the internet because it's a "public forum"? Not buying it, because for one most of the web isn't a public forum. It's privately run forums where the owners can do as they wish. But also because I don't see how your assumptions on the validity of people's identity should enter into this at all.

Back to phones for a moment. You don't own the phone network nor do you own my telephone termination where I can set my caller id (a feature I pay for and should be able set). You don't HAVE to have a phone and you don't HAVE to have caller id. Caller id is merely a convenience feature, it's not an authentication scheme as much as you'd like it to be.

This law is simply making a class of criminals we don't NEED. Why should we make a criminal out of someone for inconveniencing you? I just don't see the need for such a silly useless law. There have been examples of numerous USEFUL and non damaging uses for caller id "spoofing" which you have snubbed most of. This is hardly a crime and I'm not sure who this is aimed to protect other than people who don't want to be inconvenienced.

Re:A campaign

[Khaed]

Please accept my apologies, I thought you were trolling, and had a fairly aggravating morning.

When I said public forum, I meant public as in the contents are public. My phone calls are not -- at least, until the NSA decides my boring ass life is interesting -- and that's what I meant by "public." Not as in, government owned/operated. (Thankfully, in the case of /. and most internet forums.)

If you want to not send any caller ID information, that's fine with me, and I'm free to not answer your call. But sending out a different name to fool me into answering? I don't like that.

I wouldn't like it if you could post on /. as someone else's user name, either. I don't mean having more than one account, I mean just spoofing your name to be something else in order to fool someone into replying, knowing they'd reply to that name.

Re:A campaign

[phliar]

All good questions.

Obviously the situation is more nuanced than can be discussed in a couple of minutes, but the way I think about it is: if you refuse to let me be anonymous, then I have no choice but to use an obvious pseudonym. Like Radio Shack used to be: they ask for my name and address even though I paid with cash, and I refuse to give it to them. They insist, with some crap like "the computer won't accept it without a name and address"; I say B. Simpson, of 1600 Evergreen Terrace, Springfield (or some other obvious pseudonym). The same with web browsing: I want to be anonymous but they won't let me, so I use one of the many registration maker sites. A person of normal intelligence will know it's not my real name, especially since I first requested anonymity.

On Slashdot (and other sites) an ordinary web search on my nickname will find my real name. Because if I need to post something anonymously, I can.

(Dealing with a drunk on the bus is different; that's more like dealing with a child. Do what it takes so no one gets hurt.)

Re:A campaign

[NateTech]

The phone companies would have plenty of incentive to stop scamming if the anti-scamming, anti-slamming laws already on the books were being actively enforced.

You may want to recommend to Congress (since you work for the whole place - Ha!), that they put pressure on Justice to do their jobs.

Plus, who cares? If phone companies are scamming people with something as simple as a Caller ID bait and switch, those people are insanely stupid, and need to learn a few hard lessons about phone companies.

Obligatory Neo Con rebuttal

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh drats and double drats upon this communist nanny state!

First it'll be falsified phone numbers, next it'll be falsified emails! Then you'll be put in jail for wearing a mask outside the house!

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!!!

Re:Obligatory Neo Con rebuttal

[Short Circuit]

People have been arrested for wearing masks outside.

Re:Obligatory Neo Con rebuttal

[belg4mit]

Actually, I just made those same points elsewhere in this discussion but with
Political Compass coordinates of (-6.88, -4.46) I sure
as hell am not a neo-con :-P

Well, everything but the crying Red.

Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

According to the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Congress isn't allowed to regulate communications. Therefore this is unconstitutional.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Ironsides]

a) Nowhere does it say that they can't regulate communications.

b) Ever read the interstate commerce clause?

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Elemenope]

Is every call made over state lines in pursuance of some act of commerce? If not, I don't see how Congress could claim the right to regulate every call. BTW, they are called enumerated powers; the list is exhaustive of what they can do, point being if it isn't on the list, it isn't something they can do. At least, that was the original notion...

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

Actually, if it isn't authorized to Congress, then it is prohibited. Read the 10th Amendment:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

And when the Interstate Commerce Clause was written, the phrase "to regulate" actually meant "to make regular". If you remember one of the primary reasons for the Constitution being authored in the first place was to deal with interstate squabbling, trade wars, and insane currency exchange rates. Therefore the Interstate Commerce Clause doesn't exactly mean what most people now think it means.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Courageous]

ARRRRRG.

You're gonna get me started!

Not only was it only enumerated powers, they felt so strongly about it they passed an Amendment just to make it clear they meant only enumerated powers!

ARGGGGG.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

This is why I'm a Constitutionalist first and a libertarian second.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[westlake]

if it isn't on the list, it isn't something they can do. At least, that was the original notion..

The thing is, in two hundred years, language changes, society changes. The words remain the same, but the words will not be read in the same way.

The founders' understanding of the word "commerce" is unclear. Although commerce means economic activity today, it had non-economic meanings in late eighteenth century English. For example, in 18th century writing one finds expressions such as "the free and easy commerce of social life" and "our Lord's commerce with his disciples". Interpreting interstate commerce to mean "substantial interstate human relations" is consistent with much additional primary source evidence concerning the meaning of commerce at the time of the writing of the Constitution. This interpretation also makes sense for the foreign and Indian commerce clauses as one would expect Congress to be given authority to regulate non-economic relations with other nations and with Indian tribes. Commerce Clause

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you hadn't noticed, the federal government has been regulating communications for decades. Did you miss "Nipplegate"? Have you ever heard the word "fuck" on national television?

It's a little late to be complaining about this now. The constitution isn't meant to be ignored until something annoys you, it's meant to apply equally all the time.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[deniable]

So, government is complex, and the FCC is the imaginary part.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Ironsides]

In that case, we've got a lot of things congress is regulating and doing that they shouldn't be.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

"it's [the Constitution] meant to apply equally all the time."

I agree completely. And just because there has been decades of bad precedent doesn't make that precedent correct. And just because we have bad precedent doesn't mean we should continue on with unconstitutional actions "just because it's precedent". The old cliche 'two wrongs dont make a right'

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

If only more people would realize this.

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Ironsides]

Such as the courts, who keep upholding them...

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[SonicSpike]

Which is why I'm going to vote for Ron Paul so we can hopefully get some Constitutional conservatives and libertarians in office and on the bench.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/

Re:Congress isn't allowed to do this...

[Courageous]

One of my personal points about the 2nd is that it clearly meant, then, what liberals don't want it to mean today. The libertarian interpretation is consistent with the first 150 years of its interpretation. Now, my point: it's fine if the people feel strongly enough to Amend it to mean something less all encompassing today. But the people HAVEN'T DONE THAT. And to have a system of government whereby things you don't like can be stricken due to politics and not procedure means that you really don't have the Constitutional system we were given at all.

C//

Wire fraud?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Makes sense. It is surely fraudulent to make false claims.

Consent

[akkarin]

What if it's a practical joke with a close friend? Or, if a Caller ID is spoofed, and both parties (the caller, who is faking the caller ID, and and receiver) both know, and are ok, with the it? What about the owners of PBXs used to fake ID?Do they get a 'safe-harbour'?

It happens

[Anonymous Coward]

The way the Telco does callerid is embarassing in some areas. I installed a phone system in a bank and mistyped the outgoing DID and the number appeared with the name of Local Pizza joint instead of the bank. So while I sent out an invalid number the Telco put the name on. The Telco shouldn't accept incorrect numbers and this wouldn't be an issue. And they do have the ability to block them if they are coming over a circuit that does not have that number assigned

That's kinda funny...

[sokoban]

Well, around here the police department spoofs their caller ID info. Any time you get a call from anyone at the police station downtown, it only shows four zeros as the caller ID. It is different from when it says ID unavailable.

Re:That's kinda funny...

[flyingfsck]

So, why do you get so many calls from the Police? ;)

Re:That's kinda funny...

[RealGrouchy]

Well, around here the police department spoofs their caller ID info. Any time you get a call from anyone at the police station downtown, it only shows four zeros as the caller ID. It is different from when it says ID unavailable.

That's functionally equivalent to saying ID unavailable. It's clearly not the caller's phone number or name, and it's clearly not an attempt to pretend to be someone else's.

- RG>

Okay, what about calling cards?

[xerxesVII]

My parents insist on using a calling card. When they call me, what comes up in my caller ID is the city where whatever bank they got sorted through is located. For instance, my caller ID will show some 1-800 number and say "MONTGOMERY, AL" or some such city. Would this fall under spoofing?

Re:Okay, what about calling cards?

[StikyPad]

In a word, no.

Re:Okay, what about calling cards?

[Antique Geekmeister]

So it's time to sell such phone cards from Gore, Alabama?

Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Bombula]

I don't get why in America we can't figure out that fines only work when the penalty is commensurate with the infraction. If you want fines to work, you have to do what they do in Scandinavian countries - charge a percentage of your income. What is a $500 parking ticket for a billionaire? But $500 will ruin your life if you work for minimum wage. It's not fair, it's not just, and it doesn't work.

Fines for corporations should certainly have a minimum value, but they should have NO upper ceiling. When companies like Microsoft or Phillip Morris or ExxonMobil are fined $200 million dollars - as most of them have been - they don't even blink. It's completely useless. The law in America in this regard is completely idiotic in this regard.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[PresidentEnder]

The law in America in this regard is completely idiotic. Fixed that for you.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[profplump]

So fines against people don't have a minimum but fines against companies do? What if your $1M minimum fine puts 10 people out of work because the company goes under? Either using a sliding scale or don't; let's not make up silly rules based on angst against "evil corporations".

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Prof.Phreak]

Fines based on income are silly, as most rich folks don't ``make'' much money. Their taxable income is surprisingly low---in fact, I'd imagine many billionare CEOs would qualify for welfare.

ie: consider Bloomberg with a $1 salary.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[jlarocco]

Fines based on income are silly, as most rich folks don't ``make'' much money. Their taxable income is surprisingly low---in fact, I'd imagine many billionare CEOs would qualify for welfare.

Stock dividends, capital gains and interest count as income.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[caridon20]

allso The fines are not calculated on only income they are calculated on income and assets. /C

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[dodobh]

It's a minimum percentage. So the smallest fine may be 1% of the gross.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Bombula]

Here's a thought: if a company is at risk of going out of business as a consequence of breaking the law, then maybe the whole 'deterrent' thing might actually hold some water, hmmm?

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think Joe Moneybags is able to figure that out for himself?
Most ultra-rich use some kind of scheme where all their assets are owned by a shell company, or expensed as a work-related item.
They don't "own" much of anything per se (including financial instruments).

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[freedom_india]

Fines should be based on wealth, not income.
Income is just earnings excluding expenses.
Wealth is what remains after you deduct expenses from income.
Fine as percentage of total wealth is bound to make sure even BIG corporates stop and think before committing another infraction.
But then the congress and senate is owned by corporates.
Our senate would end up passing a law that fines a salary employee 10% of his annual wealth over 35 years of service and exempt corporations from such a fine as they are not people.

I mean come on. Corporates should not be allowed entry into a town if they have criminal convictions against them, just like the old day sheriff refused entry into a west town to a convict.

We used to have such laws in 1880s what happened to them?

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[BooRolla]

Companies aren't evil, but they are better than you or I will ever be in hiding their profits from the government.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[DataBroker]

Fines should be based on wealth, not income.

Not to negate your point, but considering that so many people are actually in debt (negative wealth) there would have to be an income consideration too. Although, it would be interesting to see someone earning additional income by being fined while in debt.

Perhaps a better way is to fine people time as well as a financial amount. As an example, if you're caught speeding, you have to perform community service: 1 day per mile over the speed limit. Time is money, after all; and the more "valuable" you are, the more your time is worth. This would be an easy way to scale fines; aside from people that have nothing better to do than community service.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[hyfe]

If you want fines to work, you have to do what they do in Scandinavian countries - charge a percentage of your income

This is only being tried for traffic violations, and only in Sweden. For that purpose it makes sense atleast, too many wealthy people budget with fines.. how much time do they save vs fines paid.. they never, ever stop to think about the fact that the real cost of high speed is more fatal accidents.. and that risk is shared by everybody, not only the person speeding.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[profplump]

Why doesn't that apply to individuals as well? Why are corporations different in the structure?

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[profplump]

Yes, just like speeding tickets keep people from speeding.

You can't deter someone from an action unless they think they'll be accountable to your deterrent -- if someone commits a crime expecting to get away with it the penalty is irrelevant.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Pendersempai]

The theory is that the fine should equal the expected harm of the act, adjusted for the probability of getting caught. If parking illegally in front of a fire hydrant causes a building to burn down one time in 100,000, and if the building burning down causes $1 million of damage, then parking in front of the fire hydrant has an expected cost of $10. Since the odds of getting caught are only about one out of five, we multiply $10 by 5 so that the average illegal parking job -- including all the times you don't get caught -- will cost you $10. Thus, the fine is set at $50. Add a few bucks to pay for the meter maid's time and the administrative cost of processing your ticket, and the fine is around $60.

