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Data Center Raid About Unpaid Telco Fees
craig writes "CBS11 News reports that the raid on Core IP networks is in the result of an investigation into unpaid telco access fees paid by CLECs and VoIP carriers to terminate calls on their networks. They also report that this raid is linked to the March 12th raid on Crydon Technology's datacenter, which also hosted VOIP providers. Anyone in the telco business will tell you access fees to other carriers are a total mess and lots of carriers have unpaid balances out there. It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon."
Late payments are one of the signs that a company is about to go under. Is this another victim of the recession?
It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon
Well, AT&T and Verizon did "favors" - Patriot Act - for the FBI, perhaps this is the FBI payin' them back?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So yesterday this very story was on how the FBI was acting as the RIAA's paid hitmen. Today we get a story about how theyre collection agents for AT&T (but no comments about wiretapping? im disappointed). I look forward to tomorrows article, Im sure it will be filled with useful, non-speculative bullshit. Incidentally, isnt it sort of in the FBI's realm to investigate large-scale fraud?
It seems like there's a better way to handle unpaid bills than by punishing the innocent customers. Even if this were outright fraud as accused, there should be a way to migrate customers first, especially 911 services.
"It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon."
Wouldn't that be a civil matter rather than criminal? I call unlikely.
Deleted
During the raid, CMG's owner, Joe Condit, says his website and business went down. "It's crippled us completely. Now that we don't have a website, we have no business, and a lot of speakers are without representation."
Without saying that this raid should have occurred in the way that it did, what's stopping this guy from setting up a webserver elsewhere and getting his business back online?
In an emergency, I'm pretty sure I could have a basic but "adequate" webserver for most small businesses up and running on just about any Internet connection within about 6 hours, even if I had to buy a new computer to install it on and find another Internet connection. Point the DNS records to the new address and he's back in business.
He would be in exactly the same situation if the colo building burned down. Why risk your business that way? If it's important to you, back it up and have some idea of what you're going to do if it goes down.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
So does this mean we can't blame the RIAA/MPAA for this? Damn...
A Magic the Gathering Article and Forum Aggregator
First the Wolverine story from yesterday, now this? I find it hard to believe that this is really over some unpaid bills.
The game.
they take down every client colocated there?
Talk about punishing the innocent.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
...because Jesus, this is the only level-headed post in the batch. Even the bloody tagline reads 'what they want you to believe'.
Thanks for link to the 5 year old article explaining complex bills are hard to figure.
"Hey, this is confusing, we don't need to hire the staff to figure it out, just stop payments."
> It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon.
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
- Maj.Gen.Smedley Butler, 1935, awarded 2xCMOH
Discuss the use of Federal agencies in protecting commercial intersts of large corporations. 2000-3000 words. Citations in Harvard style.
Only a fool would think AT&T and Verizon aren't counting on exactly that.
Doesn't matter what the motive or rationalization is: Unreasonable seizure by the federal government is forbidden in the Constitution.
There's no way they needed all this "evidence" for some unpaid bills. Nice story, but I call bullshit.
God knows what is really going on here, but I hope it eventually sees the light of day. This is reminding me of Waco, with 98% less people being burned alive involved.
--
Toro
The sad thing is the number of innocent companies they hurt by pulling all of their equipment. Oh, but the best thing is that the FBI was willing to return the equipment AFTER they had a copy of the data. Unfortunately, the hacks that work for the FBI with their A+ certs don't know how to reconnect the enterprise-level equipment they confiscated anyhow. Worse, they weren't prepared to receive that amount of data. I think the phrase I heard was, "we've got a couple of 1U servers here you can use." Sheesh!
What's next, they'll say they want to recover a lost human embryo mistakenly packaged inside a server rack?
Oh no! That's exactly where I put those test tubes! How did they ever find them?!
While poignant, I hardly think a quote from damn near a century ago is particularly relevant. You might as well be quoting Shakespeare.
Because the world is so different now?
Let's update it a little then:
"I helped make Iraq a decent place for the Haliburton boys to collect revenues in....I tried to bring light to Afghanistan for the Unocal Central Asian oil pipeline in 2002."
The first step in repeating history is failing to see the relevance of past lessons. Whenever someone says "but things are SO different now" my bullshit detector goes off. Human beings aren't any different now than they were a thousand years ago.
Maybe the point of using a quote from "damn near a century ago" was to illustrate that such things have been going for, at least "damn near a century"
The word you are looking for here is fascism, not capitalism.
