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US House Passes Ban On Caller ID Spoofing
smarek writes "The 'Truth in Caller ID Act' passed the US House of Representatives on Wednesday. The legislation is trying to outlaw Caller ID spoofing. In some cases, this spoofing has led to individuals giving out information that has led to identity theft. Last year the NYPD discovered over 6,000 victims of Caller ID spoofing, who together lost a total of $15 million. A companion bill has already been passed by the Senate, and the two are on their way to 'informal conference to reconcile any differences.' The bill that results will most likely pass."
PCWorld's coverage notes that callers will still be able to block their information entirely, and that the bill may have negative consequences for legitimate phone-related services, such as Google Voice.
People who steal identities will carry on spoofing caller ID, because they already commit more serious crimes, while users of legitimate services will be inconvenienced. Still, at least the politicians are seen to do something about the problem.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
And if Congress legislates that in all email messages, the "From:" headers cannot be forged, THAT will stop SPAM. I'm certain of it. Just like this will stop caller ID spoofing.
There, I fixed it.
Still, at least the politicians are seen to do something about the problem.
Which is good for them because it will give them fodder for their television ads around election time, which is good for us because it informs us as to why we should vote for them. :-/
Clearly, this is the correct solution and will whip those wrascally criminals into shape. There isn't anything this congress can't do!
Last year the NYPD discovered over 6,000 victims of caller ID spoofing, who together lost a total of $15 million.
It's this already called fraud?
I feel this could all be solved with my proposed legislation. It would make all caller id blocking/spoofing illegal, and anybody caught doing so would be placed in a public location, for all who had been called to show up and punch them in the face.
People who steal identities will carry on spoofing caller ID, because they already commit more serious crimes, while users of legitimate services will be inconvenienced.
What, you mean criminals won't follow the law? Say it isn't so!
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Interstate commerce, don't ya know? It's the one sized catch all that works for everything from SPAM to the guy growing pot in the basement for his own personal consumption.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
So sad, but so try. Why did this have to be posted as an AC?
Learn about Photography Basics.
People who steal identities will carry on spoofing caller ID, because they already commit more serious crimes, while users of legitimate services will be inconvenienced. Still, at least the politicians are seen to do something about the problem.
If they really wanted to do something about this, they'd discontinue the entire CallerID system and allow regular folks to use ANI as a standard feature. That's the same system used by both toll-free numbers and emergency services like 911. Unlike CallerID, it's out-of-band and cannot be spoofed by the caller alone. It uses the billing data, the same data that the phone company uses to know whom to charge for the call. By comparison CallerID is a joke.
Of course a lot of the ID theft issues would be greatly reduced if people would use a little sense. That would include never giving confidental information to someone who calls you. If you think that's your bank calling about your account, tell them you are going to hang up and call them back at the number they publish in the phone book or your hardcopy account statements. This simple 20-second step would eliminate a great deal of these problems, no politicians required.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Horray! One more thing to poke fun at while watching techy movies. "Hey, we're in America. You can't hide behind fake 555 numbers anymore."
Gosh, Captain Liberty, I certainly can't think of any way in which regulating fraud committed over the phone might be related to interstate commerce...
(Now, there might well be an argument to be made if the caller-ID spoofer could demonstrate that the spoofed call was strictly intrastate; but I'm guessing that vanishingly few of them are.)
guy growing pot in the basement for his own personal consumption.
Duh. You think all those Doritos you ate while high didn't cross state lines at some point during production?
If they really wanted to do something about this, they'd discontinue the entire CallerID system and allow regular folks to use ANI [wikipedia.org] as a standard feature. That's the same system used by both toll-free numbers and emergency services like 911. Unlike CallerID, it's out-of-band and cannot be spoofed by the caller alone. It uses the billing data, the same data that the phone company uses to know whom to charge for the call. By comparison CallerID is a joke.
I've often wondered this myself. I found out the other day that Verizon Wireless has the ability to block numbers from being able to call you or text you. Family member of mine has been getting harassing phone calls. Of course the block is utterly useless because a simple caller-id block (*67 in the US) will defeat it. The phone company provides the service but can't use the ANI information?
They do the same thing with their "mobile to mobile" calling features. If you block your caller id and call someone who is "in network" they will get charged minutes as though it was an out of network call. ANI is not blocked when caller-id is but they are too stupid to use it for their own billing purposes? WTF?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
But what would be the legitimate uses of caller ID spoofing? I mean, blocking is still fair game, so this act doesn't really change anything for people without a nefarious agenda. Just wondering, I don't think spoofing was ever possible in my country, at least I haven't heard of it, so I have no idea why it would be useful.
\
It really isn't debatable if the intent is to defraud or deceive. If I call you from my phone through google voice, and the caller ID displays my name and my google voice number which, if called, connects to me on whatever phone I can be reached at, where is the deception? Who's being defrauded? What should the number say, Google, Inc.?
Similarly if I'm at work making a business call on a work phone, how can anyone argue displaying the company name and main phone number be deceptive?
This sentence no verb.
You're not preventing the problem, you're adding to the list of offenses you can charge people with while you investigate the actual crime.
I think if you're going to have caller ID you should be able to trust it. At the same time, it would be better to educate people that people can sneak into other people's houses or businesses and legitimately be calling from the phone, but not actually being the trusted person. Or picking up someone's cell phone that doesn't have password-protection. It's not foolproof.
If you want to be safe, you have to do things like ask if you can call the person back at a different time, and ask for a number. If it doesn't match what's on Caller ID then ask why it doesn't match. We should spend more time educating people and less time passing laws, but Congress is not an educational organization - it writes laws. "The politicians" are not doing anything about the problem, only one of three branches is, and all three need to be involved.
Meantime, Congress gave additional powers to law enforcement so they can hold someone longer for questioning. Is that good or bad? Depends. What legitimate need would you have for spoofing? Completely shutting off the ID is still an option, but what use would you have for pretending to be another phone number?
You, sir, have just uncovered the glaring flaw of gun control legislation. Guess what - only criminals use guns to commit murder. If you're willing to commit murder, then illegally purchasing a firearm is child's play by comparison.
I had some knob on Ebay get pissed at me because I wouldn't do business with him (Ebay ID: mmmvincent, if anyone is interested). He spoofed his CID and started calling my house (after getting my number from Ebay). He was careful not to threaten me outright, but made my family very nervous. I called the police and they said it wasn't illegal.
IANAL but I have a lot of experience with telephony and telephony policy. So take this with as many grains of salt as you want.
The key phrase in the House bill is "with the intent to defraud or deceive". There is similar language in Senate bill. There's a lot of reasons to legitimately set your caller ID to something. With ISDN PRI service it's up to the calling party equipment to set the Caller ID. So for something like Google Voice, if they're bridging SIP to the PSTN, you absolutely don't want your caller ID showing up as the trunk identifier or billing number for their equipment. My reading of these bills doesn't outlaw it.