But what about all the rich people who won't be deterred by a paltry $60 fine? No problem; they put as much money back into the system through fines as they take out through damage they cause by their acts. In fact, if it is worth $1000 to you to park illegally -- imagine your wife is in labor and you are rushing to the hospital but have to park a block away because of a traffic jam, and only the fire hydrant spot is available -- then we WANT you to do it. Suppose you get $1000 worth of value out of parking there, and you only cause an average of $10 of damage. Then by parking illegally, you create $990 of value.

Certainly there are some crimes where this logic does not apply. Crimes like murder or rape, where the damage is to a fundamental human right, cannot be efficient, and crimes like securities fraud corrupt the cost-weighing process by which we'd normally determine whether an act is efficient. Therefore, for these, we have jail time.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Prof.Phreak]

You don't have to actually "own" anything to control everything. Most rich folks have figured this out already---it's not about money, it's about power. Money is for folks who live in a world not of their making...

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[AK Marc]

So fines against people don't have a minimum but fines against companies do?

Sounds reasonable to me.

What if your $1M minimum fine puts 10 people out of work because the company goes under?

Then they'll have to get a job at a company that doesn't violate the law. If there are only 10, I'd be suspicious that none of them knew about the violation. But even so, a failed corporation is just disbanded. There is no right for the corporation to exist. Suing a person into indentured servitude is something that ruins their life. Having to switch jobs is something that I've done many times and never had a problem with.

Either using a sliding scale or don't; let's not make up silly rules based on angst against "evil corporations".

Corporations aren't people. They shouldn't work off the same rules. Ford built a car they knew would kill people. If a person did that, they'd be in jail. When a corporation does that, they get a small fine. When you put a corporation in jail, talk to me about equity among the laws. Until then, corporations should be hit harder with fines and such because that's the only way to punish them for illegal actions.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Anonymous Coward]

This is America. Here we believe that people with more money are better than people with less money and should be treated that way. I may not be rich now, but when I am, I want it to mean that I'm better than all the poor people. Take your commie BS back to countries that don't have excessive poverty or insane levels of debt.

Sheesh...I'll bet you even prioritize things like universal health care over multi-million dollar severance packages to outgoing CEOs too. You seriously need to re-think your priorities.

Re:Fines in America - just can't figure it out

[Slashdot Parent]

Here's a thought: if a company is at risk of going out of business as a consequence of breaking the law, then maybe the whole 'deterrent' thing might actually hold some water, hmmm? Not really. If one of my companies went out of business, I'd just set up a new one. But I'd do a better* job next time.

* Better from whose point of view is left for the reader to interpret.

GREAT!

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Let's have the gubment passing these laws send us a check - then go and collect for damages!

The problem with these really great remedies being passed is that you and I will never see the money for damages. But when Uncle Sam can siphon some cash - Guess what'll happen.

My Other Me

[Doc Ruby]

If I send my landline phone# from my mobile phone, is that "illegal spoofing"?

Re:My Other Me

[ShaunC]

If I send my landline phone# from my mobile phone, is that "illegal spoofing"?

Only if your landline phone number is 202-456-1414.

Re:My Other Me

[StikyPad]

Let's say that it is. Do you honestly think you'll ever be in a situation where you might be prosecuted for doing that? Do you think your wife/client/friend will turn you in because they immediately tried to call you back at home, and whoever answered said you weren't there?

This law is to protect against spoofing performed to deliberately and maliciously deceive. If you (or anyone else) tried to report someone for spoofing their cell number to their home number, it's pretty safe to say the police would place it neatly in the circular file along with the car stereo, mugging, and noisy neighbor complaints.

There is no such thing as a perfect law, and this one seems to have more benefits than possible detriments.

Re:My Other Me

[belg4mit]

There is no such thing as a perfect law, and this one seems to have more benefits than possible detriments. You seem to have an odd definition of benefits.

So what? Just because Caller-ID is electronic, this does not make it in any way special. Are you then advocating for the illegality of spoofing email? What of
forging the return to address on a piece of snail mail? Wearing my shirt with
the printed "Hello My Name Is Sponge Bob Square Pants?" Halloween costumes?

Yes, you say that the police will ignore silly trangressions of the law. I say
then, what purpose a law that is so readily flaunted or overly broad? Make it
illegal to spoof (for anything) that you are, say, the police. But this obvious
and probably hiddenaway somewhere on our prexisting labyrnthine legal code. Oh,
wait, impersonating an officer. Isn't Romney's aide being looked at for that
presently? Likewise for claiming to be from an insurance company, but instead
being a con artist. We generally don't need new specialized laws for every stupid,
"new", little thing. We need better application and reformation of exiting ones.

Re:My Other Me

[Doc Ruby]

"Imperfect" laws have unintended consequences. I'd spoof my mobile number to everyone once it was set up. What if I'm getting divorced, and my ex/wife files spoofing charges to harass me?

My phone carrier might threaten legal action to ensure I used the CallerID it assigned, for its own "DB consistency" reasons. Or, more likely, if it's a different carrier than the carrier whose number I advertise, the omitted carrier might try to force me to advertise its number for callbacks, rather than their competition I'm advertising. Don't think so? Ask the RIAA/MPAA. Telcos are even more evil.

Just because no law is perfect doesn't mean that we should accept a law that ignores fundamental fair uses of our own technology. If the lawyers who wrote this law really understood spoofing, they'd have defined it to exclude "spoofing" that doesn't misrepresent the person calling from different devices that are all "themself". Since they missed that basic case, they clearly don't understand spoofing. Which means that law is probably a lot more "imperfect" that it seems, with lost more problems waiting to bite us once it's in effect.

The devil is in the details, and these details now look hellish.

Re:My Other Me

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn't, because the law prohibits only "misleading or inaccurate" data, which is quite different from "not the phone number that originated this call".

The definition of "inaccurate" is arguable, and if the landline number correctly identifies your name and especially if it forwards the call to your mobile phone after a while, it's not at all clear that what you're doing is prohibited or intended to be prohibited by this law.

Re:My Other Me

[ivan256]

Let's say that it is. Do you honestly think you'll ever be in a situation where you might be prosecuted for doing that?

Nope. And they'd never take you down for mail fraud because they can't pin a murder on you either.

Bad laws like this invite corruption.

Re:My Other Me

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it isn't

You misspelled "IANAL, but"...

All For It

[Bios_Hakr]

Good, now I'll stop getting cold calls from "caller unknown". If my phone displays "caller unknown", I just made $10k.

Re:All For It

[Kalriath]

Informative? Hah.

No, intentionally blocking is not forging caller ID. If your phone displays "Caller Unknown", you just made $0

Dooes this promote general welfare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Under section 8:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

They could argue this could fall under "general welfare".

Re:Dooes this promote general welfare?

[SonicSpike]

Possibly, but I would hope that a court would have enough integrity to reject that idea.

Re:Dooes this promote general welfare?

[BobMcD]

Scroll to the bottom of Section 8:

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. They can make any law they'd like, for the "general welfare of the United States" so long as it is "necessary and proper" for "any department or officer"-"of the United States" to do their job...

Doesn't that cover almost ANY Federal law imaginable?

Re:Dooes this promote general welfare?

[Apple Acolyte]

That's basically what a unanimous court under Marshall found in MuColloch v. Maryland. In determining that the Bank of the United States was constitutional because of the Necessary and Proper clause, Marshall essentially stated that whatever legislation Congress deems "Necessary and Proper" is constitutional, thus creating the category of implied powers of Congress.

Actually, nothing happened

[gruntled]

So I'm actually reading the legislative action on this bill (through Thomas, provided by the link), and it doesn't appear as though there's been any kind of a vote on this. Am I, you know, missing something? Or does somebody not understand that a bill actually has to be voted on by each full chamber (both the House and the Senate) in an identical format, before it can be said that "Congress" has approved anything?

Re:Actually, nothing happened

[ISurfTooMuch]

Yes, indeed, you're right. It looks like the bill hasn't made it to the full Senate yet.

I'd be curious to hear from the OP about this. Where do you see this as having passed Congress? I'm not seeing it, but perhaps I'm missing it. Please provide clarification.

Re:Actually, nothing happened

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeaaahhh,

Welcome to slashdot, m'friend. Lots of 'Oh Noes' on piddly shit, while the big shit gets either 'Meh, I worried about that last week' or 'Ha! I told you so, and that makes it better somehow!'

Re:Actually, nothing happened

[Dachannien]

Ed McMahon: You are correct, sir!

It's important to note that the most recent action was that the Senate committee the bill was committed to - Commerce, etc. - has devised a substitute amendment, so when the bill is reported to the full Senate, they'll get the revised version. Both versions will appear on Thomas, but right now, only the unamended version is up.

In other words, we've been served a raw goose, and the OP should call us back when our goose is actually cooked.

Re:Actually, nothing happened

[MadJo]

Indeed, you are correct.
I made a mistake. It should have said "candidate bill" or something like that.
AFAIK there hasn't been a vote on it, yet.

My apologies.

Re:Actually, nothing happened

[gruntled]

Rereading my comment I sounded snottier than I'd intended. My apologies as well.

It's worth noting that thousands of bills are introduced into Congress each session, but few become law. In just 2006, for example, 4,753 bills were introduced in either the House or the Senate but only 248 were enacted into law. And many of those enacted were things like renaming post offices for a hometown hero, etc. The fact is, it's very hard, by design, to get laws enacted, but members of Congress usually introduce dozens of pieces of legislation each year, sometimes because they think it's the right thing to do. but oftentimes just to please a key supporter or group. Such bills often have no chance of becoming law.

Politics and Business

[Short Circuit]

except that the amount assessed for any continuing violation shall not exceed a total of $1,000,000 for any single act or failure to act. Sounds like a gem in the resume for politicians come election day, and a way for big telemarketing firms to outlive smaller ones. (I wonder who the lobbying groups behind this one were...)

You insensitive clod! I don't have CallerID!

[NotQuiteReal]

I don't have caller ID! Why would I? If I don't want to answer the phone, I don't. (Actually, my wife probably will answer it anyhow, she is kind of type-A that way. But still, I have no problem putting undesirable callers on hold "forever", I am kind of an A-Hole, that way.)

I have saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the years for a feature I could have used maybe, once or twice.

Seems like a bargain to me.

Sheesh, you don't have to buy product offered to you.

I am not a technophobe, I have two land lines and four cell phones. The Cell phones come with caller ID "for free".

Re:You insensitive clod! I don't have CallerID!

[ScrewMaster]

True enough, I suppose ... but given that most phone companies bundle services you often end up with Caller ID whether you want it or not.

Re:You insensitive clod! I don't have CallerID!

[Waffle Iron]

I have saved hundreds and hundreds of dollars over the years for a feature I could have used maybe, once or twice.

Caller ID box: $12.99

Caller ID Service over the years: hundreds of dollars.

Not being pressed into service as a captive audience for bored blabbermouth relatives-in-law who call your spouse multiple times per day: priceless.

Re:You insensitive clod! I don't have CallerID!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in 2000, I had a land line. I used it for accessing the internet. When I wasn't online, the only time the phone rang was when the phone company was calling. Each time they called they tried to get me to accept a free Caller-ID. Their pitch was they would send me the free add on machine for my phone and would provide me with a month or two of free Caller-ID service. They called approx three times a month. Who knows how many times they called when I was online. Each time they called I informed them that the only time my phone rang was when they called me, so a Caller-ID was worthless as I already knew who it was. They still tried to get me to at least take the machine. I wouldn't as I hated having to take my time to try to cancel something that I did not want when the free time was up.

Re:You insensitive clod! I don't have CallerID!

[Anonymous Coward]

I have two land lines and four cell phones.

Vishnu, is that you?

Upside-down.

[node 3]

Leave it to Slashdot to predictably label fraud as a "feature" and laws designed to prevent it "nannystate".

Re:Upside-down.

[aztektum]

That's the damn thing. Last I checked we already had laws against fraud. So why make a law specifically towards something like this? I can understand the disabilities act, but really, go after spoofers for fraud and if the penalty isn't high enough ADJUST the penalty for fraud across the board. We're making every damn little thing a frickin' crime in this country anymore.

Re:Upside-down.

[oGMo]

Leave it to someone who doesn't know what they're talking about to determine what should be considered "fraud". Do you implement the evil bit? I hear it's supposed to prevent hackers and fraud and all that...

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

Leave it to someone who doesn't know what they're talking about to determine what should be considered "fraud". Hrm... And how did you come to this conclusion?

Do you implement the evil bit? I hear it's supposed to prevent hackers and fraud and all that... Pathetic.

Your post is all baseless ad hominem, and no fact.

Re:Upside-down.

[SpaceLifeForm]

The reason they make a law like this is to
limit the liability. It's a fixed amount.