Fascism is when you have merger of big business interests with government (usually military) muscle.
Mind the frickin' laser...
... AT&T and Verizon just cut off service to the DC and sued them? That way the entire datacenter, and innocent customers, wouldn't be taken offline (assuming they had other upstreams) and their servers wouldn't be in an FBI warehouse somewhere getting violated by scanning software.
I still think the FBI took a broad swing at this, unless something else is going on here that we don't know about (which is entirely plausible).
index
Matthew Simpson
Core IP Networks LLC
Dear Customers,
Today at 6:00am, the FBI conducted an unwarranted early morning raid of our 2323 Bryan Street Datacenters, on the 7th and 24th floors.
I received a phone call at 6:05am from our NOC that the entire network was powered off. I called Capstar Commercial and TELX, our landlord, and was told that the FBI was in the datacenter with a search and seizure warrant. I asked that the agent in charge call me immediately.
I received a call 15 minutes later from FBI Agent Allyn Lynd. Mr. Lynd would not tell me why he raided our datacenter or what he was looking for. He also accused me of hiding inside my house in Ovilla, Texas. I was actually in Phoenix, Arizona when this happened. I told him that, and he told me that he was "getting the dogs" after me, and hung up on me. I found out from an employee that there were 15 police cars and a SWAT team at my home in Ovilla.
The FBI has seized all equipment belonging to our customers. Many customers went to the data center to try and retrieve their equipment, but were threatened with arrest.
Neither I, nor Core IP are involved in any illegal activities of any kind. The only data that I have received thus far is that the FBI is investigating a company that has purchased services from Core IP in the past. This company does not even colocate with us anywhere, much less 2323 Bryan Street Datacenter.
Currently nearly 50 businesses are completely without access to their email and data. Citizen access to Emergency 911 services are being affected, as Core IP's primary client base consists of telephone companies.
If you run a datacenter, please be aware that in our great country, the FBI can come into your place of business at any time and take whatever they want, with no reason.
I can be reached for further comment at: mnsclec@gmail.com
Further information will be given as it becomes available.
Yours,
Matthew Simpson
CEO, Core IP Networks, LLC
direct link: http://sites.google.com/site/mnsclec/index //Just made an account to post this.
Well since we're apparently modding copy pasta from Wikipedia up to +5 Insightful today here then is my contribution of a couple of little quotes that somehow got omitted as well as my conclusions drawn from them.
"When Major General Wendell C. Neville died in July 1930, many expected Butler to succeed him as Commandant of the Marine Corps.[21] Butler, however, had criticized too many things too often, and the recent death of his father, the congressman, had removed some of his protection from the hostility of his civilian superiors. Butler failed to receive the appointment, although he was then the senior major general on the active list."
and
In 1934, Butler came forward and reported to the U.S. Congress that a group of wealthy pro-Fascist industrialists had been plotting to overthrow the government of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a military coup and had approached him to lead the coup.
and
Butler took up a lucrative career on the lecture circuit.
So it would appear that Smedley didn't know when to keep his mouth shut and Daddy's untimely exit prevented him from covering Smedley's ass resulting in Smedley's career going down in flames. This was just two years after Wall Street went down in flames so Smedley was out of a job. He went on the lecture circuit to make ends meet where he starting developing his conspiracy theory with proto-Fascist industrialists playing a big role, which must have been popular with the common folks since someone had to be to blame for the stock market crash.
In summary, Smedley Butler, a highly decorated Marine, torpedoes his own career with his mouth and then has to find someone other than himself to blame thus he attempts to shift the blame to shadowy industrialists who make much dinero from wars.
Isn't it amazing how some people seem to think that society has become this magical nice place to live in all of a sudden? ;)
Great post.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
If verizon and AT&T were being defrauded, why not use the civil court system and file a law-suit? Why not just cut off services? What kind of fraud requires the FBI to raid datacenters right now, it's not like they're going anywhere? If they had enough evidence to raid, they should have had enough evidence to arrest the owners and press charges first at the very least.
How do you defraud ATT and verizon anyhow? splice into their network? reverse bill them? Set up a 2nd tier provider dummy corp, provide services, and then fold it when the bill comes due? I mean, this isn't some fly by night scheme is it?
Lets hope Slashdot has redundant datacenters. Never know who the FBI will strike next.
so did you work in Costa Rica?they gained independence in 1981, i'm sure you had part of that.
oil interests in 1914, your joking.
funny haha, prove a point.