The bills in question are H.R. 1258 and S. 30. I made a comparison document that highlights the differences in each bill the other day. It's located here:
http://dfs.org/comparison.pdf
So sad, but so try.
So sad, but so FAIL.
Using ANI (Billing Number) for all calls would probably be a bad idea. Say you're calling someone you have a business relationship with from your phone at work (technology type doesn't matter here). If billing number was the only thing available, every single call from your company would show up with the same number. Probably your main line that goes to a receptionist. In some situations this is what people want (telemarketers for instance) but in what many view as more legitimate business it would be annoying.
I'd hate it if every time various vendors that I have multiple account managers called my cell phone it just said "AT&T employee" etc. I like knowing who I'm going to be talking to.
Also, this completely ignores some of the other valid reasons for setting a caller ID value that most people outside of the telecom industry probably aren't aware of or care much about. Let's just say it's very useful for testing purposes and it's a great way to send a small amount of data to the entity you're calling if you're not using something like UUI.
Probably but it is another charge to add to the list of charges they performed. Or if they were found innocent of everything else there is still a charge against them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Google voice: when it calls you to connect a call, it spoofs the ID of the number that is calling it. They could probably get an excpetion for this, but as written it could be an issue.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
:)
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They do the same thing with their "mobile to mobile" calling features. If you block your caller id and call someone who is "in network" they will get charged minutes as though it was an out of network call. ANI is not blocked when caller-id is but they are too stupid to use it for their own billing purposes? WTF?
That doesn't sound like stupidity to me... That sounds like profitable evil, in the same vein as the "placing the button that causes your phone to load some crappy WAP page at $.10/KB right next to the button you actually want, and making it impossible to remap/disable". I'm sure that, if people who are out of network were using caller-ID spoofing to appear as "in-network", they'd start using ANI. As long as the net effect of not using ANI means more minutes billed, not fewer, though, why would they change?
Also to say that it's the same system that toll free numbers and 911 use it to grossly simplify things. 911 gets a lot more than just your billing number. And toll free numbers that go to anything more complicated than a POTS line can be configured to get many different types of data. A common configuration is called "Preferred SID" which means you will get the Station ID (SID, Caller ID, Calling Party Number, etc. It has a lot of names) if it's available and the Billing Number otherwise.
One thing that's true though is that if someone calls a toll free number and prefixes *67 to the dial string, the called party will still get identifying information. In many cases it's the billing number, not the calling party number. But that's starting to get pedantic.
I can't think of a single HONEST use for caller ID spoofing. What legitimate uses are there?
Free Martian Whores!
Making laws against other aspects of their criminal activities is quite important. If they have trouble getting people on their actual criminal activities, quite often they can be nabbed through their violation of other laws. Al Capone was brought down on tax evasion after all. And if they can get them on their main crime AND associated crimes too, then all the better! And their committing of the CLID spoofing goes a long way to prove intent which serves to better nail criminals by making the prosecution's case all the more strong.
If they really wanted to do something about this, they'd discontinue the entire CallerID system and allow regular folks to use ANI as a standard feature.
While this is fine for regular consumer uses, I have a hundred users here on the same ANI information - each with different caller ID. When the help desk makes calls, the Caller ID is set to the toll free number we use for it - not the phone number registered by our telco. ANI would not display a toll free number, in any case.
Caller ID is driven by a very real business need. We can't simply drop it.
With caller ID, you have the ability to say "I'm not telling you who I am, and if that's not acceptable then it's up to you to not answer the phone". Can you preserve that ability if you use out-of-band billing data? Presumably not without modfiying the phone system... so I'm not so sure that's a good trade-off.
I do agree that any solution is going to requier technical change, though I disagree with the strict dichotomy GP alleges between legal problems and technical ones. I would've made the same sort of argument when the no-call registry was created in my home state, but it's been very effective.
Given the history of the telephone system, I think the government role is legitimate in solving this problem; but that role should be through indirect regulation (a way for the government to steer solutions to technical problems) rather than definition of certain acts as crimes (a way for the government to address social/behavior problems).
The government could put standards around what a service must do to be marketed as "caller ID" (or if "caller ID" is an owned mark, then pick some new name and educate the public to look for that instead). Those standards could be shaped to prevent the bad behavior (end user falsifying their identity) without interfering with good things (end user suppressing ID altogether; service provider like Google providing accurate identity information in a way the network didn't originally anticipate). It would then be the phone company's problem to design the technical solution that adheres to the standards, as it should be.
Google Voice or a similar phone-call forwarding service?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
Agreed, CID is crap. Just make the ANI available to the called party, just like it is to law enforcement. And no, I don't think there is any compelling societal interest in allowing anonymous phone calls -- that's what pay phones are for.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Bail bondsman, police, etc. attempting to locate a fugitive.
Fred
Bail bondsman, police, etc. attempting to locate a fugitive without spooking them. A call from Mom is more likely to be answered than one from Bounty Hunter Bill.
Fred
Well I run several businesses and have different phone numbers for each. Right now, when making an outgoing call, I have different lines setup that pass different caller ids. If they pass a law like this, I will be forced to purchase phone lines for each number just to satisfy this, therefore adding additional costs to my businesses, which I think is BS. That is my legitimate reason for allowing spoofing. Its about time that people in this country start being held responsible for how stupid they are. If you are not educated enough to know the difference between someone spamming you or not through caller-id and giving all your info out over the phone, then you deserve to have your identity stolen. The damn politicians keep wanting to hold our hand throughout our lives instead of just letting us live the way we want.
Fixing spelling errors that the phone company refuses to correct...
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
ANI is not foolproof and has errors but you are absolutely correct about the CallerID system.
Also, ID information is almost always sent to the destination switch where the decision is made whether to block the ID or not. The ID is not blocked at the source. If you call from one provider to another, the information may not be blocked. Hell, even your own provider will screw things up. Also, even if the destination switch obeys the block but you go to a voicemail system, the voicemail server will record the callerID and may provide the information on demand to the owner of the vmail box.
If you don't want your abusive ex to know where you are, do not use your home phone to call him/her.
The big problem with the phone system is that it is a bunch of patched together functionality with rules that may or may not be followed by the participating orgs. Even if the rules are obeyed, there is so much room for error because of manual transcription/configuration issues and other garbage in/garbage out problems that I don't believe it is possible to provide ANY reliable level of security.
So you get rid of CallerID and use ANI (which is a bag of hammers too), people can still get spoofed by call forwarding scams and other holes in the system.
Basically, never trust that your phone calls are secure or that the information provided by the system as to source and destination of your calls is true.