That is the number one reason laws have no teeth,
they have fixed monetary penalties, that are
really no penalty to big business. They are
just a cost of doing business to the business.

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

Last I checked we already had laws against fraud. So why make a law specifically towards something like this? Because one size does not fit all.

Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment? These are all, at the base, fraud. Could they even reasonably fit under one singular law?

We're making every damn little thing a frickin' crime in this country anymore. Here's the thing, the general term "fraud" is not illegal. Only specific forms of fraud. For example, claiming you can bench 200 lbs when you can barely press half that is not illegal. So, instead of just making "fraud" illegal, laws target specific types, and they *define* those specific types. Caller ID spoofing probably doesn't fall into any existing category of fraud, so this form of fraud can be presently engaged in with impunity.

So what choices are there? Basically, they are to expand an existing law to cover Caller ID spoofing, create a new law, or ignore it altogether. Ergo this story.

Re:Upside-down.

[Anonymous Coward]

NO U

Re:Upside-down.

[aztektum]

I have a hard time accepting the solution should be Congress essentially hard coding every variable into do's and do not's with no incentive to review it down the road.

Especially when it comes to legislating technology, which it is incredibly obvious they know jack shit about. As someone else has pointed out there some legit, albeit probably minor, uses of ID spoofing. It also pointed out this could be fix by lazy corporations not being so lazy and building a proper system. Whatever I guess. More laws+more prisons+more thinking of the children = happy voters.

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

Fraud is illegal and there are laws to will send any fraudster to jail. Therefore a law that bans a legitimate function that could be used to facilitate fraud only serves to make otherwise legitimate actions criminal.

Beyond that, I fail to see any significant damage one could perpetrate using caller ID spoofing. The only thing I know of is a cellphone provider that uses a known insecure system (callerid) to authenticate its voicemail system. Here is a thought, make the cell provider fix the system and leave callerid alone.

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

'claiming you can bench 200 lbs when you can barely press half that is not illegal'

Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. A Fraud is a deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain. Deception in and of itself is neither fraud nor illegal.

'Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment?'

Ummm... yes? Of course some of those things would be done for the purpose of accomplishing other crimes and that is where additional charges come in. There are also penalty ranges for crimes so that a judge can look at the specific offense. The more severe offenses like false advertising should actually carry multiple charges of fraud.

In any case, any law which makes a tool illegal rather than bad actions performed with the tool is a bad law.

'Caller ID spoofing probably doesn't fall into any existing category of fraud, so this form of fraud can be presently engaged in with impunity.'

That's because caller id spoofing ISN'T fraud it is a harmless deception. If you use that deception to illicit an unfair gain then you have committed fraud and would have committed a criminal act without this law.

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. Yes, they are. You can't stop at the first definition in your dictionary. Fraud does not require financial gain as a component (even if it's usually the case, and is part of the first definition in your dictionary).

Ummm... yes? Impersonating a cop gives you power over others you don't deserve. That's a very different crime than stealing someone's identity, or committing bank fraud, which are financial, and those two have very different effects on two very different targets. If you think these should all be equally punished, you are a sociopath.

You claim that the secondary crime should be the differentiator. I say merely *impersonating* a cop should be illegal, not just as some generic "fraud", but because it's an attempt to gain general power one doesn't have the right to, even if no other crime is committed. Merely stealing an identity, even if you don't commit any other crime, should be illegal, and have a different punishment, and writing a bad check should be illegal as well, etc.

In any case, any law which makes a tool illegal rather than bad actions performed with the tool is a bad law. Then you have no problem whatsoever with your neighbor (not necessarily your existing neighbor, but any neighbor you may ever have, by choice or not) owning a nuclear bomb? Sarin gas? Or someone keeping dynamite in an apartment building?

The fact is, some tools *should* be illegal or severely restricted. Your sentiment goes too far, it goes from cases where it's true (in general, outlawing a tool *is* foolish), and applies it too broadly (to say outlawing a tool is *always* bad).

That's because caller id spoofing ISN'T fraud it is a harmless deception. If you use that deception to illicit an unfair gain then you have committed fraud and would have committed a criminal act without this law. Are you certain of that? Laws are specific things (they have to be), and if Caller ID spoofing does not fall under a current law, then it *won't* necessarily be illegal, even if it is fraud (the money kind you seem to think is the only kind).

For example, calls pretending to be from the DNC, which are really from the RNC (this happened during the 2004 election, although I do not know if Caller ID spoofing was involved) had nothing to do, directly (i.e., legally) with money, and instead had to do with political influence.

Is that harmless?

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

I have a hard time accepting the solution should be Congress essentially hard coding every variable into do's and do not's with no incentive to review it down the road. Who says they have no incentive to review it down the road? If the law is misapplied, their constituents will give them incentive to review it. I will grant you, however, that we as constituents are really falling down in our duties on that front. I place a lot of blame on a defunct media and a sheep-producing education system, but in the end, it's still us not living up to our responsibilities.

Especially when it comes to legislating technology, which it is incredibly obvious they know jack shit about. As someone else has pointed out there some legit, albeit probably minor, uses of ID spoofing. No argument with you there. Not having read the law, I assume (yes, I know what happens when you assume, and I assume that's doubly-true when assuming about the government) that it targets malicious spoofing, and not merely overriding a Caller ID setting to show a line that you have a right to, and which truly represents who you are.

My main gripe was with the libertarianesque, knee-jerk reaction of "nanny state" and "it's a feature!".

More laws+more prisons+more thinking of the children = happy voters. Cynical, and unfortunately apt. That doesn't make laws inherently wrong. I agree with the general notion that the more laws there are, the less just a nation is, but that's a generality, and cannot be applied to any specific law. And a small point regarding what you've said, this law has nothing to do specifically with "the children" and appears to have no jail time involved.

Re:Upside-down.

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps to make it clear that it IS fraud rather than leaving that to the lawyers to argue?

Re:Upside-down.

[digitig]

Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. Yes, they are. You can't stop at the first definition in your dictionary. Fraud does not require financial gain as a component (even if it's usually the case, and is part of the first definition in your dictionary). Your dictionary is probably not the best available guide to the law.

Re:Upside-down.

[walt-sjc]

There is nothing currently illegal about spoofing caller ID. This bill makes it illegal "to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information". The person / company still has the option of not transmitting ANYTHING, but now callerID's such as 408-000-0000 will be banned, along with other random crap I see on a regular basis.

IMHO, this bill does not go far enough. It should require all non-residential (consumer-level) service to transmit correct, accurate information - anonymous should not be an option. The CEO of a company doesn't need his personal extension (DID) transmitted, just the company's main number, but it SHOULD transmit something valid that identifies the company it came from. There is no VALID reason for companies to be "anonymous".

Collection agencies claim otherwise, but they are a big part of the problem anyway - especially if some idiot you don't know is giving our YOUR number and then doesn't pay his / her bills. I received about 50 calls for "Patricia" in the past year. despite constantly telling these annoying people that there has never been a "Patricia" at this number in at least 15 years since I've had it, and to remove the number from their records, and asking to have the info relayed to the creditor, the calls still keep coming. Worse, it's on my home-office business line that I don't want to do any phone-system filtering on.

Asterisk does a great job of keeping unwanted calls off my home line, but to work best it needs valid callerID info.

Re:Upside-down.

[penix1]

The argument and testimony I saw during the hearings on CSPAN ran like this:

CallerID is spoofed by phishers to read CitiBank. They then go about the process of gaining the personal info from the victim.

That is what this is meant to stop. There were about 5 credit lenders testifying on it stating that is a big way for identity theft. Whether that is true or not I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Upside-down.

[walt-sjc]

I HAVE read the legislation. It simply makes it unlawful "to transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information." It also gives you an out: "Nothing in this subsection may be construed to prevent or restrict any person from blocking the capability of any caller identification service to transmit caller identification information." That means you can choose to be anonymous and still be legal.

As long as you transmit a number, it needs to be a number that somehow identifies you or your company and not a number that belongs to someone else or that is fake (not a real number.)

This is a good law, unlike so many others.

Re:Upside-down.

[Opportunist]

That's why fines in some countries are not set at a specific sum (at least when it comes to amounts > 100 bucks), but rather to "day rates". A day rate is what the person or organisation found guilty earns per day. This is, in case of a person, 1/360th of your annual income (or revenue in case of a company).

So you see in our laws things like a fine of "up to 90 day rates" or "up to 360 day rates" rather than any specific amount. Usually the equivalent prison sentence is exactly the amount of day rates (i.e. laws usually read "up to 1 year prison or 360 day rates"). The downside is that it seems that some poor guy seems to be getting off "easy" when he's fined for 5k bucks for a crime that would've earned him a year in prison, simply because 5k is what he makes in a full year.

Personally, I think it's way fairer than a fixed amount (a 20k fine would be hard for me to pay but for many it would break their neck, and for some it would be pocket change). Still not a perfectly fair system, but a lot fairer.

Re:Upside-down.

[morari]

Impersonating a cop gives you power over others you don't deserve. Being a cop gives you power over others you don't deserve!

Re:Upside-down.

[Original Replica]

Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment? Isn't that part of the judges responsibility? Should stealing someone's ID and using it to buy beer have the same punishment as stealing someone's ID and useing it to clean out their savings and max out their credit cards? That's why crimes have one set punishment each.

Re:Upside-down.

[egburr]

That's funny. When I had some problems with a CitiBank credit card a few years ago, CitiBank's caller ID always showed up as "0". I always wondered who I would get if I used the "redial last caller" option. :)

Re:Upside-down.

[Si]

Yup, and its not fraud. Lying and fraud are NOT synonymous. Yes, they are. You can't stop at the first definition in your dictionary. Fraud does not require financial gain as a component (even if it's usually the case, and is part of the first definition in your dictionary). But just maybe the dictionary does not define the law. Try a legal dictionary.

Ummm... yes? Impersonating a cop gives you power over others you don't deserve. That's a very different crime than stealing someone's identity, or committing bank fraud, which are financial, and those two have very different effects on two very different targets. If you think these should all be equally punished, you are a sociopath. So strippers who dress as cops have power over others they don't deserve? Be careful of blanket statements, for they make you look more of a fool than you clearly are.

You claim that the secondary crime should be the differentiator. I say merely *impersonating* a cop should be illegal, not just as some generic "fraud", but because it's an attempt to gain general power one doesn't have the right to, even if no other crime is committed. Merely stealing an identity, even if you don't commit any other crime, should be illegal, and have a different punishment, and writing a bad check should be illegal as well, etc. the secondary crime *is* the crime.

In any case, any law which makes a tool illegal rather than bad actions performed with the tool is a bad law. Then you have no problem whatsoever with your neighbor (not necessarily your existing neighbor, but any neighbor you may ever have, by choice or not) owning a nuclear bomb? Sarin gas? Or someone keeping dynamite in an apartment building? To make such statements again shows your foolishness. To outlaw the possession of dynamite in a residential area is quite different from outlawing the ownership of dynamite.

The fact is, some tools *should* be illegal or severely restricted. Your sentiment goes too far, it goes from cases where it's true (in general, outlawing a tool *is* foolish), and applies it too broadly (to say outlawing a tool is *always* bad). Outlawing a tool *is* always bad - tools exist to help mankind (why they're called tools, not useless pieces of junk). Outlawing a hammer because it can be used to commit murder is ridiculous.

That's because caller id spoofing ISN'T fraud it is a harmless deception. If you use that deception to illicit an unfair gain then you have committed fraud and would have committed a criminal act without this law. Are you certain of that? Laws are specific things (they have to be), and if Caller ID spoofing does not fall under a current law, then it *won't* necessarily be illegal, even if it is fraud (the money kind you seem to think is the only kind). Go look up fraud in a *legal* dictionary and then re-read your statements.

For example, calls pretending to be from the DNC, which are really from the RNC (this happened during the 2004 election, although I do not know if Caller ID spoofing was involved) had nothing to do, directly (i.e., legally) with money, and instead had to do with political influence.

Is that harmless? What makes you think a direct connection has to be made for something to be legally about money? What makes you think that all crimes have to concern money? The case to which you are alluding was about influence - the gain was from the lie, not from the use of caller ID to achieve it. The same effect could have been had if the caller had said "Hi, This is John Doe from the DNC" in the absence of caller ID. In many cases (at least until recently) the law is concerned with intent, not means. Murdering someone with a knife carries no less a penalty than shooting them, absent any other qualifiers, and in fact no distinction is made except between degrees of intent.

Re:Upside-down.

[MightyYar]

That system wouldn't have much teeth if the perpetrator was a student with no income, a poor person on the dole, or someone working under the counter... I think you need to have a minimum fine in place along with your "day rate" system. I kind of like the concept, though.

Re:Upside-down.

