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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."

11 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea. by clone53421 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There shouldn’t need to be a law for this, though. Telcos should enforce it on their own.

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  2. It is about time by InsaneProcessor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This should be a federal law.

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  3. Wait, what? by Afforess · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Wait, what? by jmcharry · · Score: 4, Informative

      There is a subtle difference between caller ID and ANI. ANI is used by the telco billing system and cannot be spoofed because it identifies the access line. CID can sometimes be spoofed by inserting bad data on a PRI line. Some telcos, however, check it.

  4. Re:Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea by spun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How would enforcing a rule such as this enable telcos to make more money? I imagine that some of their larger customers are spoofers. And telcos are corporations. All corporations are inherently sociopathic, lacking in empathy, remorse, guilt, or any sense of right and wrong outside of "more money is right, less money is wrong."

    If someone should do something, and they don't, we make a law to force them to.

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  5. Re:CLID name not specified by caller by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
    More stupid politicians makings laws about things they do not understand.

    I bet they did not even know the difference between CLID and ANI.

    Everyone should know the difference between the CLID and the ANI. The CLID is in the front and the ANI is in the back.

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  6. Re:Does this make Google Voice illegal? by Rantastic · · Score: 4, Informative

    I think not, as the law is pretty clear about requiring

    ...THE INTENT TO DECEIVE, DEFRAUD OR MISLEAD;

    and since your Google Voice number is still a number belonging to you, I doubt it would be a crime to use it as your caller id.

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  7. Re:Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea by asdf7890 · · Score: 5, Funny

    All corporations are inherently sociopathic, lacking in empathy, remorse, guilt...

    A corporation pays my salary, so they can't be all bad.

    They only pay you because slavery is illegal. Doing the right thing because you have no choice doesn't count when good karma is being totted up.

  8. Re:Collection Company's by natehoy · · Score: 4, Informative

    You really need to read the law: "however, when a person making an authorized call on behalf of another person inserts the name, telephone number or name and telephone number of the person on whose behalf the call is being made, such information shall not be deemed false information."

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  9. Re:Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea by jbolden · · Score: 4, Informative

    However, here’s my take, and why it still doesn’t need to be illegal IMHO. The companies who spoof are generally doing stuff that should be illegal anyway, right?

    No they aren't. For example my company spoofs so that patients who hit *87 or return the call go to a number where their calls will get handled rather than some internal number that might just be an outgoing only line.

  10. Re:Not a bad idea... in fact, an obvious good idea by lordsid · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's not spoofing, it's trunking.

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