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I do not fully comprehend the problem so please correct me if I am wrong. Every now and then I get a phone call from http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 http://m

by chime 14y ago

I do not fully comprehend the problem so please correct me if I am wrong. Every now and then I get a phone call from http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 on my cell that blares a ship's horn into my ear, saying I can get a free cruise trip. If I understand it correctly, someone out there is initiating the connection, be it using Twilio or any of the tons of other IP-to-PSTN gateways. While Caller ID can be spoofed, the call itself should be possible to trace back to the initiating gateway using warrants and assistance from the intermediary parties. Right? If so, then what's the problem following through on this and having the gateway ban the customer and file charges against them? Is it because the spammers are fly-by-nighters using stolen CCs to make dummy Twilio accounts automatically? Is that what FCC's trying to catch?

dholowiski 14y ago
It's not just twilio. Anyone with a direct connection (ISDN, T1/T3 etc) to a telco can spoof caller ID. There are also thousands of SIP phone providers and you can spoof caller ID from almost all of them- I've done it and you need nothing more than a SIP account and Astersik. It would be trivial to build a robodialer that could cycle through hundreds of SIP accounts using trials, hacked accounts and stolen credit cards. You could put it on a VPS created using a stolen credit card and be un-traceable. Or, you could just do what everyone else does and locate yourself overseas, in a country with weak laws.
stanleydrew 14y ago
Just to be clear, CallerID cannot be spoofed arbitrarily on outbound calls from Twilio. To use a phone number as CallerID you must first verify that you own it via a phone call loop wherein you enter a verification code.
hkmurakami 14y ago
I feel this weird sense of camaraderie with you since I've been getting the same call from the same number over the past few months. :P Somewhat akin to having gone through the same class together under a terrible teacher.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "Every now and then I get a phone call from http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 on my cell that blares a ship's horn into my ear, saying I can get a free cruise trip." I get that exact call constantly. It's quite fortunate actually, the blaring fog horn is very immediately tells me "you can hang up now" without having to think too much.
sixQuarks 14y ago
I get this same call every time I'm "in the zone" working. The interruption causes me to lose concentration on my work and screws up my productivity. I would say that cruise ship sound is responsible for me losing 20 hours of extreme productivity per year. The person that runs that company deserves the death penalty.

by chime 14y ago

dholowiski 14y ago

It's not just twilio. Anyone with a direct connection (ISDN, T1/T3 etc) to a telco can spoof caller ID. There are also thousands of SIP phone providers and you can spoof caller ID from almost all of them- I've done it and you need nothing more than a SIP account and Astersik. It would be trivial to build a robodialer that could cycle through hundreds of SIP accounts using trials, hacked accounts and stolen credit cards. You could put it on a VPS created using a stolen credit card and be un-traceable. Or, you could just do what everyone else does and locate yourself overseas, in a country with weak laws.

stanleydrew 14y ago

Just to be clear, CallerID cannot be spoofed arbitrarily on outbound calls from Twilio. To use a phone number as CallerID you must first verify that you own it via a phone call loop wherein you enter a verification code.

hkmurakami 14y ago

I feel this weird sense of camaraderie with you since I've been getting the same call from the same number over the past few months. :P Somewhat akin to having gone through the same class together under a terrible teacher.

potatolicious 14y ago

> "Every now and then I get a phone call from http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 http://mrnumber.com/1-360-460-5964 on my cell that blares a ship's horn into my ear, saying I can get a free cruise trip." I get that exact call constantly. It's quite fortunate actually, the blaring fog horn is very immediately tells me "you can hang up now" without having to think too much.

sixQuarks 14y ago

I get this same call every time I'm "in the zone" working. The interruption causes me to lose concentration on my work and screws up my productivity. I would say that cruise ship sound is responsible for me losing 20 hours of extreme productivity per year. The person that runs that company deserves the death penalty.