Why is it every time I read a story related to these data center take downs, the people running the equipment write stories about the incident as if they were 12 year old kids who are trying to convince you that they didn't do anything wrong and it was someone else that was framing them.
They also seem to always be involved with companies that don't last very long for one reason or another.
In between their little 'its not my fault' whining and their history, these people are starting to look pretty questionable. I mean, I remember being twelve, I did this kind of stuff too, but then I grew up. Well, mostly grew up.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
"...It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon.
Ah, after the obscene confiscation of a LOT of hardware, and potential impact to hundreds of thousands of people, I'd say I have more than a "feeling" here.
Note to self: Put the local FBI office on speed dial for the next time I get screwed in the fast food drive through. Since it seems damn near anyone can use these guys for strongarm tactics, I might as well jump in and take advantage of some of my tax money they're busy pissing away with shit like this.
the speculation was that the FBI raided the data center for IP piracy. Which would, assuming they in fact had a warrant, be within the scope of criminal law, e.g. The Copyright act.
However, I was under the impression that, in America, it was no violation of the law to owe someone money; at least until that person or corporation showed that money was owed or a contract was breached in a CIVIL suit.
Or has the Federal Government legislated itself into that area as well?
IANAL, etc.
Which judge authorized this, and what is our response as the defenders of the constitution. This is, ultimately, why we have the 2nd ammendment.
Hilarious. The guy was twice decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honour and literally dedicated his life to the service of his country, while you snipe at his contribution from the safety of an AC shield. Chickenshit. You think he earned those medals because daddy was a congressman? I don't think so.
These days of course, Generals tend to end up on the boards of the companies whose interests they serve so the embarassment that could arise from a new Smedley is vastly reduced.
I tried to bring light to Afghanistan for the Unocal Central Asian oil pipeline in 2002.
So that's the reason we invaded Afghanistan? Makes me wonder what Maj.Gen.Smedley Butler was leaving out of the original version.
Presumably the idea is that if there's warning of the raid, whatever records exist on the machines could be erased. So you hav to go in, cut the hardline, and take all the machines, or else your data will be gone.
Although given that there was another raid on March 12, it's hard to imagine that someone who intended to erase records would not already have done so.
[SARCASM]Oh we are, we have technology, and laws, and people fighting for democracy![/SARCASM]
If its really about money owed to the telcos by these VoIP providers, the right way for Verizon, AT&T etc to get their money back is to cut off whatever VoIP->PSTN gateway setup is being used. If its a 3rd party gateway, the third party gateway should be responsible for paying the telco and then the VoIP provider should be paying the 3rd party gateway.
In any case, its possible to shut down whatever links are used to connect to the telcos networks
As long as power is wielded at the discretion of human beings who can be influenced by wealth, capitalism will always tend toward fascism.
The main sign that a company is about to go under is when they get the law involved. For some examples see the record labels, film studios and patent trolls. Even Apple is infamous for being excessively litigious prior to their current windfall.
Normally business arrangements are reciprocal and it's in the best interests of a company to avoid publicizing that their partners are in breach of a contract. There are plenty of collections agencies in the private sector that they could have consulted instead, but instead it's being treated as a criminal matter. This is the sort of behavior you see when a company realizes that their business model is flawed.
And now Obama's elected, all that bad stuff is stopped and it's never gonna happen anymore!!
you had me at #!
So it wasn't about Wolverine like some jackass "speculated" for no reason? Shocking!
Why do nerds always think the world revolves around the stupid crap only they care about? It's embarrassing.
sic transit gloria mundi
One of the original bits was that the FBI raided the house of the network service's CEO. This does not sound to me like an investigation of one of their customers. If it was, they would subpoena the information relating to the charges, and then determine what to do. Raiding the house of a corporate executive and siezing all computers under their control suggests that this is not about their customers at all.
This smells fishy.
But then, 911 changed everything. It was so bad, the FBI had to interrupt the service!
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Mr Simpson said that he found out that his home was raided as well.
You don't raid the HOME of the CEO of a company because you think their customers are involved in fraud. That makes less sense than the copyright violation speculation.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I tried to bring light to Afghanistan for the Unocal Central Asian oil pipeline in 2002.
So that's the reason we invaded Afghanistan? Makes me wonder what Maj.Gen.Smedley Butler was leaving out of the original version.