Caller ID is *not* in-band any more than connection routing is.
I have a T1 ISDN link in the U.S. There are 7 dynamic voice trunks on that T1 link. We have a pool of multiple phone numbers.
When the call is being set up, my switch (asterisk) sends out a message indicating the calling number. The contents of this message are taken by our telco's switch at face value, as long as the number is 10 digits long.
This number is recorded in the detailed billing statement we get (for international / overage long distance), but it is not actually used for billing by our telco! Any call going out through our T1 link is billed for by the telco, no matter what garbage is being sent out as the calling number identification.
I can set asterisk to send any number, and that is the number that will be displayed to the called party. I have been experimenting with setting up a local GSM mini-cell to make use of cellphones within the building essentially "free", and obviously if such calls were routed over our ISDN link, the indicated numbers would be those assigned to the cell subscriber, not those of our number pool.
We obviously don't use it for anything nefarious, but I presume that many VoIP trunk providers will do it in the same way. It's somewhat hard for them to really filter the phone numbers on egress, since they may not have full knowledge of all phone numbers assigned to us: for example, we may have an 800 number through another provider that we want to display, or even a bunch of regular numbers via another provider B, that are being routed out via provider A due to -- say -- link loss caused by a backhoe two blocks down the street.
So this is nothing about in-band vs. out-of-band. It is about making the phone system work as you'd expect, vs. making things hard.
The only technical solution would be a realtime database used for egress filtering of calling number identification -- it'd link together all phone numbers assigned to a particular subscriber. And then we again run into problems of what really is a subscriber: suppose you have separate units of a big corporation, that get separately billed for service, and are really considered separate subscribers. Now suppose that for redundancy and continuity of service, the IT/comms people in Unit A and Unit B agree to carry the other unit's data and voice traffic to maintain service in cases of various failures. Now the realtime database needs respond as if both subscribers were one. And so it goes -- it's
not exactly trivial.
Making it illegal to purposefully mislead people is OK in my book.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Outbound calling with a VoIP service that's different from your inbound VoIP or landline service. You want the callee to be able to return the call to the number that reaches you. Not a generic DID number owned by your VoIP provider.
Using ANI (Billing Number) for all calls would probably be a bad idea. Say you're calling someone you have a business relationship with from your phone at work (technology type doesn't matter here). If billing number was the only thing available, every single call from your company would show up with the same number. Probably your main line that goes to a receptionist. In some situations this is what people want (telemarketers for instance) but in what many view as more legitimate business it would be annoying.
I'd hate it if every time various vendors that I have multiple account managers called my cell phone it just said "AT&T employee" etc. I like knowing who I'm going to be talking to.
Also, this completely ignores some of the other valid reasons for setting a caller ID value that most people outside of the telecom industry probably aren't aware of or care much about. Let's just say it's very useful for testing purposes and it's a great way to send a small amount of data to the entity you're calling if you're not using something like UUI.
Customers should be allowed to choose whether their billing (or "main") number is used for outbound caller id, or the individual lines. My company has a plethora of analog lines and none of the carriers we''ve had (AT&T, Verizon, and most recently Broadview) seem to have that capability. In our situation, we don't want people calling (or even knowing about) those 'other' numbers. We are not telemarketers, but we do contact our customers on a regular basis for other reasons besides trying to sell them more stuff.
You, sir, have just uncovered the glaring flaw of gun control legislation. Guess what - only criminals use guns to commit murder. If you're willing to commit murder, then illegally purchasing a firearm is child's play by comparison.
The willful ignorance of this self-evident fact tells me that gun-control is more like a religious issue. Statism is definitely on the rise in the USA and has been for quite a long time. Statism is all about expanding governmental size and power for the sake of power alone. A citizenry that can readily defend themselves are less dependent on police protection, and police power is the major vehicle for the expansion of state power. In order to have a steady supply of excuses for expanding government, you must have a dependent, helpless citizenry that fears events which government can try to regulate. Personal physical safety is such a category that is unusually close to home, especially when compared to more abstract economic issues.
The legally-recognized ability to defend yourself from physical threat is also an extremely individualistic quality. There is something of a war against individualism because it is contrary to the homogeneous, conformist, docile, group-think society that readily lends itself to central control. Along with this comes the weakening of the importance of the nuclear family, since that's a unit of society that could have its own customs, traditions, and independent thought and therefore does not lead to the desired homogenization. That's why there is so much emphasis in the media placed on group identities such as membership in a protected minority. It's the exact opposite of regarding people as individuals who should be dealt with on the basis of the content of their character, like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. advocated. It's also why any talk of "diversity" is about people who superficially look different and rarely has anything to do with a diversity of ideas and philosophies.
On a more practical note, as soon as they figure out how to keep drugs and weapons out of high-security prisons, then and only then will it be reasonable to discuss keeping such items out of the rest of society. Until then, the correct approach is to harden the targets of crimes. That's why every state which has enabled conceal-carry permits has seen significant reductions in violent crime. Even those who do not carry guns benefit from those who do, because the nature of concealment means that a criminal has no way to know if a given target is armed or not.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Of course a lot of the ID theft issues would be greatly reduced if people would use a little sense. That would include never giving confidental information to someone who calls you. If you think that's your bank calling about your account, tell them you are going to hang up and call them back at the number they publish in the phone book or your hardcopy account statements. This simple 20-second step would eliminate a great deal of these problems, no politicians required.
Exactly. That's what I always do... the problem is that you'd be surprised how hard it is to currently get through to the person who called you by calling a number from a phone book. I had a collections agency call me because of a hospital bill that I incorrectly thought my insurance company had paid. I said I'd call them back and give them a credit card number to pay the bill. It took me like half an hour before I just gave up and told them (when they called me back) that I'd pay the bill when they had a phone book number that worked. Of course in the end I didn't want my credit affected, so I think we finally just mailed a check to an address I could find on-line.
But what would be the legitimate uses of caller ID spoofing?
Our communication app at work uses a 3rd party calling service to send out "voice emails" (text-to-speech). It's important for us that the call recipient recognizes the calling number, so the calling service sends out a "spoofed" number (it's the number of the person sending out the voice email). It's likely if the calling service was not allowed to spoof, the phone would not be picked up. This would be bad if it happened to be an emergency communication.
Biggest problem is out of country vendors sending national flagged caller id when calling from outside of the country, in to the USA. They can show any domestic number of their choosing by flagging caller id as national instead of international. They won't be able to do that anymore, so all the out of country scam artists will not be able to pretend that they're a legit business in the USA. Screening off the billing number isn't even an option because of how many things it would break. Anyone with an access t1 that covers multiple clients who have separate privileges would be screwed, because the billing number is what they use to screen off of.