[bytesex]

*reading it again* - no - he never said *financial* gain. Unlawful gain != unlawful financial gain. Impersonating a police officer may not have financial gain in mind - so you're right, but he never said that. You're splitting hairs while putting words into other people's mouths, my friend. And you may even have done so on purpose. That's a double penalty.

Re:Upside-down.

[pete-classic]

When I have my work phone forwarded to my cell it sure is nice that I get the caller's ID, not the switchboard number at my office.

Maybe you and I have a different idea of what constitutes a "feature".

-Peter

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

'Asterisk does a great job of keeping unwanted calls off my home line, but to work best it needs valid callerID info.'

I'm sorry but there is no justification for creating a new law and a new class of crime so that your Asterisk system will work.

That said, I think there might be merit in requiring telemarketers, pollsters, and collection agencies to use valid callerid information. I don't support it for other commercial agencies though, some may not take incoming calls at all.

That actually touches on me personally. I own a small computer service business. Much to my customers glee I do not give out my cell phone number to customers (they would rather have you paying attention to them and their problem when you are there than be able to reach you directly). If there is an emergency then they can pass a message from the office. My cell phone does not have the option of spoofing the callerid to match the office number it only gives me the option of setting callid to private. My cell is paid for by the company and used for business so it would fall under your commercial entity bill, this would effectively bar me from calling customers at all.

'There is no VALID reason for companies to be "anonymous".'

Aside from the specific example I mentioned above, this is a broad statement and you should rethink it. I could as easily say that there is no VALID reason for YOU to be "anonymous". Companies are entitled to the same privacy you are and may have many reasons for wanting to be anonymous.

I say we leave the line where it was BEFORE this bill. Spoofing caller ID or using any other means of deception to illicit unlawful gains is illegal (that would include businesses using caller id in a way that is not valid). Using caller id spoofing for any other action that is not criminal is still not criminal.

'I received about 50 calls for "Patricia" in the past year. despite constantly telling these annoying people that there has never been a "Patricia" at this number in at least 15 years since I've had it, and to remove the number from their records, and asking to have the info relayed to the creditor, the calls still keep coming.'

It's all about the magic words. There are different ways you have to say it depending on who is calling but here is a universal statement that will work for ANYONE you don't want to call again:

"This is my phone. I have no existing business relationship that entitles you to call it. Do not call again."

or if it is just telemarketers or people calling for surveys you can shorten it to "Do not call again."

If you say anything else it doesn't carry the weight of law, if you say it the way I just said it carries a $50,000 fine per incident should the same company call you again. The law doesn't require them to 'notify creditors' or 'take you off their list' but it does require them to honor your specific request that they not call again UNLESS you have an existing business relationship.

Speaking of things that should be regulated, collection agencies should be limited to one collection attempt every 3 months. I had a roommate once who got over his head and could no longer both pay rent/food AND pay is credit card bill. After it was turned into collections the creditors for ONE card literally called on a daily basis and sometimes multiple times per day.

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

You can spoof callerid to gain access to voicemail from a certain cell phone company too. That is neither here nor there, CallerID is known to be insecure. The solution is for citibank and cell phone providers (and anyone else who uses it) to stop using CallerID for verification.

The real reason this is being pushed through? Anonymity is usually in the interest of the individual but typical runs contrary to business interest. Businesses want to be able to identify and track everyone who uses a phone. If you try to keep your life private by blocking CallerID then many phone systems filter you out so CallerID spoofing was the best method left.

If this trend continues you will have to supervise anyone using your phone and possibly need to keep your phone under lock and key. After all, it can be used to access your voice mail, creditors, and once anonymity and spoofing are SUPPOSEDLY eliminated who knows what else? The easiest way to spoof callerid is to take a regular corded phone and plug it into the little grey box outside the victims home. ;)

Re:Upside-down.

[Sancho]

So strippers who dress as cops have power over others they don't deserve? Be careful of blanket statements, for they make you look more of a fool than you clearly are. I would argue that impersonating a cop and dressing up as a cop (particularly, but not limited to, non-regulation uniforms with hotpants and a shirt which exposes your midriff) are two different things.

Re:Upside-down.

[arodland]

Should impersonating a police officer, identity theft, false advertising and passing fake checks all have the same punishment? These are all, at the base, fraud. Could they even reasonably fit under one singular law?

Yes, of course they can, and that law should consist mostly of making restitution in accordance with the damage done, as determined by a judge. Fake checks have a dollar amount; impersonating a police officer or assuming someone else's identity is used to enable other forms of fraud, theft, or violence. Claiming you can bench 200lb does no harm... probably. But if that representation actually hurts someone's business or safety, then of course it's fraud!

Proliferation of laws for special cases does nothing besides encourage belief that if you damage someone in a way that's not on the books, then you shouldn't be held responsible. The more laws, the more injustice, the more loopholes, the more potential for abuse. And let's not forget, "when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them."

Re:Upside-down.

[Anonymous Coward]

That was a bad example of fraud. So here's another one: if you meet someone in real life that you met over the internet and it turns out that they're not a natural blond like they claimed, they committed fraud. But is it illegal? No. If you make a general-purpose "fraud is illegal" law, though, it would be, and everyone who gets had by any thing they can call fraud would be suing people. That's why we need specific types of fraud to be illegal, not every little thing that can be defined as fraud.

Re:Upside-down.

[Opportunist]

There is a minimum rate (I think 10 bucks/day) for people without an income. So yes, if you get 30 day rates without an income, that's "just" 300 bucks. But paying 300 bucks on a zero income base is still quite a lot of money. For "dependent" people like students, who usually have some kind of income or allowance from their parents, this is being taken into account, actually.

That's why I said it can look quite like someone got off the hook "cheaply" if he has no income. And if he can't pay, well, there's still the equivalent jail time as an alternative. And of course the yellow press makes liberal use of the fact that a lot of "poor" people get sentences with "ridiculously" low fines.

But, well, our justice system was based on the idea that the fines and punishment should be a deterrent, neither crippling you into bankrupcy nor being ignorable when you got enough money that a 20k fine is something you brush aside without looking. It should hurt enough that you don't do it, whether you're rich or poor.

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

'if you meet someone in real life that you met over the internet and it turns out that they're not a natural blond like they claimed, they committed fraud'

No they committed deception. Lying is not fraud. Fraud requires using deciet to gain something. What did the blond gain? Nothing. Now, if on the other hand the so called blonde got you to pay for her plane ticket and lodgings AND you did so based upon her false claim that she was a natural blonde then the law would have been broken. Now all the sudden her false claim that she is a natural blonde becomes a fraudulent claim. She didn't merely lie to you, she lied to you in order to illicit an unlawful gain.

In this case the gain is financial but it doesn't neccesarily need to be in order for fraud to have occurred.

Re:Upside-down.

[jedidiah]

It's basically an electronic identity fraud measure. Identity fraud in general needs to be handled more severely. So I agree that the punishments spelled out in this law are far too weak. All forms of identity fraud should be treated very harshly. It should be thougth of in the same light as counterfieting money.

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

But just maybe the dictionary does not define the law. Try a legal dictionary. I stated that not all fraud is illegal. I didn't state that all illegal fraud is illegal. The dictionary might not "define the law", but it definitely defines words, and "fraud" is a word. Trying to change a person's statements by changing the meanings of their words is pathetic. Obviously if you can change the meanings of words someone uses, you can completely disprove their point. Unfortunately for you, when I used the term "fraud", I had a specific definition in mind, and further unfortunate for you, my definition is both correct and common.

So strippers who dress as cops have power over others they don't deserve? Be careful of blanket statements, for they make you look more of a fool than you clearly are. To begin, they deserve it, so long as they haven't somehow cheated you to get it. Regardless, they aren't impersonating a cop--at least, not as that term is generally taken to be meant (again, you don't get to redefine my words for your benefit). They are dressing up and acting like a cop, but but both the intent and effect are very different, and no fraud is involved.

Outlawing a tool *is* always bad - tools exist to help mankind (why they're called tools, not useless pieces of junk). Outlawing a hammer because it can be used to commit murder is ridiculous. You are correct, outlawing a hammer because it can kill is absolutely ridiculous. Something equally ridiculous is your reading comprehension. I specifically said that you are applying a generality beyond its scope, and so how do you respond? By doing just that in spectacular clarity.

Do you not think it should be illegal to own a nuclear bomb, or to own dynamite, at least in *some* circumstances? Such proscription seems entirely rational to me. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to enact laws which help prevent some idiot from accidentally leveling a neighborhood.

Now, you might argue (in fact, I'd almost guarantee you would, given your record of lame attempts to twist meanings of words around) that it's not illegal to own dynamite, it's just illegal to keep it in certain locations, and that that's not the same as outlawing it or making it illegal. This would, of course, be completely false. What it's not is *completely* outlawing it, but there are cases in which its ownership or use *are* outlawed, and not because of some secondary crime, but because mere *ownership* is wrong, in some cases. And I see nothing wrong with that, either.

What makes you think a direct connection has to be made for something to be legally about money? Well then, when looked in that way, *everything anyone ever does* is about money. You are, again (sigh) redefining words and terms. If you redefine a term to be universal, it becomes meaningless. What your attempt here is to say that your specific case is true, and is different from my specific case, because your specific case is universally true. This, of course, contradicts your claim, and is nothing more than schoolyard argument logic.

Murdering someone with a knife carries no less a penalty than shooting them, absent any other qualifiers, and in fact no distinction is made except between degrees of intent. But in some cases, use of a knife and use of a gun are illegal, and not all instances of those cases overlap, which if you'll remember, goes back to my original point.

It's rational to outlaw the use of Caller ID spoofing as opposed to generic fraud (which is *not* illegal), even though CID spoofing is a form of (generic) fraud, and can be used to engage in other (specific) frauds. Mere ownership of the tool is not illegal--i.e., owning a PBX is not illegal. Using it to falsely identify yourself will be (assuming the bill makes it all the way to law) illegal.

Re:Upside-down.

[jedidiah]

...yeah, but if you are pretending to be a Rockerfeller or Kennedy that should be illegal.

Ripley should be doing hard time. Although he would probably enjoy it anyways... '-p

Re:Upside-down.

[AK Marc]

You can't stop at the first definition in your dictionary. Fraud does not require financial gain as a component (even if it's usually the case, and is part of the first definition in your dictionary).

And you can't look in Webster's or the OED for legal definitions.

Are you certain of that? Laws are specific things (they have to be), and if Caller ID spoofing does not fall under a current law, then it *won't* necessarily be illegal, even if it is fraud (the money kind you seem to think is the only kind).

I am sure of that. Murder is illegal. There aren't specific laws against murder with an icepick vs a pocket knife. They don't cover every case. There are some specific cases they do cover (firearms, deaths in the commission of a felony and such), but there is no exhaustive list of possible means to murder. The same is true of fraud. There are some extra laws for specific types (mail fraud, impersonating an officer), but the means is not speficied, and all types are covered. Only at the patent office is "on a computer" or "over the telephone" considered something novel.

Re:Upside-down.

[walt-sjc]

I'm sorry but there is no justification for creating a new law and a new class of crime so that your Asterisk system will work.

That was an example, and one benefit of the law. IMHO the callee, the person being bothered, have a right to know who is calling, just like you have a right to know who someone that is knocking on your door is before you let them in. Why should you be required to open the door to see who it is?

I don't support it for other commercial agencies though, some may not take incoming calls at all.

Tough. Set the callerID to an automated answering service that says so, or even just a number that just isn't answered, but it should be a number that identifies who you are.

In regards to your cell phone service, if such a law existed, there would be business justification for cell phone companies to allow the callerID to be set to the main business number for business customers. Problem solved, your concern addressed.

Again, I don't believe any company of any type has a right to call me at home and be anonymous. Period. You go into business, you obey the laws. Why SHOULD they have the right to be anonymous? This is a phone number, not all the employees social security numbers... With all the business calls, charities, political organizations, automated sales calls (even with my number on the do not call lists) I long ago lost any sympathy for businesses that hide, spoof, etc. callerID.

In regards to your "magic words", I have found that they are RARELY obeyed. First, private citizens can ONLY bring action if they have suffered $50,000 or more in "actual" damages. Furthermore, the fine is only $11,000 per incident. Despite more than 50 complaints to the FTC, I have not had ANY relief and have jack shit to show for my efforts.
I suggest you read http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/tsrcom p.shtm especially near the bottom which outlines the fines and who can bring action. Also in this document are regulations that require valid callerID on telemarketing calls. Again, this is ignored since there is nobody who is is able is willing to enforce it, and nobody willing is able.

Make it criminal as WELL as civil, and allow direct citizen action in all cases. Then we will see compliance.

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

I took it to mean financial (material would have been a better term for me to use). But he might also mean to include non-material gain, but if he did, then the distinction between lying and fraud becomes less and less clear. Especially since it was meant to disprove *my* example of lying about one's skills, which is an attempt at "unfair gain" (his *actual* words, since you bring it up). Specifically, unfairly gaining respect. Which is similar to another form of fraud, pretending you are a PhD, even if no material gain is involved.

