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I don't think it's fair to claim that the author is "shit at his job" because he doesn't know some (rather unintuitive and unexpected) trivia about how phone ID

I don't think it's fair to claim that the author is "shit at his job" because he doesn't know some (rather unintuitive and unexpected) trivia about how phone ID works. There are plenty of different roles in security engineering, many of which would never need to be concerned about this.

carlmr 5y ago
Also I think just his openness in admitting a mistake he could hide in shame is a sign that he understands his job. While this is more psychology than technology, that's very important in social engineering.
giaour 5y ago
Everyone in the US with a cell phone is getting inundated these days with spam texts and calls with fake caller ID. It's almost inconceivable that someone with an American cell phone wouldn't know that phone ID is a lie, which is I think where some of the incredulity from other commenters is coming from. But I believe the author is from the UK, where the spam situation might not be so dire?
- dwighttk 5y ago
  Huh. I get a bunch of spam calls I ignore, but I don’t know how I’d know that any of the caller ID is fake
  - giaour 5y ago
    The recent surge in spam texts that show as having been sent by the recipient[0] has driven this point home for a lot of mobile phone users. For me, the fact that caller ID is fake was made evident when a spammer used my number as their origin ID for a wave of spam calls and texts, and I got ~100 voice mails and texts the next day kindly asking me to eat shit and die. Verizon support said that there was nothing they could do, that it was happening left and right, and that I was in no way legally or financially responsible for any of the messages purporting to be from me. This was in 2020, and the unreliability of long code origin ID numbers has come up frequently in my work as a security engineer for the past few years. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/business/spam-texts-verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/business/spam-texts-veriz...
    - dwighttk 5y ago
      Hmm. Only get a few spam texts per… quarter. Never seen one from my own number
- staticassertion 5y ago
  That's hilarious. You really think that everyone, or even many people, know that phone numbers can be spoofed?
  - giaour 5y ago
    Yes. There have been multiple front-page news articles in the NY Times in the past month about people getting spam texts from themselves. The fact that caller ID is unreliable is part of the public discourse today. FWIW, I had to answer the phone at my first office job in ~2005, and the office manual has a section on how caller ID was not trustworthy caller authentication. None of this is new, and it is odd that a self-described security engineer would blindly trust caller ID.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      Awareness may have grown, but I'd put money on people at-large not knowing anything about caller ID spoofing, both in terms of its existence, and certainly in terms of its accessibility.
  - tlogan 5y ago
    I think majority of older American is 100% aware of that. I do see how young adults are still not aware of that since they are not valuable target and their info is relatively unknown (no mortgage on their name, no car loans, cell phone number is not old, they never sign up for sweepstakes in Las Vegas, etc.)

carlmr 5y ago

Also I think just his openness in admitting a mistake he could hide in shame is a sign that he understands his job. While this is more psychology than technology, that's very important in social engineering.

giaour 5y ago

Everyone in the US with a cell phone is getting inundated these days with spam texts and calls with fake caller ID. It's almost inconceivable that someone with an American cell phone wouldn't know that phone ID is a lie, which is I think where some of the incredulity from other commenters is coming from. But I believe the author is from the UK, where the spam situation might not be so dire?

dwighttk 5y ago
Huh. I get a bunch of spam calls I ignore, but I don’t know how I’d know that any of the caller ID is fake
- giaour 5y ago
  The recent surge in spam texts that show as having been sent by the recipient[0] has driven this point home for a lot of mobile phone users. For me, the fact that caller ID is fake was made evident when a spammer used my number as their origin ID for a wave of spam calls and texts, and I got ~100 voice mails and texts the next day kindly asking me to eat shit and die. Verizon support said that there was nothing they could do, that it was happening left and right, and that I was in no way legally or financially responsible for any of the messages purporting to be from me. This was in 2020, and the unreliability of long code origin ID numbers has come up frequently in my work as a security engineer for the past few years. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/business/spam-texts-verizon.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/business/spam-texts-veriz...
  - dwighttk 5y ago
    Hmm. Only get a few spam texts per… quarter. Never seen one from my own number
staticassertion 5y ago
That's hilarious. You really think that everyone, or even many people, know that phone numbers can be spoofed?
- giaour 5y ago
  Yes. There have been multiple front-page news articles in the NY Times in the past month about people getting spam texts from themselves. The fact that caller ID is unreliable is part of the public discourse today. FWIW, I had to answer the phone at my first office job in ~2005, and the office manual has a section on how caller ID was not trustworthy caller authentication. None of this is new, and it is odd that a self-described security engineer would blindly trust caller ID.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    Awareness may have grown, but I'd put money on people at-large not knowing anything about caller ID spoofing, both in terms of its existence, and certainly in terms of its accessibility.
- tlogan 5y ago
  I think majority of older American is 100% aware of that. I do see how young adults are still not aware of that since they are not valuable target and their info is relatively unknown (no mortgage on their name, no car loans, cell phone number is not old, they never sign up for sweepstakes in Las Vegas, etc.)