I take it you're referring to the attack on the Twin Towers. That was certainly a reason to go after Al-Qaeda - which was never a state or state instrument. Afghanistan however is not Al-Qaeda. The Taleban were certainly standing by Al-Qaeda when the world demanded they be handed over, yet invasion of a historically unconquerable place was never going to achieve the goal of routing Al-Qaeda out (perhaps leaning on the Saudi's to reign in the mullah's and Pakistan's ISI may have been more effective). By the way, where is Osama these days? Sunning himself in the Swat valley in Pakistan perhaps? Oddly, we've failed at both the overt and covert goals in Afghanistan. The Talebanisation of Pakistan continues apace while thugs like Baitullah Mehsud threaten new attacks on US soil. In fact, there are so many past lessons that have been ignored in Afghanistan they will provide future historians with ample fodder for a great many books.
"/. wasn't upset because the FBI was enforcing the law. Most /.ers were upset because the FBI went in on a trumped up over-broad warrant and seized an entire data center."
And "/." couldn't get even THAT right. It wasn't an entire data center. Just CoreIP's 50 machines.
"Telephone delivered via voip is still an essential service. It's the best way to request emergency services (911). So why did the FBI cut off voip service to customers because their provider had been naughty? This is seriously unacceptable behavior."
No, it's because VOIP isn't a telecommunications service and is usually stated in most TOS that they're under different regulatory treatment.
The website of the guy they were after on the March 12th raid just went down today. It was www.uwwwb.com - he had a really excellent writeup of what had happened to him. He also said that he'd register uwwwb1.com and 2 etc if it was taken down, which as of now is not routed/pingable. This unjustice must end.
Am I the only one who suspects that this isn't about unpaid fees or MPAA/RIAA mafiaa business, but rather about good old-fashioned tradecraft--i.e., state secrets. Remember, it's the CIA's game to spy, but the FBI's game to catch enemy spies and their drops and information. If this was the case and they didn't know where to look, they would just make up a bullshit story and seize everything, perhaps with a FISA warrant (which also explains why no one has actually seen it!).
What kind of crime requires a SWAT team to be dispatched to the CEO's house?
New Economic Perspectives
"I found out from an employee that there were 15 police cars and a SWAT team at my home in Ovilla"
I believe they think you are guilty of something. One or more of your customers may have screwed you.
Time to get a lawyer, and straighten this out. Maybe get the other customers equipment back.
Yeah, but so what? The "capitalists" are the ones paying for most of the government. And they are doing it so that they can provide you will all the luxuries you enjoy every day. If everyone in the US suddenly got a clue and cut back, you can rest assured they would be out of there faster than hell. But right now, we want stuff and we want it cheap, and therefore the government helps them out as much as possible. Everyone KNOWS, it just isn't talked about a lot in public. But it has done a LOT for America. Now, yes, it's starting to look like the tail is wagging the dog a little. That's why they are trying to increase the size of government again, to hopefully curtail that by sucking up all of the capital into slow moving bureaucracy. But that's the cycle, that's how the country is set up, and really how markets naturally function. America is simply the pinnacle of it due to the unprecendented freedoms we have here. Now, with all the freedom flowing around the world (possibly militarily imposed), since we've figured out it kinda works, you're seeing global enterprises. This is a period of great change for the country and the world. But the move towards globalism--and the conquering of countries to develop new markets--is not new, correct.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Would you rather live in America, benefitting from the fucking of others, or live in those places, being fucked for the benefit of America?
Sorry to tell ya, this is the way of the world. You either fight to get on top, fight to stay on top, or suffer at the bottom. You likely enjoy the standard of living you have today BECAUSE of the dirty deeds of your nation. This goes for France, Germany, England, Russia, the USA, Canada, the list goes on.
In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it's the exact opposite.
You can't change the game, you can only change the players
THL phish sticks
It gives you the feeling that the FBI is acting as a collection agency for AT&T and Verizon.
Yes, it does. and that infuriates me! Why is our government, our tax-dollars being spent to provide collection services for telcos, the RIAA, and the MPAA? WTF!
OTOH, I this 'unpaid telco fees' could just be a cover story...
Heroism and insanity aren't mutually exclusive (and sometimes one might say the first *requires* the second).