You've missed the bit where identity theft is (presumably) a more serious crime than spoofing caller ID. In countries with gun control, if you are arrested for holding up a shop and have a gun on you, you're probably getting more time for having the gun than for the robbery, making the gun probably not worth it. Also, a gun is somewhat difficult to hide if you're searched, while software to spoof caller ID could trivially be made to vanish without a trace, which further destroys the effectiveness of legal deterrents.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I can't think of a single HONEST use for caller ID spoofing. What legitimate uses are there?
A Google Voice/Skype/other VoIP service which wants to identify itself as the actual caller, rather than the ID of the owner of the hardware link between the internet and phone network.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
That's my problem with it. I don't share the vindictive urge to nail people with as many charges as possible. Instead, I'd rather see fewer criminals.
A law against spoofing CallerID does not make CallerID more trustworthy so long as it's still technically feasible to perform the spoofing. This is for the same reason that the laws against fraud have not made phishing sites go away, the laws against illegal drugs have not prevented people from doing drugs, and the laws concerning gun-control have not made it difficult for criminals to obtain firearms. We just don't want to learn this lesson, but that doesn't make it less true.
That's universally bad. Law enforcement already has a way to hold someone for a good long time: collect enough evidence to charge them with a crime. If there is no such evidence, law enforcement should kindly fuck off. It's that simple. A few criminals who get away with it or are more difficult to catch means absolutely nothing in the face of the kind of threat that unmitigated police power poses to free society. Think of it this way: if criminal activity causes us to become a non-free society because of the ever-increasing expansion of state power, then the criminals have won because they've done the greatest possible damage to our way of life.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Bail bondsman, police, etc. attempting to locate a fugitive without spooking them. A call from Mom is more likely to be answered than one from Bounty Hunter Bill.
If you have a known valid telephone number then you have already located your fugitive. That's either because it's a landline assigned to a particular physical address or it's a mobile phone the signal of which can be triangulated. No phone call has to be made to use either approach.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
According to these guys, as written it would not be an issue as the spoofing needs to be done "with the intent to defraud or deceive".
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
callers will still be able to block their information entirely
TrapCall says you won't. :)
They do the same thing with their "mobile to mobile" calling features. If you block your caller id and call someone who is "in network" they will get charged minutes as though it was an out of network call. ANI is not blocked when caller-id is but they are too stupid to use it for their own billing purposes? WTF?
That doesn't sound like stupidity to me... That sounds like profitable evil, in the same vein as the "placing the button that causes your phone to load some crappy WAP page at $.10/KB right next to the button you actually want, and making it impossible to remap/disable". I'm sure that, if people who are out of network were using caller-ID spoofing to appear as "in-network", they'd start using ANI. As long as the net effect of not using ANI means more minutes billed, not fewer, though, why would they change?
It also sounds like an excellent base for a class-action suit. I don't recall reading anywhere that answering a caller with blocked caller-ID would invalidate the in-network minutes.
Bail bondsman/bounty hunters do not have access to cell phone location data. Police do but even then it isn't as good as convincing the fugitive to meet you at a place of your choosing instead of their "hideout" which may be more dangerous.
Fred
What legitimate service is there that requires lying about your phone number?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Since there is no out of band channel from the end office to your phone (unless you have ISDN or VoIP), you probably can't prevent caller ID spoofing. As I understand it, caller ID is sent to the called phone as a burst of modem tones. It sees unlikely at this point in time that the installed base of telephone switches would ever be modified to do things differently.
The universe was intelligently designed. Unfortunately God was in a hurry so he coded it in Java.
If they really wanted to do something about this, they'd discontinue the entire CallerID system and allow regular folks to use ANI as a standard feature.
As people have pointed out there are many reasons not to use ANI. But why should it be either-or? Let the caller continue to set their outbound ID to whatever they want, just make the ANI available to the receiver. Maybe with a *69-type special number. They have to look it up for billing anyway.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
And tower triangulation simply isn't accurate enough. If they're on the lam they most likely have GPS turned off.
Fred
How exactly can you use CID spoofing to correct LIDB/CNAM spelling errors? Or aren't you talking about the PSTN?
Finally, a little common sense kicks in and puts some responsibility onto the CID/POTS admin to maintain their CID/DID systems. Hopefully this will go double for the scamming telemarketers that use blank or spoofed CID idents.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
Ill just be happy not getting calls from some gateway to refinance my credit card debt...who I call back to hear its been disconnected. ITs wildly abused by these scumbag boiler room operations. F U Williams G.. lol
Alot of companies offering SIP trunking pass whatever your outbound caller ID is as ANI. Its spoofable. I noticed it first when using callback and DISA on my cell phone. I have my outbound CID set for my cellphone's number if i'm dialing through DISA...
How are users of legitimate services inconvenienced by not being able to use spoofed caller ID's?
Personally, I think it not only should be illegal but also, it should be the responsibility of the telephone companies to make sure that it is technically impossible, or at least very hard, to call under a false ID.
That companies and people call with anonymous ID is OK. I simply do not pick up the phone when the ID is hidden. But I should be able to trust that if it says number 123456789 is calling me, it really is number 123456789 and not somebody pretending to be 123456789.
If, as you say, there are good reasons for offering a caller ID spoofing service, I should be offered the option of not letting these spoofers call me since there is no one in the entire world that have any kind of legitimate reason nor the right to call me with a spoofed ID.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
Aren't you missing the point? They need to make it illegal so they can prosecute the criminals. Sometimes it's this "little stuff" that trips the criminals up. Al Capone and income tax evasion is one example. Many other gangsters who were very likely guilty of murder only ended up in jail because of some other more minor crime.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Just as legislation failed to keep telemarketers from calling my cell phone? Not. This was actually a successful measure.
I think a law like this would force the *ability* to spoof to dissipate if anything. I'm all for it - I get pretty cranky when some autodialer calls me at some jacked up hour and doesn't have the courtesy to call me with a real caller ID # for me to even report. I know of one instance where I called the number back and it was some poor hospital who got spoofed getting their phone lines slammed with angry callers.
I hate it when this comes up on caller ID, 95% of the time it's a telemarketer, the other 5% it's my credit card company telling me there's a problem with my card. I don't know why anyone would want to be confused for a telemarketer, but inexplicably my credit card company does.
My other sig is extremely clever...
As a helpful tip; I went into my phone's options and pointed the WAP gateway to localhost, now attempting to reach that page throws errors, and doesn't bill me :)
You know, I don't really care what the caller wants to display on my phone. It's my phone! If they want to call it, it should be on my terms, not theirs. And my terms are: that I know who the fuck is calling me.
Seems like we get an awful lot of legislation that we don't want, which is often sold to us under the guise of something else.
