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CallerID Spoofing to be Made Illegal

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the phoning-home dept.

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.'"

3 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Don't worry! by lord_mike · · Score: 0, Troll

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

    They are big on that nowadays...

    Thanks,

    Mike

  2. Re:A campaign by crypticgeek · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.

  3. Re:Upside-down. by node+3 · · Score: 0, Troll

    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.