[Wingnut]

....but I found this to be unbeleivable!! Why do companies insist on making it soooo easy for scammers!?!

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Company sells fake ID for call display

Vancouver Sun

Gillian Shaw

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

The next time your phone rings and you think you should answer because the caller ID says it's your mother or your boss, think again.

A Vancouver company is cashing in on a security flaw in telephone caller ID that allows callers to take on bogus identities and appear to be calling from any number they choose.

Totally Connected Security announced Monday that for $15 a month, plus five to 10 cents a minute, customers can call anywhere in North America and masquerade as whoever they want to be.

The Vancouver service comes on the heels of the Web-based Camophone service, which allows anyone with a credit card or $5 US in a Pay Pal account to choose the number that will be displayed by the recipient's caller ID.

So any call could be coming from a bill collector, a telemarketer, a con artist, or anyone else who wants to hide their true identity and get you to pick up the phone.

"I can call you from any number I want, including 911," said Ryan Purita, senior security specialist with Totally Connected. "Caller ID spoofing has been around for a couple of years, but no one has ever offered the service.

"The only people who knew about it were hackers and people who knew telephone systems like the back of their hand. I thought, “This is such a cool feature, why don't I offer it to the public?'"

Purita said the service would allow callers such as bill collectors to convince people to pick up calls they might otherwise have screened.

 

[Toshi]

this is a non issue. people who fall for telemarketer scammers won't be that much more or less credulous based on what shows up on caller id. what i'm more worried about is bail bond and collection agencies using this to misrepresent themselves, but apparently that tactic (for those specific kinds of businesses) is illegal.

 

[reflux]

Kinda old newz. I remember reading an article a few months back that a company in The OC started offering the service to select groups, but they weren't offering it to the general public. Interesting... so now I can call my ex gf and she'll pick up the phone not knowing it's me, just so that I can hear the sound of her voice again...

 

[Wingnut]

this is a non issue. <snip>

This is the first thing that came to mind:

Interesting... so now I can call my ex gf and she'll pick up the phone not knowing it's me, just so that I can hear the sound of her voice again...

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[Toshi]

the ex-gf use isn't much different from, say, going to a pay phone and calling. or calling from a friend's phone.