If you utilize PRI lines for your business, you can specify by DID number how this is handled. Each can have a different caller ID, some can be lumped together, and more. it's completely customizable. If you using POTS lines, the ID is locked to the physical line, even if your PBX is not, so that either requires complex internal PBX configuration, or a shared caller ID across the pool.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Illegitimate people who will still spoof caller ID will start immediately using the legitimate names of companies that can't use spoofing, meaning then when it says "bank of America" calling, and you'de think to answer because you have an account with them, it could easily be a telemarketer, spammer, or a phishing call.
Caller ID spoofing legislation only works if it's STRICTLY enforced, easily reportable, universally communicated to people HOW to report it, and if they put the manpower behind it to actually go after those people.
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
I like knowing who I'm going to be talking to.
So you pick up the phone and say 'Hi', and they say 'Hi, this is _____.'
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Spoofing implies gaining access to something that isn't actually yours. If you use your cell number as the CID on a VoIP call, that's merely setting your Caller-ID. If you use the local police department's number as the CID, and you call your neighbor and tell him to turn down the annoying noise he blares day and night, that's spoofing.
Right, because exceptions are never made for police, ever.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Stop and re-read my post, noting that I registered neither a "for" nor "against" stance. The closest I came was advocating education in place of laws. Do you disagree with my second paragraph? Or the first half of the third one?
Yeah, we all would. We can repeal laws all day long and have just the original ten commandments if you'd like. I didn't say this was good. At no point in my post did I side with the politicians, and if you think I did it's probably because you fail to understand how government is supposed to operate. Quotes like the one I was replying to "Politicians are seen to do something about the problem," demonstrate massive ignorance about the political process, and citizens are not able to properly take part or guide their elected officials when they don't know how it works.
And that's a knee-jerk reaction. Convince me. Why would someone be arrested for caller-ID spoofing in the first place and be held for questioning? Is there going to be a government office comparing the caller ID packets with a live trace and detecting when the two don't match? Chances are they already have enough of a case, and a spoofed caller ID is going to be a giant red flag indicating more follow-up is needed.
Your explanation above did not convince me, it's simplistic "Government is too big" rhetoric. I agree with you. But I don't automatically reject all laws simply because government is too big. My quote ends with "Depends," but that word connected a prior thought with a following thought explaining what it might depend on. Let me ask again. "What legitimate need would you have for spoofing? Completely shutting off the ID is still an option, but what use would you have for pretending to be another phone number?"
Let me try my hand at your answer first: "It doesn't matter, the point is we have far too many laws, and people are probably breaking something every day, and adding one more law which won't stop actual crimes means more otherwise innocent people will be rounded up and charged with simple offenses" and you could go anywhere from here. What kind of people does this law impact?
Again, my opinion is that if caller ID exists, it should be accurate. Given that opinion, which legitimate users of call spoofing does this impact, necessitating re-thinking my opinion? Change my opinion.
Setting a call to show a valid number from the calling party is not "spoofing" according to the drafts I've read. They don't use the technical term of "spoofing" essentially being any injection/stripping at all, whether applicable to the current call or not. So setting your home phone to show as your personal Google Voice number that will reach you if they call it back is not spoofing. It's only spoofing if you set your outbound number to something that could never reach you. And even then, the drafts I read would allow that in some cases (say, you were a subcontractor of IBM and they requested you have CID show their main switchboard number, even if the person there wouldn't know who you are or how to connect the call back to you, because even then, the number points back to the organization the caller is calling on behalf of).
Learn to love Alaska
Unless the fugitive's ex's kid answers the phone, at which time you might realize it's not a known valid number for the fugitive.
Calling the number and hearing who answers, then asking if "Joe" (i.e. the fugitive) is around, is a good way for a bounty hunter to learn if he has the correct number. I've only watched one episode of Dog but that makes me an expert on this.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
What little I know about bail/bounty scenarios suggests that they alert police in the area that they are working. Especially bounty hunters, who might be reported to police as an attacker. So as long as you're talking to the police, you get them to spoof your ID. Did you know that police are allowed to break laws in order to catch criminals? Not all laws of course, but they can wire-tap phones and I can't, they can record me and in some places I can't return the favor, even though they are recording the same thing as I would be. I can't lie to an officer, but he can lie to me.
Go to the police, make the spoofed call, and keep on rocking. If the police interfere with the bounty hunter by locating and arresting the perp first, word gets out and that's the last deal anyone makes with that office.
I don't think it should be considered spoofing if the one who proposes to use someone "else's" identity on a caller ID has the consent of whoever's ID they're using.
For example, prank call services have the consent of the pranker, and Google Voice would presumably have consent as well.
To hell with THAT theory, I know for a FACT that this ban will be useful.
I work as a Customs broker, and thus receive calls from many trucking companies... their dispatchers and drivers.
There are multiple trucking companies that spoof their caller ID for... I can't even begin to guess what reason. One of them shows up as "123456" on our caller ID... I can't fathom what use THAT is. There's another one that uses something random, can't recall what offhand.
And another one... the actual trucking company of which I'll avoid mentioning... actually has "911" show up as its caller ID. I've thought that there's no WAY that can be legal, pretending to be 911 by way of caller ID. I've come to guess that the reason they do this is that there's... I dunno... a better chance of whoever they're calling not letting it go to voicemail, or perhaps just being picked up faster? No clue.
So yes, there ARE legitimate companies that spoof their caller ID to either random digits, or outright entirely different things. And that 911 company? This isn't some small, mom-and-pop type operation either... we're talking hundreds of offices all over Canada AND the USA. If they were forced to NOT masquarade as an emergency service, it'd be REALLY nice.
I've debated somehow reporting their caller-ID spoofing, but never came up with a good place to report to. They, as I said, have many offices, only one of which is in my city... and that's not the one that calls us to check their shipments anyway.
Planet Zebeth - Metroid with a twist
That's why I saw a slogan recently where one party was demanding "Outlaw criminality!"
(No joke!)
Your first sentence does not make any sense unless you're trying to frame this as a one-sided law which puts the good guys at a disadvantage. The banks don't currently use spoofing with intent to deceive, do they? And bad guys already do, which is part of the reason for the law. The bad guys won't "start" doing anything different, they will keep doing what the law is trying to prevent.
Since this law only works under the conditions you listed, and we know that won't be the case because no other law is enforced like that, your post boils down to "Make Caller ID spoofing easily reportable, [and] universally communicated to people." Is that fair?
Now, why would you want to report spoofing? It makes a better case for restraining orders, showing that the person is intentionally trying to bypass the system. Existing restraining orders can become arrest warrants. That is easily accomplished regardless of whether it's illegal or not, so the law has no impact other than the number of charges against someone. Educating people seems to be the best option.
As for the law itself, if all it does is reduce the amount of spoofing, I'm still all for it.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1623638&cid=31901510
That practice, not recording each rep's vote, should be illegal.