All of which bolsters my point that mere fraud, itself, is not illegal.

Re:Upside-down.

[node 3]

Your dictionary is probably not the best available guide to the law. No, but it's a pretty good guide to words, which is how I was using the word "fraud". In fact, I specifically claimed (and still do) that not all forms of fraud are illegal, which should be a huge clue as to the scope I was using the word, and that I wasn't merely limiting myself to a legal definition.

Re:Upside-down.

[Anonymous Coward]

What they should do is like they do in Finland for speeding tickets. The fine is linked to your income. You make $1,000,000 then you might be paying $20,000 for speeding through a school zone. Same should apply to companies. If a company is caught breaking the law they should forfeit x% of their income for the year and if someone sues them they should be able to sue for x% of the companies profits or something like that. Limiting liability is basically a fancy way of saying to business they can do whatever the hell they please as long as they got enough cash to cover the fines.

Re:Upside-down.

[jamesjwilsonsr]

If they want to make another law (nanny-state) then they should define the purpose of the law. Me changing my caller id so I can call my wife who is screening my calls when she is shopping instead of hanging out at her friends house, should not be punishable by $10,000. Maybe I want my number to look like her girlfriend's number so she picks up the phone. ;)

They should just say, this is designed against businesses and marketing, not personal home use. In any case, why should this be a federal law? We don't need big government telling us what to do in every aspect of our lives.

Re:Upside-down.

[penix1]

I think you misunderstood. The law is there not for the bank to validate who is calling but for the person being called. For example, granny gets a call and looks on her CallerID and sees CitiBank. She assumes it is even if it isn't based solely on the CallerID. It is another way to appear credible. Of course, we all know that phishers obey the laws! My opinion is this will set up a falser sense of security in granny since now it is against the law to spoof CallerID too!

Re:Upside-down.

[shaitand]

'That was an example, and one benefit of the law. IMHO the callee, the person being bothered, have a right to know who is calling, just like you have a right to know who someone that is knocking on your door is before you let them in. Why should you be required to open the door to see who it is?'

It is perfectly legal for me to refuse to give you identification at your door. It is even legal for me to cover your peep hole, wear a mask, or turn around so you can't see my face. In other words, I am able to do anything in my power to obscure my identity, you have no right no right to know who is at your door. The only right you have is to decide whether or not you want to open it based upon the information I present, even if that is no information at all.

I see no reason for the phone to be any different. I have no obligation to provide you with information, or even valid information, you have no obligation to pick up your phone based upon the information I provide you. Same thing.

'Tough.'

Sorry buddy, I fail to recognize your authority to put your foot down here. I say tough to your personal concerns.

'Set the callerID to an automated answering service that says so, or even just a number that just isn't answered, but it should be a number that identifies who you are.'

You can't, this law prevents CallerID spoofing, just because you own the number you are pointing at doesn't mean you aren't spoofing. Spoofing includes legitimate spoofing.

'Again, I don't believe any company of any type has a right to call me at home and be anonymous. Period. You go into business, you obey the laws. Why SHOULD they have the right to be anonymous?'

They have a right to be anonymous for the same reason you have a right to be anonymous. Your argument is basically the same old 'you have no need for privacy if you have nothing to hide'. It's rubbish in every other instance and its rubbish in this one. Businesses are NOT public services or subject to public scrutiny. They are private entities and have the same entitlement to discretion and privacy that any private individual has.

'Why SHOULD they have the right to be anonymous?'

Why SHOULDN"T they have the right to be anonymous and any other right that doesn't infringe upon the rights of others? Laws are dangerous things and almost always a bad idea, the fewer things that are outlawed the better.

'Despite more than 50 complaints to the FTC, I have not had ANY relief and have jack shit to show for my efforts. ... Make it criminal as WELL as civil, and allow direct citizen action in all cases. Then we will see compliance.'

I think you should be looking for a change of jurisdiction, not punishment. It is a simple question of manpower. Federal enforcement has very very few resources relative to the number of people they must police. The result is that federal authorities only bother with a few poster cases. You see people convicted of federal offenses when the state law enforcement arrests them for something and turns them over to the federal enforcement and in poster cases.

Consider how many people cheat on their taxes compared to how many actually get caught. Now consider that the IRS has more resources than any other branch of government to enforce their codes.

You don't have to answer it....

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, if you wish, you can answer it and say, "Since you've blocked your phone number from showing up on my caller ID, I'm not going to talk to you. If you are going to invade my privacy, you WILL let me know who you are. Have a nice day. Goodbye."

And since they called you, they get to pay for getting that lesson in manners.

Re:You don't have to answer it....

[JackieBrown]

As someone who does medical tech repairs I would very much appreciate a response like that so I can close the issue (on my side) that much faster for non-compliance.

Seems better than me arguing the first 2 minutes that I am not trying to sell them something or steal their children.

Re:You don't have to answer it....

[Achromatic1978]

Wow, your customers are "noncompliant" for choosing not to receive calls from blocked CID?

What company do you work for, so I can avoid doing business with them?

Re:You don't have to answer it....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why be a wanker for? Why don't you tell us what company you work for, so that the rest of us don't do business with them.

Re:You don't have to answer it....

[dreamt]

Note that these are 2 separate things. Blocked caller ID shows up as "anonymous" or "blocked" on most caller ID boxes and would be otherwise available at the callers disgression. Unknown (or number not available" means that the data is not present (ie, a switch somewhere "ate" it or was never transmitted (such as by a PBX)).

It is possible to block receiving calls from a "blocked" site, and the caller should receive a message stating that they should unblock caller ID to call. It is not possible to block unknown calls (with Verizon's current rules, at least).

skypeout data?

[Anonymous Coward]

So will it be illegal to use skypeout to call someone and not tell skype your real phone number?

(what does skype show anyway on callerid?)

Don't worry!

[lord_mike]

The Supreme Court will be sure to strike this law down, too...

They are big on that nowadays...

Thanks,

Mike

Re:Don't worry!

[Overzeetop]

Only if it overturns...um, I mean upholds...um, I mean clarifies...some existing, longstanging supreme court precident. That's what Roberts said he would do in his confirmation hearings - respect the courts previous precidents, right?

for the thrifty cheater

[martin_henry]

'The amount of the forfeiture penalty (...) shall not exceed $10,000 for each violation, or 3 times that amount for each day of a continuing violation get all your call spoofing done in one day to maximise value!

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Points 1-4 apply equally well to spam. Have you thought that this isn't intended to be pursued by police, but rather meant as a way of reducing abusive behaviour once it has been identified by the victim?

I never answer the phone...

[flyingfsck]

That is what the answering machine is for. Ever since junk calls became prolific years ago, everybody I know got an answering machine and when we call each other, we just leave messages. There is almost no interactive phone chatting going on.

It's probably their main number

[davidwr]

(xxx)xxx-0000 is probably the number on their trunk line.

Interstate calls ARE interstate commerce

[davidwr]

If you call someone in another state and the phone company gets paid for the call, it's interstate commerce.

If any of the phone companies involved are incorporated in another state, then it's also interstate commerce.

As far as the feds are concerned, the parties to the commerce are the people using the phones, all the carriers, and anyone and everyone who is paying the bill.

You can argue that the feds have no business regulating intra-state phone calls. It's been at least 70 years since the feds started regulating the phone system. I'd be surprised if the courts haven't ruled on federal regulation of purely intra-state phone calls yet.

Re:Interstate calls ARE interstate commerce

[novus ordo]

By that logic you can say that since your local telephone company is based in X state, it is still interstate commerce. Or if it actually is incorporated in your state they can claim that paying them through your bank account through Bank Y that is incorporated in State X it is still interstate commerce. Or if the bank, the intra-state phone company are all incorporated in your state government can claim that using your internet banking account to pay the company is interstate commerce. Or if even the ISP is incorporated in the same state they can claim that ISP is routing through another ISP incorporated in a different state and that is interstate commerce. Ad infinitum... And that's how the government usurps powers not vested in it.

Do what I do...

[NotQuiteReal]

I dunno, I guess I just never cared who was calling. But here is a great excuse to explore the spelling of the word for one who does not tell the truth...

Currently, either I'd answer the phone, or I wouldn't, depending on my mood.

Under current law, if I had callerID, either I'd answer the phone, or I wouldn't, depending on my mood.

Under the new law, if I had callerID, and callers weren't allowed to lie about being criminal liars, I'd have to make a decision about answering the phone, even though the callerID might be lying to me anyhow. I guess I would just revert to my previous, pre-callerID rules, and either I'd answer the phone, or I wouldn't, depending on my mood.

felony?

[si1houette]

a misdemeanor has a max fine of 5000$. So... spoofing your name must be a FELONY!? Seems a little harsh to me.

I wondered why the FCC disappeared

[baomike]

tnx for the info.

People allow spoofing?

[Punker22]

We're a local business VoIP provider and we do our own PSTN termination and we can't spoof the name... the number *only* if it's within our block but yea....I guess i'm in the dark about this actually being a problem

The whole thing is absurd

[StealthyRoid]

It's a stupid bill for four reasons:

1. It's a solution without a problem. The actual impact of caller ID spoofing is almost nil, while it's a valuable learning tool for many people just getting started with phones. The only argument I can see for it is that it makes reporting violators of the Do Not Call list. However a.) that's not a big enough benefit to justify any but the smallest trade off and b.) the Do Not Call list is stupid, and its impact should be achieved via implementation of blacklists by phone carriers. The government shouldn't be acting unless there's a serious matter at hand, nor should it engage in yet another unConstitutional regulation.
2. It's too open-ended.

   `(4) REPORT- Not later than 6 months after the enactment of this subsection, the Commission shall report to Congress whether additional legislation is necessary to prohibit the provision of inaccurate caller identification information in technologies that are successor or replacement technologies to telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service.
   ...
   `(A) CALLER IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION- The term `caller identification information' means information provided by a caller identification service regarding the telephone number of, or other information regarding the origination of, a call made using a telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service.

   Why not apply this to IP-spoofed or proxy'd Ventrilio/TeamSpeak/etc... conversation? This only increases the Constitutional argument against this amendment, because even if you buy the absurd assertion that the commerce clause gives the USFG power over anything that even remotely involves interstate commerce, where's the commerce in a private Teamspeak server? It also increases the chances of abuse by law enforcement, like the kids above.
3. The bill doesn't just restrict malicious spoofing, like making a threatening phone call look like it's coming from inside the house, it restricts simply playful spoofing, like ordering a pizza for I.P. Freely and making it look like comes from the local police precinct. Nor does it make a distinction between spoofed info that represents someone else's information accurately, and displaying non-existent information like '555-555-1212'. There's no reason the government should be spending my tax dollars on something as asinine as this. Osama bin Laden isn't calling up the White House and asking for Prince Albert in a Can while spoofing his CID to say "SUCK IT DRY".
4. The fines are absurdly out of proportion with any _potential harm_ presented by caller ID spoofers. What incentive does the USFG or the states (which the bill empowers to act on these matters) have to NOT go after 14 year old kids for $10k a pop? None. But nobody will think that at first, until the first few kids get busted, and are we really OK with _anyone_ being jacked by something this stupid?

Re:The whole thing is absurd

[geekoid]

"where's the commerce in a private Teamspeak server?"

People do busismess on vie VOIP systems. Often interstate business. Bear in mind if the call is even routed out of state for 1 bounce, and then back into the state, it's interstate.

Yes this law is stupid
Yes interstate clause is abused.

Don't blame the feds there doing what any large government would do, blame the state. The States are supposed to have some backbone when dealing with the feds. The founders new this happens, it is the exact REASON we have seperate states that are supposed to govern themselves except for a very few exceptions.
The reason for the interstate clause is pretty much gone.

I can not stree enough, in order to stop this, the State has to stand up an chanllenge the feds. And suck it up when the feds pull funding. The funny thing is they can only pull funding once, then the feds are powerless.

If this is a priority to you, get invlved. It is the only way to change things. It takes work, dedication, and time, but change can happen from anyone.

Re:The whole thing is absurd

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part I agree with you, but there is potential for financial harm. Just think of all the financial email phishing crap that people fall for; if somebody gets a call and talks to an actual human being it would add an additional level of legitimacy. Of course you should never give out your personal information to anybody, but if people get fooled by email they will certainly get fooled by phone.

On the other hand, that is already covered by existing fraud laws so the laws specific to spoofing don't really seem to add anything.

Re:The whole thing is absurd

[deacon]

So to summarise you post, You like to screw with people for fun and are annoyed that
now this law will get you in trouble? My heart bleeds for you.

Your mom called, and she said it was time for you to come upstairs out of the basement for dinner. She said to put on pants the correct way forward AND zip the zipper this time.

XXX
Deacon

I call BS

[Strange Ranger]

My real name is not Strange Ranger.