The part about Smedley's father shielding him is right in the wiki entry, by the way. Note that the guy you're calling "Chikenshit" for being anon up above didn't say anything about the medals coming from that connection (and the wiki specifically cites FDR as being the one who did the paperwork for the second medal). Not that "Black Sabbath" is much of a non-anonymous identity either...
agreed, superb point, they'd never seize ILEC hardware, never, never ever, never ever, the only reason they did here was they knew they could get away with it, they took out a small guy, totally unacceptable, in every way. True, we do not know all the facts yet, and I am not commenting on the facts as I do not know them yet (like the rest of us). But the turn-off customer's phones because someone stole something is insane. They could have cut-off the pipe the data center if they were really concerned about that. They didn't turn-off the pipe, they didn't subpoena data on the drives, they didn't confiscate just the drives, they didn't even arrest the supposed people in charge of the company first, or at the same time, if theyre so guilty, why not? They couldn't wait one more day to get the people at the same time as the data? If ATT & Verzion say someone is not treating them fairly (which by the way is laughable that *they*, of all people, would darn to say that) then go in & sniff their traffic for a week & see if its true. They didn't do that. They seized a van load of millions of dollars of gear & drove away. Including other people's gear. Something aint right here people.
Not that "Black Sabbath" is much of a non-anonymous identity either...
Everyone's identity here is anonymous (except to the admins and the authorities if they cared). The difference is that everyone with an ID carries the history of their postings which forms a record of their discourse. Whether I disagree with others here or not, I respect those that have the balls carry with them their past opinions. AC's wipe the slate clean with every post. With AC's I can't tell if I'm dealing with one or many. While there are definitely valid reasons for posting AC, as a longtime slashdotter I much prefer posts by IDs than ACs.
Anyway, I think I better stop before I disappear up my own arse.
The name's Mike by the way. I live in Melbourne, Australia. And that's about as un-anonymous as its gonna get online (my surname is quite unique, to the point where everyone in Australia with my surname is a direct family member and everyone in the world with my surname is clan related).
Hello, this is CygonX. Our Hosting Data Center has suffered a major disaster: Namely the FBI storming the Data Center and the company's owner's home (that's me). The FBI took an entire data center, hundreds of servers, routers, switches, UPS system, cabinets, monitors, printers, and even power strips...as evidence.
You would expect this kind of totalitarian storm-trooper activity in the name of the war on drugs, the war on terror, or etc. But the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation actually did NO investigation. They took the statements of two ex-employees of the company, one of which was fired for drug use, and the other of which was also fired...and has a pending FBI investigation against him that he is desperately trying to snitch his way out of...by making up crazy stories about his past employer.
What were they looking for? Well thatâ(TM)s a tricky question, and I am not even sure they know, but the short answer is $6.1 Million Dollars. Hang in there, the story gets more interesting.
As many of you may know I have played the role of Network Security guy Sean Dillion, AKA CygonX for many years. Truthfully, that wasnâ(TM)t even my real name. CygonX was a lot like Santa Claus, and has actually been played by many people over the years in order to manage the site, but I am the original and current owner. My real name is Mike Faulkner, and I have hosted the Network Security forum and community at this domain name since sometime in early 2002. However, I am not a lowly Network Security guy, and never was.
I was the CEO of a small tech company when I took over the site, and I hosted it off my own network on a pair of T1s. That company went under, taking most of my money with it, and UWWWB was actually hosted off a cable modem for a period of time from an equipment rack in my home. This is my forum and community that I have nourished for years.
Over the years, I have bought, sold, and built a large number of small tech companies. I worked my way up, with 100 hour work weeks, and by taking almost no money out personally for many years. For the past few years I have been a very active venture capitalist. Investing in various small technology businesses, and using them to support each other. My VoIP Companies used my Hosting Companies, which leased space in my Data Centers, and etc. This was the Crydon Capital Corporations family of companies. Crydon Technology, was the data center and hosting company that the FBI raided in Dallas MArch 12th, 2009. UWWWB was tucked away on a tiny server in the data center for years, and we never even got a single complaint from RIAA, or MPPA, or anyone. This is not just about UWWWB, although the FBI certainly is holding it against me for running a security site.
