Spoofing Brought Up Short in Louisiana

http://theadvocate.com/news/neworleans/475753 ... ler-id-spoofing

This one article has explained a lot about what we complain about here at 800notes.com (and similar sites). Spoofing can have a legitimate use, if you are a battered woman seeking to hide her location, or a collection agency going after the few customers who are born deadbeats. Law enforcement agencies can use spoofing legally, too.

Where the spoofing gets nasty is with robo-calling. This report confirms that most of these robo-calling systems are from offshore, and call 24/7, using millions and millions of numbers! The fact that they are offshore makes it harder to track them down and prosecute.

There is hope. In 2009, laws were changed to preclude such practices (it's too complicated to explain here in 500 words or less). The FTC is totally aware that these spoofing, scam, spam, and phishing calls are becoming a "pandemic". After all, thousands of people like those of us who post here to 800notes.com have been screaming about this nonsense for years!

NOTE: There are other forum threads here at 800notes.com about how in the last year, five of these companies have been brought down. As we know, these companies have simply gone underground and emerged with new identities and a whole new slew of numbers. Let's see if the FTC can make its attack stick and keep these creeps away "forever".

Whenever a company changes names and goes underground and tries new tricks to rip people off, one can be absolutely sure that the company is fraudulent. It deserves to get shut down, get all its assets confiscated, and the frauds should get jailed for a long time. They are no different from organized criminals.

Don't forget they also should have not only all their freedom taken from them but all 10 fingers removed, tongues too and then a full lobotomy. All that done to them and they can't dispense all their diarrhea like they have for so long.

I forgot about that part. Having a twist brain and 10 fingers is what is making them do these things in the first place.

The vast majority of this robocalling is now taking place from foreign locations, but especially India.   It is totally fraudulent and the Indian government couldn't care less.   Millions of criminal calls and thousands of victims; we should treat this for what it is, not a minor crime by individuals, but a de facto act of war by a hostile country.   We are inundated by this criminal pandemic and the Indians just laugh it off---at best--at worst corrupt government officials take their cut off the top.  If they won't make serious attempts to stop it, perhaps we should respond in kind.   Maybe it's time for some dirty tricks of our own.

Outsourcing created this crap.

Along with the legit jobs that got outsourced, criminals took advantage of it and outsourced their crimes as well. A good example of that is Pacific Telecommunications that control most of the Turd Service Crap. The rest are controlled by other outfits that outsourced to India, South East Asia, etc. I'll blame the criminals overseas but at the same time I'll blame the criminals that do such things in our own backyard. They are responsible as well or else what will explain their accents? Someone said phone companies are making a profit from these frauds. If it's true, shame on the phone companies that support fraud. In the end its all about illegal profit, and greed.

"This one article has explained a lot about what we complain about here at 800notes.com (and similar sites). Spoofing can have a legitimate use, if you are... a collection agency going after the few customers who are born deadbeats."

The problem with this is that collection agencies have to be honest about who they are and what they want.  It's the law - they are compelled to reveal who they are.  They can't call and leave CID 'unknown,' blank,'aunt sylvia,' 'cousin bubba,' or anything other than the exact name of the outift behind the call.  Period.

Spoofing never has a legitimate reason to be in use.  How stupid do you think we are?

Consumer,

Walker's examples were perhaps not the best, but let me tell you why spoofing is an important and legitimate tool. It is a tool I personally use, and I assume by now that you know I am not a scammer.

Hospitals and hotels often have individual phone numbers for each room. They do not want those numbers to be broadcast over caller ID, allowing unwanted third parties to call directly into the room. For that reason the outbound caller ID is set to show the main number, front desk number, or other incoming call reception point. Businesses often have similar arrangements.

Going a bit deeper, in large phone systems you frequently have many incoming numbers (called DIDs). The ability to receive a call and the ability to place a call is somewhat unrelated - it is not like your home phone where the inbound and outbound is a single entity. We maintain inbound and outbound trunks. In theory I could place outbound calls without having any inbound number at all. So we have to select one of the DIDs which we hold to transmit as our caller ID.

Other uses of spoofing include providing a "local" number for clients to use when calling you. Routing incoming calls to a different department or division than the one placing the call (for example - managing call queues for tech support staff). And all sorts of other clever things that administrators do to solve internal technical problems.

The point is, just as a hammer can be used to build a house or to beat someone to death, CID spoofing is a legitimate and much needed tool which is sadly being abused. The largest amount of spoofing is performed not by scammers, but legitimate users. It is just that legitimate spoofing is normally "invisible" to the recipient.

This is why the Federal law prohibiting spoofing only prohibited it in cases where it was intended to produce improper financial gain or inflict distress. (I forget the exact wording, but it is the "Truth in Caller ID" act if you want to look it up.)

Hope this helps shed a little light.

LS;

Keep 'using that tool' and you might find yourself having to pay up:

http://www.news-register.net/page/content.det ... se.html?nav=515

We've been down this road before - you seem to think that 'no ID' is an accetable substitute for 'truthful ID.'  All I can tell you, after all this back and forth, is to keep it up.  Eventually, you will get yours.