Why should I have to reveal my real number when placing a call?

Yes I know this is a forum and calls are more "personal".
But sometimes I call companies. Or heck maybe city hall.
Where does the tracking and ID'ing end?

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

You're not really 'Strange Ranger'! I'm shattered!!

I really thought I was talking to an eclectic crowd of people with strange parents, such as Mr and Mrs Neal, who called their son 'Cowboy'.

Now I'm really disappointed. My own parents, Lord and Lady Coward, decided many years ago that they would like to avoid the limelight, and accordingly named me 'Anonymous'. I have always been a little concerned at the number of rogues who seem to take my name in vain on your esteemed board, but I thought the rest of you were upright citizens.

Re:I call BS

[smurfsurf]

Why should I have to reveal my real number when placing a call?

Yes I know this is a forum and calls are more "personal".
But sometimes I call companies. Or heck maybe city hall. I don't know about the US, but in Europe, I can suppress caller ID on an individual call.

Re:I call BS

[DataBroker]

*67 = Caller-id blocking
e.g.: *67,18005551212

Only in the US!

[Anonymous Coward]

Preventing spoofing certainly can be done (- its done in Australia).

Cant legislature in the US mandate that telco's must enforce valid caller-id (at least internally within the billing/logging system).

The issue of trustworthiness is one that I feel is a significant enabler for phone use in Australia. I know I often filter calls from 'private' numbers. I cant imagine have such an untrustworthy system as the one indicated as current in the US, is it often abused?

Nice

[rantingkitten]

I sort of hope it passes, for selfish reasons. I direct the support department at a VoIP provider and I cannot tell you how tired I am of people's endless, nonstop whining about their caller ID, and how they want it changed, and why can't I make it look like they're calling from somewhere else... on and on and on. This will give me a convenient excuse to tell them to shut up.

On a slightly more serious note, though, it's amusing to note why the bill is being introduced. Senator Stevens was blithering about how it's important because people rely on caller ID for "critical information". I cannot imagine what could possibly be considered "critical" about caller ID information, particularly considering what a half-assed hack the entire system is anyway and the lack of any real standards. Please note that caller ID is entirely different from ANI (automated number identification).

Caller ID is a fine example of a semi-convenient feature that people took and ran away with. The general population now sees Caller ID as the Oracle at Delphi, infallable and impossible to live without, and go absolutely apeshit if it's wrong (which is quite often, believe it or not). I guess people just don't understand the technology, but to "rely" on caller ID information is ludicrous.

I remember about fifteen years ago, maybe a bit more, when Caller ID was virtually unheard of, and the Bells were just starting to roll it out to homes. My parents got the little box from Radio Shack, signed up with the service, and my friends and I would rush over to the ID box with childish glee every time the phone rang, cause hey! How cool is this, man!

But in the end that's all we thought about it. It was a cool little novelty. That people take it so seriously now baffles me.

We used to deal with the phone ringing and not knowing who it was in advance with the following method: a) answer the phone, b) don't answer the phone, or c) let them leave a message and get back to them if we feel like it.

Somehow, though, what I don't remember is that the pre-Caller ID era was some kind of a Dark Ages where nobody got anything done.

But you'll never convince the public of this.

Re:Nice

[Antique Geekmeister]

Unfortunately, what was also missing was war dialers, which allow easy scanning of thousands of phone numbers so a call center in India can abuse far more people in a night far more efficiently by only connecting when someone actually picks up. This makes such phone-spamming abuse far more widespread.

And there are also plenty of technologies for *faking* caller-ID, to look like it's from a bank or some other peroson, technologies like this (http://www.spoofcard.com/). This is the wet dream of fraudsters, prank phone callers and telephone stalkers, to confuse their victim's attempts to trace the caller back and reduce the likelihood of being able to say "oh, it's a blocked Caller-ID: I'll let them leave a message".

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention the fact that one approach several posters advocate - making telcos responsible for transmitting accurate CallerID info if they transmit it at all - could possibly be the death of VOIP services accessible to ordinary people running on hardware and software that they control.

I would argue that this is targeted at unscrupulous bill collectors and illegal telemarketers - in both cases a monetary fine is appropriate, as they're doing it for money in the first place, and they're doing it to avoid getting nailed for something else that's illegal. (i.e. avoiding harassment complaints or getting caught avoiding the do-not-call list)

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Caller ID is a fine example of a semi-convenient feature that people took and ran away with. The general population now sees Caller ID as the Oracle at Delphi, infallable and impossible to live without, and go absolutely apeshit if it's wrong (which is quite often, believe it or not). I guess people just don't understand the technology, but to "rely" on caller ID information is ludicrous.

It's not ludicrous at all to be given a technology that fails a huge amount of the time and then complain about it failing a huge amount of the time. And comparing it to the lack of caller id is silly: wrong information and deliberately misleading information is worse than no information at all.

Re:Nice

[rantingkitten]

t's not ludicrous at all to be given a technology that fails a huge amount of the time and then complain about it failing a huge amount of the time.

You sure about that, chief? If that's the limitation of the technology, you can bitch and bitch but that won't change anything. Or you can stop pretending it's a 100% reliable system, and just accept the limitations of it.

Also, who really gives a damn. What's the absolute worst that could happen? Your brother prank calls you and makes it look like he's from the White House? Oh no. A telemarketer calls and you see the caller ID that says your buddy's name, so you answer? Oh no, you've been inconvenienced for the two seconds it takes to hang up.

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not ludicrous at all to be given a technology that fails a huge amount of the time and then complain about it failing a huge amount of the time.

You sure about that, chief?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure that it's okay to complain when a commercial service fails a huge amount of the time.

If that's the limitation of the technology, you can bitch and bitch but that won't change anything.

Except it's not the limitation of the technology. Phone companies can do better (e.g. ANI), they choose not to.

Or you can stop pretending it's a 100% reliable system

If anybody were pretending that, they wouldn't be complaining, would they?

Also, who really gives a damn.

According to your own previous comment, "the general population".

What's the absolute worst that could happen?

I don't want to get the blame when somebody spoofs me. One phonecall from telemarketers might not be an annoyance, but several in one day are.

Re:Nice

[rantingkitten]

Yeah, I'm sure that it's okay to complain when a commercial service fails a huge amount of the time. Then stop using it. I didnt' see anyone holding a gun to your head saying "You must purchase this service, and you must treat it as though it can do things it's not ever going to do." Why legislate it? Except it's not the limitation of the technology. Phone companies can do better (e.g. ANI), they choose not to. I AM the phone company! But seriously, no. ANI is a highly reliable service and works very, very well. If all people cared about was seeing the number, ANI would do it fine. But they want to see names and company names and stuff -- and that's crappy. It relies on directory listings that get updated when someone feels like it, and wrong half the time at that. Some ILECs use their own local databases for ANI-to-caller-ID translation, some rely on whatever the caller's switch is sending. Small businesses in particular change their names all the time, number porting only complicates things further, etc. There's a lot going on with caller ID that makes it a craptastic system -- which is not the case for ANI.

If anybody were pretending that, they wouldn't be complaining, would they?

Perhaps we're talking past each other. What I'm saying here is this: The caller ID system sucks out loud. People don't realize this, and think it's a super awesome system that should always work. If they realized how crappy it is, instead of believing the hype, they wouldn't be griping when it fails, because they'd expect it. Instead, though, they gripe endlessly, and now legislation is being considered, because people expect the technology to do something it's not gonna do.

According to your own previous comment, "the general population".

Yeah, well, fair enough, but I was speaking rhetorically. What I meant was that I really have a hard time understanding why people get so worked up over petty stuff like this. I'd just like to state again and for the record that I, personally, handle huge numbers of people complaining about it, so I know how unbelievably insane they get over caller ID. And to this day it baffles me, because it's such a trivial little thing. It's like four bucks a month for a cool little convenience. So if it doesn't work all the time, big deal. Get over it.

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm sure that it's okay to complain when a commercial service fails a huge amount of the time.

Then stop using it.

When reasonable people realise that a service they have purchased is broken, they tend to complain first and cancel second. You seriously think that, as a support tech, you shouldn't have to listen to people telling you that the service your company provides is broken?

But seriously, no. ANI is a highly reliable service and works very, very well. If all people cared about was seeing the number, ANI would do it fine. But they want to see names and company names and stuff -- and that's crappy.

No, the entire service is crappy. In the cases where accurate names aren't possible, provide accurate numbers, don't let people put in whatever they want to. ANI may be more limited than caller id, but it's not as broken and it proves that the telco could provide an accurate service if they wanted to, and that it's not a technology limitation.

There's a lot going on with caller ID that makes it a craptastic system -- which is not the case for ANI.

So you are giving up on your claim that it's a limitation of the technology then?

What I'm saying here is this: The caller ID system sucks out loud. People don't realize this, and think it's a super awesome system that should always work. If they realized how crappy it is, instead of believing the hype, they wouldn't be griping when it fails, because they'd expect it.

We aren't talking past each other, we just fundamentally disagree. You see a system that is broken and paying customers who don't expect the system to be broken, and you say fix the customers. I see a system that is broken and paying customers who don't expect the system to be broken, and I say fix the system.

I'd just like to state again and for the record that I, personally, handle huge numbers of people complaining about it, so I know how unbelievably insane they get over caller ID. And to this day it baffles me, because it's such a trivial little thing.

Perhaps they feel it's the principle of the matter? You know, that they pay for a service and expect it to work properly? And perhaps the attitude that they are the ones in the wrong for expecting the service they are paying for to work properly might make them angrier than they were originally?

Re:Nice

[rantingkitten]

The only reason I'm responding to this is in the hopes that someone sees it and understands.

No, the entire service is crappy. In the cases where accurate names aren't possible, provide accurate numbers, don't let people put in whatever they want to.

This is what happens. Take your cellphone as an example. If you don't have the number in your address book, the caller's number displays, and that's it.

You seriously think that, as a support tech, you shouldn't have to listen to people telling you that the service your company provides is broken?

It has nothing to do with what my company offers. This is how caller ID works all over the US. A great example is a recent debacle we had with a customer in Texas. If this customer called a number local to him, which would be a Southwest Bell number, guess what? Southwest Bell had their own ANI translation table and delivered to the callee the name they had on record, which was not this customer. We were sending the correct information.

Shit like this happens all the time. One ILEC has their directory updated, another doesn't. One delivers whatever the caller's switch delivers, another doesn't. There are no standards. It's a system that barely works. As I said.

ou see a system that is broken and paying customers who don't expect the system to be broken, and you say fix the customers.

Yes. It's unreasonable of me to expect people to be aware of what a service can and cannot do. Callous though it may seem, caveat emptor works sometimes. You want to fix it? Convince every telecom in the US to adhere to a monolithic and centrally controlled standard? Good luck.

"Hey Southwest Bell, why don't you do it like, say, AT&T does it?"
"No thanks, we have our system in place."
"Yeah, but it doesn't always match what AT&T does."
"Then maybe AT&T should change theirs to match ours!"
"They say they don't want to."
"Neither do we."
"But look here, it would make your customers happier!"
"They're already pretty happy."
"Some of them aren't. Some of them have problems from time to time."
"Not often enough for it to matter."
"Matters to them!"
"So you want us to tear down the multimillion dollar system we have in place now, develop another system at more considerable cost to us, to correct a problem 'some' people have 'from time to time' with their five-dollar service we never guaranteed would work 100% in the first place."
"Yes."

Have fun with that.

The reason I disagree is because I learned at age six that sometimes stuff just doesn't work the way you want it to. Even if you paid for it. You can either let it drive you insane, or you can file it under the heading "sometimes life sucks" and get on with yourself.

Of course, I also think it's pretty damn petty to raise such a fuss about a four-dollar-a-month add-on service that manages to satisfy the end customer 98% of the time, but that's another story.

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

In the cases where accurate names aren't possible, provide accurate numbers, don't let people put in whatever they want to.

This is what happens.

No, what happens is where any name at all of dubious quality isn't available, a number is provided. There's a difference between accurate names and anything you have lying around from questionable sources.

You seriously think that, as a support tech, you shouldn't have to listen to people telling you that the service your company provides is broken?

It has nothing to do with what my company offers. This is how caller ID works all over the US.

Just because other companies use the same system as you, it doesn't mean the service your company is offering to its customers isn't broken.

You want to fix it? Convince every telecom in the US to adhere to a monolithic and centrally controlled standard? Good luck.

Yeah, because telecom companies can't interoperate at all. They certainly don't link up to form one giant, global telecom network. Interoperability is beyond them.

The reason I disagree is because I learned at age six that sometimes stuff just doesn't work the way you want it to. Even if you paid for it.

So you just silently put up with broken stuff? You think it's okay for businesses to foist crap onto their customers and that the customers shouldn't complain? People like you are the reason why the "invisible hand" has been damn near amputated. A free market doesn't work correctly when consumers silently accept whatever shit companies are shoveling.

