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TrapCall Service To Bypass Caller ID Blocking
cemaco writes in with news that TelTech, developers of the infamous SpoofCard service, have come out with something even more controversial: a set of services for revealing blocked caller ID numbers. The services take advantage of a loophole in the way caller ID blocking works — it has never been effective when calling an 800 number, because the recipient is paying for the call. So TelTech instructs you how to forward blocked calls (transparently) to their 800 number; the call comes back to your phone in seconds with the formerly hidden caller ID revealed. Advocacy groups for victims of domestic violence are concerned. Victims of annoying calls hiding behind caller ID blocking are rejoicing.
The problem is serious, because domestic violence victims who've fled an abusive relationship often have to stay in contact with their abuser by phone, particularly in situations where the former couple share custody of their children," Southworth says.
HTH.
We're concerned because most crisis call lines are not the phone bank you see on TV, but volunteers that work at home. As a crisis line volunteer, you want your home number blocked so that the client calls the crisis line and not you.
Some of the people we deal with aren't particularly stable and may try to latch on to the crisis worker - these, if they go into common use, could cause mental health issues for the users of crisis hotlines, AND the volunteers.
So you want people to be able to call the shelter, whom also blocks their number? Show up with a nice "XXX Women's Shelter" On call display so that the women can be hunted down? Real smart.... Not everyone has access to cheap disposable cell phone plans.
I can't believe the ignorance of the referenced article. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_identification for an intelligent explanation of what's happening. The important part is...
>>>
Because ANI is unrelated to caller ID, the caller's telephone number and line type
are captured by ANI equipment even if caller ID blocking is activated. The destination
telephone company switching office can relay the originating telephone number to ANI
delivery services subscribers. Toll-free Inward WATS number subscribers and large
companies normally have access to ANI information, either instantly via installed
equipment, or from a monthly billing statement. Residential subscribers can obtain
access to ANI information through third party companies that charge for the service.
>>>
To summarize...
* There are 2 *TOTALLY UNRELATED* means of getting *THE NUMBER THAT IS CALLING YOU*
* Caller ID (technically CNID) sends the callers number during the ringing signal.
Any outfit with their own PBX can send out whatever crap they want as CNID.
That's how spoofing services work, and how telemarketers can fake CNID
* ANI (Automatic Number Identification) is billing information data. Spoofing that
effectively constitutes fraud. And you can be certain that phone companies will
do whatever is necessary to make sure their billing systems work . ANI is very
difficult to spoof.
Having said that, TrapCall can be beaten. Not spoofed, but beaten. ANI passes the number making the call. If you call via Skype, your call is forwarded to Skype, who then forwards the call to the destination. The destination gets Skype's billing data. This is technically correct, but useless for identifying the originator. Oh yeah, Skype pays connection charges at the receiving end, so don't expect them to freely work for 1-900 numbers. This is roughly equivalant to calling from New York to Los Angeles to ask your brother to pass on a message to someone in Atlanta. The person in Atlanta knows they got called by somebody from Los Angeles. This is technically correct, but doesn't let them know that the message originated from New York.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
RTFA. It's court-mandated, they don't have a choice.
Man, I will answer here, but my answer goes to everyone that criticized my post (that had a hint of flamebait to it, really).
I know what I am talking about, I worked for a couple of years in a small town's DA office as an assistant/paralegal and I dealt with battered wives, social workers, the police, the whole she-bang. All there is to it is horrible, I can guarantee you. My wife (as a DA in another town) dealt with it for most of her (15 years long by now) career, and still have to deal with some of it.
Battered wives _must_ be isolated from their abusers quickly, swiftly and irrevocably. If the system does not do that, they go back to him, many times because they think that they don't have marketable skills / enough money to raise the kids or to live, sometimes because religion tells them that they must cope with that, sometimes even because they were conditioned by the abuser to think they deserve to be beaten.
If she made it to the shelter, she calls 911 (999/190), the police gets her kids wherever they are, and they go thru the system. For the night, they don't stay with the abuser. She does not call him. Her lawyer/public defendant/the DA gets the abuser arrested, and the judge will see if it is enough a court order for him to be out of the house.
IN NO CIRCUMSTANCES should abuser and abused exchange words directly. If visitation is granted to him (normally after some time), the victim should arrange for other person (relative, neighbour) to deal with the exchanges of the kids, and should call 911 (etc) at once if the abuser disobeys any terms of custody and/or visitations, because he does not want to go to jail in contempt.
This is women's rights protection 101, and even Brasilian police takes this in a very serious way (especially where there is a vigilant DA), so I have no reason to believe it's not so in other, supposedly more developed countries.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048