Here's what happened: March 12th, 2009, at about 5:AM in the morning, my home alarm system goes off. I get up to see whatâ(TM)s going on, on maybe 3 hours of sleep, and my wife points out there are two people with flash lights in my back yard. Now, this may not be unusual for everyone, but I live in a $700,000 home in Southlake Texas, the United States highest per-capita income city for 2008. A very nice community, virtually no crime, and excellent schools. That is to say, I do not live in a shack in the hood, this is the high-income suburbs, no one had any business in my backyard at 5:AM. So I run out the back door of my home, thinking I was about to confront some crackheads trying to steal the copper off my AC unit or something. And although I couldnâ(TM)t quite see them yet I heard the very authoritative voice of what appeared to be law enforcement officers, with the radio noise to go with them. They proceeded with the expected dialogue, "stop", "show me your hands", "hands in the air" etc. They didn't shoot me, and sadly that really was the highlight of my day. I assumed my alarm had triggered by itself and the cops had been called, as we had problems with the alarm system before. They handcuffed me, while I was telling them I was the home owner. No big deal, they
This sounds eerily similar to my own experience with the FBI. Our tiny basement apt was raided a few years ago by about a dozen armed agents for a relatively minor copyright case involving my husband's website. They seized every computer they could find, handcuffed us, pointed guns at us, and started asking us questions that made it clear they thought the money involved was literally 10,000x more than it actually was.
A few days later, we got a lawyer who got a copy of the affidavit upon which the warrant was based, and it was full of many gross errors - factual errors such as background checks run on the wrong social security number, references to cease and desist notices that were never received because they were sent to an email address at nonexistent domain, etc.
Consulting lawyers from the EFF and Stanford said that if represented properly he would probably eventually be found innocent, but only after a protracted appeals process that would disrupt our lives for years. In the end, he pled to a misdemeanor. Basically they wore us down.
When I hear things in the news about FBI raids, I would be very skeptical of the initial statements from the law enforcement side. Because apparently the FBI does not have to have an accurate accounting or understanding of the facts. Yet most people assume they do. I certainly did before this happened to us. The difference between my prior impression of the FBI's competence and integrity vs what I actually experienced over the course of the next several years - it was immense.
Since when is it the FBI job to handle late payments? Either they have far overstepped there bounds or this is not the real reason. If you don't pay a bill you get disconnected then sued.
I have been covering this story and hope to talk to the FBI and the CEO of Core IP on Monday. Any questions you want asked?
Story is here.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
First off, I am acquainted with the owner of Core IP, and am aware of what he was doing with 800 numbers in 2005-2006 (when the 800 rules changed). The FCC rules for intercarrier compensation are not clear and he thought he was exploiting a real loophole, to allow dial-up Internet access to rural areas.
The FCC writes orders and rules for specific point cases, not general rules, so as things change, the rules don't cover them. That's how VoIP happened -- it is not in the rules and you can argue about what rules actually apply when. And they've not fixed this for 12 years. 800 had some ambiguities too.
The 800 issue was about direct calls between local carriers. You could point an 800 number at a local carrier to receive the call, and that carrier would get billed by the caller's carrier. A third party would own the 800 number itself and not get billed. Someone told Matt that there was no charge for such calls. In fact, Verizon didn't know how to bill for them (they fixed this) so they looked free, and in SBC's case, a contract quirk meant they really were free. But some smaller phone companies were really angry and they got the 800 system fixed to require more consent in setting up the numbers.
When this type of thing happens, the phone companies send out bills and argue about them. ISP servers have no connection. Core IP was not the company doing the 800 stuff.
AT&T has tried this method in the past and been slapped down by the FCC in apparently similar cases. Apparently the new game is to call it criminal fraud instead of a civil fraud were the FCC has repeatedly said no. See AudioText International, Ltd. v. AT&T
WHY do people continue to think it's ok for the federal government to barge in and start seizing things willy-nilly, before any charges are filed - and disrupting business for people who have NOTHING to do with what they're after??
Additionally, it's well known that the big telcos can't be 100% trusted when it comes to "fees owed"! I agree that we don't have enough facts yet to say exactly what's going on, but I choose to err on the side of the company intruded upon, right now. One only has to look at their OWN monthly telco bill from someone like AT&T to see how shady they are about raising prices in the form of "taxes", "tariffs" and impossible to decipher fees. Or look at the contracts they lock people into for as long as 5 years at a time for a simple T1 circuit, only to charge insane fees to break the contract if the circuit no longer meets the needs or best interests of the buyer. (And yes, I realize nobody forces anyone to sign a contract -- but all too often, AT&T and one of their circuits provides the ONLY reasonable way for a given place to get connected to the Internet, or to run their PBX system, thanks to their physical location.)
None of this even touches on AT&T's willingness to stomp on our collective privacy rights with the wiretapping nonsense!
I wish I could mark you up!
I choose to err
[Edited for brevity and clarity]