Skype?

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype let's you set a caller ID for text messages it sends.. is that gonna cost me $10k now?

It IS a Feature

[Greyfox]

For a while there I was running with a voip service. Incoming calls on my land line would be picked up on my asterisk server and it'd check to see if I was home. If not, it'd dial out over voip, connect to my cell phone and spoof the caller ID of the calling party to my cell so I knew who was calling. If I read the text of the bill correctly, it would make it illegal to so much as spoof your company's main phone number onto outgoing calls from your corporate T1 line. I'm hoping that lest fucktarded heads prevail and this bill gets shot down but given the chimpanzees currently running this country I doubt very much that'll happen.

How does this effect other countries?

[drspliff]

How will this effect VoIP/ISTP companies in other countries than the USA, for example, would making VoIP calls through a UK provider to the USA with a UK number as the caller id be considered caller ID spoofing?

I'm getting pretty worried about this because our company terminates a huge number of calls to the states, and although we go through a verification process to check the customer has the right to use the callerid you can never be entirely sure if you're going to get caught out somewhere!

Also, does anybody know where I can get the full text of this bill? It doesnt seem to be available on the website (so don't blame me for not RTFA ok).

Huh?

[crypticgeek]

Since when can Congress regulate communications? Or perhaps Congress would like to get rid of the FCC and ignore the Constitution? This is silly.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Congress created the FCC. The constitution does not say anything about who regulates communication. Congress creates laws and creates administrative bodies such as the FCC.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Since when can Congress regulate communications?

Since someone started paying for phone calls (and someone pays for your 8YY calls, just not you, so don't try to make that an exception) across state lines.

> Or perhaps Congress would like to get rid of the FCC and ignore the Constitution? This is silly.

The FCC has power only as Congress delegated the FCC some of Congress's powers. There are some people who claim that Congress does not have the right to delegate its powers, in which case this should please even them.

I intentionally spoof my callerID for every call

[marknmel]

I'm spoofing my (outbound) VOIP circuit callerID to use my POTS number (for which I use for incoming calls) So under this whacky law - would this be illegal? (Since I have the number that I'm spoofing). Don't get me wrong, I'm all about putting a end to telemarketers and polical campaining.

spoofed

[Joebert]

In a completely unexpected turn of events, officials report that tracking down the spoofers of the caller ID, has led to other spoofed credentials & they've collected zero dollars in fines while spoofers continue spoofing.

Re:spoofed

[Anonymous Coward]

How much spoof could a spoof spoofer spoof if a spoof spoofer could spoof spoof ?

Interesting loophole

[dschuetz]

The bill makes spoofing CID illegal for calls made "in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service". It further goes on to define "IP-enabled voice service" as being calls placed over TCP/IP or a successor protocol, for a fee . So if someone sets up a free computer-to-POTS gateway, they can continue to spoof with impunity?

It'd be nice if this also required CID on all calls (except those blocked on a call-by-call basis), 'cause I still get a lot of phone calls with "UNKNOWN" or even just completely blank. At least, it should require CID for all commercial-to-residential calls, whether for-profit or not, so I can stop answering all those damned surveys and campaign calls that Congress (bugger-em) decided to leave exempt from the Do Not Call list.

Re:Interesting loophole

[fozzmeister]

Well isn't voip UDP, or those wierd GRE ones, are they actually _successors_ to, no I think they are for a different use, like a car is not a successor to the train.

Bill collection agencies in Canada?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been getting nuisance collection calls off and on to my home office for 4 years out of Toronto, Canada. Sadly this law won't help that. Now if there were an international law that could prevent this ...

I've blocked most of these folks so I don't have to bother with it, the Canadian numbers can't be blocked for some reason.

I wish I were the guy and owned any money - COMPLETELY different name (Garcia to my Pfeifer) But since I'm not, **I will not pay**.

No Vote

[Doitroygsbre]

I saw someone else's comment on here that there wasn't a vote on this issue in the senate. SO I went and Looked it up:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_li sts/vote_menu_110_1.htm
http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/b_thr ee_sections_with_teasers/active_leg_page.htm

Not only has it not had any vote on the floor, it isn't even listed as active legislation.

And for the people wondering about law enforcement and what-not(from the bill S.701):
(ii) SPECIFIC EXEMPTION FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES OR COURT ORDERS- The regulations required under subparagraph (A) shall exempt from the prohibition under paragraph (1) transmissions in connection with--
          (I) any authorized activity of a law enforcement agency; or
          (II) a court order that specifically authorizes the use of caller identification manipulation.

So as long as someone gets a court order or it is law enforcement, then this law wouldn't apply (assuming it goes anywhere.)

I'm kinda wondering why this was even posted. Neither houses of congress have voted on it and it was originally introduced back in February.

Re:3 times a day - old joke

[DataBroker]

On the first day of college, the Dean addressed the students, pointing out some of the rules. "The female dormitory will be out-of-bounds for all male students, and the male dormitory to the female students. Anybody caught breaking this rule will be fined $20 the first time."

He continued, "Anybody caught breaking this rule the second time will be fined $60. Being caught a third time will incur a hefty fine of $180. Are there any questions?"

At this, a male student in the crowd inquires, "How much for a season pass?"

Why just 10,000.00 a day?

[transporter_ii]

It is like the Muslims and the 77 virgins. Why just 77? Why not 177 or 1077 virgins?

If you are just going to pull numbers out of the air, why not 500,000.00 a day, or a million? Heck, why not a trillion dollars a day?

At a trillion dollars a day, if the feds could catch about 8 to 10 caller-id spoofers, the US could be completely out of debt.

And as long as we are living in fantasy land, why don't we pass some laws against Congress, so that they can't spend our children and our children's children into debt hell.

Transporter_ii

You are impersonating a lawyer on Slashdot

[giafly]

Hi node 3,

• You just said impersonation is fraud, so please turn yourself in to the police.
• Still here? Then clearly you were lying
• You just said lying is fraud, so please turn yourself in to the police.

Re:You are impersonating a lawyer on Slashdot

[node 3]

Hi giafly,

I'm sure your post sounded exceptionally clever in your mind.

However, not so much as written down.

You just said impersonation is fraud, so please turn yourself in to the police. I said impersonating an officer is fraud. I also said that not all fraud is illegal. And I never said people should turn themselves in for impersonation (or fraud).

Still here? Then clearly you were lying I'm here. About what am I therefore lying?

You just said lying is fraud, so please turn yourself in to the police. It is, but see above regarding whether I said all fraud is illegal, and whether I said such people should turn themselves in.

Great pointless law

[Thaelon]

Another fine example of a great, pointless law. If someone is spoofing, how will you know who is breaking the spoofing law?

Skype

[MattPat]

So what happens with VoIP solutions, like Skype? They don't intentionally spoof caller ID (as in, to fool the person they're calling), they use numbers from "faraway lands" (so I've been told :P). They're not trying to fool the recipient of the call, but occasionally they do not represent the actual caller (sometimes "Unknown Call" shows, so I suppose that would still be legal). Would this become illegal?

Sorry, no

[Jeff Molby]

5. It was specifically written to exempt these uses

...because governments tend to be very good at predicting and allowing for all of the possible "legitimate" uses.

2. See number 1. The question is whether the money spent on this law is worth the societal good of making it easier to prosecute scammers.

No, use apples and apples. The societal good must outweigh the societal cost, not merely the dollar cost. Societal costs include:

- The additional liability of every single person and business subject to the law
- The opportunity cost of inventors who might be able to devise beneficial uses of a banned practice.
- The general deterioration of faith and understanding of the government due to the addition of yet another unnecessary law. (Yes, I can say for a fact that it is unnecessary because, well, we've survived without it for quite some time)

I'm sure you can think of a few more hidden costs if you take a couple minutes.

What's the international dialing code?

[Anonymous Coward]

n/t

"Freedom" is the feature

[Jeff Molby]

As the bill admits, there are legitimate uses of this practice. By giving congress (and eventually the judiciary) the authority to determine what is or isn't a legitimate practice, you're putting a lot of faith in a lot of people who, quite frankly, haven't earned it.

We have enough experience to understand what CallerID fraud costs us and it has been negligible. Our crystal ball sucks, so we have absolutely no idea what this legislation might cost (I use the term very broadly: dollars, freedom, innovation, etc) us. Why go out of our way to take unnecessary risks?

Re:"Freedom" is the feature

[OwnedByTwoCats]

If this is a federal crime, then it gives authority to the Federal Department of Justice and (ultimately) the US Attorneys the ability to choose to prosecute incidents of Caller-ID spoofing as federal crimes. Noone can forsee that power being misused by Republicans to attempt to ensure a permanent Republican majority, or to manufacture claims of Voter Fraud.

"Noone can forsee"....

Re:"Freedom" is the feature

[jedidiah]

...and what exactly are those legitimate reasons about LYING about your identity?

I'm really curious because I haven't seen any yet.

Re:"Freedom" is the feature

[Jeff Molby]

Spoofing is not lying about your identity. It's lying about the number you're calling from. There's a subtle, but important difference. Two quick examples of spoofing in an ethical way: - Telecommuters: I'm working from home, but I don't want to hand out my home phone number to any client with callerid. I could spoof the callerid to display the company's primary phone number. - I want to conserve my cell minutes. I might decide to spoof the callerid to display my home number instead. Then I can freely use my cell whenever it's convenient and still only give out the number to people I trust to use it responsibly. In neither case, and I'm sure you can think of more, am I lying about my identity. I'll readily admit who I am and who I'm working for, but that doesn't mean the receiver needs to know which line I called from.

The "Spoofing" System Has Legitimate Uses

[Anonymous Coward]

For instance, use by call centers internally, or semi-internally.

As an example, I work in a relay call center, relaying TTY to Voice calls. My state awarded its relay contract to the partnership of Sprint and Communications Services for the Deaf. While I work specifically for my state's relay, we handle overflow calls for pretty much all the other states who have awarded their contracts to Sprint/CSD. While most relay procedures are the same for every state, states can specify their own policies and procedures, and it is part of my job to be aware of them.

How is that relevant to Caller ID? In order to assess where retraining is needed, relay supervisors can place what are called test calls to relay operators. To do this, CallerID is "spoofed" so that the computer the relay operator is using reports it as coming from a particular state (relay operators only see the phone number and state, never the name associated with it). If a large number of operators do not follow the correct procedure for a particular state, you might find a section of the newsletter explaining it again.

I imagine that similar location based needs exist in other call centers, such as, say, interstate banks, which have to follow different laws in different states. In systems like these, "spoofing" caller ID is a valuable tool for quality control.

Hence, I would oppose a blanket ban on Caller ID spoofing. Fraud, in its proper legal sense, is already illegal, and I would have no problem with additional penalties being imposed for specific misuses of caller ID. But simply outlawing it is short sighted.

Cool

[thorkyl]

So when the virtual recruiter calls me from India with a Chicago phone number all I have to do is report him to the FCC, ohh wait they have no jurisdiction in India...

It's all Paris Hilton's fault...

[tom_evil]

...or is it just a coincidence that this law comes up after "SpoofCard.com Terminates Accounts of Paris Hilton and 50 Other Customers for Using its Service to Break Into Voicemail Boxes"?

I think not.

Anyway, please people, the whole reason for this law is not to make spoofing a thing of the past, but to make sure only cops and feds are allowed to spoof caller ID to harass, intimidate and spy on me by pretending to be my loved ones, creditors, ex-girlfriends who want their DVDs back, one night stands who I never called back, etc. I mean, how naive are we about them spying on me? Laws are about power and who has it. That's why they won't let me buy a tank on eBay.

Damn government.

You know you're on /. when

[Megatronium]

and an asterisk server is pretty much free
...you can confidently state that an old computer is practically free because you know your audience have at least 3 old PCs lying around in their apartment.

Oops, I meant basement. :)

Re:You know you're on /. when

[jedidiah]

Or they can go to the local thrift store or used computer store.

You've been able to do that since the 80's.

Machines like that are dirtcheap on ebay too.

Compute the monthly cost of your favorite vice. A cheap used PC is probably cheaper than that.

Re:You know you're on /. when

[Anonymous Coward]

Used PCs are my monthly vice.

ANI already has this info

[SuperBanana]

Yes I know this is a forum and calls are more "personal". But sometimes I call companies. Or heck maybe city hall. Where does the tracking and ID'ing end?

Read what's already been posted- the information is already in the ANI signal, which is used for billing, among other things. The "guvmint" can already get this information- they don't need Caller ID. Call any toll-free number and the owner of that line AUTOMATICALLY gets this information, since it is their nickel.

Re:ANI already has this info

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and you can also trace my ip address and figure out who Strange Ranger is if you have the time, resources, authority, etc. I don't really think I'm TRULY anonymous here. That's why the analogy was spot on.

