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?

Simple question

[TubeSteak]

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

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.

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?

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

[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".

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: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.