Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007 - No More Caller ID Spoofing?
Today The US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation has passed S.704, a bill that would make it illegal for anyone within the United States to spoof their caller ID, “with misleading or inaccurate caller identification information…in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service.”
The bill specifically exempts law enforcement and provides a loophole for court orders that specifically authorizes the use of caller identification manipulation.
As an owner of a growing VoIP provider, it is not an easy task to determine when (or if) a customer is spoofing their callerid. What makes it even more difficult is to determine if the calling party numbers are ‘misleading or inaccurate’.
Who is responsible for determining if a caller id value is misleading or inaccurate? How will this new legislation be enforced? Unless there is a complaint, how will anyone even know that someone has spoofed their caller id?
I am no lawyer, but my understanding of S.704 does not define anything more than the simple act of being misleading or inaccurate with regard to the setting of your calling party number.
While this legislation seems to be targeting the users, what about the carriers and providers? Will they be held liable for their customer’s actions?
Exactly who is held liable for the transmission of ‘misleading or inaccurate’ Caller ID value must be defined in any new legislation.
If you are at all concerned about this bill, please call Senator Nelson’s office at (202) 224-5274 or even better Email Senator Nelson.
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Today I received a call pushing a “merchant banking business” involving credit cards. The website I was referred to was http://www.usms.com. According to my caller ID, the caller called from 602-840-0702. However, when I tried CALLIING that number, I got a recorded voice with a “disconnected” message! Can anyone tell me how somebody could be calling me from a DISCONNECTED NUMBER? So, the caller ID HAD TO BE SPOOFED! When I dialed the number (602-840-0702), I immediately got the three ascending tones without delay, so the disconnect message could not have faked, or I would have ringing, or at least a significant delay!
While I appreciate your vested interest and the “slippery-slope” implications you see as “potential litigation” my family currently receives 8-10 calls on each of our 4 cell phones MINIMUM DAILY from 000-000-0000. This is a nuisance at a minimum, misleading, and borderline criminal. This number calls incessantly and refuses to leave a voicemail message. While this legislation poses a potential inconvenience to your business, its enactment retains my right to privacy, and peace of mind. Without it, I and my family are subjected to constant and incessant interruptions to our livelihood, education, and general peace of mind.
I am not a lawyer, but as I understand things, under your rights as given by the FCC, you can contact your cell phone provider and file a complaint, but i’m most likely preaching to the choir, so i’ll stop there…
As an alternative, there are various VoIP providers, unfortunately mine is not currently one of them, that will allow you to setup either specific whitelists or blacklists, which you could utilize to filter out your calls. I realize this is not a proper solution, but it may give you a moments peace while you sort out the underlying causes of these nuisances in your life.
Another angle, since you run cell phones, might be to have a specific application running on a ’smart’ phone that would do the white/black filtering for you.
Hey Alec, this sounds like a job for iotum or at least the relevance engine portions of ‘old’ iotum.