I leave fingerprints and DNA on everything I touch too. But it's nice that I don't have to leave my name and contact info on everything I touch.
If I can send email from fakename@yahoo.com (not TRULY anonymous) I ought to be able to place a call from 123-456-7890.

Now get off my lawn. :)

Does it even cover SIP?

[Albanach]

From the bill:

(7) DEFINITIONS- For purposes of this subsection: `(C) IP-ENABLED VOICE SERVICE- The term `IP-enabled voice service' means the provision of real-time 2-way voice communications offered to the public, or such classes of users as to be effectively available to the public, transmitted through customer premises equipment using TCP/IP protocol, or a successor protocol, for a fee (whether part of a bundle of services or separately) with interconnection capability such that the service can originate traffic to, or terminate traffic from, the public switched telephone network.

So it looks like it covers TCP based VoIP protocols but not UDP ones? UDP is hardly a successor protocol to TCP. Indeed its RFC comes thirteen months before that of TCP.

Re:I intentionally spoof my callerID for every cal

[Todd Knarr]

No. The bill doesn't outlaw CID spoofing, it outlaws sending misleading or inaccurate CID data. As long as the sent CID information accurately identifies the caller and doesn't mislead the recipient about who the caller is, you should be OK.

Double Standard

[kwalker]

Will this law be applied to various Federal and State agencies who fake their Caller ID information? I thought not.

Direct inward dialing

[adolf]

It's amazing to me that a group so technical as that here on Slashdot is typically completely confounded when it comes to anything technical when it comes to dealing with a telephone. Caller ID is a convenience service, meant to be convenient for both the calling and called parties, and able to be completely disabled and/or manipulated -- by design.

There's good reasons for this.

Suppose that a small company, WidgetCo, has 100 desks, all of which have a phone on them with its own extension on the phone system, and Direct Inward Dialing set up so that each desk has its own globally-accessible PSTN telephone number, and they're all prefixed 212-222-21xx.

Suppose also they have only a single PRI to the outside world, which only gives them 23 "phone lines".

In order to get more than 23 different "outgoing numbers," their switch is programmed to set up caller ID according to the DID number of the person's extension. So that Bob, at extension 168 a.k.a. PSTN DID 212-222-2168, can have 212-222-2168 show up on caller ID instead of the number for the receptionist or IVR. And so can Fred, over at x193, along with anyone else at any (or all) of the other desks as long as the local phone system is configured accordingly.

It's -good- that your fax machine show up on caller ID as being from from it's own, unique, number, instead of that of the receptionist.

It's not a lie -- it's just a more efficient way of doing things. This is all just part of how telephone trunking works, at almost all levels, all the way through the PSTN between the two parties. It is not magic. :)

It is also worth noting that this Caller ID information being sent over the PRI by WidgetCo contains only the desired originating number, but never any name information. So while the system makes it easy for Bob and Fred to have their DID numbers displayed on calls that they make, they won't be able to put their own name there without coordinated cooperation with the telephone company (which is, of course, impossible). The name is drawn out of a database by the called party's CO, in a fashion not completely unlike reverse DNS [1]. In this case, the name displayed by Caller ID would likely be "WidgetCo" for all 100 DID extensions.

[1]: And, like reverse DNS, screwdrivers, knives, hammers, and other useful tools, it can be abused. But just because some of the people who use them are broken doesn't mean the tools themselves need fixed/criminalized/fucked with.

Re:Direct inward dialing

[Khaed]

As I pointed out in other replies, I don't consider those uses as dishonest, because they're not hiding who they come from -- WidgetCo isn't telling me they're someone else.

It shouldn't be

[phorm]

From what I can understand, the person is still seeing the appropriate number associated with the service (skype, calling card, etc), rather than the person. Just like when I call from a payphone, if the number is displayed it's the number of the phone itself, not the caller.

This would more cover the case where you have an assigned number of 555-1234, but you knowingly spoof the number to show up as 5555-9876 to avoid callback.

Then again, I'm not a lawyer and laws tend to have lots of interesting loopholes and workarounds that makes the legal system "so much fun"

What happens when a part burns out?

[myspace-cn]

What happens when a part burns out and the wrong code is sent because the logic is fucked? Or a part that heats up and cools off, and is intermittent? The people making these laws are just as stupid as the people making electronic voting machines mandatory. They're destroying America!!!

It's a pretty sad state of affairs...

[rnturn]

... when corporations can convince the government to invent laws to make it illegal to take advantage of product flaws. If I think hard enough, I think I can still remember a day when a flawed product would merely be taken off the market or the public would stay away from it in droves until it could be fixed. Now it's, apparently, more cost effective to lobby for a law to make it illegal to use the product in such a way as to expose the flaw or use the flaw for a purpose that the manufacturer never intended, either through neglect ("Oops! We never thought of that!") or arrogance ("I don't care if it's got flaws! Make sure it ships by the announced date!"). It's not just CallerID. We can all think of others. (*cough* DVD encryption *cough*)

One question we might want to ask ourselves:

Why do we continue to put up with this?

(Well, not me personally. I don't pay for CallerID -- SBC gets enough of my money already -- and find that, after the initial aggravation, that a curt "Get Lost!" works quite well.) I have friends who've complained about phony CallerID use; mainly those who work out of their homes and need CallerID to distinguish friends/family from clients. They could do without it but continue to pay for use of a flawed technology. What did we ever do without it, I wonder? Plenty of people did and probably still do.

The US System Works

[Slashdot Parent]

That's why in America we have three types of penalties: monetary, incarceration, and administrative.

• Monetary: That's the fines. To somebody like Paris Hilton, the fine means nothing. In fact, to most people, the amount of the fine is trivial. In my state, the fine for speeding is $5 for each MPH over the speed limit. If I get a ticket for going 45 MPH in a 25 MPH zone, my fine is $100.
  
  $100 means nothing to me. If I were to lose $100 walking down the street, I would never even notice. So why do I not just drive like a maniac? Read on...
  
• Administrative: If you get too many tickets within a certain period of time, you lose your right to drive. They take your license away. It doesn't matter if you are rich or poor. You get too many tickets, you lose your license. Just ask Paris Hilton.
  
• Incarceration: Drive without a license? You're going to jail. Doesn't matter if your are Paris Hilton or some bum on the street. Hell, in my state, you'll get jail time for serious enough speeding infractions. Even if you can afford the $5 for each mile ticket, if you're caught going 120 in a 55 MPH zone, you're going to jail. Doesn't matter if you can afford a $325 ticket or not.

Doing a percentage scale for tickets is just stupid. In Sweden, a speeding fine is calculated at 14 days pay. Would you really miss 14 days pay no matter what you earned?

What about if you earned $500,000 per year? Your fine would be $19230.76. But if you earned $500k/yr, would you really care that much about a $20k fine? Jail time and loss of license are much bigger deterrents to the wealthy.

Re:The US System Works

[Bombula]

Your reply is interesting and informative, but would be better received if you didn't go so far out of your way to sound like Mary Antoinette. "Would you really miss 14 days pay no matter what you earned?" You cannot actually be so far removed from the plight of 150 million other Americans that you intend this question to be taken seriously, unless you're clinically retarded. So instead it comes off just like your other comment about how you would never even notice losing $100 - a brazen exercise is massaging your own overinflated ego. You'd do better without that kind of crap.

Re:The US System Works

[Slashdot Parent]

You cannot actually be so far removed from the plight of 150 million other Americans that you intend this question to be taken seriously, unless you're clinically retarded. Perhaps I am clinically retarded, but I would gladly give up 14 days' salary to keep my driver's license and avoid jail time. You wouldn't have to ask me twice, I'd have a check written just as fast as my clinically retarded fingers could write.

So instead it comes off just like your other comment about how you would never even notice losing $100 - a brazen exercise is massaging your own overinflated ego. Not sure what to say here. It's not really overinflated ego when the median household income in my city is almost $100,000. Everyone around me is in a situation such that the fines for traffic violations are not meaningful, so I guess I don't see it as ego. Perhaps it came off that way, but if you look at it from my point of view, that statement would not be regarded as such if I said it around here.

The fact of the matter is, someone who makes $100,000 per year* is not going to miss $100, but he damn well is going to miss his driver's license and/or his freedom.

* I am not claiming to make $100,000.00 per year. In fact, I can assure you that I make either less than or greater than that amount, but not that amount exactly.

Re:The US System Works

[Anonymous Coward]

$100 means nothing to me. If I were to lose $100 walking down the street, I would never even notice.

Can I have $100?

Re:The US System Works

[Slashdot Parent]

Sure.

I hope it works

[WeeBit]

Yes I spoof my name, but not my number. I do this so I will know if it is a telemarketer or not. They call asking for the spoof, then I know they got the number from my so called friends at BellSouth/AT&T. Even though I am on the No call list I still get them. But the thing is, the telemarketers found a way to spoof too. So when they call, all that shows for the most part is a toll free number, Or just the initials of whom is calling, with a phone number that no one answers if you call them back. Hopefully, and I have no intentions of holding my breath, this will put a end to telemarketers spoofing too. I thought being on the no call list would help but apparently some phone companies hand your info over, and claim you have a relationship with their affiliates, because you are a customer of theirs. Therefore they can call.

No Incoming Number

[LBt1st]

I use Skype's "Skype Out" service which allows me to call landlines via VoIP. But I do not have "Skype In", which allows incoming calls.
When I call someone their Call ID shows "Unknown" or random numbers. How can the law expect me to have a valid Call ID if I do not have an incoming number at all?

Well, thar's y'er problem

[bill_mcgonigle]

Caller ID is a separate and unrelated system.

Well, thar's y'er problem. I think maybe back in the day it didn't make sense to always have the outbound ANI tied to Caller ID since you had less control about what to do with inbound calls. But now you can tell your switch to send any call from anywhere to any destination - and thus announcing your real ANI isn't a problem for callbacks anymore. Even outsourced stuff is no problem with call log matching. So, it makes sense to merge these two systems today, where maybe it didn't 10 years ago.

aside: when did MCI stop sponsoring 1-800-MY-ANI-IS anyway?

Stop, y'er killin' me

[bill_mcgonigle]

I'll take the no-spoofing law.

Says the AC.

Freedom for Both Parties

[bill_mcgonigle]

f I can send email from fakename@yahoo.com (not TRULY anonymous) I ought to be able to place a call from 123-456-7890.

Such freedom also begets spam and telemarketers. I'd like the ability to reject spoofed e-mails and phone numbers at the respective gateways. Just because you should be free to make anonymous calls doesn't mean I shouldn't be free to route you into the bitbucket.

Interpertation

[SonicSpike]

"The thing is, in two hundred years, language changes, society changes. The words remain the same, but the words will not be read in the same way."

Exactly. And this is why when interpreting the Constitution and other legal documents we should look at original meaning, not original intent. Original meaning of the words written down at the time they were used is the only way to tell what the document actually means.

And when the Interstate Commerce Clause was written, the phrase "to regulate" actually meant "to make regular". If you remember one of the primary reasons for the Constitution being authored in the first place was to deal with interstate squabbling, trade wars, and insane currency exchange rates. Therefore the Interstate Commerce Clause doesn't exactly mean what most people now think it means.

THIS IS NOT A LAW. (yet)

[Anonymous Coward]

"This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise bills before they go to general debate. The majority of bills never make it out of committee."

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110 -704

trouble with 860-533-1738

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody else have trouble with this guy and his poorly configured auto-dialer? Keeps illegally hitting people's cellphones.

It's a Johny -Something, in Florida. Pharmacy spammer and boiler room guy.

What is misleading? Inaccurate?

[btempleton]

The law bans misleading or inaccurate caller ID. Since Caller ID identifies the phone number making a call, not the person, would it now be illegal to:

a) Make a call from your Asterisk box using the Caller ID of your mobile phone? I do this frequently. I am misleading them to think I am calling from
my cell, which is not accurate.

b) Have a click to call service that calls two phones to connect them provide the caller id of the other phone, rather than of the service that is doing the calling?

I am not sure what this law means. One would hope one can provide the callerid of any phone number belonging to the party you will be talking to, or if desired, of the service.

Yup

[davidwr]

By that logic you can say that since your local telephone company is based in X state ...

Substitute "you" for the US Attorneys over the past few decades and you've hit the nail on the head. They've been quite successful too.

so much for this business: spoofcard.com

[SaberTaylor]

http://www.spoofcard.com/ found it via cruel.com so caveat emptor.

Mitnick's The Art of Deception mentions how he did some demo callerid spoofing on a talk show.

What's next? Spoof ip addresses becoming illegal? After all as other poster said all you need to spoof callerid is your own pbx.

DIRTY TRICKS?

[Rockin'Robert]

Didn't this thing start out as a way to stop political dirty trickters from dis-informating about other candidates, then typically got morphed into just another wholesale doo-gooder, nanny state, rights grab?
READ: REPRESSION.
RR