--
make install -not war
I've got a Google Voice number which forwards calls to my actual phone(s) based on rules I set up. One rule is "do you want to see the caller ID as the actual caller's, or as your Google Voice number?"
This is useful, but only because of the limited nature of caller id - it can only display one number. If it had slots for things like "original caller # and name" and "name of routing service", I wouldn't need to make that choice.
Also, it's unique in that *I* am deciding what information *I* want to see. I don't see any reason why someone should be able to call me and disguise their identity from me.
Guess what - only criminals use guns to commit murder.
I'm unconvinced. I've met several law-abiding people who would likely be murderers if they had easy access to guns. Whether or not that -justifies- gun control legislation, I'm not going to argue. And whether or not legislation rather than laziness, rational thought most of the tmie, or financing prevented those individuals from having a gun, I also won't argue.
Calls originated over ISDN can send a caller ID number in the out of band signaling channel. The SS7 switching network relays both the ANI and the Caller ID, which are identical for calls from POTS lines (which do not have an out of band signaling path to the local office). The phone company can provide the ANI for a call if there is an allegation of caller ID spoofing. The owner of the ISDN line which originated the call could then be charged for caller ID spoofing. Calls originating outside the U.S. might be harder to investigate.
Caller ID is delivered in band to POTS lines. This might allow the originator to send phony caller ID information inband. However, the speech path forward may not be opened until the call answers, which would make things tricky for the spoofer.
The universe was intelligently designed. Unfortunately God was in a hurry so he coded it in Java.
I am frequently baffled why so many of my jokes are modded "insightful" or "interesting". However, I am even more baffled how this got modded "funny"!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I once ran into a warranty issue with a manufacturer where their phone system required entry of the serial number to get support; the problem is, for certain low-volume, higher-end of products their system did not recognize the serial numbers, so the phone system would eventually just drop the call. Keep in mind this is one of the few major laptop and display manufacturers, not a rebrander like Dell, Alienware, etc; the actual manufacturer, with the manufacturer-labeled product. I tried calling the corporate office (where they seemingly have only a single CSR/receptionist answering calls) and started explaining the problem to her, then without bothering to listen she forwarded me on to support. I called back several times and each time she said "Oh you need support" and immediately transferred me. So, I changed my tactic; I told her I had a problem and she had to listen in detail because simply forwarding me to support isn't helping because the phone system is set up incorrectly. She did listen, and then insisted that I still needed to be forwarded support, and proceeded to do so. I tried this periodically several weeks. Finally, one day a couple of months later I decided "today is the day I am getting this resolved" and started again. Eventually after an hour of repeating the above (I know, you do not need to tell me the definition of insanity; I was not really expecting a different result, just hoping for it) I told the receptionist I wish to speak to a manager. She continued forwarding me to support. Finally, I resorted to cussing at her. She threatened to report me to the FCC (I told her go right ahead) and started disconnecting me. After a few of those calls she stopped answeing my calls. So, time to start playing with her. I spoofed a random caller ID and told her "Hi, it's me again. I am going to keep calling until I get a resolution. Let me talk to a manager." (mind you, no cussing, no hostility, etc.). She disconnected me after threatening to call the FCC and the police (By the way I am not harassing or stalking; I am simply trying to speak with someone who isn't a void to make a decision to honor a warranty on a very expensive display). I again invited her to do so, because the publicity that would follow would not only lead to their honoring the warranty, but a likely cash handout to me. Anyway she stopped answering that call. So, I looked up the phone number to the local police department, the local sherrif, and the local FBI and started spoofing those numbers. She kept refusing to let me talk to a manager. So, I gave one last attempt, I said "Listen, you stuid festering fucking cunt, GIVE ME YOUR MANAGER!" She actually yelled and broke down crying, but I got through to the manager. I apologised to her for treating the receptionist so badly, but it was the only way to get through to someone. I explained the whole situation; weeks of trying off and on to get support for a defective product, and deciding today is the day I will get a resolution regardless of how many people I have to berate. I explained the broken nature of the support call routing, the receptionist's unwillingness to listen to me regarding the problem of even getting THROUGH to support, that emails to support came back with replies saying I needed to call, so this is leaving me with an expensive door stop. I felt like a major douchebag but I wasn't going to get screwed by a Major Corporation.
So, sometimes caller ID spoofing can be used for good (getting through to companies who hire incompetent voids who don't want to listen to customer problems) as well as evil (automated telemarketing which leave you no way to opt out of their automated call list).
If you have an ISDN line, I believe you can set the Caller ID to any value you choose, including setting it to a different number every time you call. So it is really only saying "Have I guessed a number in your white list correctly?". And by the way, my daughter's school makes emergency calls to parents with CallerID blocked -- real useful to those of us that screen calls to our mobile!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It could be 100% true that gun control would make life better for everyone
My Aunt who shot a would-be rapist would take issue with this statement.
Of course the constitution is amendable, but good luck with that.
Why amend it? They didn't bother for drug prohibition.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I've met several law-abiding people who would likely be murderers if they had easy access to guns.
Who are you hanging out with? And where do you live that they don't have easy access to guns? Even in "blue" American states it's not all that difficult for a non-felon to purchase a gun.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I can't think of a single HONEST use for caller ID spoofing. What legitimate uses are there?
Where I work, with the phone switches I manage, not all of our phone extensions have outside numbers.
Many are internal only phones and can only make outgoing calls to the POTS network.
If one of those extensions calls an outside number, the callerID is spoofed to our main receptionist number, so any return calls will actually work (You call that number, talk to receptionist, give extension, and she puts the call through)
A lot better than the alternate method with no callerid or fake callerid, in which no one will know how to get back in touch with that line.
Arguably this setup is now illegal.
Laughably, every last single company on the fortune 500 list does this.
When the only thing making callerID spoofing legal is not trying to 'defraud or deceive', well, it is not possible to put in callerID that this phone has no phone number, so any result will be deceiving.
I disagree. That's like asking what legitimate use is there in having more than one e-mail address. My cellular provider simply doesn't provide the features that Google Voice does, it requires a different number than the one that is mapped by my provider to my phone.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
By this argument we should just scrap Caller ID altogether because no one wants to know who's calling them. If I have Caller ID as a feature (something I personally want) it's completely useless to me if the information it provides is usually inaccurate.
that's what pay phones are for.
If you can find one...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Here in Sweden it looks like the telcos are using ANI. As a person, you can't change/spoof your number unless you have a switchboard. And then you only can change your CID to a number you own. Telia, the state phone monopoly at the time, sold a standalone CID box called Anita...
My first CID thing was a homemade device for the printer port on my PC, and it only worked in Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/98.
Telemarketers aren't allowed to block their numbers or use protected numbers. And we have a national DNC-list that works. YAY!
