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.

Comments

I don't get it ??

[OneSmartFellow]

Advocacy groups for victims of domestic violence are concerned

What about ?

Re:I don't get it ??

[91degrees]

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.

Re:I don't get it ??

[Hyppy]

The "if you've got nothing to hide..." argument is quite the slippery slope. It's a bit authoritarian to criminalize everything you don't personally do or agree with yourself, isn't it?

Re:I don't get it ??

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah because battered women have just so much money to throw around on cell phones...most of them are so screwed financially that they spend a period of time in a shelter.

but the way that you put quotes around abuser shows where you really stand on this.

Re:I don't get it ??

[athos-mn]

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.

Re:I don't get it ??

[FingerSoup]

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.

Re:I don't get it ??

[Thornburg]

The company offering this unblocking service should offer a free service to victims of abuse where they can call the company (by way of an 800 or 888 number), and the company will place a monitored and recorded call to the person in question (i.e. connect the two, but record the conversation and have an operator either always listening, or available at the push of a button).

This would allow them to make a call that doesn't reveal their location, and would make a heck of a lot more sense than having private phone calls with someone who has the potential to cause you extreme harm.

Re:I don't get it ??

[Overzeetop]

So go spend $700 on a phone system for the crisis line. You call in, enter your code, and then dial out from the crisis number. My TalkSwitch can do that for my small business without breaking a sweat. The CallerID that goes out is the number from the business. In my case, that sucks, because if you call my office an bounce to my cell, the incoming number is my office number, not the original caller. In this case, it's just a simple matter of training for the volunteers.

Re:I don't get it ??

[morgan_greywolf]

Actually, battered women's shelters and advocacy groups can help with this problem. They often actually buy victims throw-away cell phones for this purpose.

Re:I don't get it ??

[R2.0]

Although I agree with your sentiment about the OP's attitude, it is an unfortunate fact that protection orders are routinely used by the woman's lawyer in a divorce case. My brother in law is going through a really nasty divorce right now, which his wife initiated when his salary got drastically cut. The first thing she did was file for a protective order against him, on the grounds that she was "afraid" of him. It was granted immediately, since that is policy in most courts, and now he can't enter his own house. Meanwhile, she gets to strip the house of anything of value (like checkbooks, etc.) and he can do nothing about it. And as far as I know, the only "violence" he ever employed was on his high school football team.

Women like this play right into the "they're all lying" crowd, and reinforce the misogynistic views that some abusers have.

Yeah really

[brunes69]

If you are calling me then I have a right to know who you are AFAIC.

Re:Yeah really

[hummassa]

If a battered wife wants to talk directly to her abusive husband, then she is absolutely stupid. Sorry. Battered wives should talk to abusive husband thru lawyers and police officers only.

Re:Yeah really

[rhaas]

RTFA. It's court-mandated, they don't have a choice.

Re:Yeah really

[Anonymous Coward]

A battered wife may need to talk to a relative, call a place of work, someplace where the abuser can hunt down the phone number. I had an abuser who managed to get his hands on the cell phone of someone I knew, and got my number from their cell phone. Now my number is blocked. Now I am safe.

And as for the morons below who are complaining about the wanting to talk, well they have a lot to learn about spousal abuse, and the court systems, and reasons for calling. It's not the place to get into it, but guys, keep talking about the technology and not about things you know absolutely nothing about.

Re:Yeah really

[Zerth]

I do like to communicate with anonymous people, but I only use a single, upraised digit.

Doesn't really come across on the phone, though.

Re:Yeah really

[Shakrai]

Battered wives should talk to abusive husband thru lawyers, police officers and large caliber pistols only.

Fixed that for you ;)

Re:Yeah really

[Uncle Rummy]

Battered wives should talk to abusive husband thru lawyers, police officers and large caliber pistols only.

Fixed that for you ;)

I can't hear you! Don't fire the gun while you're talking!

Re:Yeah really

[A. B3ttik]

he number of people I wish to communicate with via voice is a single digit.

...And you can just yell up the basement stairs if you want to talk to her.

Re:Yeah really

[hummassa]

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.

Blocking Caller ID illegal in some states

[kurt555gs]

The State of Michigan and I believe 6 other states passed laws written by the RIAA to make it a felony to mask your IP address. The laws were written so broadly though, that masking the information about any electronic identity would constitute a crime including caller ID.

Many states modified this before passage, but Michigan and several other states just passed the RIAA bill as submitted.

It is a class 3 felony to block caller ID in Michigan.

Thanks RIAA

Re:both blocking and unblocking - which wins?

[rodney dill]

Hmmm... it suddenly occurs to me that blocking caller id is a lot like the 'Anonymous Coward' option at Slashdot.

ANI != Caller ID

[knorthern knight]

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.