"JustAsk"

READ CAREFULLY - YOUR PRIOR INATTENTION TO THE FACTS IS SHOWING

Try not to make such a fool of yourself.  At no time did I indicate that I am engaged in anything remotely inappropriate or unlawful.  You can be dam* sure that is not who I am.  I am not a telephone predator.  I do not telemarket.  I am not a collection agency.  I am not soliciting money for charity, opinions for politicians, or any of the many things one might object to.  I always transmit legitimate CID info, although it is often spoofed - these are not mutually exclusive.  And my communications are not with the general public, nor are they soliciting anyone - business or residential.  If you are talking to me it is because you actually wanted to talk to me.

Are you incapable of understanding that having CID info show a main number rather than an extension's number is a legitimate use of spoofing?  That there are other legitimate uses for managing a complex network that have nothing to do with deceiving anyone?

I hope you aren't actually Diana, but merely someone taking her name in vain.  In the past I have had one very positive interchange with Diana, and made comments praising her - telling her that she was one of my heroes.  If you are her, then you owe me an apology.  If you aren't her you should be ashamed of using someone else's name.

As far as some prior dialog between us, I can't remember anyone making such a ridiculous accusation to me before, especially under the name you used.  And I have NEVER said, or implied, that it was appropriate to fail to transmit CID info.  There is a huge difference between what is technically possible, and what is acceptable.  They are two different things.

I am so stunned by your outlandish post - have you EVER read the posts I make here?  If so, do you have some sort of disability that prevents you from understanding what you read?  I have spent years on this site helping people to deal with telephone predators.  I have also advocated for draconian penalties to deter the telephone scofflaws.

Whoever you are, you owe me a major apology.  If you are Diana, then I have to wonder why I have referred so many people to your site, and held you up to others as an example.

Unbelievable.

P.S. Here are examples of what I am really about -

https://800notes.com/forum/ta-5d4e343675a5629 ... 047864959167059

https://800notes.com/forum/ta-6dbfa49432dde2d ... xt-message-spam

I must've touched a nerve...well, I figure that I'm going to have to do that if I want to do this right.

Don't talk to me about it!  I didn't write the law but, in all honesty, I do like it although, I do think that we still have a long way to go as far as cleaning up third party collections is concerned.

Dear Heart, if you are in the habit of calling people for the purpose of collecting money and falsifying who you are to do it, you are in violation of the law.  I didn't make this up so yelling at me isn't going to get you off the hook.  It's only going to make you look desperate.

I'm not the one 'doing' anything to anyone.  This is all your own doing.  If you keep up what you are doing, eventually someone is going to sue you.  There's no such thing as prolonged luck and the more you tempt fate, the more opportunities you give someone like me, a loud mouthed jerk who knows which end is up, to come back at you.  It really is exactly that simple.

I'm not sure what we would ask Diana May since that name is unfamiliar. We might instead consult Diana Mey, the plaintiff in the case you'd tried to reference. (www.DianaMey.com)

This, for the folks at home, was against Reliant Financial Associates / Global Attorney Group, a typically hostile player among countless throwaway business names linked to the "Corona Cabal" of illegal debt collectors. Mey was awarded $10-mil last year by default, as yet unpaid, when the defendants dove into a rat hole.

Global AG / RFA had illegally threatened to sue to recover a debt which Mey never incurred. The company later began a campaign of harassment mere minutes after signing the green card for Mey's cease-comm letter. For a couple days she was pelted with abandoned mystery calls spoofing a local sheriff's phone number. When she got to speak to a debt collector rep, she was called a slang term for "[***]" and invited to be "gang banged".

While spoofing was a critical case detail, to call this a "spoofing case" as in that Wheeling News-Register story you linked is burying the lead, to put things mildly. Since the Truth In Caller ID Act lacks private right of action, Mey could do no more than refer to it as an aside to her civil action. She would have to prosecute as a FDCPA action and perhaps any state law covering the harassment and bodily threats, which is pretty much what's been reported. I won't say for sure without the actual court docs.

I would say that spoofing the cops makes a dead easy deceptive practice claim under FDCPA. I would not say that any of the benign spoofing purposes Stranger has outlined come anywhere near violative.

Recap:  You pretend to be someone else - using the real name of a well known person in this community, and bait me with a baseless, utterly false, and insulting accusation.  I unwisely respond to your lunacy, then you smugly gloat over your "great victory", using smarmy pet names for me?

I guess that fits in with the other little games that you have been playing against myself and others. In the past I just figured you were a little confused, but I see there is more going on with you than that.

Is your goal simply to stop me from teaching people about the technology and ways to defend against it, or are you simply attempting to disrupt the site by going after regular contributors? Or is it the fact that I tell the truth even when the truth is not entirely what you want to hear?  

Not that it matters.

Feel free to continue with your nasty little lies about regular contributors like me. It doesn't change who I am, and what I am trying to help people accomplish.  Sorry if the fact that a few people are learning to stop the predators as a result of my efforts is frustrating to you, but don't look for me to go away.

I know you don't care about the truth, especially when you don't like what the truth is,  but for those who may be interested in the realities of CID spoofing and the Truth in Caller ID Act, here is a fair summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing

and the FCC's take on it:

http://www.fcc.gov/guides/caller-id-and-spoofing

and finally, here is the actual law:

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/s30

I think you will find them all remarkably similar to what I have said, and I trust (whoever he/she is pretending to be at the moment) will not accuse both Wikipedia and the FCC of secretly being collection agencies.