Mississippi Makes Caller ID Spoofing Illegal

marklyon writes "HB 872, recently signed into law by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, makes Caller ID spoofing illegal. The law covers alterations to the caller's name, telephone number, or name and telephone number that is shown to a recipient of a call or otherwise presented to the network. The law applies to PSTN, wireless and VoIP calls. Penalties for each violation can be up to $1,000 and one year in jail. Blocking of caller identification information is still permitted."

Comments

Wait, what?

[Afforess]

If I spoofed my caller ID, how would they ever know without wiretapping me, or doing something else illegal? How would anyone ever get caught? This law seems unenforceable.

Simple solution

[h4rr4r]

Telemarketers will call from another state and use a PSTN gateway in yet another state/country. All this does is move telemarketing jobs out of a state that badly needs any jobs it can get.

Re:Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea

[raju1kabir]

The companies who spoof are generally doing stuff that should be illegal anyway, right?

I "spoof". I purchase my incoming and outgoing service separately and from different vendors. I use different caller ID identification based on whom I am calling (one number for personal calls, another for business calls). They are both numbers that belong to me but there is no particular connection between that number and the "line" I am using to place the call.

I also forward calls from certain people to my mobile phone when I am not at my desk. In that case I am effectively placing a call to my mobile number, spoofing the CID to be that of the original caller, so I can see whether I want to answer it.

I would be very sad if I could no longer do these things, as they make my life a lot easier.