I could care less what they use for a caller ID number as I am too cheap to pay An extra $2/month for caller id.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
In my view, the founders of this nation, including the citizens who fought, died, and otherwise sacrificed for its creation, are still revolutionaries today. Their ideas on the role our central government is supposed to play are so controversial that I can't even use my own handle when posting on /. because -1 disagree modders will mod me into oblivion.
I set up Asterisk on my land line a few years back. One of the features I included with it was the ability for certain numbers to be forwarded to my mobile via a dial-out through a VOIP service. Handily I was able to set the caller ID on the outbound call to the caller ID from the inbound call so that I'd know who was calling on my cell. This is just a trivial example of when it might be useful.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There are already fraud laws on the books. There isn't a need to create additional regulation. These people can be prosecuted under the same fraud laws that were used to send Charles Ponzi to prison.
The interstate commerce clause is one of three ways that people use to justify Congress's actions, but this is done wrongly. If you read what the authors of the Constitution said, you will find that the only purpose of the commerce clause is to keep trade regular between the states. As in not taxing products transported only across state lines or limiting transportation across state lines. It is not meant to be a catch-all clause granting Congress the power to make a law for anything that crosses a state line.
You would think that the ENUM database would solve this. I mean, in the sense that the choices for a caller are no ID or ENUM ID. ENUM ID is traceable to someone who pays. Let the police deal with tracking the bastards after that. It shouldn't matter what end terminal is in use, you want the bastards who pay for the ENUM ID to go down. There is the somewhat sticky problem of people's IP-PBX getting hijacked, but then again, that's a police investigative issue.
People who steal identities will carry on spoofing caller ID, because they already commit more serious crimes, while users of legitimate services will be inconvenienced. Still, at least the politicians are seen to do something about the problem.
I expect this will help with the third category. Legitimate (or quasi-legit) businesses that use caller ID to disguise themselves and trick you into answering the phone. Primarily telemarketers and collections agencies These groups will generally follow the new rule, because they are legal businesses that can be tracked down and punished.
Obviously those deliberately breaking the law won't stop doing so. But those taking advantage of a loophole in the law largely will stop.
Yeah but you don't need a m16 to hunt deer either. Some gun control is necessary. Banning guns out right is just dumb. But letting people own whatever kinds of guns and ammo they want is even worst.
"‘(1) IN GENERAL- It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, unless such transmission is exempted pursuant to paragraph (3)(B)."
There is no interstate clause there nor has "cause harm" ever been defined as "commerce" so yes, this is extra-Constitutional.
I'm so glad we voted for change...Next step, ban callerID blocking entirely unless of course you work for the Government. After all, if you arent doing anything wrong you should have nothing to hide.
I'm unconvinced. I've met several law-abiding people who would likely be murderers if they had easy access to guns.
Yeah, and if they committed murder with those guns they would be criminals, no? So you see it's true, "only criminals use guns to commit murder."
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Right on, brother.
I just went thru the 99 numbers on my caller id and none of them gave me any info I needed. Most of my friends block the ID. Scumbags fake it. It costs what, $7/month? I've had it for about 180 months. $1260. Fuck that. I'm canceling.
I used to work at an answering service that used ANI to ID incoming calls. The system had been in place for decades, long before CallerID was around, or at least common.
Toward the end of the '90s, if people blocked their Caller ID, sometimes the ANI started coming up as all 0s. Not always, but fairly often.
So 'ANI is not blocked when caller-id is' depends on the telephone company implementing it.
Here in Arizona, the Governor just signed a law that will take effect 91 days after the present legislative session is adjourned that will allow all non felons to carry concealed without a permit. There are now three states with concealed carry laws that do not require a permit; Vermont, Alaska and Arizona.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
That really sucks! It's like all those all rich old guys who drive Porsches around at really low speeds. Let the people who actually know how to use the equipment use it. It's time we stopped all this PC bullshit about keeping guns out of the hands of felons. Guns are for EVERYONE!
Spam calls like political surveys and such still show up 000-0000 on my primitive CID device. Even solicitations from Verizon Wireless have appeared as all zeros.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
At least your jokes get modded UP!
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
They are calling from a non-pub number within the business they wish to keep private. Just a guess.
Mod Me Up. You'll make a grown man cry.
My Aunt who shot a would-be rapist would take issue with this statement.
OTHO, my aunt, who was shot and killed by my uncle (who is the one I actually have the blood relation with) when he became enraged during a domestic dispute, wouldn't.
I am frequently baffled why so many of my jokes are modded "insightful" or "interesting". However, I am even more baffled how this got modded "funny"!
Funny mods are the new Overrated, but they're even more insidious. When you get moderated Funny you don't get any karma. When you get modded with any negative moderation, you lose karma. So moderating a comment funny when you think it will be moderated both positively and negatively is an attempt to steal the poster's karma.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When I make calls with Skype or Google Voice, I want the Caller ID to say my cell phone number, not the random outgoing phone line I get.
That's not an honest use at all; it's dishonest to the extreme and is a good example of why this sort of crap should be illegal.
Free Martian Whores!
There were two good answers to my question, and yours was one of them (a lot of redundant ones, yours was the first). I wouldn't call that "ID spoofing", I'd call it ID forwarding. That should be legal.
Free Martian Whores!
That's not really spoofing, though. It's the same number, it's your number. The law should be written to allow that, as well as ID forwarding (which isn't spoofing either).
Free Martian Whores!
There's a whole world out there, most of which is made up of neither blue nor red states and has no constitutional right to bear arms.
It seems like quite a few people from the USA automatically assume everyone else on the Internet is from the USA, and do things like make comments about what state or what part of the country a person's from without first having any idea which country the person's from. Nobody outside the USA seems to ever do this.
It just helps perpetuate the stereotype of Americans being relatively ignorant of the rest of the world and believing the USA is the only truly powerful/developed/free nation at the center of everything.
Get over it. This is an American site. This story is about an American law. This discussion is about American gun-control.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
If he had opted to run her over instead of shoot her, would you be advocating in favor of banning cars?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yeah but you don't need a m16 to hunt deer either.
The 2nd amendment isn't about hunting. Even if it was, the M16 fires a round (5.56x45mm NATO / .223 Remington) that is well suited for hunting varmint. Ever hunted woodchucks?
Some gun control is necessary
Gun control is hitting what you aim at.
But letting people own whatever kinds of guns and ammo they want is even worst.
Why? You make a claim but you fail to back it up with any sort of argument.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
That's not really spoofing, though. It's the same number, it's your number. The law should be written to allow that, as well as ID forwarding (which isn't spoofing either).
I agree, as I would imagine most technical people would.
But unfortunately the definition of 'deceive' is now in the hands of lawyers and judges :/
Yup... vote buying. Wasn't it already illegal to fraudulently misrepresent yourself?
Again, a specific law where a generic one sufficed... all so they can say "see what we did?!?!"
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
Here is an argument. No person needs military grade weapons for anything legal. So by making things like machine guns and grenades illegal if anyone is caught in possession with one there is no " I don't know what your talking about officer I was just going fishing"
That's a truism. Only criminals commit crime. Any crime. Committing crime makes you a criminal, therefore only criminals commit crime. Unfortunately, there's no a priori classification of criminals.... However, many people who commit murder have prior criminal records for less severe crimes. It might not be difficult to go find a gun, but there's no reason to say, "Criminals can buy firearms anyway, so we should just go ahead let them." Or are you arguing that the rules which prevent felons from purchasing and owning firearms are stupid and should be gotten rid of? What's so wrong with "only non-criminals can legally buy firearms"? Does that prevent any non-criminal from using a gun to protect themselves if that's their preference? Unless you're a criminal who wants to be able to shop more easily at the gun-store, why is it a big imposition?
No person needs military grade weapons
It's not a "Bill of Needs", it's a "Bill of Rights".
for anything legal
Target shooting isn't legal? Home defense isn't legal?
So by making things like machine guns and grenades illegal
Grenades are already illegal. Machine guns require registration with the ATF and the payment of a tax stamp to the Federal Government. You really should research these matters before you posit opinions on them.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Exactly those are gun control regulations right there. I thought we were talking about getting rid of gun control.
I don't happen to think there should be any limit on the weapons that law abiding citizens are allowed to own. Criminals are another matter of course, but then the Constitution already provides for taking away their rights after due process of law.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Check out trapcall.com to get the actual ANI information from *67 blocked calls.
Actually, most collection agencies spoof caller ID. The bulk of them simply replace the company name with a state or city name so they're not easily identified, smarter ones are spoofing it to make it look like the call originated from within your zip core, even your region code if there are available unused numbers to spoof, and others go so far as to use the name of the bank they're collecting for in the caller ID even though they have no formal association. This is all legal, and legitimate up until this law was passed.
No, what i meant however was that banks and other organizations that DON'T spoof will have THEIR names spoofed by people willing to break the law. If you have an account with BoA, and they occasionally call you (automated low balance notices for example, or calls to tell you they spotted odd activity on your account), you might readily expect it to be a legit call, and answer. The person on the other end may CLAIM to be a BOA employee, but in reality, they're a scammer. Since BoA can't spoof caller ID, and has to use a SPECIFIC and KNOWN ID, it is easily spoofed. Today, BoA can be on their toes a bit, and use any ID they like
The law will reduce spoofing, but only from legitimate companies, which actually makes scamming EASIER and answering a call riskier.
What I'd REALLY like to see: Ban companies making any unsolicited call to your residence PERIOD. If they have communication for you, it should be through the postal system, or the call should be a simple recording indicating you call a different number back, one easily verifiable online, and that they read to you the last 6 (not 4, that's too easy to get), of your account number in that message and the name on the account, and a very easy system for cross checking bad numbers (by pressing 1 on that call to be automatically removed). No one can call you in person unless you requested it otherwise. No telemarketing unless you added yourself to a list (explicitly, not through association, and had to complete a specific form, including typing in the phone number and hours of the day you want to be called).
That way, ANY call to you from a company that is more than a simple informational message, and that offers for you to be removed, and provides you a number to call back at your convenience (or simply telly you to log onto your account and click into some help system for online support or to schedule a call back), that call is illegal, or a scam.
A quick and simple method for reporting people who don't follow the system provides self-enforcement. Get a call more than once for a wrong number, or get a scam call, a simple online form, like the one on the FCC website today (that's buried), would be fine, and when a company gets a few complaints, we pull call records, and start sending out civil fine notices, or conduct formal investigations.
Collections: until you validate my name, account, and address with an account history check (verifying the debt is real, as yet uncollected, and collectible under state laws, and has not been charged off by the originating company) followed by sending me a certified letter of the intent to collect a debt and the attempt to validate my identity for further correspondence, you can't call me AT ALL. No more of "is John Smith there?" bull shit just because this number at one time had a "smith" how had it registerd, or someone named "smith" at some point in history lived at that address. If the STATE can't confirm I live there, or provides evidence someone ELSE does, and the phone company can't provide a matching name/number association, then they need to do more research before contacting me at all. I have no bad debt, but I get calls 4 or 5 times a day for people trying to collect debts for OTHER people (and on rare occasions, scammers trying to collect debts i paid more than a decade ago).
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
What little you know is less than you think. Here's how it works Defendant is arraigned and given a bail amount Bail bondsman pays a percentage (normally 10%) of that amount to the court. This money could come from their own pocket or it could come from a surety company. Defendant misses court date and is therefore in forfeiture of the bond and a bench warrant is issued. The bail bondsman has X days, set by the court, to return the defendant to custody or they lose the money they put down. The bail bondsman could cooperate with the police to get the bad guy. Most bonds are for minor violations though and the police have more pressing issues most of the time. Nor do they care about the deadline for returning the defendant. They aren't likely to do the paperwork necessary just to track a cell phone or wiretap a phone to find the guy on the behalf of a bondsman or to get it done in the timeframe he needs. So the bondsman, if he doesn't think he can get the bad guy back in time hires a bounty hunter with the promise of a bounty if they return the guy in time. The bounty hunter can't really cooperate with the police or ask for their help. If he does he'll have to share information he has with them and if the police pick the guy up first he loses the bounty. The system puts bondsman and police somewhat at loggerheads on this. They don't often do favors for each other. Nor do most police offices have the necessary tech to make a spoofed call.
Fred
I still think it should be the telecompanies obligation to make it impossible or hard to spoof caller ID. A caller apparently can't be trusted to provide their true identity, so it is up to the service provider to identify the caller to the receiver. Change the system so that the caller ID is sent from the telecompanies equipment instead of from the callers equipment and thereby removing the ability to call under a false ID.
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
The 2nd amendment isn't about hunting.
It's about constituting a citizen's militia for the security of the state. Since the US Army now does that job (in defiance of he intention of the framers of the Constitution), it's functionally superfluous.
I learned that by watching Jackie Brown, so yeah I knew that much. Here's a website that lists state-specific laws where bondsmen are required to notify police of their actions, or those of hired bounty hunters so you can catch up.
http://www.americanbailcoalition.com/new_html/compendium.htm
http://www.americanbailcoalition.com/new_html/Bounty%20Hunter%20Laws.htm
In context, you're describing the current system while I was describing what could possibly change to meet the requirements of this new law. Police don't necessarily need the ability to spoof, but it's simple to do using PBX products (including open-source ones) so they could be equipped with no additional expense if they liked.